Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici (30 page)

T
HAT NIGHT
I
SLEPT
hardly at all, and by morning I had made a decision: I would throw myself on the mercy of the king. François had rarely seen me in any but the most cheerful of moods, always ready with a quick rejoinder to his wit, able to keep up with him in the hunt or in the dance. I dressed in a simple gown with only my mother's ruby cross as an ornament, and when I was sure he was alone, I went to his chambers and fell at his feet, sobbing.

“What is it, my daughter?” He lifted my chin and gazed into my face. “Why so unhappy?”

“I've heard that you may decide to repudiate me for the good of France, because I have not been able to provide my beloved husband with an heir.” I glanced up at the king through wet lashes, saw the sympathy on his face, and hurried on. “And I've come to beg Your Majesty not to send me away from all that I've grown to love, but to let me stay on in your service, even if it means humbly serving the new wife to be chosen for my dearest Henri.”

The king took my hand and raised me up, my face streaked with tears, and kissed my brow. “Don't worry,
ma chère fille
—my dear little daughter,” he said, close to tears himself “It is God's will that you should be my daughter-in-law and the dauphin's wife. So be it. May it please him to grant to you and me the blessing that we desire above all else in the world.”

I wept even harder at these kind words and covered his hands with kisses. When I left his chambers, I felt that for the time being my position was safe. But I also knew it couldn't last: Malicious tongues would continue to insist that the king get rid of me, arguing that I was no good to him at all.

And I had another worry:
What if the king dies before I've borne a child? Who will support me then?

Akasma was waiting for me with one more suggestion. “Have you discussed the situation with your husband?”

“Talk to Henri? Of course not! Henri and I seldom talk, and when we do, it's about things that scarcely matter.”

“It seems to me,” Akasma said, “that it might help if you did. Men sometimes know more of these matters than we think they do, although they're reluctant to speak of them.”

I resisted for several days. It seemed impossible! I could hardly imagine uttering the necessary words. And yet, difficult as it was, the next time Henri made a dutiful visit to my bedchamber, I followed Akasma's advice. Nearly tongue-tied, I asked if he himself had any recommendations that might help me to conceive a child. As it turned out, he did, although it was not one I wanted to hear.

“I've given a good deal of thought to the matter,” he said, “and discussed it with Madame de Poitiers.”

He's talked about it with
her?
There is no end to my shame!

Henri continued, “Diane has offered to send a physician she trusts. She believes he could advise you.”

I hated the idea that the suggestion had come from Diane, that he had discussed my failure with her, but I couldn't refuse. The physician was summoned, and with great embarrassment I submitted to an examination. To my surprise, so did Henri. Afterward, the good doctor made certain recommendations, which we promised to follow. Henri began to appear regularly in my bedchamber. “Diane insists on it,” he said, to my intense chagrin.

Nevertheless, in a matter of weeks, with a joy I had never before experienced, I could announce to Henri, to King François, to the French court, and to the world that I had conceived a child. My husband and I were both twenty-three years old, and we had been married for nearly nine years when God granted us this gift.

T
HE MONTHS THAT FOLLOWED
this good news were generally a happy time for me. For the first time I was treated like royalty. King François ordered that my every wish should be gratified. Henri spoke to me with something like tenderness. And Akasma went to work with potions and philters to ensure that the child would be a boy.

As the time of my confinement drew near, preparations at Fontainebleau were made for the birth. To my extreme annoyance, Diane de Poitiers put herself in charge of the delivery—everything from the bed in which I was to lie to the midwives who were to attend me and the liquids I was to drink during my labor. It was no surprise, then, to have Diane appear at my bedside with my husband when labor began. Members of the royal household and
La Petite Bande
came to offer encouragement. King François visited frequently during the hours that my pains continued, and announced his intention to be present for the actual birth. The hours passed, the pains increased. Besides the royal physician and the royal midwife and their assistants, the only two people constantly at my side were Akasma and Diane de Poitiers. Diane ordered Akasma to leave.

“Akasma stays,” I gasped.

Late in the afternoon of the nineteenth of January 1544, I gave birth to a son. As I lay exhausted and the good news went out to all corners of the nation, Henri knelt by my side and took my hand in his. “My dear wife,” he said, tears in his eyes, “I am most grateful.” These were the sweetest words he'd ever spoken.

We named the baby François, in honor of the king.

On the tenth of February our son was christened in the chapel at Fontainebleau at a glittering ceremony that rivaled our wedding. Three hundred members of the king's guard carried torches to light the way for a bejeweled procession that included Queen Eleanor and Henri's sisters and every member of the nobility who had ever visited the chateau, together with cardinals and ambassadors. The king, his sister, and Henri's brother Charles stood as godparents.

