THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre Dumas

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      Chapter 21.

       Madame De Sauve’s Apartment.

       Table of Contents

      Catharine was not deceived in her suspicions. Henry had resumed his former habits and went every evening to Madame de Sauve’s. At first he accomplished this with the greatest secrecy; but gradually he grew negligent and ceased to take any precautions, so that Catharine had no trouble in finding out that while Marguerite was still nominally Queen of Navarre, Madame de Sauve was the real queen.

      At the beginning of this story we said a word or two about Madame de Sauve’s apartment; but the door opened by Dariole to the King of Navarre closed hermetically behind him, so that these rooms, the scene of the Béarnais’s mysterious amours, are totally unknown to us. The quarters, like those furnished by princes for their dependents in the palaces occupied by them in order to have them within reach, were smaller and less convenient than what she could have found in the city itself. As the reader already knows, they were situated on the second floor of the palace, almost immediately above those occupied by Henry himself. The door opened into a corridor, the end of which was lighted by an arched window with small leaded panes, so that even in the loveliest days of the year only a dubious light filtered through. During the winter, after three o’clock in the afternoon, it was necessary to light a lamp, but as this contained no more oil than in summer, it went out by ten o’clock, and thus, as soon as the winter days arrived, gave the two lovers the greatest security.

      A small antechamber, carpeted with yellow flowered damask; a reception-room with hangings of blue velvet; a sleeping-room, the bed adorned with twisted columns and rose-satin curtains, enshrining a ruelle ornamented with a looking-glass set in silver, and two paintings representing the loves of Venus and Adonis — such was the residence, or as one would say nowadays the nest, of the lovely lady-inwaiting to Queen Catharine de Médicis.

      If one had looked sharply one would have found, opposite a toilet-table provided with every accessory, a small door in a dark corner of this room opening into a sort of oratory where, raised on two steps, stood a priedieu. In this little chapel on the wall hung three or four paintings, to the highest degree spiritual, as if to serve as a corrective to the two mythological pictures which we mentioned. Among these paintings were hung on gilded nails weapons such as women carried.

      That evening, which was the one following the scenes which we have described as taking place at Maître Réné‘s, Madame de Sauve, seated in her bedroom on a couch, was telling Henry about her fears and her love, and was giving him as a proof of her love the devotion which she had shown on the famous night following Saint Bartholomew’s, the night which, it will be remembered, Henry spent in his wife’s quarters.

      Henry on his side was expressing his gratitude to her. Madame de Sauve was charming that evening in her simple batiste wrapper; and Henry was very grateful.

      At the same time, as Henry was really in love, he was dreamy. Madame de Sauve, who had come actually to love instead of pretending to love as Catharine had commanded, kept gazing at Henry to see if his eyes were in accord with his words.

      “Come, now, Henry,” she was saying, “be honest; that night which you spent in the boudoir of her majesty the Queen of Navarre, with Monsieur de la Mole at your feet, didn’t you feel sorry that that worthy gentleman was between you and the queen’s bedroom?”

      “Certainly I did, sweetheart,” said Henry, “for the only way that I could reach this room where I am so comfortable, where at this instant I am so happy, was for me to pass through the queen’s room.”

      Madame de Sauve smiled.

      “And you have not been there since?”

      “Only as I have told you.”

      “You will never go to her without informing me?”

      “Never.”

      “Would you swear to it?”

      “Certainly I would, if I were still a Huguenot, but”—

      “But what?”

      “But the Catholic religion, the dogmas of which I am now learning, teach me that one must never take an oath.”

      “Gascon!” exclaimed Madame de Sauve, shaking her head.

      “But now it is my turn, Charlotte,” said Henry. “If I ask you some questions, will you answer?”

      “Certainly I will,” replied the young woman, “I have nothing to hide from you.”

      “Now look here, Charlotte,” said the king, “explain to me just for once how it came about that after the desperate resistance which you made to me before my marriage, you became less cruel to me who am an awkward Béarnais, an absurd provincial, a prince too poverty-stricken, indeed, to keep the jewels of his crown polished.”

      “Henry,” said Charlotte, “you are asking the explanation of the enigma which the philosophers of all countries have been trying to determine for the past three thousand years! Henry, never ask a woman why she loves you; be satisfied with asking, ‘Do you love me?’”

      “Do you love me, Charlotte?” asked Henry.

      “I love you,” replied Madame de Sauve, with a fascinating smile, dropping her pretty hand into her lover’s.

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