The Rival Queens (17 page)

An autopsy was conducted, and Jeanne’s Huguenot physicians concluded that she had died a natural death caused by the rupture
of an ulcer aggravated by an underlying case of tuberculosis. Later, in the light of subsequent events, Catherine would be accused of murdering the queen of Navarre through the medium of a pair of poisoned gloves provided by an Italian merchant operating in Paris, but this seems unlikely, as an abscess would not have had time to form that quickly. Still, Jeanne’s death was an unqualified boon to the queen mother, as she had promised the Catholic faction that if they supported the alliance she would see to it that Henry converted, and this he would never have done while his mother was still alive. And certainly once she had agreed to the marriage, the queen of Navarre had outlived her usefulness to the royal family and could only cause trouble in the future. There is also the disturbing evidence that Catherine exhibited absolutely no grief at the demise of her former friend. “
The Queen of Navarre lies
without hope of life… whom the Queen-Mother, the King and all his brothers and sisters have visited and departed without any hope of seeing her again,” reported an English envoy in Paris, so perhaps Catherine had managed to find a subtle way to help this death along after all.

Jeanne’s passing brought only relief to Marguerite, who even decades later behaved as though she had been delivered of a mortal enemy. In her frustration at the royal family’s tactics during the negotiations, the queen of Navarre had lashed out not only at her future daughter-in-law but also at many members of the Catholic constituency at court, including those
très chic
ladies of the Flying Squadron allied to the Guises. In a letter to Brantôme, Marguerite described the scene at which the royal court paid its last regards to Jeanne’s corpse. “
Whilst the Queen of Navarre
lay on her deathbed, a circumstance happened of so whimsical a nature that, though not of consequence to merit a place in history, may very well deserve to be related by me to you,” she wrote. “Madame de Nevers [widow of the murdered duke of Guise, remarried to duke of Nevers]… attended by the Cardinal de Bourbon, Madame de Guise, the Princesse de Condé, her sisters and myself to the late Queen of Navarre’s apartments, whither we all went to pay those last duties which her
rank and our nearness of blood demanded of us. We found the Queen in bed with her curtains undrawn… after the simple manner of the Huguenots; that is to say, there were no priests, no cross, nor any holy water. We kept ourselves at some distance from the bed, but Madame de Nevers, whom you know the Queen hated more than any woman… approached the bedside, and, to the great astonishment of all present, who well knew the enmity subsisting betwixt them, took the Queen’s hand, with many low curtseys, and kissed it; after which, making another curtsey to the very ground, she retired and rejoined us.”

The profound enmity illustrated by this story between the religions at the very top of French society was magnified a thousand times in the general population, particularly among the overwhelmingly Catholic citizens of Paris. To them, the Crown and Coligny’s single-minded pursuit of the Navarre marriage could only mean that the royal family, in combination with the Huguenots, intended to force a theological solution on the kingdom that in all likelihood would entail the renunciation of their most cherished rites and symbols. Already the king had insisted that a huge cross, which had been erected to commemorate the notorious execution of a Protestant for heresy, be torn down because it was considered offensive by those of the reformed religion. When city officials, responding to an impassioned public outcry against the proposed demolition, refused to comply with the royal command, they were threatened with removal. “
You must decide whether to obey me
and whether to tear down this pyramid [the cross],” Charles had written summarily to the provost of Paris. “I forbid you to come before me until such time as it has been torn down.”

But the open hostility of the capital city to the marriage had no effect whatever upon either Catherine or the admiral, who, each for separate, conflicting reasons, continued to press for its accomplishment. As the day of the ceremony drew closer, the competition between these two for the king’s soul intensified, until at last it boiled over into a public confrontation. The queen mother had
taken advantage of one of Coligny’s brief absences from court to hold a tearful interview with her son (unlike the duke of Alva, Charles was susceptible to Catherine’s tears) in which she had accused him of conspiring with the admiral to wage war in the Netherlands behind her back. The scene was choreographed to elicit maximum guilt: “
After all the pains
that I had to bring you up, and to preserve your Crown… after having sacrificed myself for you and run a thousand dangers, how could I ever have dreamed that you would reward me thus miserably?” Catherine had wailed, according to a courtier familiar with the episode. “You hide yourself from me, from me who am your mother, in order to take counsel of your enemies; you wrench yourself from my arms, which have guarded you, to lean on the arms of those who once desired to kill you. I know that you hold secret counsels with the Admiral—that you wish to plunge us rashly into war with Spain… and send away also your brother [Henri], who may call himself unhappy in that he hath spent his life to preserve yours.”

