Against his father’s order, Henry rode to Valence. Francis was inclined to be indulgent in his sorrow. Now he must look at this son, whom he could never love, in a new light. Henry was the Dauphin now. He was precious. Francis could not help feeling that some ill luck was dogging him and he trembled for his remaining sons.
‘Foy de gentilhomme!’ he said to Henry. ‘Methinks I am unluckiest man in France― my army defeated and my Dauphin dead!’
Then the soldier in Henry spoke. ‘Your army is not defeated yet, Father, and I am here to try to prevent that. You have lost one son, but you have another who stands before now.’
Then Francis embraced the boy, dislike temporarily forgotten.
‘Pray, Father, allow me to join Montmorency at Avignon.’
‘Nay!’ cried Francis. ‘I have lost one son. I must guard well what remains.’
Henry would not let the matter rest there and after a while he succeeded in persuading his father to let him join Montmorency.
And then it was that Henry formed his second friendship, and one almost as strong as that he felt for Diane.
Anne de Montmorency was as stern a martinet as ever commanded an army, and a devout Catholic, most punctilious where his religious duties were concerned. Henry thought him like an avenging angel; and the soldiers― abandoned, vicious as they were― were terrified of him. Food might be short and pay not forthcoming, but Montmorency never relaxed that wonderful discipline which was the admiration of all who experienced it. God was on his side, he was sure; violent he was; cruel in the extreme; and the boldest trembled before him. He had no mercy on delinquents. There was not a morning when he omitted to say his Paternosters, and hardly a day when he would not have a man tortured, hanged, or run through with a pike for a breach of discipline. Indeed, it was when he said his prayers that he seemed to grow more vicious. He would stop muttering them and shout, ‘Hang me that man!’ or ‘Run your pike through that one!’
There was a saying in the army, ‘Beware of Montmorency’s Paternosters.’
To young Henry this man seemed wonderful. As for Montmorency, he so delighted to see the young Prince instead of the King that he could not hide his relief, and made much of the boy. Ever since Pavia the Army had been afraid as soon as the King entered midst. Francis was unlucky, they said; the saints had decreed that he should be defeated in war. Moreover, Henry was without that bombastic nature which characterized so many of his rank; he wanted to be a good soldier and was ready to place himself entirely under Montmorency’s command.
But Francis did not delay his coming. Very soon after Henry’s arrival in Avignon, the King followed his son there.
This time Francis was not unlucky, and France was saved― through force of arms. The imperial troops, owing of Montmorency in destroying towns and villages as he retreated, were starving and dying in thousands. There was only one course open to them― retreat.
Should he pursue the fleeing Spaniards and their mercenaries? wondered Francis; and he hesitated as he had done so before. He wanted to get back to Lyons, to look into this matter of the death of his eldest son, to discover if the rumours that he had been poisoned contained any truth.
So there was a temporary lull in the fighting.
Henry said when he took leave of Montmorency: ‘You can be sure that whatever happens I am, and shall be all my life, as much your friend as any man.’
Montmorency kissed the boy on both cheeks. Henry was learning what a vast difference separated a Duke from Dauphin, a second son from the heir to the throne.
In his prison cell, Montecuccoli awaited the coming of his torturers. He had spent the hours in his dark cell praying that he might have the courage for the ordeal through which he knew he must pass.
How easy it was to imagine oneself a martyr! How tedious the reality! To see oneself going boldly and defiantly to execution for the love of one’s country― that glorious. And the reality? Humiliating torture that carried a man to the gates of death, and cruelly brought him back to life that he might make the journey again and again, that he might learn how his poor body lacked the strength of his spirit. In place of that loud, ringing tone, ‘I will not speak!’ there must be groans and screams of agony.
Sweat ran down the handsome face of Montecuccoli, for men had come into the cell now and the doctor was there to examine him, and discover to what lengths they might torture him without killing him and destroying the only means of discovering the truth of the Dauphin’s death.
Chairs and tables were brought into the cell while the doctor conducted his examination; with a horror that made him want to retch, Montecuccoli watched two shabbily dressed men bring in the wedges and the planks.
‘How is his health?’ asked a businesslike little man who seated himself at the table and set out writing materials.
The doctor did not speak, but Montecuccoli knew the meaning of the grim nodding of the head.
After a few minutes the doctor went out to an adjoining to wait in case he should be needed during the torture.
A tall man in black now approached the Count. He said: ‘Count Sebastiano di Montecuccoli, if you refuse to give satisfactory answers to the questions I shall ask, it has been decided that it will be necessary to put you to the torture― ordinary and extraordinary.’
Montecuccoli trembled. He knew the meaning of this. He understood what the planks and wedges meant; they were to make what was known through the country as The Boot; and into The Boot his legs would be packed; then the torture would begin.
While they were preparing him there was a commotion outside the cell, and as a tall figure, in clothes that glittered with jewels, came in, all those in the cell stopped what they were doing to bow low. The King looked incongruous in that dark chamber of horror. Francis looked grave; for his times, he was not unkind, but he had suffered deeply at the loss of his son and he had vowed that he would do everything in his power to avenge the murder; he had, therefore, come in person to hear a confession wrung from the lips of the man he believed to have murdered the boy.
‘Is everything in readiness?’ he asked, taking the chair which was immediately brought for him.
‘Sire, we but await your commands to proceed.’
The executioner, whose face was the most brutalized it had ever been the young Count’s misfortune to behold, bound him with ropes; and when this was done the man’s two assistants each fitted a leg into a boot, and the cords about them were tightened by means of a wrench.
‘Tighter!’ growled the executioner; and the Count was in sudden, excruciating agony, for so tightly were his legs compressed that all the blood was thrown back to the rest of his body. He screamed and fainted. When he opened his eyes, the doctor was standing over him, applying vinegar to his nose.
‘Here is a good beginning!’ chuckled the executioner. ‘Lily-livered Florentines! They paint pretty pictures, but they faint before the torture begins!
Better speak up, boy, and save our King another moment in this cell.’
There must be a wait, the doctor said, before the wedges were driven in, for it would take several minutes before the circulation was normal. Francis brought his chair closer to the young man and talked to him not unkindly.
‘We know, Count, that you acted under instructions. You are a foolish young man to suffer for those who should be where you are now.’
‘I have nothing to say, Sire,’ said Montecuccoli.
But Francis continued with the attempt to persuade him to speak until it was declared time to drive in the first of the two wedges.