Old Court Life in France, vol. 1. Elliot Frances Minto Dickinson

her arms. Francis feebly returns her embrace, tenderly kisses her, and signs to her to proceed. “Think you,” continues Marguerite more calmly, and reseating herself, but still holding the King’s hand – “think you that councils in which Bourbon has a voice – ” At this name the King shudders and clenches his fist upon the bed-clothes. “Think you that a sovereign who has treacherously lured you to Madrid will have any mercy on you? No, my brother; unless you agree to unworthy conditions, imposed by a treacherous monarch who abuses his power over you, here you will languish until you die! Now mark my words, dear brother. Treaties made under duresse, by force majeure, are legally void. You will dissemble, my generous King – for the sake of France, you will dissemble. You must fight this crafty emperor with his own weapons.”

      “What! my sister, be false to my word – I, a belted knight, invested by the hands of Bayard on the field of Marignano, stoop to a lie? Marguerite, you are mad!”

      “Oh, Francis, hear me!” cries Marguerite passionately, “hear me; on my knees I conjure you to live, for yourself, for us, for France.” She casts herself on the floor beside him. She wrings his hands, she kisses his feet, her tears falling thickly. “Francis, you must, you shall consent. By-and-by you will bless me for this tender violence. You are not fit to meddle in this matter. Leave to me the care of your honour; is it not my own? I come from the Regent, from the council, from all France. Believe me, brother, if you are perjured, all Europe will applaud the perjury.”

      Marguerite, whose whole frame quivers with agitation, speaks no more. There is a lengthened pause. The flush of fever is on the King’s face.

      “My sister,” murmurs Francis, struggling with a broken voice to express himself, “you have conquered. Into your hands I commit my honour and the future of France. Leave me a while to rest, for I am faint.”

      Treaties made under duresse by force majeure are legally void. The Emperor must be decoyed into the belief that terms are accepted by Francis, which are to be broken the instant his foot touches French soil. It is with the utmost difficulty that the chivalrous monarch can be brought to lend himself to this deceit. But the prayers of his sister, the deplorable condition of his kingdom deprived of his presence for nearly five years, the terror of returning illness, and the thorough conviction that Charles is as perfidious as he is ambitious, at length prevail. Francis ostensibly accepts the Emperor’s terms, and Queen Claude being dead, he affiances himself to Charles’s sister, Elinor, Queen Dowager of Portugal.

      Francis was perjured, but France was saved.

      CHAPTER VII.

      LA DUCHESSE D’ÉTAMPES

      RIDING with all speed from Madrid – for he fears the Emperor’s perfidy – Francis has reached the frontier of Spain, on the banks of the river Bidassoa. His boys – the Dauphin and the Duc d’Orléans, who are to replace him at Madrid as hostages – await him there. They rush into their father’s arms and fondly cling to him, weeping bitterly at this cruel meeting for a moment after years of separation. Francis, with ready sympathy, mingles his tears with theirs. He embraces and blesses them. But, wild with the excitement of liberty and insecure while on Spanish soil, he cannot spare time for details. He hands the poor lads over to the Spanish commissioners. Too impatient to await the arrival of the ferry-boat, which is pulling across the river, he steps into the waters of the Bidassoa to meet it. On the opposite bank, among the low scrub wood, a splendid retinue awaits him. He springs into the saddle, waves his cap in the air, and with a joyous shout exclaims, “Now I am a king! Now I am free!”

      The political vicissitudes of Francis’s reign are as nothing to the chaos of his private life; only as a lover he was never defeated. No humiliating Pavia arrests his successful course. At Bayonne he finds a brilliant Court; his mother the Regent, and his sister Marguerite, await his arrival. After “Les embrasseurs d’usage,” as Du Bellay quaintly expresses it, the King’s eye wanders over the parterre of young beauties assembled in their suite, “la petite bande des dames de la Cour.” Then Francis first beholds Anne de Pisselieu, afterwards Duchesse d’Étampes. No one can compare to her in the tyranny of youth, beauty, and talent. A mere girl, she already knows everything, and is moreover astute, witty, and false. In spite of the efforts of Diane de Poitiers to attract the King (she having come to Bayonne in attendance on the Regent-mother), Anne de Pisselieu prevails. The King is hers. He delights in her joyous sallies. Anne laughs at every one and everything, specially at the pretensions of Madame Diane, whom she calls “an old hag.” She declares that she herself was born on Diane’s wedding-day!