Unable to resist his mother, Charles had sworn never to keep anything from her and to obey her unconditionally in the future, a promise he kept until Coligny returned to the court in July. The admiral then promptly returned the favor by taking advantage of one of Catherine’s brief absences from court—the queen mother had been called to the bedside of her daughter Claude, who was seriously ill—to hold a military council to approve French intervention in the Netherlands. Informed by spies that the king was wavering in the admiral’s favor, Catherine was forced to abandon her daughter’s sickroom; she just made it back in time to squelch Coligny’s initiative. Her last-minute intervention infuriated him, and he vowed to accomplish his military objectives with or without approval. Then he lashed out at her in front of Charles and the council. “
His Majesty refuses to adventure
the war,” he pronounced, staring at her with cold contempt. “God grant that he be not overtaken by another from the which he will have no power to retreat.”

If Catherine had been undecided prior to this outburst whether
to dispense with the admiral altogether or simply banish him from court, this brief speech sealed his fate. She understood that he had rejected the council’s recommendation as the last word on the Netherlands intervention and would continue to work privately on Charles until he had his way, and that his influence over her son was very strong. For the first time she recognized that his political authority might overtake hers. If it did, she would be cast aside, and with her would go her adored Henri, whom she knew Charles hated and feared and would like nothing better than to be rid of. For these reasons, then, Coligny had to be eliminated.

But not just yet. First she had a gala wedding reception to host.

T
HE FINAL WEEKS LEADING UP
to her marriage must have comprised a particularly exquisite brand of torture for Marguerite. She was forced to smile and pretend to participate as her mother bustled around, organizing the last-minute details of the ceremony. In honor of Margot’s exalted rank as a princess of France, Catherine behaved as though her daughter was about to be united in nuptial bliss to the Holy Roman Emperor rather than to the neophyte overlord of a petty vassal state. Marguerite’s dowry was set at 550,000
livres
(which, unfortunately, the Crown did not have readily available, being still pretty much bankrupt from the recent civil wars), and she was to receive from her future husband additional income from his estates in Navarre. To prime the bride’s enthusiasm for the match, which was obviously somewhat lacking, Margot was further showered with jewelry valued at approximately thirty thousand
livres,
including a magnificent diamond engagement ring. “
The Comte de Retz and I
are attending to it in such a way that you will see her as honorably provided for as her sisters,” the queen mother clucked
complacently of Marguerite’s trousseau. “And with less expense,” she added virtuously, mindful of the drain on the royal treasury.

The arrival of her intended on July 8, 1572, only added to the bride’s desolation. The king of Navarre entered Paris accompanied by an entourage consisting of eight hundred Huguenot followers, all dressed in mourning for Henry’s mother, Jeanne d’Albret; they must have resembled an ominous parade of black beetles infesting the city. In such a polarized environment, reports of the bridegroom’s appearance were naturally skewed depending upon the religious affinity of the observer. To the Protestants, Henry “
had the graces of a courtier
… women lost their heads over him” (although even his mother admitted he was short, about the size of Marguerite’s younger brother, François, who was routinely described as stunted), while Catholic commentators sounded a slightly different note. The king of Navarre was “
crude beyond the pale
,” a high-ranking government official involved in the nuptial negotiations despaired flatly.

It is highly probable that, like Marguerite, Henry dreaded the impending ordeal of his marriage. He had not been at court since he was thirteen. He’d spent the previous five years out in the provinces, tramping around in the outdoors and relishing the sort of traditional rural lifestyle that repudiated ornate manners, clothing, and etiquette (to say nothing of hygiene). To add to his discomfort, his mother, who had guided him from the time he was small and whom he had trusted implicitly, had just died, and he was forced to rely upon other advisers, such as Coligny, to reassure him of the usefulness of this alliance.

