Old Court Life in France, vol. 1. Elliot Frances Minto Dickinson

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СКАЧАТЬ the frontier of Spain, on the banks of the river Bidassoa. His boys – the Dauphin and the Duc d’Orléans, who are to replace him at Madrid as hostages – await him there. They rush into their father’s arms and fondly cling to him, weeping bitterly at this cruel meeting for a moment after years of separation. Francis, with ready sympathy, mingles his tears with theirs. He embraces and blesses them. But, wild with the excitement of liberty and insecure while on Spanish soil, he cannot spare time for details. He hands the poor lads over to the Spanish commissioners. Too impatient to await the arrival of the ferry-boat, which is pulling across the river, he steps into the waters of the Bidassoa to meet it. On the opposite bank, among the low scrub wood, a splendid retinue awaits him. He springs into the saddle, waves his cap in the air, and with a joyous shout exclaims, “Now I am a king! Now I am free!”

      The political vicissitudes of Francis’s reign are as nothing to the chaos of his private life; only as a lover he was never defeated. No humiliating Pavia arrests his successful course. At Bayonne he finds a brilliant Court; his mother the Regent, and his sister Marguerite, await his arrival. After “Les embrasseurs d’usage,” as Du Bellay quaintly expresses it, the King’s eye wanders over the parterre of young beauties assembled in their suite, “la petite bande des dames de la Cour.” Then Francis first beholds Anne de Pisselieu, afterwards Duchesse d’Étampes. No one can compare to her in the tyranny of youth, beauty, and talent. A mere girl, she already knows everything, and is moreover astute, witty, and false. In spite of the efforts of Diane de Poitiers to attract the King (she having come to Bayonne in attendance on the Regent-mother), Anne de Pisselieu prevails. The King is hers. He delights in her joyous sallies. Anne laughs at every one and everything, specially at the pretensions of Madame Diane, whom she calls “an old hag.” She declares that she herself was born on Diane’s wedding-day!

      Who can resist so bewitching a creature? Not Francis certainly. So the Court divides itself into two factions in love, politics, and religion. One party, headed by the Duchesse d’Étampes – a Protestant, and mistress of the reigning monarch; a second by Madame Diane de Poitiers – a Catholic, who, after many efforts, finding the King inaccessible, devotes herself to his son, Prince Henry, a mere boy, at least twenty years younger than herself, and waits his reign. Oddly enough, it is the older woman who waits, and the younger one who rules.

      The Regent-mother looks on approvingly. Morals, especially royal morals, do not exist. Madame Louise de Savoie is ambitious. She would not see the new Spanish Queen – a comely princess, as she hears from her daughter Marguerite – possess too much influence over the King. It might injure her own power. The poor Spanish Queen! No fear that her influence will injure any one! The King never loves her, and never forgives her being forced upon him as a clause in the ignominious treaty of Madrid. Besides, she is thirty-two years old and a widow; grave, dignified, and learned, but withal a lady of agreeable person, though of mature and well-developed charms. Elinor admired and loved Francis when she saw him at Madrid, and all the world thought that the days were numbered in which Madame d’Étampes would be seen at Court. “But,” says Du Bellay, either with perfect naiveté or profound irony – “it was impossible for the King to offer to the virtuous Spanish princess any other sentiments than respect and gratitude, the Duchesse d’Étampes being sole mistress of his heart!” So the royal lady fares no better than Queen Claude, “with the roses in her soul,” and only receives, like her, courtesy and indifference.

      The King returns to the Spanish frontier to receive Queen Elinor and to embrace the sons, now released, to whom she has been a true mother during the time they have been hostages at Madrid.

      By-and-by the Queen’s brother – that mighty and perfidious sovereign, Charles V., Emperor of Germany – passing to his estates in the Netherlands, “craves leave of his beloved brother, Francis, King of France, to traverse his kingdom on his way,” so great is his dread of the sea voyage on account of sickness.

      Some days before the Emperor’s arrival Francis is at the Louvre. He has repaired and embellished it in honour of his guest, and has pulled down the central tower, or donjon, called “Philippine,” which encumbered the inner court. By-and-by he will pull down all the mediæval fortress, and, assisted by Lescot, begin the palace known as the “Old Louvre.”

      Francis is seated tête-à-tête with the Duchesse d’Étampes. The room is small – a species of boudoir or closet. It is hung with rare tapestry, representing in glowing colours the Labours of Hercules. Venetian mirrors, in richly carved frames, fling back the light of a central chandelier, also of Venetian workmanship, cunningly wrought into gaudy flowers, diamonded pendants, and true lovers’ knots. It is a blaze of brightness and colour. Rich velvet hangings, heavy with gold embroidery, cover the narrow windows and hang over the low doors. The King and the Duchess sit beside a table of inlaid marble, supported on a pedestal, marvellously gilt, of Italian workmanship, on which are laid fruits, wines, and confitures, served in golden vessels worked in the Cinque-cento style, after Cellini’s patterns. Beside themselves, Triboulet,5 the king’s fool, alone is present. As Francis holds out his cup time after time to Triboulet, who replenishes it with Malvoisie, the scene composes itself into a perfect picture, such as Victor Hugo has imagined in Le Roi s’amuse; so perfect, indeed, that Francis might have sung, “La donna è mobile,” as he now does in Verdi’s opera of Rigoletto.

      “Sire,” says the Duchess, her voice dropping into a most delicious softness, “do you leave us to-morrow?”

      The King bows his head and kisses her jewelled fingers.

      “So you persist in going to meet your brother, the Emperor Charles, your loving brother of Spain, whom I hate because he was so cruel to you at Madrid.” The Duchess looks up and smiles. Her eyes are beautiful, but hard and cruel. She wears an ermine mantle, for it is winter; her dress is of the richest green satin, embroidered with gold. On her head is a golden net, the meshes sprinkled with diamonds, from which her dark tresses escape in long ringlets over her shoulders.

      Francis turns towards her and pledges her in a cup of Malvoisie. The corners of his mouth are drawn up into a cynical smile, almost to his nostrils. He has now reached middle life, and his face at that time would have made no man’s fortune.

      “Duchess,” says he, “I must tear myself from you. I go to-morrow to Touraine. Before returning to Paris, I shall attend my brother the Emperor Charles at Loches, then at Amboise on the Loire. You will soon follow me with the Queen.”

      “And, surely, when you have this heartless king, this cruel gaoler in your power, you will punish him and revenge yourself? If he, like a fool, comes into Touraine, make him revoke the treaty of Madrid, or shut him up in one of Louis XI.’s oubliettes at Amboise or Loches.”

      “I will persuade him, if I can, to liberate me from all the remaining conditions of the treaty,” said the King, “but I will never force him.” As he speaks Triboulet, who has been shaking the silver bells on his parti-coloured dress with suppressed laughter, pulls out some ivory tablets to add something to a list he keeps of those whom he considers greater fools than himself. He calls it “his journal.”

      The King looks at the tablets and sees the name of Charles V.

      “Ha! ha! by the mass! – how long has my brother of Spain figured there?” asks he.

      “The day, Sire, that I heard he had put his foot on the French frontier.”

      “What will you do when I let him depart freely?”

      “I shall,” said Triboulet, “rub out his name and put yours in its place, Sire.”

      “See, your Majesty, there is some one else who agrees with me,” said the Duchess, laughing.

      “I know,” replies Francis, “that my interests would СКАЧАТЬ