Jeanne grew scarlet. She had never before realised how deeply humiliating – as well as distasteful – was this marriage.
Catherine turned and left her standing there more bewildered and unhappy than she had been since the King told her she was to have a husband.
Jeanne was in disgrace, and the King was furious with her. She had met her future husband, who was twenty-four years old – about double her age – and whom some might call handsome; but Jeanne had hated him as soon as she had heard his name, and she was unable to dispel that hatred. The King had implied that he was ashamed of her lack of graciousness; she in her turn was determined that she was not going to feign a delight she did not feel in such a marriage. As for the Duke of Clèves, he was bewildered by the behaviour of his ungracious little bride-to-be. The King’s anger was largely due to the fact that he believed Jeanne’s father to be secretly supporting her in her decision to do all she could to prevent the marriage; and this was something more than a little girl’s repugnance for a suitor; it was deliberate rebellion of a subject against a King.
Francis wrote to his sister, and when Jeanne arrived in Alençon she was greeted by a stern mother; and this was yet another tragedy for Jeanne. She adored her mother; she had heard so many stories of her wit and beauty; it had been so long since they had met; and now, when at last she was allowed to see her, it was to find herself in disgrace.
Marguerite, gentle, living in a world of her own populated by the savants of her day – Ronsard, Marot, all the writers, painters and architects of the Renaissance era – was loth to tear herself away from the life of the mind to deal with the mundane business of a disobedient daughter. It never occurred to Marguerite to do anything but support her brother; she would do that, whatever he suggested, for his will immediately became hers.
There were long conversations during which Jeanne, sad and bewildered, yet retained her power to put her case clearly and pungently to her mother.
‘The King must be obeyed,’ explained Marguerite. ‘Every command he gives it must be our joy to obey.’
‘He can make mistakes,’ countered Jeanne.
‘Not our King, my child.’
‘But he did. He made terrible mistakes. Have you forgotten what a mistake he made at Pavia?’
Queen Marguerite’s beautiful eyes grew large with horror. ‘Pavia! That was his misfortune. It was no fault of his. There never lived a braver soldier, a greater general.’
‘But great generals are not defeated in war by lesser ones.’
‘There are things of which you know nothing, and one of these is that a maiden should have no will of her own.’
‘Then how is she to decide the difference between right and wrong?’
‘Her parents and her King will guide her.’
‘But suppose both her parents and her King do not agree?’
‘You are being foolish. We are discussing your marriage with the Duke of Clèves. It is a good marriage.’
‘How can that be? I, a Princess, who might have married my cousin Henry, who is a King’s son, to marry with a Duke! The son of the King of Spain might have married me …’
‘It is a good marriage because the King wishes it,’ interrupted Marguerite curtly. ‘And you, my daughter, must love and obey your uncle as I do.’
‘But,’ persisted Jeanne, ‘this is not what I have been taught to accept as logic.’
Marguerite said sorrowfully: ‘Jeanne, my dear child, do not rebel in this way. The King wishes your marriage; therefore it must be. If you do not agree, I shall have no alternative but to have you beaten every day until you do. Listen to me, my child. These beatings will be the severest you have ever received in your life. Your life itself might be endangered.’
‘Is that so?’ said Jeanne scornfully. ‘I thought it was my marriage your brother wanted – not my funeral!’
Marguerite looked sadly at her daughter. She was proud of her wit and quick mind, but sorely distressed by her obstinacy.
She would not consent. She would not agree to this marriage. She would defy them all. She thought continually of the Duke of Clèves, and when she thought of him she remembered the smile of Catherine, the Dauphine. She knew she had spoken impetuously to the Italian, but Jeanne did not care for that. Catherine was quite insincere; she must be, to pretend that she did not care that her husband humiliated her, being so gracious to Madame de Poitiers that it was almost as though she were thanking her for being her husband’s mistress. Jeanne had no patience with such insincerity; she called it slyness. She herself, in such circumstances, would have slapped Madame de Poitiers’s face. And yet … she could not shut out of her mind the quiet sneer on Catherine’s face which seemed to goad her, to make her more determined than ever to evade this marriage.
She decided to put on record her hatred of it, so that the world should know that, if she were forced to it, it would be against her will.
In her room she sat long composing the document, and when she had finished this is what she had written:
‘I, Jeanne of Navarre, persisting in the protestations I have already made, do hereby again affirm and protest, by these present, that the marriage which it is desired to contract between the Duke of Clèves and myself is against my will; that I have never consented to it, nor will consent; and that all I may say and do hereafter, by which it may be attempted to prove that I have given my consent, will be forcibly extorted against my wish and desire, from my dread of the King, of the King my father, and of the Queen my mother, who has threatened to have me whipped by the Baillive of Caen, my governess. By command of the Queen, my mother, my said governess has several times declared that if I do not all in regard to this marriage which the King wishes, and if I do not give my consent, I shall be punished so severely as to occasion my death; and that by refusing I may be the cause of the ruin and destruction of my father, my mother and of their house; the which threat has inspired me with such fear and dread, even to be the cause of the ruin of my said father and mother, that I know not to whom to have recourse, excepting to God, seeing that my father and mother abandon me, who both well know what I have said to them – that never can I love the Duke of Clèves, and that I will not have him. Therefore, I protest beforehand, if it happens that I am affianced, or married to the said Duke of Clèves in any manner, it will be against my heart and in defiance of my will; and that he shall never become my husband, nor will I ever regard or hold him as such, and that my marriage shall be reputed null and void; in testimony of which I appeal to God and yourselves as witnesses of this my declaration that you are about to sign with me; admonishing each of you to remember the compulsion, violence, and constraint employed against me, upon the matter of this said marriage.’
When Jeanne had finished this document, she called to her room four of her attendants, and such was her eloquence and such was their pity for the little girl whose body was bruised with the violence of the whippings she had received, and such their admiration for her courage, that these four were bold enough to incur whatever punishment might go with the signing of such a document.
And then, having their signatures, Jeanne, fresh from the day’s beating, seized an opportunity to take the document to the Cathedral, and there she demanded that the prelates read it; and she told them that she relied upon them to do what was right in the matter.