And although Henry loved pretty girls, Marguerite was no more to his taste than he was to hers. Her beauty, education, and rank were intimidating. Although passionate, she required a more complex wooing. The groom’s taste ran to more easily available conquests. (Or, as a future scholar would tactfully put it, “
Henry needed much affection
, openly expressed.”) Having grown up under the highly discriminating influence of the Flying Squadron, Margot had developed into a rarefied species, a hothouse orchid that bloomed only
under specific romantic conditions that Henry couldn’t be bothered with. Henry was a quick-roll-in-the-clover kind of guy.

But whatever misgivings the king of Navarre may have had were overruled by Coligny. The admiral was convinced that he would be in a much stronger negotiating position once the marriage took place and the royal family was irrevocably allied to the Huguenot movement. The arrival of Henry and his extensive black-clad entourage buoyed his spirits and served to renew his confidence. He wrote exultantly to Elizabeth I that he believed that, in the aftermath of the ceremony, for which more guests were pouring into the capital every day, he would “
be able to get the king
[Charles] to agree to anything.”

The only potential stumbling block that remained was the procurement of a papal dispensation, for the bride and groom were related within the prohibited bands of consanguinity. But any hopes Margot may have nurtured of being rescued by Rome were dashed when her brother Charles announced that he intended to go through with the marriage with or without the approval of the pope and set a date of August 18 for the ceremony.

And now it broke upon Marguerite that she was trapped, that she was going to be forced to unite herself permanently to the leader of the Huguenot party, whose members she viewed as heretics and traitors to France, and to take vows she found abhorrent and that could only be broken at the risk of eternal damnation. In her desperation, she made one final bid for deliverance. This beautiful princess, one of the loveliest women in Europe, spent the long sweltering night before her wedding on her knees at the feet of the king and the queen mother begging through anguished tears to be released from so impious a commitment.

Despite her own preference for just such an approach, Catherine remained impervious to her daughter’s sobs. The queen mother’s chambermaid, who witnessed this scene, later testified that Catherine vindictively threatened “
to make her [Marguerite] the most
wretched lady in the kingdom” if she did not go through with the
marriage. Margot’s brother Charles was equally obdurate. The king was very publicly tied to the Navarre alliance. It represented his signature initiative; there was too much at stake to repudiate it. Besides, he wanted it—it enabled the tempting Netherlands campaign, in which Charles still hoped to participate.

And so at last the clock ran out, and it was the afternoon of August 18. In the stifling heat, Marguerite, pale and wan, put on her many glittering diamonds, an impressively jeweled crown, and her appropriately sweeping, ermine-trimmed robe, symbol of royalty, and proceeded woodenly to her fate. There were no more tears. Her pride demanded that she publicly conquer her demeanor, and she succeeded in holding herself rigidly correct throughout the ceremony. Nonetheless she made no secret of her aversion to this alliance. Even the sweating crowds observing the rites at a distance were aware that the princess was being coerced into this union. But the officiating cardinal, who was the bridegroom’s uncle and an enthusiastic supporter of the match, overlooked the bride’s evident distress. Margot and Henry became man and wife.

There followed four full days of brilliant merrymaking celebrating the joyous occasion. Charles loved court amusements and threw himself wholeheartedly into the party planning. This might have been a backhanded attempt to placate Marguerite, who also delighted in balls and fetes, or a way to further legitimize the marriage, as many important Catholics and foreign ambassadors had boycotted the ceremony. But more likely the king just wanted to use the occasion of Margot’s wedding as an excuse to carouse to his heart’s content. His mother encouraged him to give full vent to his creativity, and he so consumed himself with aesthetic details that he had no time for anything else. “
So great was the magnificence
of the banquets and shows, and the king so earnestly bent to those matters, that he had no leisure… to take his natural sleep,” a Protestant eyewitness later reported.

In honor of the admiral, the wedding feast and formal ball immediately following the awkward services at Notre-Dame had a
seafaring theme, with a company of mermaids and dolphins and other decorative ocean life presided over by Neptune; this affair went on so long that the entire court overslept until the late hours of the afternoon and nearly missed the opening banquet preceding the next day’s soiree.

