The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King (33 page)
Read The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King Online
Authors: HRH Princess Michael of Kent
Diane could already see ahead to the inevitable palace revolution that would follow the king’s death. She knew that Henri would oust many of his father’s favorites, and especially those of Anne d’Etampes; but Anne and her allies would be vicious and dangerous in defending whatever power they could salvage. In her eagerness to help Henri, Diane turned to the ambitious Guises. Their fortune was immense, and in their talented family they numbered several victorious captains and eminent churchmen. The most attractive of the younger generation was the twenty-year-old archbishop of Rheims, Charles de Lorraine, brother of the heroic
Balafré
. He was tall, handsome, well built, spiritual, and extremely eloquent. Most important, he had great charm, personality, and a beautiful voice, with which he masked his overwhelming ambition and pride.
Five of the Guise brothers, together with their father, the duc Claude, were received at Fontainebleau by the king.
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François appraised them correctly and was well aware of the family’s ruthless ambition, fueled by their matriarch, Antoinette de Bourbon, duchesse de Guise. Antoinette felt the king’s distrust and pushed her family’s fortune toward the future: the dauphin and Diane de Poitiers. It is interesting that the extremely pious Antoinette did not look at all harshly on Diane’s relationship with Henri—rather the contrary. To Diane’s delight, Antoinette de Guise suggested a marriage between her third son Claude, marquis de Mayenne, and Diane’s younger and favorite daughter, Louise. A union of such important families required the approval of the king: he readily gave it. The marriage took place at Fontainebleau at the end of July 1546.
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After suffering one miscarriage, Louise was expecting a child toward the end of the following year.
This clan of Lorrainers were counting on the next reign to raise
them still higher at court and make their fortunes even greater. They would succeed in casting their malevolent shadow over the throne of France for the next fifty years. Even the group around Anne d’Etampes was indignant when one of the eight Guise sons was made cardinal-archbishop of Rouen—at the age of nine.
A
T Fontainebleau, the careful minuet of court life had altered dramatically following the death of Charles d’Orléans. While she felt her sun setting with the king’s fading life, a desperate Anne d’Etampes had promoted Charles’ marriage to the Habsburg princess in the hope that he might unite with his father-in-law the emperor and France’s enemy. She shared the emperor’s wish that Charles would eventually wage war against his brother Henri and take the throne from him—and from Diane. Now this last chance for her survival at court after the death of the king was gone. Catherine, too, realized that without the king, she would be forced to rely completely on the goodwill of Diane de Poitiers who, as Henri’s mistress, would occupy the most influential position in the greatest nation of Europe.
The atmosphere at court was tense as each faction engaged in an undeclared duel of dissimulation, with no one quite sure where they stood, and quarrels among the young gallants frequent. Among those forcibly idle due to the peace, tempers heated easily. Camps formed among Henri’s friends—one behind the comte d’Enghien, dazzling victor of Ceresole, and the other behind his first cousin and rival, François d’Aumale,
Balafré
hero of Boulogne. Both were twenty-six. The point of contention was the Treaty of Crespy. Enghien supported the dauphin’s stand, whereas Aumale threw his weight behind the other side, and his defection was harmful to Henri. Seeing an opening, the Guise brothers offered to act as mediators.
The young men surrounding the dauphin—Vieilleville, La Châtaigneraie, Tavannes, Saint-André, Damville, Brissac—were a wild bunch. They liked to make their horses jump chasms from rock to rock, and they themselves jumped from one roof to another across narrow streets. Bored with the enforced lull in the hostilities due to the
winter season, the young men acted out battles with snowballs as weapons. During one such fight in the winter of 1546, the dauphin, Aumale, and their team were on the offensive, and Enghien led the defense. Not surprisingly, the mock battle got a little out of hand and blows were exchanged. Eventually, the exhausted Enghien sat down against a wall to catch his breath. Above him a window opened, and unseen hands dropped a heavy chest onto his head. It broke his neck. François de Bourbon, comte d’Enghien, Prince of the Blood, heroic soldier and charmer, remained in a coma for five days. He died on February 23, not yet twenty-seven. Suspicion fell on a young Italian friend of Henri’s who was known to have had a quarrel with Enghien, and Aumale was also a suspect. Both protested their innocence. Fearing that Henri might be implicated, the king would hear no more and treated the incident as a dreadful accident.
Many historians have suggested foul play, but it is more likely that this tragedy was the result of the usual rough horseplay common among high-spirited young cavaliers used to the horrors of war. Throwing furniture at one another, or food, for that matter, was acceptable behavior in a court dedicated to unrestricted pleasure. Enghien’s death was a typical example of the strange mixture of civilization and the lack of it so prevalent during the French Renaissance, when courtly manners and elaborate codes of behavior were interchangeable with primitive habits and brutal actions.
