The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King (40 page)

It was during the court’s stay at Lyons that Henri created Diane “duchesse de Valentinois,” restoring to her the titles, taxes, and dues of the duchy which her family had forfeited in 1419, and which had passed to Cesare Borgia. Once France and Italy had resumed hostilities, however, the estates were reclaimed and returned to the crown. Diane had been known as the comtesse de Brézé or La Grande Sénéchale, but from this day, she became the duchesse de Valentinois, the highest dignity for a lady not born a princess. In France, the dukedom had always been reserved for the blood royal or foreigners like the Guises, and until then, Anne d’Etampes had been the only other exception. French royal though illegitimate sons had also been created dukes in the past. This placed the new duchess on a par with the Princes of the Blood.

As if all this were not enough, the king had a gold medal struck with Diane’s head on it—something never done before by a French sovereign to honor a mistress. Under her profile are the words: “
Diana dux Valentinorum clarissima
”—“Diane, illustrious duchesse de Valentinois,” and on the other side, she is shown as the goddess Diana, bow in hand and Cupid at her feet. Beneath is the inscription: “
Omnium Victorem Vici
”—“I conquered him who conquered all.” An alternative translation could be “I conquered the King, Love, and Time.” A companion gold coin depicts Henri II in profile. On the reverse is a large crescent interlaced with bows and arrows, one arrow crowned with laurels and Diane’s monogram. Beneath, the famous motto: “Until it fill the whole world.”

H
IS father had never cared for him, nor admitted him to his Privy Council until he became dauphin. Thus, Henri had not been trained to rule. As the task was really above him, he left most of the government in the hands of Montmorency and the Guises, and retreated into his dreamworld and that of his hero, Amadis. What little he did know of state affairs he learned from Montmorency; but the Constable had been absent from the court in the last six years.

Surrounded by intrigues and rivalries all his life, Henri had only ever relied on one person, and it was to her that he now turned for advice. Diane was always there to help, but she could only teach him what she had gleaned from conversations at court. In a number of state matters, the new king placed so much trust in his mistress that many of his official letters were written in her hand and jointly signed with one name: “HenriDiane.” The lovers would amuse themselves by writing to
Montmorency half in one hand, half in the other, then ending with their joint signature.

Wisely, Diane encouraged Henri to appoint ministers who were not only loyal to him but also true patriots. Diane became a member of his Privy Council and largely controlled the others. In every appointment, no matter how small, observers could see her sure hand guiding the young king. Those who had openly opposed Diane in the past were amazed that, instead of taking her revenge, she gave them appointments if she felt that they could be of use to the kingdom. Without the help of brilliant men in the key positions of his government, Henri’s reign would not have been described by the Italian ambassadors as one of the most remarkable in French history for the wisdom of its policies. The Italian ambassadors wrote home with nothing but praise for
Diane’s wise counsel, and declared that, as a result, the king filled his time “only with things useful and honorable.” Contarini claimed in his dispatches to the Vatican that Henri “was as weak in private as he was strong in public,” and that Diane took advantage of this. The ambassador added that Henri showed a “real tenderness” for Diane, “but it is not thought that there is anything lascivious about it, but that this affection is like that between a mother and son.” He wrote this in 1547 around the time of the coronation, when Diane had been Henri’s mistress for at least ten years, which shows the lengths to which the lovers went to keep the true nature of their relationship private.

L
IKE his father, François I, Henri ruled a court that was the most sophisticated in Europe. Henri’s love of courtly manners and values formed the perfect frame for the art, architecture, music, and literature of his time. Yet remnants of a previous, darker age could still be seen in some aspects of court life, particularly in the pranks and games of the young men. Henri’s brother Charles and his friend Enghien had died as a result of the rather brutish behavior that was acceptable at the time. Just three months after his father’s death, Henri staged his first water tournament at Anet. The imperial ambassador Saint-Mauris noted that Henri delighted in pushing people into the river and succeeded in almost drowning a page. A few months later, in 1548, Henri loosened the bridle on Montmorency’s horse during a hunt so that the horse bolted off into the forest and Montmorency had no way of controlling it.

One of the many strange customs couched in a religious framework took place every December 28, the Feast of the Innocents, held in remembrance of the biblical slaughter by Herod of firstborn sons. Henri would actively take part in breaking into strangers’ houses to try to catch young people still in bed early on the morning of the saint’s day. The idea was to “admonish” those still sleeping for the sin of sloth by smacking them liberally on their naked bottoms. This was termed “to innocent” them and the phrase often appears in licentious and comic texts. Naturally, this old custom was turned into a ribald event. Many a young gallant took to the role with more vigor than perhaps necessary.
It seems Henri derived particular pleasure in this task. No doubt anyone wishing to avoid such delicious punishment would rise early.

Henri’s jester Brusquet was constantly involved in complicated pranks at court. Jesters were an institution inherited from the Middle Ages and the king and queen regarded them as an integral part of their court. The fool or jester was in a class of his own. He could be as familiar with the king and queen as if he were one of their children; he could come and go into their private apartments as he pleased, pop into council meetings uninvited, or beg favors of the king for courtiers. Despite his highly privileged position, the fool wore green and yellow, the colors of shame. Brusquet, whom Henri II had saved from the gallows while he was still dauphin, had been an accomplished con artist and was intelligent enough to make himself a fortune in the service of the king. He was such a success that he rose to become
valet de garde-robe
, then
valet de chambre
. He ended up as head of the postal services
⁴
and had over one hundred horses in his stable. One of the funniest of his tricks was the occasion when he introduced his wife to Catherine de’ Medici after confiding to each of them that the other was deaf. The resulting chaotic scene of the two women miming and gesticulating was, by all accounts, hysterical. Like so many of the court, Brusquet was suspected of Protestant sympathies, but as long as Henri lived, he was safe. After Henri’s death, Diane protected him at Anet, where he died in 1563.

Diane was always a party to this colorful group of people, and her court rivaled that of the queen. She had dwarves, musicians, and entertainers, just as Catherine did. All the important members of the court had their own violin and guitar players and often played the lute themselves. The queen had been at the papal courts of her relatives, Popes Leo and Clement in Rome, and those of her Medici family in Florence, and she tried to imitate or outdo them in splendor.

Catherine spent lavishly and generously on her attendants, her jesters, her “tame madwoman,” called La Sardinière, and another female jester, called Cathelot, as well as a whole stable of dwarves, freaks,
and parrots. Included in this gathering were the queen’s
dames d’honneur
, among them some close friends in whom she could confide. Although Diane and Catherine needed one another, and were outwardly friendly, the queen remained consumed by jealousy.

O
N May 15, 1549, two years after the coronation in Rheims, the king made his official entry into Paris. This delay was unusual—due, it was said, to a number of political and religious reasons. However, Henri had already made entries into thirty of his cities in the previous two years, so one must assume he could have made one into his capital sooner had he wished.

Entering Paris in state gave him the opportunity at last to honor and acknowledge Diane in the capital. From a balcony erected especially for her, she watched the king’s official entry. The day’s festivities began with the arrival of a huge procession of two thousand pages dressed in black and white, walking in front of the king. They were followed by the representatives of the
Parlement
, the city and guilds, the university, and every trade. Even the printers turned out, 3,500 of them, all dressed in black and white—and armed.

The new fashion for the antique overcame the organizers in Paris, and the capital was filled with model pyramids,
⁵
obelisks, and
arcs de triomphe
covered with Greek and Roman verses, all mixed among the new Renaissance buildings.