The Rival Queens (30 page)

From this and her younger brother’s violent protestations of innocence, the queen of Navarre inferred that in fact nothing of significance had occurred during the previous evening and that the dramatic arrest of François represented just another of Henri’s attempts at harassment. Briskly, she took over. “
I observed to my brother
that we ought not to remain there without knowing for what reason we were detained, as if we were in the Inquisition; and that to treat us in such a manner was to consider us as persons of no account,” she reasoned logically. “I then begged M. de l’Oste [the older captain] to entreat the King, in our name… to send someone to acquaint us with the crime for which we were kept in confinement.” The guardsman did as he was told, and eventually one of the
mignons
appeared. “
With a great deal of gravity
, he informed us that
he came from the King to inquire what it was we wished to communicate to his Majesty,” reported Marguerite. “We answered that we wished to speak to someone near the King’s person, in order to our being informed what we were kept in confinement for, as we were unable to assign any reason for it ourselves. He answered, with great solemnity, that we ought not to ask of God or the King reasons for what they did; as all their actions emanated from wisdom and justice.” At this, François laughed outright, but his sister, who did not appreciate having been awakened on a cold night in February, dragged out of bed, and humiliated once again in front of the court over what she now understood was a completely specious accusation, “
could scarcely refrain from talking
to this messenger as he deserved.”

Of course she was right. In the cold light of day even Henri understood that he could not keep his brother under arrest without cause and was forced to remove the guard. Rather than apologizing, though, he sent his mother to smooth over any lingering unpleasantness resulting from the events of the previous evening. Catherine took the rather disingenuous approach of blaming François for the episode. “The Queen my mother, coming to his apartment, told him he ought to return thanks to God for his deliverance, for that there had been a moment when even she herself despaired of saving his life; that since he must now have discovered that the King’s temper of mind was such that he took the alarm at the very imagination of danger, and that, when once he was resolved upon a measure, no advice that she or any other could give would prevent him from putting it into execution, she would recommend it to him to submit himself to the King’s pleasure in everything, in order to prevent the like in future,” Marguerite reported.

With the queen mother, as ever, insisting on the outward appearance of harmony, a meeting was held later that day in Catherine’s rooms attended by all the highest-ranking members of the court. In yet another scene straight out of a French farce, François was formally required to repledge his allegiance to the king; the king
munificently replied that he never had any doubt of his brother’s innocence, and the two exchanged the kiss of peace, which was Catherine’s favorite form of reconciliation. Bussy and Quélus were also present, and upon being commanded by Henri to take the example of the two royal brothers and leave off all feuding in the future, Bussy, demonstrating the insouciant wit for which he was known, neatly skewered the hypocrisy of the entire episode. “
Sire, if it is your pleasure
that we kiss and are friends again, I am ready to obey your command,” he replied smoothly, then wrapped his arms theatrically around Quélus and kissed him thoroughly, as though he were a woman, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

If this had been a stage play, the curtain would then have dropped, the audience would have applauded enthusiastically, and everybody would have gone out to dinner. But this was not a performance that either Marguerite or François wished to repeat. Henri’s midnight arrest of his brother, and Catherine’s inability to stop him and subsequent condoning of the king’s behavior, had removed the mask of indulgence the pair had worn since the siblings’ arrival and made manifest to the queen of Navarre and the duke of Anjou the danger they had placed themselves in by returning to court. In the cold hours before dawn, under the stern gaze of the royal archers, they had huddled together in François’s room and laid their plans.

T
HEY BOTH KNEW THEY
had to move quickly. They were still being watched, but it was critical for at least François to get away so that he could raise an army and honor his commitment to his Flemish partisans. As usual, this meant that Marguerite would stay behind and face the danger—and the punishment—for her younger brother’s conduct. But the alternative was to remain a hostage to Henri’s
mignons
and his moods, and this had recently been proved to be just as perilous.

