But if there was rejoicing in the Catholic world, there was deep consternation in England and Holland. William the Silent, who had been hoping for the help of France, through Coligny, was overcome with grief. He said that the King of France had been most evilly advised and that his realm would be plunged into fresh trouble ere long. The slaughtering of unsuspecting innocents, he went on, was no way in which to settle the differences of religion.

‘This,’ said Burleigh to the Queen of England, ‘is the greatest crime since the Crucifixion.’

A few weeks after the massacre, the King was in his apartments, which were full of members of the court, and they were trying to regain something of that gaiety which had once been theirs. It was not easy. There was no forgetting. Names were casually mentioned, and it would then be remembered with a shock that that person was no more. Such a short while ago he had been alive, full of gaiety; now he was dead, and there, among them, was his murderer. The massacre haunted them like some evil spectre which they had called up from the underworld and which would not now be banished.

As they sat or stood about, talking loudly, giving vent to laughter which was, more often than not, unnatural, a great croaking was heard outside the windows of the Louvre, and the croaking was accompanied by a flapping of wings.

There was a sudden silence in the apartment followed by a susurration. ‘It was as though,’ someone remarked afterwards, the angel of death hovered over the Louvre.’

Catherine, deeply disturbed, for she was as superstitious as any present, hurried to the window and, looking out, saw a flock of ravens flying just above the palace. She cried out and everyone ran to the windows to watch the birds. They flew round, cawing; they perched on the building; they flew against the windows; and they remained in the vicinity of the palace for a long time.

Although some assumed that the birds had been attracted by the carnage, all were unnerved that night.

Many believed that the birds were the spirits of those whom they had murdered come to haunt them and to remind them that their days also were numbered, that horrible death such as they had meted out to others might well await them.

Catherine called René and the Ruggieri brothers to her and demanded spells to protect her from impending evil.

The King called wildly to the birds: ‘Come . . . whoever you be. Come and kill us . . . Do to us what we did to them.’

Madeleine and Marie Touchet did their best to soothe him.

Alençon, who had been sulking because he had been told nothing of the proposed massacre and had not been allowed to have a part in it, was relieved and able maliciously to watch the effect of the birds on those about him. Margot and Navarre watched with a good conscience. Anjou went shuddering to his mother and would not leave her. Henry of Guise was unperturbed. If the birds were the spirits of dead Huguenots, he was sure that the spirit of his father would protect him. He had but kept the vow to avenge him which he had made on his father’s death.

But the King suffered most of all; and in the night he awakened from his sleep and ran screaming through the palace.

‘What is all the noise in the streets?’ he demanded. ‘Why do the bells ring? Why do the people shout and scream? Listen. Listen. I can hear them. They are coming to kill us . . . as we killed them.’

Then he fell on to the floor, his limbs jerking in his terror; he bit his clothes and threatened to bite any who came near him.

‘Stop them!’ he cried. ‘Stop the bells. Stop the people. Let us have done with bloodshed.’

Madeleine was brought to him. ‘Chariot,’ she whispered, ‘all is well. All is quiet. Chariot . . . Chariot . . . you must not distress yourself.’

‘But, Madelon, they will come for me . . . They will do to me what was done to them.’

‘They cannot touch you. They are dead and you are the King.’

‘They could return from their graves, Madelon. They have come as black birds to torment me. They are in the streets now, Madelon. Listen. Listen. They shout. They scream. They are ringing all the bells . . . .’

She led him to the window and showed him a quiet and sleeping Paris.

‘I heard them,’ he insisted. ‘I heard them.’

‘It was only in your dreams, my love.’

‘Oh, Madelon, I am responsible. I said so at the meeting. I . . . I did it all.’

‘You did not,’ she said. ‘It was not you. They did it. They forced you to it.’

‘I do not know, Madelon. I can remember it . . . parts of it. I can remember the bells . . . the shouting and the blood. But I cannot remember how it came about. How did it come about? My headpiece knows nothing of it.’

‘You knew nothing of it, my darling. You did not do it. It was they who did it.’

‘They . . .’ he stammered. ‘She . . . my evil genius, Madelon. It was my evil genius . .

Then he began to sob and declare once more that he could hear noises in the streets.

He kept Madelon with him, there at the window, looking out over the sleeping city.

Three

THE MEMORY OF THOSE TERRIBLE DAYS AND NIGHTS continued to hang over paris. Many of those who had taken part in the massacre were so troubled by conscience that they took their own lives; others went mad and ran screaming through the streets; some thought they were pursued by ghosts. So many were guilty. They could find some consolation in speaking together with venom and hatred of the woman whom they considered to have conceived the idea, to have inflamed them—the Italian woman. She was behind all the misery of France. Everyone knew that. The King was mad and he was controlled by that woman. He suffered more deeply than any; but there was no sign that Catherine suffered the slightest pangs of remorse.

Nor did she. She was not going to break a lifelong habit. She had learned not to look back, and she would not look back now. The massacre had been a necessity when it was committed, and it was no use regretting it after it was done. She was growing fatter; she looked in better health than she had for some time. An ambassador wrote to his goverment that she had the appearance of a woman who had successfully come through a bad illness. The illness had been her fear of Philip of Spain, and the cure was the massacre which had begun on St Bartholomew’s Eve.

