‘Yes, do it, my darling. And let Catherine help you.’
So they did the play, and the King laughed merrily; but it was noticed that he retired to his apartments earlier than was his wont. And when he was there, his prayers were longer than usual; and it seemed that the death of the King of England had cast a prophetic gloom over his mind.
Catherine was planning her dress for the fancy dress masque.
‘Let us be masked,’ she had begged Anne. ‘It is so much more amusing.
You dance with― you know not whom.’
Anne had agreed. She let Catherine make arrangements now. Poor Anne!
She was growing more and more sick at heart; the King was visibly weaker.
It was his suggestion that there should be a masque. ‘A carnival!’ he had cried. ‘The gayest we have ever had!’
Thus he thought to snap his fingers at death.
Planning her costume, Catherine thought of him, thought of what his passing would mean to her. Queen of France― in name. The real queen would be Diane.
She could continue to hope. There was hope in every stitch she put into her costume.― gay and bold. She would discover what Henry’s costume would be.
There were plenty of spies to bring that news to her. She would go to him, not as Catherine, but as Circe, and she would try to make him desire her. She laughed at herself. As if that were possible! But why not? Once, a little Piedmontese had made him love her. A love potion in his wine? Oh, she had lost her faith in love potions. But as she stitched and thought of the masked ball that would take place when they reached Saint-Germain, she continued to hope.
She was feverishly impatient for Saint-Germain. They had travelled through Chevreuse and Lirnours to Rochefort. How restless was the King in his determination to throw off pursuing death.
He talked continually of death, if not to Anne, to Catherine.
He talked of his achievements. He told his daughter-in-law how he had changed the face of France. He spoke of the palaces he had created and those he had altered. He had, he reminded Catherine, brought a new and intellectual life to his country.
‘Catherine,’ he said pathetically, ‘I have done much that was wrong, but a few things that were good. It was I who aroused new interest in learning― an interest, my darling, which was stifled to death in the years before me. I am the father of the new life. I fertilized the seed; I cherished the young child. Will the world remember that when I am gone? Catherine, what do you think: will they forget Pavia, my mad pranks, all that France lost; will they forget the mirrored baths of which they love to whisper, the black satin sheets that made such a delightful background for the whitest limbs in France? Oh, little daughter, shall I be remembered as the man who loved learning or lechery?’
Catherine wept with him; she thought of him in all his magnificence when she had first seen him, but even then he was an ageing man. Poor, sad King! But old kings must go to make way for new ones; and as she knelt and let her tears fall on to his hands she was thinking of Henry in a costume as yet unknown to her, his eyes burning through his mask sudden passionate love for Circe.
But as the cavalcade travelled on, with one of those sudden fits of restlessness, the King decided that before going to Saint-Germain for the carnival, he wished to turn aside and stay for awhile at the castle of Rambouillet.
He would have a few days’ hunting there with his Petite Bande; and after that they would continue to Saint-Germain for the gayest carnival the court had ever known.
There were more days to dream, thought Catherine. She did not greatly care.
She guessed that Circe could never take the lover from Diane; but while they dallied at Rambouillet she believed this might come about.
Anne protested the delay. ‘Francis, there is more comfort at Saint-Germain.
Rambouillet is so rough. Little more than one of your hunting seats.’
‘Comfort?’ he had cried; for it was one of those days when he felt a little better. ‘It is not comfort I want. It is the hunt.’
But as they neared Rambouillet the King’s weariness was great indeed and it was necessary to carry him to his bed. Once there, he relapsed into melancholy.
Would he ever leave Rambouillet, he asked himself.
As he lay in his bed, he was frantic suddenly. He must be surrounded by his friends, the brightest and merriest in the court. Let Anne come to his bedside; let the Cardinal of Lorraine be there; all the young people, his son Henry and Catherine, the de Guises, Saint-Pol, Saint-André. Let the musicians come and play.
He felt happier when they were there. He had turned his bedroom into a music-room.
But he was soon weary. He whispered to Anne: ‘I would my sister Marguerite would come to me. I do not see enough of my sweet sister.’
Anne’s voice was harsh with tears. ‘The Queen of Navarre herself is confined to a sick bed.’
‘Then tell her not that I asked for her, or she would leave it to come to me.
Beloved sister, my darling Marguerite, it is to be expected that when I am laid low, so should you also be. The saints preserve you, dear sister.’
‘Dearest,’ said Anne, ‘allow me to dismiss these people that you may try to sleep.’
He smiled and nodded.
In the morning he felt better. He was ready for the hunt, he declared.
Anne begged him not to go. Catherine joined her entreaties, as did other members of the Petite Bande. But he would not listen. He smiled jauntily at the bright and beautiful faces of his band; he caressed one and joked with another.
He must hunt today. He could not explain. He felt that Death was waiting for him behind the door, behind the hangings. Death had caught the English King; it should not catch Francis― yet.
His will was strong. Sickly pale, his eyes glazed, he kept his seat in the saddle. He commanded Anne to ride beside him, Catherine to keep close. The huntsman’s horn and the baying of hounds, he said, were the sweetest music in his ears. Catherine guessed that as he rode he felt himself to be not the aged man, but the young Francis.
The Petite Bande closed round him. They were afraid. Death was the swiftest hunter in the forest of Rambouillet that March afternoon, and each lovely woman, watching her leader, knew that this was the last ride of Francis’s Petite Bande.
Francis was delirious that night. He talked continually and it was as though ghosts from the past stood around his bead. Louise of Savoy, his adoring mother; Marguerite of his beloved sister; his meek Queens, Claude and Eleonore; the mistresses he had loved best― Frances of Chateaubriand and Anne d’Etampes; his sons, Francis and Charles. He felt the walls of a prison in Madrid enclose him; he knew again the glory of victory, the humiliation of defeat.
He regained consciousness, and with a wry smile spoke of the scandals of his reign.
‘A scandalous life I have led, my friends. I will make amends by dying a good death.’
Prayers were said at his bedside, and he listened eagerly to them.
‘I must see my son,’ he said. ‘Bring the Dauphin to me.’
Henry came and awkwardly approached the death-bed of the father whose love he had longed to inspire, and, only succeeding in winning his dislike, had disliked him in return.
He knelt by his father’s bed and Francis smiled, all differences forgotten now.
‘My boy― my only son― my dearest Henry.’
Henry sought for the right words and could not find them. But there were tears in his eyes and they spoke more eloquently than any words. Francis was anxious. What advice should he offer his son? He prayed that he would not make the mistakes his father had made.
‘Henry, children should imitate the virtues, not the vices of their parents,’ he said.