What of them? They were young, only a few years older their brother. And yet― Nostradamus had said that Henry should wear the crown.
She was obsessed with a desire to see into the future. She set the brothers Ruggieri working; they must find out if Nostradamus had really glimpsed the future or was merely telling her what he must guess she wished to hear. The brothers worked eagerly, delighted to find the Queen’s thoughts diverted from her husband’s mistress to the future of her favourite son.
They were able to tell her that they also believed young Henry would wear the crown of France.
Then, often her eyes would grow bright as they fell upon the pock-marked face of Francis; and eagerly she would watch Charles toying with his food. Both these boys ate sparingly and were quickly out of breath.
Catherine watched the children at their studies. They were growing up fast.
In the last year or so young Francis, as Dauphin, had had his own establishment; very soon now he would do what he wished to do more than anything else in the world: marry Mary Stuart.
How sick he looked. He could not last long. And yet― Nostradamus had hinted that he would wear the crown; and the brothers had supported Nostradamus. Perhaps he was not so sickly as he looked. He was not attending now; he was in that state of excitement which Mary always aroused in him. He was longing for his marriage; Mary was nothing loth, sickly as he was. She loved his adoration; it was so complete.
They were all in awe of Catherine― even Mary. She had but to turn her brilliant eyes upon them and they would obey her.
She said sharply now as Mary was turning to whisper to Francis: ‘Now, Mary, you will translate for me.’
Mary translated the Latin prose in her quick and clever way. The child was so alert, so brilliant that it was not easy to find fault with her. Francis and Charles watched her with great admiration.
Need they both adore her so blatantly, wondered Catherine. Was that how it would be all through her life? Catherine believed so. The child herself believed it. Flushed and excited, she quickly reached the end of the passage Catherine had set her to translate.
‘Bravo!’ cried Francis.
‘Silent, my son,’ said Catherine sharply. ‘There was a mistake.’
‘But no!’ cried Mary indignantly.
‘But yes!’ said Catherine, and she pointed it out.
Mary was angry; and Francis and Charles were angry with their mother.
Even Elizabeth and Claude were on Mary’s side, although more in awe of their mother than were the boys, so they did not show it.
‘You did well, Mary,’ said Catherine, ‘but not quite so well as you thought.
If you had gone more slowly, taken more care, you would have done better. It is well to remember that too much pride often brings disaster.’
The girl flushed and went through the passage again. This time she was word perfect. There was no denying that she was a clever little thing.
‘Thank you. You elder ones may go now. I will hear Henry and Margot.’
But while she taught the younger children, she was aware of the older ones in a corner whispering together. Francis hung on Mary’s words, kept hold of her hand; all his yearning for her was in his eyes. And Charles was hating his elder brother, because he would have the honour of marrying Mary, and had Charles been born first, that honour would have been his.
Poor little Princess! thought Catherine. They were born to envy, to fear, and to hate. As for Mary Stuart, she was born to make trouble for those about her― and mayhap for herself, for the child would have to learn that she was not quite so important to others as she was to herself.
Before Catherine now were her two best-loved children, for although she sometimes thought that young Henry, with the older Henry, had all the affection she had to give, she could not help but be fond of this bright and beautiful little daughter of hers. It was such a pleasure to listen to her three-year-old impudence, to contemplate her beauty and to remind herself that this little Margot was her daughter.
But her attention strayed again and again to the older children, and while she took Henry on to her lap and put her arm about Margot, and appeared to pay attention to them, she was really listening to the group at the window.
Mary was on the window-seat, while Francis sat on a stool, holding her hand, which she allowed to lie limply in his while he gazed up at her. Charles was stretched out on the floor also looking up at her with rapt attention; while Claude and Elizabeth sat on stools close by.
Mary talking of religion, and Catherine frowned, for she considered the subject unsuitable.
During the last years the blood of many had stained the land of France.
Henry had sworn, after the tailor’s death, that he would never witness another burning, but that had not prevented many from being thrown to the flames. The Chambre Ardente had been busy during those years; heretics filled the damp and mouldy Conciergerie and the cruel Bastille; their groans had echoed through the hideous Salle de la Question: thousands had been left to fight the rats and die of starvation in the oubliettes of the Great and Little Chatelot. Many had met horrible deaths by the wheel and wild horses; some had their flesh torn with pincers and molten lead poured into their wounds; some were hung to roast over slow fires. The tongues of these victims were cut out so that the spectators could not be moved by their hymns and prayers. And all of this been done at the King’s command in the name of Holy Church.
And now little Catholic Mary― primed by uncles, the de Guises― talked to the Princes and the Princess of these things.
Catherine called them to her and they came defiantly. ‘It is not meet to speak of such things,’ she said severely.
‘Is it not meet to speak of what is, then?’ asked Mary.
‘I would have you know that it is not good manners to speak of what is not pleasant.’
‘Madame,’ said Mary slyly, ‘do you think it is not a good thing to rid our country of heretics?’
‘I said that it was not a subject for the lips of children. That is all that concerns you. Go, and remember I forbid you to speak of such matters.’
So they went, and Mary Stuart, as impudent as she dared be, began to talk flippantly of the newest dance, in tones of contempt which she meant the Queen to hear. It was irritating and worse still that the two boys and two girls should admire her for it.
Catherine had an impulse to take the insolent girl, throw her across a stool and whip the insolence out of her, and to do it before the others that they might witness her humiliation. Should she? No! It was not dignified for the reigning Queen of France to whip her successor.
It was the hour which Catherine enjoyed more than any― that in which she held her cercle. During this, it seemed to her as though she were the Queen in truth.
It was graciously allowed her by the King and Diane― a reward for a meek and complaisant wife. She let it be known that she had instituted the cercle that she might receive men and women of the court and so become better acquainted with them; the talk must be of an enlivening and cultural nature and it was considered an honour to attend and a slight to be shut out of the Queen’s cercle.
The King often attended; he looked upon it as a courteous duty, and unless he was ‘at home’ at Anet, or there was a hunting party― in which case Catherine herself would usually be of it― he would come. Diane, of course, as first lady to the Queen, must be there. Montmorency made a point of occasional visits, although he declared that he was not at home in a lady’s apartment and came because he liked to talk to the Queen about the royal children, for whom he professed great fondness. The Guises came, and Catherine was glad to have them there, although she greatly feared them, knowing them for the ruthlessly ambitious men they were, priming their niece, Mary Stuart, in all she did and said. It horrified Catherine to think of Francis as the slave of Mary, and Mary the tool of her uncles. Pray the saints, there would be many years before Francis, with Mary, mounted the throne. The King was robust and not one of his sons equalled him in physique. Catherine often remembered that Francis the First and her own father had died of the same terrible disease. She and Henry were healthy people, but had they escaped the taint only to pass it on to their children? Young Francis and Charles were weaklings. She smiled suddenly. But her own darling Henry should not be. She was back at an old theme.