She had rarely felt so safe as she did during the winter of 1572 and the spring of the next year. Navarre and young Condé had become Catholics—Navarre cynically, Condé shamefully. The stock of these two Princes stood very low throughout the country, although most Huguenots who remained alive were resolute, more determined than ever. They seemed to embrace hardship and flourish under persecution. It was always so with fanatics. They had lost Coligny, Téligny and Rochefoucauld. Montgomery had been warned and had been able to fly from Saint-Germain before he could be caught. Navarre had succumbed almost immediately and accepted the Mass. But the Huguenots would not have hoped for much from Navarre. It was the defection of Condé which had been the bitterest blow to them. They were on the defensive now in that stronghold, La Rochelle, and were bent on making trouble; they had, however, suffered a severe blow and were temporarily helpless. As for Catherine, she was now recognized as the woman who planned the whole massacre.

Cynically she disguised herself and mingled with the people of Paris that she might hear what was said about her. She knew that it was their guilty consciences which made them so critical of her. They enumeratedher crimes, often accusing her of murders in which she had had no hand.

‘Who is this murderess, this poisoner, this Italian who rules France?’ one merchant demanded of her as she stood by his stall, her shawl over her head, her soiled petticoat trailing below her shabby gown. ‘She is not royal. She is the daughter of merchants. Ah, I knew what evils would come to France when she married the son of King Francis.’

‘It is not fitting, Monsieur,’ she agreed, ‘to take a foreign upstart and make her Queen of France. For this Italian woman rules France, Monsieur. Make no mistake about that.’

‘She rules France indeed. Our poor mad Charles would not be so bad without her to guide him . . . so they say. But he is no King. It is she who rules. She poisoned the Cardinal of Châtillon and the Sieur d’Andelot; she poisoned the Queen of Navarre. She is responsible for the death of Monsieur de Coligny,’ went on the merchant. ‘She is responsible for this bloody business. They say that she killed her son, Francis the Second . . . that he died before he should have done. And Monsieur d’Alençon was ill with fever, and they say that was her work. Do you remember the Duke of Bouillon, who was poisoned at Sedan? His doctor was hanged for that crime, but we know whose was the real guilt. Monsieur de Longueville, the Prince of Poitien, Monsieur Lignerolles . . . There is no end to the list, Madame; and then add to it all those who died at her command at the St Bartholo-mew. It is a long list of murders, Madame, for one woman to answer for.’

‘Even for an Italian woman,’ she admitted.

‘Ah, Madame, you have spoken truly. I hope that one day there will be slipped into her wine that morceau Italianizé. That is what I wish, Madame. It is the wish of all Paris.’

She came away smiling. Better to win their hatred than their indifference. She wanted to laugh aloud. The Queen Mother ruled France. She was glad they realized that.

They were singing a song about her in the streets of Paris now. It was insolently sung even under the windows of the Louvre itself.

‘Pour bien sçavoir la consonance

De Catherine et Jhésabel,

L’une, ruyne d’Israel,

L’autre, ruyne de la France:

‘Jhésabel maintenoit l’idolle

Contraire à la saincte parolle,

L’autre maintient la papaulté

Par trahison et cruaulté:

‘Par rune furent massacrez

Les prophètes à Dieu sacrez,

Et l’autre a faict mourir cent mille

De ceux qui suyvent l’Evangille.

‘L’une pour se ayder du bien,

Fist mourir un homme de bien,

L’autre n’est pas assouvie

S’elle n’a les biens et la vie:

‘En fin le jugement fut tel

Que les chiens mengent Jhésabel

Par une vengeance divine;

Mais la charongne de Catherine

Sera différente en ce point,

Car les chiens ne la vouldront point.’

Well, words could not hurt her. She herself sang the song. ‘It is pleasant to think,’ she said to her women, ‘that the people of Paris have no intention of throwing my flesh to the dogs.’ She laughed loudly. ‘Ah, my friends, these people are really fond of me. They like to think of me. Have you noticed that that wicked old lecher, the Cardinal of Lorraine, is now regarding me with some affection? He never did before. But now, he is not so young, and he is terrified of death, for that man was always a coward. He still wears a suit of mail under his clerical robes. But he looks at me with love because he says to himself: “I cannot live many more years. Soon I must face God.” The Cardinal, my friends, is a very devout man, and when he thinks of the life he has led he trembles. And then he looks at me and says to himself: “Ah, compared with the Queen Mother, I am as innocent as a babe.” And for this reason he grows fond of me. So it is with the people of Paris. Did I ride through the streets brandishing a sword on those August days and nights? No, I did not. But they did. Therefore it is comforting for them to recount my wickedness. They can then say: “Compared with Queen Jhésabel, we are innocent indeed.” ‘

One day Charlotte de Sauves brought a book to Catherine.

‘I think Your Majesty should see it,’ she said, ‘and that those who are guilty should be taken and punished.’

Catherine took the book, which was called The Life of St Catherine, and turned over the leaves. When she discovered that the title was an ironical one and the St Catherine was herself, she began to chuckle. There were hideous caricatures of her, only just recognizable in which she appeared quite gross. In these books were enumerated all the crimes of which the people of France accused her; everything evil that had happened in France since she, a little girl of fifteen, had ridden into the land to marry the King’s son, were, according to the authors of this book, due to her.