Tensions at court continued to distance the king from Henri. The dauphin, in jest, spread the slander that a young nobleman called Guy Chabot, later baron de Jarnac, who had no known source of wealth yet dressed exquisitely, must be the gigolo of his young stepmother. The effete Jarnac was outraged, but as he was not permitted to challenge the dauphin to a duel, another of Henri’s friends offered to stand and fight in his stead. The king had to step in and forbid a duel of honor among the young gallants at court. Jarnac was the nephew of Anne d’Etampes, who had been involved in the dispute, and it is therefore likely that Henri only made the allusion to discredit his father’s mistress. François I realized the whole issue was one of rivalry between the two royal mistresses; although both parties begged to be allowed to defend their good names, the king refused to respond.
However, François
did
react to the next ill-fated incident involving Henri. There had never been much love lost between father and son, and now Henri resented his father even more for his recent humiliation of Diane. The dauphin was champing at the bit to be put in charge of the realm. Late one evening, in company with a group of his close friends, Henri speculated about his future reign and whom he would put in which position at court. They discussed who would escort the king on his funeral bier to Saint-Denis, and who would accompany the dauphin to his coronation at Rheims. Henri began to ponder aloud about his appointments, the first of which would be to recall his friend, Anne de Montmorency. He then made other allocations to all his friends, as if the king were already dead.
No one noticed the king’s fool, the dwarf Briandas, in a corner, who slipped out and ran to François. In that strange, overfamiliar manner that fools traditionally used with their patrons, the dwarf warned the king to take care, as he no longer ruled—indeed, he was dead. He related to François and his companions that they had been deposed and had all lost their positions in the reshuffle. Worse, he maintained that the Constable was back and they should flee.
As confused as his courtiers, the king demanded an explanation for this nonsense. When she heard the story, Anne d’Etampes had a fit of terrified hysterics and François was furious to have been treated with such
lèse-majesté
. He ordered the fool to give him the names of all those who had been present at Henri’s table. The two sons that the king had preferred were dead, as were many of the artists and writers he had promoted, and the dashing young companion of his last years, the comte d’Enghien, had been killed in a silly prank at court. Could his dead sons have been poisoned? Strange scenarios filled his head and his temper was roused to fever pitch. François called for his Scottish guard
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and, escorted by thirty of the best, marched to his son’s quarters. When the king and his guards arrived, only the dauphin’s valets were left in his apartments. In his anger, François thrashed the staff and destroyed the furniture.
In sixteenth-century France, jesters or “fools” had a most privileged position at court and were permitted incredible familiarity with the monarch.
Henri prudently left the court and remained for a month at Anet with Diane, until his allies mediated with his father for his return. Diane reasoned with Henri that with his father’s health declining so rapidly, he would not dare remain alienated from his heir for long. She knew how to calm Henri and reassured him he would soon be recalled. She was right. But one of the conditions of his return was that his friends, among them Saint-André, Brissac, and Dampierre, who had dared to mock the monarchy, remain in exile.
With the French king now visibly ailing, the various ambassadors wrote home to characterize the king-in-waiting. The Venetian ambassador, Marino Cavalli, describes Henri at this time:
The fortune which seemed to be shared between the other two [dead] brothers is whole again with this one who is now the dauphin. His personal qualities promise France the best king she has seen for a hundred years. This hope is also a great comfort for the people, who console themselves for the present unhappiness with the promise of what is to come. This prince is twenty-eight, in good health, robust and has a good constitution. His character is perhaps a little melancholy, he is well versed in arms, he is not full of clever retorts, but he is very clear and firm in his opinions—once he has said something he sticks to it
rigidly
. His intelligence isn’t the quickest possible, but it is often these kinds of men who succeed the most, like autumn fruits which are the last to ripen, but which are stronger than those from
the summer or the spring. He intends to keep a foot in Italy, and has never thought of giving up Piedmont, which annoys those Italians who are unhappy with affairs in their state. He spends his money both wisely and honourably. He does not abandon himself to women—he is happy with his own, and for conversation he turns to Madame la Sénéchale de Normandie, who is forty-eight. He has a real tenderness for her, but opinion is that it is nothing more, and that this affection is as if between mother and son, for this lady had taught, corrected and advised monsieur le dauphin, and directs him to actions which are worthy of him.
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However, another contemporary, Giovanni Capello, wrote that “all his amusements are honest, excepting his illicit pleasures which he well knows how to hide.” Whether or not the ambassadors were being blind or diplomatic, they all agreed that Diane de Poitiers, in one capacity or another, had greatly changed Henri for the better.
I
T would seem that the only joyful news in the spring of 1546 was the birth of a daughter to Catherine de’ Medici at Fontainebleau in April. The birth coincided with the reconciliation between François I and Henry VIII, and also between the king and his son. The baby was called Elisabeth, and in view of the new treaty, Henry VIII agreed to be godfather. The christening was a splendid affair, celebrated with great rejoicing in the new atmosphere of peace. The English ambassador stood proxy for his king, held the baby over the font, and presented generous gifts from Henry VIII. The customary tournament accompanied the festivities, with the proud father and his team jousting in baptismal white, their shields adorned with interlaced crescent moons in honor of the new birth—and Diane.