The problem was how to organize her brother’s escape. She couldn’t just have him throw on a big cloak and slink away in a borrowed carriage this time; Henri was prepared for that artifice
and had increased security at all the portals. It took a few days, but the queen of Navarre eventually formulated a possible exit strategy. “
When we consulted
upon the means of its accomplishment, we could find no other than his descending from my window, which was on the second story and opened to the ditch, for the gates were so closely watched that it was impossible to pass them, the face of everyone going out of the Louvre being curiously examined,” Margot explained. “He begged of me, therefore, to procure for him a rope of sufficient strength and long enough for the purpose. This I set about immediately, for, having the sacking of a bed that wanted mending, I sent it out of the palace by a lad whom I could trust, with orders to bring it back repaired, and to wrap up the proper length of rope inside.”

With Catherine and Henri’s spies everywhere, the success of the rope-out-the-window method was obviously predicated on the ability of the participants to feign equanimity and go about their business as though nothing out of the ordinary was being contemplated. Alas, François made a terrible conspirator. On the evening of February 14, 1578, just a few days after the fiasco at Saint-Luc’s wedding, “
when all was prepared
… at supper time, I went to the Queen my mother, who supped alone in her own apartment, it being a fast-day and the King eating no supper. My brother… anxious to extricate himself from danger and regain his liberty, came to me as I was rising from table, and whispered to me to make haste and come to him in my own apartment,” Margot remembered. “M. de Matignon… whether he had some knowledge of his design from someone who could not keep a secret, or only guessed at it, observed to the Queen my mother as she left the room (which I overheard, being near her, and circumspectly watching every word and motion, as may well be imagined, situated as I was betwixt fear and hope, and involved in perplexity) that my brother had undoubtedly an intention of withdrawing himself, and would not be there the next day; adding that he was assured of it, and she might take her measures
accordingly.”
^*
So their machinations were known and had been betrayed to Catherine. The queen of Navarre could not disguise her dismay. “
I observed that she [Catherine] was much
disconcerted by this observation, and I had my fears lest we should be discovered,” she admitted.

Her anxiety deepened when, a few moments later, her mother turned and confronted her. “You know,” Catherine warned, “
I have pledged myself
to the King that your brother shall not depart hence, and Matignon has declared that he knows very well he will not be here tomorrow.”

Her mother’s accusation put Marguerite in an extremely awkward position. She couldn’t very well tell the truth and give François away, as then she would be guilty of “
proving unfaithful to my brother
, and thereby bringing his life into jeopardy.” But nor did she wish to engage in the act of telling an outright lie, as this was behavior she “
would have died rather than be
guilty of.”

Her solution was to feign ignorance and try to distract her mother by casting blame and substituting a half-truth for candor. “
You cannot, Madame, but be
sensible the M. de Matignon is not one of my brother’s friends,” Marguerite began severely, “and that he is, besides, a busy, meddling kind of man, who is sorry to find a reconciliation has taken place with us.” Then she proceeded to choose her words very carefully. “As to my brother, I will answer for him with my life in case he goes hence, of which, if he had any design, I should, as I am well assured, not be ignorant, he never having yet concealed anything he meant to do from me.” So saying, she offered her life for her brother’s. She did not believe it would come to that—“
all this was said by me
with the assurance that, after my brother’s escape, they would not dare to do me any injury”—but in case it did, “
I had much rather pledge my life
than… endanger my brother’s.” And that is exactly how Catherine construed her daughter’s reply. “
Remember what you now say
,” the queen mother interjected curtly, taking the deal. “You will be bound for him on the penalty of your life.”

On this happy note, Marguerite bade her mother good night and retired to her own rooms. Committed to the escape plan—although with the stakes raised slightly more than she had originally expected—she shrugged hurriedly out of her court dress and into bed, dismissing her entourage of ladies-in-waiting. Left with only a skeleton crew of handmaids, she awaited her brother. François had been keeping watch and stole in soon afterward, accompanied by two of his most trusted servants, Simier and Cangé.

They wasted no time. “
Rising from my bed
, we made the cord fast, and having looked out at the window to discover if anyone was in the ditch, with the assistance of three of my women, who slept in my room, and the lad who had brought in the rope, we let down my brother, who laughed and joked upon the occasion without the least apprehension, notwithstanding the height was considerable,” Marguerite related, impressed. Not everyone in François’s small band of fugitives was as sanguine as their high-spirited young master was about the prospect of vaulting down a tall stone tower in the dead of night, however. “
We next lowered Simier
into the ditch, who was in such a fright that he had scarcely the strength to hold the rope fast; and lastly descended my brother’s
valet de chambre,
Cangé,” Marguerite concluded.