On the third evening, the king hosted an elaborate ballet staged in the great hall of the Louvre, which had been decorated as “
a garden, filled with greens
and all sorts of flowers, arched over with an azure heaven where shone a huge wheel of zodiac, seven planets, and a multitude of tiny stars, all gleaming with artificial brilliance.” This was intended to represent heaven. A little farther down was a man-made river offering passage to another chamber that had been designated as hell. This room was not nearly so nicely adorned and was moreover populated by annoying fiends costumed with horns and tails, who chattered constantly. As good Catholics, Charles and his brothers, Henri and François, dressed in armor, rigorously guarded the entrance to heaven. Henry of Navarre and his party were initially consigned to hell, a none-too-subtle reminder of the court’s aversion to their religious affiliation, and barred passage to the garden, although Charles eventually relented and the groom and his men were allowed to join the rest of the party. This elaborate morality play was succeeded the next day by a grand tournament followed by yet another raucous ball that lasted into the early hours of the morning.

The whirling nights of dancing and feasting and frolicking did not bring the newly married couple closer together. Rather, the bride and groom seem to have used the extended revelry as an excuse to stay away from each other. The sometimes overly harsh judgments children form in adolescence frequently have an obstinate way of persisting into adulthood, and these two evidently took one look at each other and decided that neither had improved much since they had last met at thirteen. They shared common rooms and even the same bed, but according to Marguerite’s later testimony they did not at this time consummate the marriage. And anyway,
when they did retire to their quarters, they were rarely alone—Henry generally had his closest advisers with him. His bedroom was one of the few places at court where the Huguenots could huddle in private and discuss their plans, and even then they spoke in whispers for fear of Catholic spies. Nor was the king of Navarre reliant upon his queen for sex; Catherine’s court was full of sex. “
So great is the familiarity
of men and the women of the queen mother’s train, as… may seem incredible and be thought of all honest persons a matter not very convenient for preservation of noble young ladies’ chastity,” the same Protestant witness observed drily.

But all the hilarity and the drinking and the riotous late hours and the indiscriminate flirting and lovemaking that followed the ceremony distracted the court, and particularly the king, from another, much darker purpose. For Catherine, along with her favorite son, Henri, had come up with a bold scheme to dispose of their common enemy Coligny once and for all, and the commotion surrounding the nuptial festivities served this pair well. The queen mother had only been waiting for the marriage to be solemnized before launching the attack. On the morning of Friday, August 22, just four days after Margot’s wedding, she struck.

T
HE PLAN WAS REASONABLY
straightforward. Hire a sniper to kill the admiral. Have the assassin hide somewhere close to where the target was sure to pass, and then, when the Huguenots least expected it, have him shoot Coligny from this strategic position. The great advantage of this method was that it exactly replicated the manner in which the previous duke of Guise had been murdered all those years ago. The motive for the crime would therefore appear to be personal rather than political. As a result, suspicion would fall immediately upon the present duke of Guise, who had already very publicly vowed to punish the admiral for his father’s death and who was conveniently in town for the wedding, and not on Catherine and Henri, the true perpetrators.

The queen mother was aware that Charles was likely to be enraged
by Coligny’s death and might be intent on bringing
all
the culprits, including the aristocratic masterminds behind the attack, not just the lowly paid killer himself, to justice. Consequently it was very, very important to have a highly placed fall guy to take the blame. Catherine was no longer regent; Charles had been declared of age long before. To so openly flout his wishes and authority in this manner constituted treason, and the punishment for treason was death by all sorts of profoundly uncomfortable methods. Obviously, it wouldn’t do at all for the king to find out that his mother and younger brother, working in concert, had deliberately gone behind his back and basically staged a coup d’état by butchering the man he called father. If that happened, he might just find the strength within himself to punish
them
.

No, it had to look like the Guises had done it. Fortunately for mother and son, the duke of Guise had already badly compromised himself with the king by falling in love with Marguerite, so Charles was already prone to think the worst of him. And neither Catherine nor Henri had any problem giving up the duke; he was as much a nuisance to both of them as was the admiral. In fact, it was part of the beautiful symmetry of their plan that, if they were lucky, they might get rid of both their political rivals—Catholic
and
Huguenot—with the same well-placed shot.