Guise persuaded Anjou that the best thing to do was to attack the town and take it by force of overwhelming numbers before the besieged had completed their preparations for its defence; this idea that God was on the side of the Huguenots must not be allowed to demoralize the Catholic army.

Anjou agreed, and there followed that historic attack in which a few Huguenots triumphed over the great Catholic army through sheer determination not to surrender and an unwavering belief that they were receiving Divine help. Those who took part in the attack never forgot it. The citizens had hung a hawthorn on the ramparts to remind the Catholics of their contempt for that hawthorn which had flowered in the Cemetery of the Innocents—flowered at the Devil’s command, said the Huguenots.

The fight began, but the city’s walls stood firm; and the women themselves mounted the towers and poured boiling pitch on the soldiers below. And as soon as there was a lull in the fighting, the citizens of La Rochelle could be heard singing praises to God.

‘Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered; let them also that hate Him flee before Him . . .

‘Like the smoke vanisheth, so shalt Thou drive them away; and like as wax melteth at the fire, so let the ungodly perish at the presence of God . .

To the superstitious men below, this was terrifying; particularly as it seemed to them that the walls of La Rochelle had stood more assault than a city’s walls could, without Divine assistance.

And so the battle for La Rochelle was a defeat for the Catholic army, and the walls of the city continued to stand firm against all attack. The Catholics counted their dead and wounded to the sound of triumphant singing within the city’s walls.

Alençon swaggered into his brother’s tent and, throwing himself unceremoniously on to Anjou’s bed, began to taunt him with the loss of the battle.

‘Here’s a pretty state of affairs!’ mocked Alençon. ‘A great army defeated by a few men and women behind city walls. I tell you, brother, the mistake was yours. You were too noisy in your preparations. I should have smuggled men into the city somehow. I should have sent spies among them.’

‘Fool!’ cried Anjou. ‘What do you know of battle? Would you have given your spies wings to fly over the city’s walls?’

‘I would ask you not to call me “Fool”, brother, but to remember to whom you speak.’

‘Have a care lest I put you under arrest, Monsieur,’ said Anjou coldly.

But Alençon would not heed him. He was the brother of the King, just as Anjou was, and he had been neglected too long.

‘Brother,’ he teased, ‘you are more successful at court than on a battlefield. You choose your men for their beauty rather than for their military ability.’

‘Your lack of beauty, brother, is not the only reason why I do not confide in you,’ said Anjou languidly.

Alençon was sensitive about his shortness of stature and pock-marked skin. He flushed angrily and began to shout, calling his brother a conceited popinjay who looked more like a woman than a man.

Anjou said: ‘If you do not remove yourself in ten seconds I will put you under arrest.’

Then Alençon thought it better to go quickly. He knew that his mother would approve of anything that Anjou planned for him; and he would certainly find himself a prisoner if he were not careful.

As he came out of his brother’s tent, he encountered Navarre, who seemed to be lounging about outside. Navarre smiled in a sympathetic fashion, and Alençon was ready to accept sympathy from anyone at that moment.

‘You heard?’ demanded Alençon fiercely.

‘It was impossible not to. The insolence! He forgets that if he is a Prince of Valois, so are you.’

‘It is pleasant to know that some remember it,’ muttered Alençon.

Navarre smiled at the little figure beside him. There were many who thought Alençon rather ridiculous, but Henry of Navarre knew that since the massacre he himself had been in a very precarious position, and a man as wise as Henry of Navarre, when in such a position, does not despise friendship.

‘My lord,’ said Navarre, ‘they would be fools to forget it when it is possible that one day you may be King over us all.’

The thought pleased Alençon; and coming from Navarre, who was after all a king—if somewhat eclipsed at the moment—it was doubly pleasant.

‘I am many steps from the throne,’ he mused smiling.

‘Not so. The King’s son did not live . . . nor would any child of his, I am thinking. And when the King dies . .

‘There is my arrogant brother whom you so recently heard insult me.’

‘Yes. But he is hardly likely to produce progeny. And then . . .’ Henry of Navarre administered a Béarnais slap on the back which almost knocked Alençon off his feet; but the little Duke did not mind such boisterous behaviour when accompanied by words which were so gratifying. If one could forgive the crude manners of a provincial, he thought, he is not such a bad fellow, this Henry of Navarre.

They walked in friendly silence for a few paces.

‘And so,’ continued Navarre at length, ‘your time will come. I am sure of that, my lord Duke.’

Alençon looked up into the shrewd face of his kinsman. ‘You are happier now that you have become a Catholic?’ he asked.

Then Henry of Navarre did an astonishing thing. He closed one eye and opened it swiftly. There was something worldly about Navarre, something experienced, which made Alençon long to be like him. Alençon chuckled. He knew that Navarre was hoodwinking such people as the King, Anjou and the Queen Mother in just the way which he, Alençon, longed to do. He found himself returning the wink.

‘So . . . you are not truly Catholic?’ he asked.

‘I am Catholic today,’ said Navarre. ‘Who knows what I may be tomorrow?’

Alençon laughed conspiratorially. ‘I myself have been attracted to the Huguenot faith,’ he ventured.

‘It may well be,’ said Navarre, ‘that, like me, you intend to be a Huguenot-Catholic.’

Alençon laughed with Navarre; and then they began to talk of women, a subject which Alençon found almost as exciting as Navarre did.

