Henri II: His Court and Times (24 page)

Henri was completely fascinated. His had been a dreary,
almost friendless, existence. He had lost his mother when he
was a child; he was perhaps the least loved of all François's
children; he disliked his younger brother, who presumed on
the King's indulgence to give himself intolerable airs, and he
did not understand his wife, for which we can scarcely blame
him. Craving companionship and sympathy, it is not surprising
that he should have abandoned himself unreservedly
to the counsels of the new Egeria.

For a time, the Court appears to have been altogether
deceived as to the lady's intentions, and so shrewd an observer
as the Venetian Ambassador, Marino Cavalli, wrote that many
persons believed that her affection for her royal pupil was
"like that of a mother for a son." But the situation was full
of perils for the Dauphin. If Diane was no longer young, she
was still eminently seductive: tall and splendidly proportioned,
with jet black hair, fine eyes, regular features, and a dazzling
complexion; and, to the senses of very young men, the charms
of maturity often appeal far more strongly than the grace and
freshness of youth. And, while awakening Henri's intellectual
powers, she had not failed to awaken his dormant passions as
well, for "she knew what Catherine was absolutely ignorant
of, and she had studied her prince with the pitiless penetration
of an anatomist."
¹⁹
Soon he was completely in her toils, and
his initiation into the mysteries of love was proceeding simultaneously with his instruction in courtly manners and the
duties of his exalted position.

The results of the gallant side of this education were not slow in revealing
themselves. During the campaign in Piedmont, in the autumn of 1537, the Dauphin met a young Italian
girl, who is supposed to have been of humble condition, and
whom historians call Filippa Duc, and laid siege to her heart
so effectively that in the following year she gave birth to a
daughter, of whom we shall have something to say hereafter.

This infidelity, which seems to have been a mere
passade
,
does not appear to have aroused any resentment in the Grande
Sénéchale, and when, some years later, the little girl, who had
been named after her, was brought to the French Court, she
herself superintended her education.
²⁰

And what of the Dauphine? How did she regard the
subjugation of her husband by this mature siren?

Henri's infidelity wounded his young wife to the quick. Not that she
entertained for him any great affection, her temperament, indeed, being far too cold to permit her to bestow her
love where it was unlikely to meet with any response. But,
in common with the rest of her family, she was intensely
proud, and she felt bitterly humiliated at his open preference for another woman. Her talent for dissimulation, however,
came to her aid, and not only did she refrain from reproaching
him, but she treated the Sénéchale with the same courtesy as
before; and the curious sought in vain for any indication of the
jealousy and hatred which consumed her, and which the necessity
for repression served only to aggravate.

But, if Catherine placed no obstacle in her rival's path, the
latter was not permitted to triumph with impunity. For some
years past Madame d'Étampes had regarded the Sénéchale,
who was one of the few women at the Court who declined to
acknowledge her ascendency, with far from friendly feelings,
and Diane's conquest of the Dauphin roused her slumbering
hatred to malignant activity. Great as was the influence she
exercised, she knew that it must terminate with the King's life,
and she feared the moment when the favourite of the Dauphin
would reign in her place and be in a position to mete out to
her the same treatment which she had received at her hands.
She accordingly determined to employ every means in her
power to expel her enemy from the citadel she had captured
before that moment arrived.

In the hope of making the Dauphin ashamed of his choice,
she summoned the poets to her aid, and soon there began to
appear against the Sénéchale numerous epigrams ridiculing
her unmercifully upon her age, her coquetry, her rouge, her
powder, her artificial teeth, her false hair, and her wrinkled
skin. The most bitter of these were the composition of one
Jean Vouté, who in 1537 published, under the name of Vulteius,
a collection of Latin verses, in which he assailed the favourite
of the Dauphin with a license worthy of Martial:

And elsewhere —

All this was, of course, entirely false; Diane had no need to
summon Art to the assistance of Nature, having the most
beautiful complexion in the world, excellent teeth, and
abundant tresses. Nevertheless, it made very unpleasant
reading, and, if the verses were written in a language not
understanded of the people, there were many persons at the
Court sufficiently well acquainted with Latin to translate them
for the benefit of the unlettered.

As for Madame d'Étampes, far from being content to leave
the attack to the scribes whom she protected, she lost no
opportunity of expressing her astonishment at the bad taste
shown by the Dauphin in choosing for his mistress a
"toothless, wrinkled hag," who, she asserted, had been married
on the same day on which she herself was born. There was,
as a matter of fact, only nine years' difference between the two
ladies.

Diane was not the kind of woman meekly to endure such
assaults, and she retaliated by assailing the reputation of
Madame d'Étampes, whom she accused of infidelity to her
royal lover;
²²
and the antagonism between the two women
became a veritable war, which divided the Court into two hostile
camps. Madame d'Étampes favoured those who viewed the
Reformation with approval; Diane declared openly for the
suppression of heresy. The duchess had for allies the Admiral
Chabot de Brion, who was regarded as the King's rival in her
affections; her uncle, Antoine Sanguin, Archbishop of Orléans,
who, after his elevation to the purple, was known as the
Cardinal de Melun; the ladies of the Petite Bande, most of
the men of letters, and the majority of the courtiers, who
naturally preferred to worship the risen planet rather than one
which might be many years before it reached its zenith. The
Sénéchale was assured of the support of Montmorency and of the
Cardinal de Lorraine, both of whom shared her hatred of the new doctrines, the
former from sincere religious conviction, the latter from fear of losing his benefices and episcopates, while the Grand-Master's friendship with the Dauphin
naturally inclined him to take the side of that prince's
mistress. The Cardinal de Lorraine's nephews, the three
elder sons of the Duc de Guise, likewise paid court to the
lady,
²³
though their
father held aloof from both parties and
prudently declined to compromise himself. Diane could also
count upon the discontented and ambitious women excluded
from the royal circle, and those courtiers who had sufficient
foresight to sacrifice present to future advantages. The forces
of the two favourites were thus very evenly balanced, and
every day the strife became more bitter.