Виктория Холт - The Italian Woman

‘To-night?’ he repeated.

‘At midnight.’

‘I shall be waiting … most eagerly.’

‘And most eagerly shall I come.’

‘Go now, my darling. Let us not be seen. Let us be wiser than we were.’

There was a last lingering kiss, one more passionate embrace; and Guise went back to his apartments, and joyously to hers went the Princess, who, but a short time before, had been the most miserable, and was now the happiest, woman in France.

* * *

There was tension in the Louvre. Catherine had realised suddenly what power Coligny had over her son Charles. She had forgotten that he, so malleable in her hands, would be equally so in those of others.

Surrounded by his courtiers, Charles spoke to his mother, his eyes flashing, his mouth working:

‘There are evil rumours concerning the death of the Queen of Navarre. It is said that she met her death through foul practices. I command therefore that the body should be opened and examined in order that the cause of her death may be ascertained.’

Catherine felt herself go cold. Her son’s gaze was malevolent; and she knew with sudden horror that he, like the whispering women in the streets, believed that she had killed Jeanne of Navarre. That in itself was not so shocking; but that he, though thinking such a thing, should demand an autopsy, was incredible. Did he want to incriminate his mother, the one person who, so she had believed, had dominated his life? Catherine had been outwitted – outwitted by that great, good man, Gaspard de Coligny. He had crept up slowly with his religion and his self-righteousness and had taken possession of the King’s feeble mind. Coligny wanted an autopsy, and the King, in spite of his mother, would see that there was one.

She stared into that poor weak face in which the whites of the eyes were beginning to turn red, the mouth to foam. Her voice was cold. She had put all her trust in René, and if René had spoken the truth all would be well.

‘My son, if it is your wish that an autopsy should take place, then so be it. To my mind, the Queen’s death was natural enough. She was not strong, and she had suffered a good deal; the effort of the journey to court and the strain of arranging the marriage has been too much for her.’

‘Nevertheless,’ cried the King, ‘I will have her body examined.’

He was a man now, twenty-one. Her mistake had been that she had considered him nothing but an unbalanced boy.

* * *

The doctors were closeted together. Catherine’s and the King’s physicians were with Jeanne’s. At any moment now the result of their examination would be known. If René had failed, thought Catherine, that would be the end of René, and there would be just another rumour attaching itself to the Queen Mother. Already she was hated. What did she care? Let them hate as long as they let her rule France.

Jeanne was dead. Philip of Spain would be smiling – or getting as near to smiling as he was able – into that beard of his. Elizabeth of England would hear the news with concern. Coligny was stricken down in grief. Jeanne’s boy Henry would not yet have heard, but soon he would be forced to come to court; he would be delivered into the hands of the Queen Mother, who would take him under her wing as one of her sons, to be dominated and guided in the way he should go.

There was nothing for her to fear – only hatred and suspicion. She had had her share of them already, and no one would dare harm the Queen Mother of France.

* * *

In the dim chamber the lovers lay in an enchanted weariness. Margot wept a little. ‘For happiness,’ she said, ‘because I have missed you and longed for you, and there is no one in the world who can take your place.’

Henry of Guise said angrily: ‘How happy we might have been, you and I! I shall never forget nor forgive the one who parted us.’

‘My mother terrifies me, Henry.’

‘I meant your brother. He is the one who has separated us. We might have married in time but for him. I mean your brother Henry, not the King. He is afraid of me – your brother Henry. One day I shall kill him … or he will kill me. I shall take my revenge for what he has done to us, and I shall kill Coligny to honour my father.’

‘Do not speak of hate when we have love,’ said Margot. ‘Now we are together let us enjoy it and think of nothing else. Let us not think of your revenge on my brother and Coligny, of my marriage with Navarre. Let us live in happiness while we may.’

She flung herself into his arms once more, but he felt her trembling. He tried to soothe her, but she said: ‘Henry, I cannot stop thinking of my mother. Do you think she poisoned the Queen of Navarre?’

He did not answer, and there was a long silence between them. But after a while they ceased to think of the Queen of Navarre, of Margot’s coming marriage and of revenge. They were together, and they had been apart too long.

* * *

Through the streets of Paris walked a stout woman with a shawl over her head. She joined a group in the market. They were, she knew, talking of the Queen of Navarre.

‘So it was an abscess on the lungs,’ said one woman.

‘So they say …’

Catherine said: ‘You think then that the physicians may have been wrong?’ She drew the shawl about her to hide her face.

‘How do we know what devilries the Italian woman is up to?’