They were very quickly the best of friends. Navarre showed that right mixture of respect for a man who might be a King one day, and camaraderie for a fellow who he recognized as just such another as himself.

Those were uneasy weeks before La Rochelle. Anjou and Guise noticed the growing friendship between the mischievous pair and wondered what it foreboded; Condé and Navarre, encouraged by Alençon, who was now their recognized ally, threatened to desert. The army seemed about to disintegrate when Catherine and the council in Paris decided it was time to make peace. The King of Poland had died, and Anjou had been elected by the Poles as their new King; it was therefore necessary to recall him to Paris without delay. So the town of La Rochelle must be left in peace for a spell. The Huguenots were promised liberty of worship and the right to celebrate marriages and christenings in their own houses if no more than ten people were present. The war had come to another uneasy pause.


* * *

Riding to the hunt, Catherine watched her son, and asked herself how much longer he could be expected to live. His lung complaint had grown so much worse that he was continually out of breath. He blew his horn more frequently than was necessary, and such a strain on his lungs, Paré had warned him, should be avoided.

But when Charles was in one of his violent moods he never thought of what was good or bad for him.

He cannot live much longer, thought Catherine.

However, the position was alarming although there was one bright side to it. Charles’ son had died, as she had guessed he would. From the day of the child’s birth she had known she could safely leave it to its fate; but, strangely enough, he had a healthy son now by Marie Touchet, and the Queen was pregnant again. What if the Queen were to produce a healthy child as Marie had done! Then on the King’s death there would have to be another regency—and worse still, an end to her darling Henry’s hopes of the throne. She would never allow that to come about.

‘My son,’ she said, knowing full well that comments on his health could irritate him when he was in certain moods, ‘you tire yourself.’

He turned angry eyes upon her. ‘Madame, I am the best judge of that.’

He was at the beginning of one of his violent moods. She, who knew him so well, could see it encroaching on his sanity. In a short while that whip of his would descend on his horse, on his dogs and on his huntsmen as they happened to come within his range. She saw the foam on his mouth and heard the familiar hysteria in his voice.

‘What is the matter with you all?’ he shouted. ‘My horse slackens speed. My dogs seem asleep, and my men are a lazy good-for-nothing lot. By God!’ Down came the whip on his horse’s flank.

Catherine watched, smiling a little. That is well, she thought. Beat the creature to madness. May it bolt and throw you, and let that be an end to your madness and you, for I am heartily sick of you, and it is time Henry was King.

He caught her eyes fixed on him, and fearing that he might have read her thoughts she said quickly: ‘Hé, my son. Why do you get so angry with your dogs and horses and these poor men whose delight it is to serve you, while you are over-meek with your enemies?’

‘Over-meek!’ he cried.

‘Why are you not angry with those wretches in La Rochelle who are causing death and suffering to so many in your army?’

The King’s brow puckered. He said: ‘Wars . . . wars . . . It is all wars. It is all bloodshed in this land.’ He glared at Catherine and began to shout. ‘And who is the cause of it all? Tell me that.’ He shouted to his men: ‘Tell me! Who is the cause of this, eh? You . . . you tell me. Who is the cause of all the misery of this land? Answer me. Have you no tongues? We will see . . . we will see . . . and if you have, we will have them out, since they appear to be no use to you.’ He lifted his whip and slashed his dogs. ‘Who is the cause of all our misery, eh?’ Then he turned his fierce, mad eyes again on his mother. ‘We know!’ he cried. ‘All know. My God! It is you . . . you, Madame . . . you are our evil genius. You are the cause of it all.’

Then, digging his spurs into his horse, he turned and galloped madly away from them—back the way they had come.

The huntsmen looked at Catherine in dismay, but she was calm and smiling.

‘His Majesty is out of humour today,’ she said. ‘Come, let us ride on. We have come to hunt, so let us hunt.’

And as she rode on she was thinking: this is rebellion. He flouts me . . . even before his lowest servants. It cannot be allowed to continue. I will not be treated thus. Assuredly, my son Charles, you have lived too long!

And when she returned to the palace it was to find that ambassadors from Poland had arrived.


* * *

Anjou was sulky. He could not bear the thought of being sent away to Poland. How could such as he was endure life in the barbarous country which Poland must be? Since he had tired of Renée de Châteauneuf, he had formed an attachment with the Princess of Condé, young Condé’s wife. He could not, he now declared, endure the thought of parting from her.

The situation was alarming, for the King had made it clear that he intended Anjou to accept the Polish throne. Their mother would do all in her power to frustrate the King, but Anjou was fully aware that Catherine’s influence with Charles was waning fast. Charles looked upon Anjou as his enemy, and wished to exile him as soon as possible; moreover, it was said that the King would not be greatly disturbed if the Queen Mother decided to accompany her favourite son to Poland.

Catherine went to Anjou, who was fuming in his apartments, surrounded by three of his young men. The three young men were in tears at the prospect of losing their benefactor or, failing that, accompanying him far from the civilized land of France to the barbarous one of Poland.

‘The King is obstinate,’ said Catherine. ‘He declares you must go. It is no use bewailing. We must think of something that we can do.’ Her eyes alighted on her son’s table with its bottles of perfume and pots of cosmetics. She looked at the sprawling yet completely elegant figure, and she thought: what will those barbarians think of his elegance, of his young men, and his preoccupation with his own beauty?