      Who can resist so bewitching a creature? Not Francis certainly. So the Court divides itself into two factions in love, politics, and religion. One party, headed by the Duchesse d’Étampes – a Protestant, and mistress of the reigning monarch; a second by Madame Diane de Poitiers – a Catholic, who, after many efforts, finding the King inaccessible, devotes herself to his son, Prince Henry, a mere boy, at least twenty years younger than herself, and waits his reign. Oddly enough, it is the older woman who waits, and the younger one who rules.

      The Regent-mother looks on approvingly. Morals, especially royal morals, do not exist. Madame Louise de Savoie is ambitious. She would not see the new Spanish Queen – a comely princess, as she hears from her daughter Marguerite – possess too much influence over the King. It might injure her own power. The poor Spanish Queen! No fear that her influence will injure any one! The King never loves her, and never forgives her being forced upon him as a clause in the ignominious treaty of Madrid. Besides, she is thirty-two years old and a widow; grave, dignified, and learned, but withal a lady of agreeable person, though of mature and well-developed charms. Elinor admired and loved Francis when she saw him at Madrid, and all the world thought that the days were numbered in which Madame d’Étampes would be seen at Court. “But,” says Du Bellay, either with perfect naiveté or profound irony – “it was impossible for the King to offer to the virtuous Spanish princess any other sentiments than respect and gratitude, the Duchesse d’Étampes being sole mistress of his heart!” So the royal lady fares no better than Queen Claude, “with the roses in her soul,” and only receives, like her, courtesy and indifference.

      The King returns to the Spanish frontier to receive Queen Elinor and to embrace the sons, now released, to whom she has been a true mother during the time they have been hostages at Madrid.

      By-and-by the Queen’s brother – that mighty and perfidious sovereign, Charles V., Emperor of Germany – passing to his estates in the Netherlands, “craves leave of his beloved brother, Francis, King of France, to traverse his kingdom on his way,” so great is his dread of the sea voyage on account of sickness.

      Some days before the Emperor’s arrival Francis is at the Louvre. He has repaired and embellished it in honour of his guest, and has pulled down the central tower, or donjon, called “Philippine,” which encumbered the inner court. By-and-by he will pull down all the mediæval fortress, and, assisted by Lescot, begin the palace known as the “Old Louvre.”

      Francis is seated tête-à-tête with the Duchesse d’Étampes. The room is small – a species of boudoir or closet. It is hung with rare tapestry, representing in glowing colours the Labours of Hercules. Venetian mirrors, in richly carved frames, fling back the light of a central chandelier, also of Venetian workmanship, cunningly wrought into gaudy flowers, diamonded pendants, and true lovers’ knots. It is a blaze of brightness and colour. Rich velvet hangings, heavy with gold embroidery, cover the narrow windows and hang over the low doors. The King and the Duchess sit beside a table of inlaid marble, supported on a pedestal, marvellously gilt, of Italian workmanship, on which are laid fruits, wines, and confitures, served in golden vessels worked in the Cinque-cento style, after Cellini’s patterns. Beside themselves, Triboulet,5 the king’s fool, alone is present. As Francis holds out his cup time after time to Triboulet, who replenishes it with Malvoisie, the scene composes itself into a perfect picture, such as Victor Hugo has imagined in Le Roi s’amuse; so perfect, indeed, that Francis might have sung, “La donna è mobile,” as he now does in Verdi’s opera of Rigoletto.

      “Sire,” says the Duchess, her voice dropping into a most delicious softness, “do you leave us to-morrow?”

      The

5

See Note 5.