Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886)/Chapter 17
DEATH OF THE KING.
"The Queen of Navarre looks very delicate," wrote Marino Cavalli in 1542, "so delicate, I fear she has not long to live. Yet she is so sober and moderate, that after all she may last. She is, I think, the wisest not only of the women but of the men in France. No one knows more than she, either of the conduct of State affairs or of the secrets of religion. But I fear she is nigh to death."
With every year she had grown a little weaker, but still she was alive. So long as her brother lived, Margaret believed she could not die, nor continue living after his decease. In this winter of 1545 she was far from him in Béarn, tortured with rheumatism, sleeplessness, and fever; weakening with the slow consumption that were away her life. But all her thoughts were for Francis. She did not complain, sitting between her two secretaries, dictating her letters to the one, and, to the other her stories or her verses. But they could tell when her pain was hard to hear, for she would start up crying, "I fear the King is worse," and anxiously look out along the snowy roads to see if any courier were on the way from Paris. So firmly convinced was her loving heart, that she and her brother held their lives and sufferings in common. Indeed, the King was very ill that year. He could not rest in that palace which it had been the great business of his life to adorn. He found no consolation now in the "fayre tables with histories right finely wrought," which only a few years ago he had shown with such leisurely triumph and delight to the astounded Wallup. He could not sleep now in the Royal bed-chamber, which, wrote Wallup, "I do assure your Majestie is very singulier, as well with antycall borders as with a costly sealing and chemney." And when he walked in the gallery, where were Cellini's statues and Primaticcio's casts, "the most magnifique gallereye I had ever seen with, betwixt every windowe, great antycall personages standing entier," doubtless King Francis remembered how he had shown these treasures also, a little while ago, to his good friend and guest and brother-in-law, the Emperor.
All of Francis's life was poisoned by his enmity of Charles. He laid plans and schemes for beginning the war again, and on a grander scale than heretofore. Between the winter of 1545 and the winter of 1546, he traversed the frontier of his kingdom, inspecting every town in Burgundy and Champagne, hurrying on the work of fortification, himself distributing the necessary moneys. For war seemed imminent at any moment, though Francis, weary and disheartened, was readier for enmity than for actual battle; but in the early spring of 1549 he received a shock which sent all thoughts of a campaign far from his spirit for the time.
On the 28th of January Henry of England died. This news was a thunderbolt for Francis, who, since the English treaty, had slipped back into his old terms of friendship with his neighbour. They were of the same age and the same constitution. They had known each other from youth up, each was gallant and frank, though the lovable lightmindedness of Francis incurred the contempt of Henry's brutal strength. And ever since the memorable day when Francis had forced his way into the King of England's tent on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the French King had entertained a true liking for his neighbour, which outlasted many a sudden quarrel and breach of the peace. In one profound sentence, Gaillard has condensed the relations of Francis with his neighbours: "Charles V. greatly injured Francis and disliked him little; Francis hated him, and loved Henry VIII., by whom he was hated, and who was jealous of him."
In the last days of January our English Henry died, and by the end of February Francis was seriously ill. He had contracted a slow fever, which day by day consumed his long-diminished strength. He tried to brace himself against its ravages, but the means he took to strengthen his frame only left it weaker. The chace, his life-long passion, possessed him with redoubled craving at the last. He wondered from place to place, from province to province; hunting through all his forests all day long; himself, all night, a prey to agony and fever.
Always ill, always weaker, always in the saddle, he led his weary court from St. Germain to La Muette, thence to Villepreux and Dampierre, then on to Limosin, where he meant to pass the carnival. But after a rest of two or three days, his fever hunted him on. The air did not suit him in that place. In a milder atmosphere he thought he might be stronger; so, scarcely able to travel, he led his retinue to Loches in Touraine. He was no better. He was, indeed, so much weaker, that for some while he was compelled to sojourn there; and when he was able to set out again, he decided to turn his face homewards, and made for St. Germain, his favourite and usual resort.