Cangé was still in midair when to her great consternation Marguerite perceived a figure suddenly emerge from the ditch and take off in the general direction of the palace guard. “
I was almost dead with alarm
, supposing that this might be a spy placed there by M. de Matignon, and that my brother would be taken,” she declared. In a panic, the chambermaids, believing they were about to be arrested,
sought to destroy the evidence and threw the rope into the fire. Unfortunately, it was very stout rope, highly flammable. A great blaze leaped up from the hearth and caused the chimney to catch fire, sending billowing waves of smoke into the air. If they had hired heralds to blow trumpets or exploded fireworks they could not have attracted more attention. The royal guard came running. They pounded “
violently at the door
, calling for it to be opened,” Margot recalled. “I now concluded that my brother was stopped, and that we were both undone.”

Again she thought quickly. She could not let the soldiers in without giving the entire scheme away. The rope was only half burned, and they would easily deduce what had occurred. She would have to bluff. “
I told my women
to go to the door, and speaking softly, as if I was asleep, to ask the men what they wanted,” Marguerite instructed. “They did so, and the archers replied that the chimney was on fire, and they came to extinguish it. My women answered it was of no consequence, and they could put it out themselves, begging them not to awake me.” This explanation satisfied the guard and “
they went away
,” Margot reported with evident relief.

But she was not so lucky the next time. Two hours later, the captain of the guard himself banged on her door, and this time there was no denying him entrance. An informer from Paris had just arrived with intelligence relating to the duke of Anjou’s brazen flight from court. The queen of Navarre was summoned to an immediate predawn audience with a furious Henri III and Catherine, at which it was expected that she would confirm her culpability in this treasonous enterprise and provide the details of her brother’s escape.

H
AVING NO CHOICE,
M
ARGUERITE
arose from bed and began hurriedly to dress. Her chambermaids had been awakened as well. There was no disguising the precariousness of her situation, and her servants were unable to control their emotions. “
One of them was indiscreet
enough to hold me round the waist, and exclaim aloud,
shedding a flood of tears, that she should never see me more,” Margot recounted. The captain of the guard was incensed. “
Pushing her away
, [he] said to me: ‘If I were not a person thoroughly devoted to your service, this woman has said enough to bring you into trouble. But,’ continued he, ‘fear nothing. God be praised, by this time the Prince your brother is out of danger.’ ”

The captain spoke the truth. After being let down with the rope, François, Simier, and Cangé had all managed to creep outside the Louvre grounds without being noticed and had subsequently made their way to a prearranged meeting with the always resourceful Bussy at the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, very near one of the ramparts of the capital. “
By consent of the abbot
, a hole had been made in the city wall, through which they passed, and horses being provided and in waiting, they mounted, and reached Angers without the least accident,” Margot, much comforted by this information, reported.

François’s having gained the impregnability of his home base of Angers, which boasted a massive stronghold, was likely the determining factor in saving Marguerite from Henri III’s revenge. As the queen of Navarre had correctly anticipated, the king could not risk provoking the duke of Anjou, who had already shown himself capable of leading a successful attack on the throne, by maltreating his beloved sister. “
I found him [Henri III] sitting
at the foot of the Queen my mother’s bed, in such a violent rage that I am inclined to believe I should have felt the effects of it, had he not been restrained by the absence of my brother and my mother’s presence,” she affirmed. Still, her situation was sufficiently dire to convince Margot that it might be a good idea, just this once, to set aside those pesky scruples she had about lying. “
They both told me
that I had assured them my brother would not leave the Court, and that I pledged myself for his stay. I replied that it was true that he had deceived me, as he had them,” protested the woman who had painstakingly planned the escape, smuggled in the rope, secured the necessary accomplices, and then personally helped to lower François
out her window. “
However, I was ready still
to pledge my life that his departure would not operate to the prejudice of the King’s service, and that it would appear he was only gone to his own principality to give orders and forward his expedition to Flanders,” she recovered smoothly.