Catherine laughed. ‘You think then that she can make abscesses on the lungs of her enemies?’

The group laughed with her. ‘She is a witch. She is a sorceress. These Italians … they know too much about poisons, and the poisons they give leave no signs. We should never have let them come into our country.’

Catherine moved away. She joined another group who were arguing together. Someone was saying: ‘The Queen was poisoned. It was the Italian woman who arranged it, mark my words. The Queen went to a glove-maker … the Italian’s glove-maker. The doctors can say what they like. It may be that they dare say no other. If they did, it might be that they too would soon be suffering from some mysterious illness which their friends could not understand.’

Catherine turned away and walked thoughtfully through the streets. Here was another of those occasions like that which had followed the death of the Dauphin Francis, who had died when his Italian cupbearer had given him water.

She was uneasy. The King must be watched. Coligny had too much influence over him. She would have to begin thinking very seriously about Monsieur de Coligny, for there must obviously be only one who was allowed to exercise authority over the King’s feeble mind.

She was strong. She would overcome all difficulties. She thought of herself now, and compared herself with the woman she had been on the death of her husband. Then she had had much to learn, and she had learned some of it. She was now in her prime, and in her hands was the power to lead those she loved, to destroy those who stood in her way – and she was fast learning how to use that power.

The Queen Mother drew her shawl closer about her and walked slowly and thoughtfully back to the palace of the Louvre.

In The Italian Woman I have endeavoured to portray Catherine de’ Medici in the middle stages of her career, when she was no longer the neglected wife and the most humiliated of all the Queens of France, but the powerful mother of kings. At this stage Catherine was not yet the infamous woman she was to become towards the end of her life, but she was already beginning to show definite signs of that ruthless monster.

To a certain extent much of her life must remain a mystery, for no amount of research can tell us whether or not she actually committed all the crimes which have been laid at her door. In this respect the novelist is in a more delicate position than the biographer, for the latter can present a theory as a theory, while the novelist must make up her mind one way or another, since the object of a novel – a work of fiction – is to create an illusion of reality; and the novelist must naturally be in no doubt as to her characters’ motives and actions.

In view of Catherine’s character as it gradually emerged through acts which undoubtedly she did commit, and through views expressed in her own letters and in the reports of her contemporaries, I do not think that, in The Italian Woman, I have been unfair to her. There is no doubt that she was a callous murderess; and even those judges who are clearly biased in her favour have never attempted to exonerate her from responsibility for – for instance – the murders of Coligny and Lignerolles; nor has it been possible to excuse the part she played in that most horrible of all crimes – the mass murders of the St. Bartholomew.

It has become the fashion among modern historians to frown on the more colourful passages of history. We are told that Francis, the Dauphin, died not of poison, but of pleurisy, and that Jeanne of Navarre died of consumption and not through wearing gloves supplied by Catherine’s poisoner-in-chief. And yet, Catherine was obsessed by her longing for power; and Francis did die after drinking from a cup presented by his Italian cupbearer who had come over in Catherine’s suite; and by Francis’s death Catherine was immediately Dauphiness of France, later to be Queen. As for Jeanne, she did die rather suddenly and mysteriously when she was away from home, and she became violently ill after visiting the sinister little shop on the quay opposite the Louvre. Her death did occur after she had signed her son’s marriage contract, to do which Catherine had lured her to the court; and it must be admitted that her end came speedily after she had served Catherine’s purpose. Moreover, it cannot be denied that Catherine was a murderess.

I have studied various opinions – those of her friends and her enemies – including the Catholic and the Protestant point of view, for it is a fact that the religious controversies of her day still echo about Catherine. In my efforts to understand the real Catherine de’ Medici, I have gone from one authority to another, and listed below are some of the books to which I am particularly indebted:

The History of France, by Guizot.

National History of France: The Century of the Renaissance, by Louis Batiffol.

France the Nation, and its Development from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Third Republic, by William Henry Hudson.

Life and Times of Catherine de’ Medici, by Francis Watson.

The Medici, by Colonel F. Young.

The Feudal Castles of France. Anonymous.

The Favourites of Henry of Navarre, by Le Petit Homme Rouge.

Life of Marguerite of Navarre, by Martha Walker Freer.

Life of Jeanne d’ Albret, Queen of Navarre, by Martha Walker Freer.

Henri II, by H. Noel Williams.

Catherine de’ Medici and the French Reformation, by Edith Sichel.

The Later Years of Catherine de’ Medici, by Edith Sichel.

J.P.