On the way thither, he had to pass Rambouillet, where he determined to rest for a night. But, on arriving there, he remembered many a glorious day in youth, when he had hunted the boar through the forests round the castle. He ordered a great boar-hunt for the morrow. The courtiers, with the Dauphin at their head, waited anxiously on that morning, wondering if the King would appear. The agonies that his abscess had caused him, the prostration that had laid him low at Loches, his unfixed, hesitating and uncertain mind, all rendered it unlikely. But, lo! down the great staircase comes the King, something of his old majesty in the poise of his unwieldy figure, and in his swollen altered features a little of their youthful grace and animation. It is as though the hero of Christendom, the Francis of Marignano and Pavia were alive again; the Francis whose prowess in war and in the chace was the theme of every Court in Europe. All day long this fair deceitful mirage lasts. The horn winds, the bounds yelp, the hunters ride through the glades of the green forest; and Francis is first of all, swiftest and most vigorous. Like a man under a charm, he feels neither fatigue nor anguish, neither the languor of his wasting fever nor the darting and throbbing of his wound.
All day he hunts; but, on returning to the castle, he is so prostrate, that he at once retires to sleep. A healthy fatigue, no doubt; in the morning he will be stronger.
Alas! hour by hour his fever increased, the gangs of his internal wound became more and more intolerable. What expiation there may be in personal suffering was his at the last; no Vaudois suffered more than he that night, no Berquin in his chariot of fire. Suddenly all pain ceased. The abscess had begun to mortify, and his physicians announced to Francis that he had not many hours to live.
Francis thereupon sent for the Dauphin, and commended his kingdom to him in words so wise and sober, they make us marvel the monarch ruled no better who could advise so well. Never recall Montmorency, keep in check the Guises, diminish the taxes. Such were the dying counsels of the King, counsels that, if followed, would have averted twenty years of civil wars, the ruin of the Valois, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He also recommended the Cardinal de Tournon and Admiral d'Annebaut to the good offices of his son. And having rid himself of earthly cares, he died, a firm Catholic, free from pain at the last, on the 31st of March 1547, in the fifty-third year of his age. It is with a shock that we find him still so young. During the last seven years of his life, he had been not merely old, but superannuated.
More than a fortnight lapsed before Margaret heard of her brother's death. None dared to tell her of that last, most dread calamity. All the winter long she had been ailing and in great distress about her brother. Her ladies often discovered her in tears; and she would tell them that she feared the King was very ill, and, should he die, she was sure she would not long survive him. It was a severe winter; so cold, that for weeks together the delicate, declining Queen, could not leave her special suite of rooms in the great castle of Pau. The deep snows retarded the arrival of the couriers from Paris, for whose coming Margaret watched and feared and hoped all day and all night. The close, pent-up life, the long suspense, told heavily on her fragile constitution, and deepened her consumptive taint.
With the breaking of the frosts, Margaret went from Pau to the convent of Tusson, in the Angoumais, in order to pass the season of Lent in retreat among the nuns. Her constant and growing anxiety haunted her there no less than in the world. The fasts and vigils of Lent weakened her yet more, and rendered her ever visionary brain peculiarly subject to dreams and hallucinations. Early in April she dreamed one night that the King came and stood by her bedside. His face was pale and ghastly; and in a thrilling anguished voice he called upon her twice: "My sister! my sister!" Margaret awoke in dismay. She rose and forthwith despatched her messengers to Rochefort, where she believed the King to be. During the anxious days of waiting that ensued, she withdrew from the placid company of the nuns, whose peace was a reproach to her feverish heart. Day after day, and yet no answer came. Day after day; for, in truth, the King was dead.
