The Hostage Queen (19 page)

‘Reign by yourself, Sire,’ Coligny whispered to the King beneath the rasp of his breath. ‘Trust no one, not even the Queen your mother. Only evil will come of it.’

Catherine grew suspicious as she stood impatiently tapping her toe, Anjou beside her, itching to interrupt what seemed an unnecessarily prolonged conversation. Must the fellow always stir up trouble, even in the hour of his death? Although he was taking an unconscionable time to reach it. She knew then that he would survive, and that Coligny meant to use this attempted assassination to strengthen his position with the King.

But surrounded as she was by a dozen Huguenots, many more filling adjacent rooms and the street below, she dare make no move. Their distrust was all too evident. Some whispered in corners, others strolled insolently about, showing none of the respect due to her station, making her feel decidedly uneasy.

Losing patience she marched back to her son’s side, a fraction too late to hear what had been said. ‘Come, the Admiral has talked enough. Too much excitement will be bad for him.’

‘What did he say to you?’ she sharply enquired of her son as they were driven back to the Louvre in her coach.

‘Nothing of any importance,’ Charles sulkily responded, turning his face away.

But Catherine was having none of his moods today, and throughout the journey back to the Palace she subjected him to an inquisition that gradually wore down his resistance. Confined with his mother and brother alone in the carriage Charles could find no escape, and at length his nerves snapped and he blurted it all out.

‘He said that you were a malign influence over me, that everything had gone to pieces in your hands, and that only evil would come of it.’

Following this outburst he fled to the sanctity of his privy chamber, to his darling Marie Touchet and his beloved nurse.

Catherine privately resolved that next time she would find someone who was a better shot.

When news reached Margot that an attempt had been made on the life of the Admiral, she was thrown into a panic. She hastily dispatched a message to Guise via Madame de Curton, warning him to lie low, as he was being implicated in the plot.

‘The King may arrest you. The Huguenots are baying for Guise blood, and I greatly fear for your life.’

Guise and his uncle, the Duke of Aumale, begged the King for protection so that they might leave the city for their own safety.

‘You can go to the devil if you wish, but I shall know how to find you if I need to,’ was Charles’s brusque response.

Guise and his men slipped quietly out of Paris, but retreated only part way to Porte Saint-Antoine before returning to the comparative security of the Hôtel de Guise. Charles, entirely hoodwinked by this subterfuge, and fearful of reprisals, applied himself to writing letters of assurance to the Queen of England, among others. He laid the blame entirely upon ‘the evil enmity between the House of Châtillon and the House of Guise’.

The Queen Mother attempted to persuade him that if Guise had indeed been involved in this attempt upon the Admiral’s life it was surely excusable. ‘He is a son who has been denied justice, and has no other means of avenging his father’s death.’

‘He cannot take the law into his own hands,’ Charles shouted. ‘I am the King, not Guise. He should be brought back and punished!’

The sense of dread in the city was palpable, and Navarre demanded instant protection for the Protestants. The King placed a guard of fifty arquebusiers outside Coligny’s lodgings, militiamen were stationed at strategic points about the city with the orders to keep the populace calm and prevent looting, yet the Huguenots were still not reassured. They anxiously considered their options. Some were for leaving Paris forthwith, but Coligny was against the idea, and his son-in-law Téligny, Navarre and Condé all agreed that it would be an insult to the King. Charles had swiftly ordered an enquiry, and convinced them by his genuine concern of his own innocence in the affair.

They were less trustful of the Queen Mother but had no proof that she was involved. The most likely suspect was still the Guises. Téligny would have moved the Admiral to the Louvre but others thought this a bad idea. The surgeon agreed that, in his weakened state, the old man might not survive the move.

This decision was reported back to Catherine by one of her spies, who reported everything, even the most wild and radical comments. He told her that the Huguenots were quietly arming themselves in defence, but that he did not rule out the possibility they might instigate an attack.

Catherine was enraged, not only by the truculence of the Reformationists, but also by the independent action of the King, who seemed to be more and more on their side. Time was of the essence, and she said as much to Anjou.

‘They couldn’t resist the lure of the wedding, and are now caught like rats in a trap. But the Admiral could at any moment decide to leave and a valuable opportunity will be lost, perhaps for ever. The man is not only stirring up trouble in France with this new faith he clings to so tenaciously, but planning a war against the Spanish in the Netherlands.’

‘And setting the King, your own son, against you,’ agreed Anjou. ‘His folly is too great to be ignored.’

Death was the only solution.

Catherine once more met with her collaborators in the quiet privacy of the Tuileries gardens where they could walk in the cool green alleys without fear of being overheard. As before, in addition to Anjou, these included Tavannes, Nevers and Retz, plus two Florentines and Guise, his mother Anne d’Este, and his uncle the Duke of Aumale.

‘Several arrests have already been made,’ the Duchess informed them. ‘Mainly servants believed to be involved in the plot.’

‘A horse was recovered which led to the identity of the assassin,’ Aumale added. ‘Thankfully, they have not captured Maurevert himself.’

‘Excellent!’ Catherine’s expression was thoughtful. ‘Despite these minor difficulties all seems to be proceeding according to plan. The King remains entirely unaware of the plot, although he cannot be kept in ignorance for much longer.’