“At least it's not Diane de Poitiers,” Akasma whispered as I lay in my chamber, recovering. According to the physicians, I was to have only broths for two weeks, but I persuaded Akasma to slip into the kitchen to make her orange-flavored pudding. She smuggled me as much as I wanted, and my strength quickly returned.

How the world had changed! Once scorned as the Italian merchant's daughter, I was now the most celebrated woman in France. I had ensured the succession to the throne. My place was secure, but I confess that my heart was uneasy. One thing had not changed at all: I had given Henri that which he desired most, a son and heir, but Henri was still in love with Diane de Poitiers. When Diane insisted on taking over the rearing of my newborn son, Henri agreed. I could not refuse. When her cousin was appointed governor of the nursery, Henri approved. I had nothing to say about it.

K
NOWING THAT FROM BIRTH
onward mortal danger threatened every child, and fearing that our son might not survive to adulthood, Henri and I continued to follow the physician's advice. Within six months I was pregnant again. Our daughter, Elisabeth, was born in April of 1545.

As soon as I had recovered from the birth, Akasma told me that she wished to return to Florence, to find her own daughter. I tried to convince her otherwise. “How can I get along without you?” I cried. But she had been my faithful servant and confidante for ten years, and in the end I could not deny her. She promised that she would return with her daughter, but we both knew that was unlikely. It was a tearful parting when she left with a diplomatic delegation traveling to Florence.

As we embraced one last time, my beautiful Akasma whispered, “You will outlast her, Duchessina. You will endure. I have no doubt of it.” I knew whom she meant, of course: Diane. With a wave of her hand, Akasma was gone.

I
T WAS ANOTHER
great loss to me and grieved me deeply when King François, my friend and my protector for thirteen years, yielded up his soul on the thirty-first of March 1547. My husband would now ascend the throne as King Henri II, and I would become queen of France. Yet Diane de Poitiers ruled my husband's heart. He even gave her precedence over me, his wife, at public functions and had himself seated between us.

The old king's mistress, the Duchess d'Étampes, was banished from court when he died, ridding Diane of her archrival. Henri immediately reclaimed the jewels his father had given to Anne and turned them over to Diane. But nothing was ever enough for her. Diane was an aging woman now, her legendary beauty faded, but still she got what she wanted. Henri heaped on her even more riches, more property, more power. He awarded her a new title, Duchess of Valentinois, with a new coat of arms to show her higher rank. And, to my dismay, he presented her with the beautiful Chateau de Chenonceau, the chateau I loved most of all and hoped he would give to me. Then he allotted her all the money she needed to enlarge and improve both Chenonceau and Anet.

By tradition, Henri was crowned at the cathedral of Rheims. On the twenty-sixth of July 1547, well into my third pregnancy, I watched him enter wearing a tunic embroidered with the intertwined letters
H
and
D.
Akasma wasn't there to try to persuade me that the two letters were actually back-to-back Cs in my honor! My coronation followed nearly two years later, on the tenth of June. Thirty years old, I was ordained by God to lead the people of France if the king was unable to rule. Need I say that Diane, Duchess of Valentinois, was a prominent member of the procession?

I continued to live quietly in the shadow of my husband's mistress. Every day he visited her after the midday meal to discuss state business. He was her subject and her slave. She sent him regularly to my bed at night; as a result, I bore him more children, eventually giving birth to ten infants in all, of whom seven survived. In my last pregnancy I delivered twin girls, neither of whom lived; I myself nearly died. A welcome addition to the royal nursery was a lively little Scottish queen named Mary Stuart, who had come to live with us when she was five years old and was pledged to marry our son, François.

Henri never loved me—certainly he felt no passion for me—but he did come to respect my judgment and often tried to please me. And just to be near my husband, I put up with his mistress. It was never a good bargain.

Then my life, as I knew it, came to an end. My husband, whom I had adored for many years, was mortally wounded during a joust. Henri died on the tenth of July 1559.

My first wish was to die with him. But that was not God's will.

My second desire was to help my fifteen-year-old son François rule France with his lovely wife, Mary, Queen of Scots, at his side, and to see that my other children found their rightful places in the world.

My third was to see the downfall and ultimate humiliation of Diane de Poitiers. The urge to take revenge was strong; I could have had her imprisoned, even executed—I had that power. But I remembered what I had often heard King François say:
Vengeance is the sign of a weak ruler, generosity of spirit the sign of strength.
And so I decided not to punish her as I felt she deserved.

Within days of Henri's funeral I summoned her to appear before me in the royal chambers. She came dressed in her customary black and white. Now I, too, wore widow's black. I kept her kneeling for a long time while I studied her face. She was nearly sixty, and her beauty secrets, whatever they were, no longer kept her beautiful. I saw in her pallor and her trembling hands that she feared for her life, as she should have. But she asked permission to address me, and when I granted that permission, her voice was barely above a whisper.