Dark Eminence Catherine De Medici And Her Children by Marguerite Vance (good e books to read .TXT) 📗

could she possibly consider him a suitable husband for her sister? Perhaps Elizabeth forgot the plans for her own marriage which had included no considerations of the bridegroom's character but only his dynastic prestige among the monarchs of the world. And though she was accustomed to the many lamentable vagaries of royalty, to see her little sister married to the lunatic Don Carlos was unthinkable. In many ways Elizabeth was ahead of her day.

Her answers to her mother s letters were, if not evasive, at

least temporizing: His Majesty was away; His Majesty was not well—a touch of fever; affairs of state made it impossible for her to have a satisfactory talk with him. So ran the Spanish Queen's letters while she tried to summon courage to approach her hushand on the subject she found too distasteful to put into words.

But Catherine was not to be put off. Since she had formally declared Charles of age, her next move must be something to dramatize the fact. A Royal Progress across France would do just that. It would do more, for its terminus would

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be Bayonne, that jewel-like little city on the Spanish border, and here she would invite Philip and Elizabeth to be her guests for a month of feasting, jousts, and masques. Here she could put her plan before Philip, could impress him with her sure knowledge of the fine interdependence between France and Spain, make him her lasting friend. Yes, the Progress had been an inspiration.

When Catherine undertook anything it was not by half measures, so this masterpiece of pageantry was a dazzling extravaganza which even the Progresses of England's Elizabeth could not equal The cavalcade set out from Saint-Germain in the early spring of 1564. Gentlemen of the Household, grooms, pages, archers, carvers, butlers, falconers, councilors and huntsmen came first, followed by the households of the various members of the royal party. Slowly, banners rippling in the spring breeze, drums and fifes beating out the measure of their tread, the glittering company filed through the stone archway of the palace court,

Charles, the inspiration of it all, knew only that he would be passing through good stag- and boar-hunting country and prayed he would be permitted to try his new spear. His brother Henry and his sister Marguerite had their own thoughts, Henry had not wanted particularly to come. He was just thirteen and something of a poet and took an un-boyish interest in keeping his hands and nails well groomed. Henry would much rather have stayed at home, petting his lap dogs and strumming the new Spanish bandora his mother recently had given him.

As for twelve-year-old Marguerite, between her and her

brother Henry there existed a bond of eerie unity which seemed to stem from unremembered time and isolated them in a strange small world of their own. They enjoyed the same things, reacted identically to all circumstances. Dancing was one of their major delights and it was said that when they entered a tallroom other dancers withdrew to watch their absorbed enjoyment in the graceful passages of the dignified pavane and the romping gaillard. At these times they seemed completely oblivious of everything about them, lost in their concentration on the dance and thek joy in each other. That Catherine should be aware of this strong attachment between the brother and sister was inevitable and with characteristic venom she made her knowledge known to Marguerite, But Marguerite only laughed and shrugged off the fishwifely tirades her mother directed at her in her jealousy—for Catherine would not share Henry's affection with anyone. Nor would anyone ever curb her youngest daughter as she romped through life until at last she died, a dissolute, mountainous woman of sixty-one whose family had cast her off.

The Progress held endless possibilities for Marguerite. Sometimes for a brief mile or so she rode one of the beautiful hackneys her mother imported from Italy, cantering along the line of the procession, ribbons and veilings fluttering out behind her. Again she rode back to the end of the cavalcade where the heavy carts carrying every imaginable sort of equipment lumbered along through the clouds of dust. She found the carters delighted to accept her challenge to banter and fraternize until a gentleman of her household, arriving with orders from the Queen Mother, put an end to the gay inter-

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lude. Sometimes Marguerite retired to her litter and sang popular songs of the day, accompanying herself on the lute, and not unmindful of the effect of her really fine voice floating back over the mile-long column winding across the hills.

As for Catherine, the genius behind this vast pageant on wheels, she was enjoying herself enormously in spite of the rigors of the journey. She was forty-five years old now and had grown very stout. Saddle horses she rode, and she rode hard and often, were worn out within months and had to be replaced. Though the Progress was virtually a traveling city with its own shops and boutiques where replacements might be made, laces and velvets mended and saddles oiled and polished, one commodity was not to be found among the tons of effects brought for the comfort or entertainment of the company: food. All along the way farmers and small tradesmen saw their stocks swept away by the passing throng, the labor of months lost, yet were helpless to protest. Even so, food on the journey was frequently scant and of inferior quality. Yet Catherine, for all her voracious appetite, never complained and made sure that all had their share.

They traveled east to Bar-le-duc a hundred miles away where Charles acted as godfather to Claude s first baby, a little boy, the future Duke of Lorraine, and Catherine marveled at the miraculous change a happy marriage and motherhood had made in her ugly-duckling daughter. Claude's thin cheeks had filled out, there was