But alas, right for them was the will of their King, and so preparations went on for the marriage of Jeanne d’Albret with the Duke of Clèves.
The King was annoyed by what he was pleased to call this ridiculously childish behaviour. For once Francis had failed to see the joke. His niece was a foolish, arrogant and obstinate little girl.
They had not beaten her recently because they did not wish to carry out their threat of killing her. Her gown was ready. It was made of cloth of gold and was so heavily embroidered with jewels that she could not lift it. She hated its jewels and its long ermine train.
How she envied everyone on her wedding morning! There were no exceptions. The women weeding in the gardens were happier than this sad little Princess; she envied the scullions, the meanest serving-maids; she envied neglected Catherine; she even envied Dauphin Francis lying in his grave.
Weighed down with the heaviness of her dress, pale-faced, sullen-eyed and broken-hearted, she walked in her wedding procession. She saw the great Constable, Anne de Montmorency, and she felt drawn towards him because she had heard whisperings that he was in disgrace; so her tragedy was, in a measure, his. He was blamed for the mismanagement of affairs with Spain, and after all it was due to that mismanagement that she herself was here, the bride-to-be of the Duke of Clèves. But Montmorency did not look her way; he was morosely occupied with his own disgrace.
King Francis, magnificent in white satin decorated with rubies and emeralds which made a perfect foil to his dark, sardonic face, was ready now to lead her to the altar. There was no kindness in his face to-day as he looked down on the little bride. He had been greatly annoyed by the document she had taken to the Cathedral. Had he not been concerned in it, he might have been amused by her originality, impressed by the courage which had enabled her to do such a bold action. But he was weary of her protests.
She felt his fingers on her arm; they pinched a little. But something within herself would not let her give up hope. There were still a few minutes left to her. She must look for a way out of this marriage. She would not yet accept defeat. She looked desperately about her, then she said faintly: ‘I am unwell. I am going to faint. I cannot walk. The dress is too heavy.’
The King watched her through narrowed eyes. Then he gave Montmorency a curt sign.
‘Carry the Princess to the altar,’ he said.
For a moment Jeanne could put aside her own troubles for those of Montmorency, for at such a surprising order the Constable of France turned pale, and it seemed that he was about to answer to the King’s curt command with an equally curt refusal. She knew that the biggest insult the King could have offered to France’s greatest soldier was a command to carry a little girl to the altar. She wished fervently that she need not be the cause of his humiliation. But it was too late to do anything about it now, and after that brief hesitation, Montmorency lifted her in his mighty arms and marched forward with her. He would have been instantly despatched to prison had he not obeyed the King. He had had to accept disgrace as she must accept this marriage with a man she did not know, with a man she was determined to hate.
Jeanne was married … married to a strange man with an unpleasant guttural accent. He sat beside her during the feasting; he danced with her in the great hall. He tried to be kind, but Jeanne could not bring herself to smile for him. Her face was pale, her eyes like pits of glittering jet, her mouth set in a line of endurance. The King spoke kindly to her, and when she answered him coldly he did not reprove her; she even fancied that she now saw a gleam of compassion in his eyes.
The musicians were playing the gayest of tunes; there was a banquet, a ball and another banquet; but what Jeanne feared more than anything else was the night which would bring with it the solemn ritual of putting her to bed with her husband.
The King knew of her fears, and when he led her in the dance he tried to soothe her. As she had now obeyed him, all his anger against her was forgotten; she was his dear little niece once more.
He pressed her hand warmly in the dance. ‘Smile, darling. It is befitting that the bride should smile. Monsieur de Clèves is not without his points. He can’t be a worse husband than the Dauphin, and you might have had him. Smile, my little Jeanne. You have done your duty. Now is the time for pleasure.’
But she would not smile; and she was very ungracious to her uncle; yet he did not reprove her.
She did not know how she lived through the blatant horror of the ceremony of being put to bed. Her women tried to comfort her as they undressed her; her governess kissed her and Jeanne wondered whether she would be whipped if she refused to be put to bed with her husband, and who would do it. Would he?
Even now she was looking round for escape, and a hundred mad ideas came into her head. Could she get out of the palace? Could she cut off her hair and disguise herself as a wandering minstrel or a beggar girl? How she envied all wandering minstrels and beggar girls; they might be hungry, but none was the wife of the Duke of Clèves.
How foolish to think that escape was possible! There was no escape. She could hear the musicians playing softly. One of her women whispered that the King was waiting in the nuptial chamber to see her bedded.
They led her into the room, and when she saw her husband with his gentlemen she refused to look his way. And then, in sudden desperation she stared at King Francis, her lips trembling, her eyes pleading, and he with charming compassion and understanding came to her and, lifting her in his arms, kissed her tenderly.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘your bridegroom is a lucky man, Jeanne. Faith of a gentleman! I would to God I stood in his place.’
And as he lowered her she fancied she saw a conspiratorial gleam in the darkness of his eyes. It was King Francis who led her to the bed. She lay in it beside her husband while her ladies and the Duke’s gentlemen drew the costly coverlet over them.
Then the King spoke.
‘Nobles and ladies, that is enough. The marriage has been sufficiently consummated, for we consider that the bride is too young for consummation to be carried further. She and her husband have been put to bed. Let that be remembered. This is a marriage as binding as any, but there need be nothing more until the bride is of an age suited to a more complete consummation. Ladies, conduct the Princess back to her apartments. And you, my lord Duke, go back to yours. Long live the Duke and Duchess of Clèves!’
With that impulsiveness of hers, Jeanne leaped out of the bed and kneeling, kissed the jewelled hand. Nor would she release it when restraining hands were laid upon her. She forgot that he was the King of France; he was her deliverer, the noble knight who had saved her from what she dreaded most.
The elegant, perfumed fingers caressed her hair. He called her his pet and his darling, so that it seemed that the uncle was the bridegroom, not the bewildered Fleming. But then how typical of Francis was this scene in the nuptial chamber. The King of France must be the hero of all occasions. He must even put the bridegroom in the shade; he must be the one to receive the loving devotion of the bride.
The year Jeanne was fifteen was the happiest she had known as yet, for two events, which she afterwards came to look upon as the most important of her life, happened during that year.
Since her marriage she had been living with her parents, sometimes at the court of Nérac, sometimes at Pau; and there had been one or two journeys to the greater court of King Francis. Jeanne had at last enjoyed the companionship with her mother for which she had always craved, and the three years had been spent mainly in study under the great sages, Farel and Roussel. Jeanne was quick and clever, although her lack of artistic taste exasperated her mother; she had not followed Marguerite’s leanings towards the Reformed Faith and had remained a Catholic, as was her father. She adored her mother, but she was inclined to be a little impatient with her at times, for it seemed to Jeanne that Marguerite was too literary, too ready to see many sides to a question; her prevaricating nature was out of harmony with Jeanne’s forthright one, and while idealising her mother, Jeanne found herself more in sympathy with the rougher ways of her father. Henry of Navarre had not the grace and charm which Marguerite had learned in her brother’s court when she had reigned with him as Queen in all but name. Henry was coarse in manner and as forthright as Jeanne herself, so it was small wonder that his daughter had an honest respect for him.