No one dared to tell his sister; they knew her passionate affection and feared the stroke. But the suspense all but cost the poor Queen her reason. A week after her messengers had gone, and when the King had been a fortnight dead, the same vision appeared to her in sleep. This time Margaret awoke almost distracted. She sent for her attendants and questioned them earnestly, almost fiercely. They did not venture to leave her in so frenzied a mood; and invented well-meaning lies among themselves, assuring her the King was well, was better, much better. Only half-convinced, Margaret rose, and, having despatched another messenger, passed towards the convent chapel. She was still in the Cloisters, giving a last direction to her secretary, when she heard, from a distant corner of the Cloister, a sound of very bitter weeping. Margaret, ever compassionate, went swiftly to the place; her secretary and some of her attendants following her. On the step of the cloister sat a poor crazy nun, a harmless, gentle creature allowed to roam the convent at her will; she sat there, poor innocent, weeping so violently that her sobs echoed far and wide through the resounding cloister. Margaret came up to the distracted mourner. "What is it, my sister," said the Queen, "that you deplore?" At the sound of that gentle voice the poor demented girl stopped her weeping; she looked up and said, "For you, Madame, I weep for you!" Then, rising swiftly to her feet, she covered her face in the folds of her veil and fled from the spot. The Queen stayed there, rigid and still as stone; she had grown very white. Then, turning to her attendants, "God," she said, at last, "has revealed to me through this poor mad-woman what you would vainly conceal. The King is dead."
Without tears or more ado, she sought her chamber, and, kneeling on the floor, dwelt long and earnestly in prayer. She sought no human help or sympathy. She only entreated to be left alone. That prayer should be granted; henceforth, indeed, the loving, ardent sister should be quite alone.
While Margaret was kneeling on the floor of her convent cell, weeping for her loss and praying for her dead brother, her brother passionately loved and desperately mourned, the Court of France, with the Dauphin at its head, scarcely cared to conceal its rejoicing. The old régime was quickly buried away. Queen Leonor prepared to leave her land of exile and retired to her own familiar home of Brussels. The Duchess d'Étampes was disgraced; the crown-diamond which Francis had given her was taken from her and given to the triumphant Diana, and Anne herself was banished to her husband's castle and her husband's revengeful guardianship. De Tournon and d'Annebaut were dismissed the Court. Montmorency was recalled; favours and honours were heaped upon him. He and the Guises were set at the head of affairs. The four hundred thousand crowns which Francis, despite his magnificence, had saved for the good of the State, were swiftly spent among the sombre favourites of Henry II.
Never recall Montmorency, check the Guises, diminish the taxes, the dying King had said.
Nor was this all. A terrible scene disgraced the royal funeral—a scene noticed by few, heard only by the nearest bystanders, but of which the reflection and the echo have survived until our time. The coffins of the Dauphin and of the young Duke Charles, not yet inhumed, were carried in one convoy with the King's to the royal vault at St. Denis. Francis and the two sons he loved made that last sad journey together. And Henry, the new King, looking on as the solemn funeral wound along the streets before him, watched the procession with a significant smile. Pointing to the coffin of the Duke of Orleans, he leaned to one of his courtiers, and asked, "See you that rascal? He opens the vanguard of my felicity."
So, unregretted, the King's funeral passes on. Guise and Diana laugh together, quietly, but from the heart. "He is gone!" they say; "the old gallant!" and Henry enters into his felicity. Meanwhile, at Tusson, Margaret weeps and prays; and, in Madrid, the Emperor surprises the messenger who brings him the news by an outburst of grief for the death of his captive of yore. "He is gone!" cries Charles, like Guise and Diana; but with how different an accent. "He is gone, the great prince! I think that Nature will not make his like again." Charles takes the loss to heart; even as Francis sorrowed for Henry of England. The news leaves him old and lustreless. He has lost his rival and his captive; his brother and his noblest adversary.
Thus Francis rests at St. Denis, between the coffins of his sons. His heir makes merry over his burial; and, relates Dandolo, who wrote from France that year, "just so pallid and melancholy as he was, does he now seem cheerful and well-coloured. The young Cardinal de Guise is the very heart and spirit of him, and negotiates all State affairs with the King."
So little were the counsels of Francis remembered. Only his sister mourns and weeps. She alone, and the Emperor who ruined him.