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

had time to assess her deepest motives and the decisions they evoked. One conclusion she reached was that she must stop vacillating about

her religion, must come out wholeheartedly for the Catholic faith in which she was born. Only first—and here was that persistent instability again which gave Catherine de Medici the reputation which Philip of Spain once called "her untrustworthy word''—she must see to the marriage of Marguerite and Henry of Navarre. Nothing must stand in the way of that even though Henry was the acknowledged titular head of the Huguenots! Time enough to worry about that unfortunate factor once the marriage had taken place.

In her great preoccupation with her children's marriages did this sixteenth-century matriarch give any thought to their characters? Did Charles's hysterical outbursts worry her or the fact that at eighteen he still frequently threw himself on the floor when angered, to beat his head, rolling and clawing like a wild animal? What did she think of Marguerite's shocking behavior? She was known to her children as a strict mother, but strict in what sense? Did their morals, honesty, generosity, kindness, and self-control (or lack of it) concern her? No one knows, though probably not, since her sole interest in them seems to have been centered on using them to maintain the supremacy of the house of Valois.

Among the children two were her favorites: Elizabeth and Henry, Duke of Anjou. The gentle, beautiful Elizabeth represented something far beyond Catherine's spiritual reach, something she did not quite understand. It was of Elizabeth she thought so much during those long nights when dyspepsia brought her sitting up among her pillows, gasping for breath, and her legs twitched in rheumatic spasms* "Elizabeth, my best beloved!" Sometimes she spoke the words

aloud, knowing as she did that they were not quite true. 'Well beloved" would have heen better, for in her heart she knew Anjou was and always would be the one living being she adored.

So, one morning late in October, 1568, after the Court had sent suitable condolences to Philip on the death of Don Carlos and the Council was preparing to convene in the great Council Chamber at the Louvre, there came an interruption. A page, ashen-faced and trembling, knelt beside the King s chair and tendered a message bearing the royal seal of Spain,

Charles ripped the seal and opened the letter, then his own face blanched. Without a word he passed the missive to his mother. Catherine stared at it as though unable to grasp what she read. Then, clutching the table with both hands, she got to her feet. The Council rose with a subdued clatter of accouterments.

"My lords, Gentlemen of the Council," she said in a voice that was firm, though her eyes seemed to be staring unseeing at the sea of faces before her, "our daughter, Elizabeth of Valois, Her most Catholic Majesty, Queen of Spain, died in childbed on October third. She died in the Catholic faith, shriven, and imploring the intercessions of the Blessed Virgin and of her guardian angel. Pray for the repose of her soul." Leaning on the arm of the King, Catherine quitted the Chamber. The Council adjourned.

No grief however profound was able to swerve the Queen Mother for long from her inflexible course. Inconsistent, shameless in her vaulting ambition, she forfeited all pretense

of good taste. She wrote PKilip a tearful letter in which she wailed, "My grief is so great that without the help of God I do not think it would he possible for me to carry the sorrow and weariness which I feel/' In less than a month, however, she was urging him, through her ambassadors, to marry Marguerite. This in the face of grave suspicions that Philip, in a jealous rage over her kindness to Don Carlos, had had Elizabeth poisoned.

That there was no truth in the ugly rumors, that they were clumsy fabrications of Huguenots in the Netherlands where Philip was especially hated was proved later. But Catherine did not wait for proof. She must strengthen her position in Spain. Elizabeth was gone, Dona Juana did not want Anjou, nor the Hapsburg princess the King. Philip was a widower, and here providentially was merry, dimpled Marguerite. Perfect!

Her excitement over her new project did much to heal her grief, and over and over again she congratulated herself for not having pressed the match between Henry of Navarre and Marguerite too enthusiastically. Now she would have a second daughter Queen of Spain! With Marguerite acting as stepmother to the little Infantas and urging them to do their grandmother s bidding, what was to prevent a betrothal between one of them and young Hercules? After all, he was now thirteen. Why not?

In an upsurge of optimism Catherine sent off a huge box of toys to the little girls—let them leam what a generous grandmamma they had! There were dolls of carved wood with painted rosy cheeks and hair of silk floss, dressed in

finest brocade and wearing tiny velvet slippers. There were nests of little painted boxes fitting one inside the other, and gold-rimmed mugs of holly wood to ward off whooping cough. And at the last moment the messenger was handed a basket containing two puppies to amuse their small Highnesses! Oh, Catherine was in high spirits.

Her chagrin must have been devastating when word reached her a few months later that Philip had married his niece, Anne of Austria! So even with Don Carlos gone/her Charles was not to have the elder Hapsburg princess after all —nor Marguerite the Spanish Icing. Catherine may have wondered whether, looking back over the failures, the great disappointments and griefs that had defaced the last few years, possibly her luck was beginning to run thin.

Charles was growing older and more assertive. He and his mother disagreed violently over and over again, their arguments usually ending with the King thrashing on the floor and his mother in tears .