Charles’s fear was centred upon the Guises, and in bringing justice for the Admiral. If he succeeded and Coligny lived, the senseless young king would take them all into a war with Spain, and the Huguenots would be stronger than ever. Was ever a woman more blighted than she? Catherine knew that she had to win Charles round to her way of thinking, to somehow get him to see that the blame for this situation lay not with the Guises, but entirely with the Huguenots. More importantly, not with her.

‘Whatever we decide,’ she told her fellow conspirators, ‘the King must agree.’

Heads nodded gravely. The collaborators were all too aware of the risks involved in what they now planned; that a second and more successful attempt on the Admiral’s life was likely to produce an uprising.

Tavannes was most insistent that any ensuing conflict be confined within the city walls, and not allowed to spread nationwide.

Anjou, thinking of his hopes for winning the Polish crown since the king in that country was said to be failing, and with less appetite for military glory these days, agreed that another civil war should be prevented at all cost. ‘We must act with all due speed.’

‘There are Huguenots clad in armour even now patrolling the streets outside our own house,’ Guise warned. ‘The Louvre could indeed be their next target.’

Dismay and anger simmered amongst them.

Catherine stifled a shudder. She had once laughed as loud as any when her enemy had named a cannon after her,
La Reine la Mère, because of its huge size
. Now she wished she had blown them all to smithereens.

‘I have long thought that we need more than the head of one salmon to effectively decapitate this religion. We need several of their fellow frogs as well.’

There were murmurs of assent, and the conspirators at once began to devise a list of the most prominent Huguenot leaders, many of whom lodged with or were adjacent to the Admiral. They huddled together beneath the tall
poplar and lime
to make their plans, sweating in the August heat despite the shade. It was agreed by all that they would finish the task which Maurevert had begun.

‘We must warn the King of this likely attack upon his person, and of the plans we have made here today. Once Charles has learned this truth, I will bring him round to understanding the extent of our alarm. He will be with us in this, I am certain of it.’

This plan met with entire agreement as none could dispute that although the King was more than ever under the influence of the Admiral, no one could instil terror in him better than his own mother.

It proved a more difficult task than the Queen Mother had expected. Charles refused to believe this indictment against his dear friend, the man who called him son.

‘Coligny would never harm me. He loves me.’

‘He cares nought for you; he loves only his religion.’

With consummate skill she pursued her argument. She let her spy describe what he had heard at the lodgings, including the mutterings of the most unwise fanatics, never mentioning how Coligny had quieted their worst ravings.

‘I cannot break my word, my tryst of friendship. I love the Admiral; I do not wish him hurt.’

‘Yet he would have you hurt.’ Catherine calmly reminded her son of Meaux, the night the Protestants had come to kidnap, perhaps even kill the royal family. ‘Remember how they pursued us throughout the night to Paris. Did you not swear that you would never again allow them to put our lives in such peril?’

Charles had never forgotten that night, had suffered nightmares as a consequence for weeks afterwards.

She described the blood spilled during the following siege of Paris, including the death of the Constable. ‘Would you go through that again?’

‘No, no!’ His distress was pitiful.

He never looked people in the face when he spoke to them, perhaps because he had always desperately avoided the fierce, condemning glare of his own mother. He’d hunch his shoulders, lower his head and sullenly stare at the floor. Now Catherine grasped his shoulders and forced him to look her in the eye, an experience which set him shaking with renewed terror.

‘We must put a stop to their evil plotting. It is vital that we take out all the Huguenot leaders, before they have the chance to act.’

Still he hesitated, so Catherine turned the screw one more notch. ‘The Huguenots will tear you limb from limb, put you to the rack, shred the skin from your bones. You cannot begin to imagine the pain they will inflict upon you. They are planning to kill us all. Not only Your Majesty and your two brothers, but also your own mother and sister, even your beautiful wife the Queen. Would you have them take your beloved Elisabeth and put her to the rack? See them pluck her pretty pink fingernails out one by one?’

Charles cried out in his agony. He was exhausted, his fragile mind no match for his mother’s clever manipulation, her relentless mental bullying. He cowered in a corner sobbing, begging her to protect him, unable to shut out the sound of her voice as her vile descriptions of torture and violence crawled like maggots into his ears, defiling him, filling his tormented mind with new horrors, bringing him to a manic rage. His limbs jerked, flecks of foam formed upon his lips as his frail hold upon sanity dissolved before her onslaught.

At length he cried out, ‘Par la mort Dieu! Since you choose to kill the Admiral, then none must be left to reproach me after it is done. Kill them. Kill them all!’

Then he fled from the closet, leaving the conspirators quietly
 
to finalize their plans.

It took the rest of that night. Names and addresses were checked, plans hatched, times fixed, the Eve of St Bartholomew being the chosen date. The Duke of Guise and his men, together with his uncle, were allotted the task of going to the Rue de Béthisy and disposing of the Admiral. The city gates were ordered to be locked, all boats on the Seine to be moored along the Quai des Celestins, while chains would be stretched across the river at intervals, out of sight below the water line until the moment came. The Queen Mother commanded that a Watch be placed over the powder magazine, and guns mounted opposite the Hôtel de Ville.