"The Prince de Conde was there, madame," said Chiverni, "but he could not persuade the Connetable to join him. Monsieur de Montmorency wants to overthrow the Guises, who have sent him into exile, but he will not encourage heresy.""What will ever break these individual wills which are forever thwarting royalty? God's truth!" exclaimed the queen, "the great nobles must be made to destroy each other, as Louis XI., the greatest of your kings, did with those of his time. There are four or five parties now in this kingdom, and the weakest of them is that of my children.""The Reformation is an /idea/," said Charles de Gondi; "the parties that Louis XI. crushed were moved by self-interests only.""Ideas are behind selfish interests," replied Chiverni. "Under Louis XI. the idea was the great Fiefs--""Make heresy an axe," said Albert de Gondi, "and you will escape the odium of executions.""Ah!" cried the queen, "but I am ignorant of the strength and also of the plans of the Reformers; and I have no safe way of communicating with them. If I were detected in any manoeuvre of that kind, either by the queen, who watches me like an infant in a cradle, or by those two jailers over there, I should be banished from France and sent back to Florence with a terrible escort, commanded by Guise minions. Thank you, no, my daughter-in-law!--but I wish /you/ the fate of being a prisoner in your own home, that you may know what you have made me suffer.""Their plans!" exclaimed Chiverni; "the duke and the cardinal know what they are, but those two foxes will not divulge them. If you could induce them to do so, madame, I would sacrifice myself for your sake and come to an understanding with the Prince de Conde.""How much of the Guises' own plans have they been forced to reveal to you?" asked the queen, with a glance at the two brothers.
"Monsieur de Vieilleville and Monsieur de Saint-Andre have just received fresh orders, the nature of which is concealed from us; but Ithink the duke is intending to concentrate his best troops on the left bank. Within a few days you will all be moved to Amboise. The duke has been studying the position from this terrace and decides that Blois is not a propitious spot for his secret schemes. What can he want better?" added Chiverni, pointing to the precipices which surrounded the chateau. "There is no place in the world where the court is more secure from attack than it is here.""Abdicate or reign," said Albert in a low voice to the queen, who stood motionless and thoughtful.
A terrible expression of inward rage passed over the fine ivory face of Catherine de' Medici, who was not yet forty years old, though she had lived for twenty-six years at the court of France,--without power, she, who from the moment of her arrival intended to play a leading part! Then, in her native language, the language of Dante, these terrible words came slowly from her lips:--"Nothing so long as that son lives!--His little wife bewitches him,"she added after a pause.
Catherine's exclamation was inspired by a prophecy which had been made to her a few days earlier at the chateau de Chaumont on the opposite bank of the river; where she had been taken by Ruggieri, her astrologer, to obtain information as to the lives of her four children from a celebrated female seer, secretly brought there by Nostradamus (chief among the physicians of that great sixteenth century) who practised, like the Ruggieri, the Cardans, Paracelsus, and others, the occult sciences. This woman, whose name and life have eluded history, foretold one year as the length of Francois's reign.
"Give me your opinion on all this," said Catherine to Chiverni.
"We shall have a battle," replied the prudent courtier. "The king of Navarre--""Oh! say the queen," interrupted Catherine.
"True, the queen," said Chiverni, smiling, "the queen has given the Prince de Conde as leader to the Reformers, and he, in his position of younger son, can venture all; consequently the cardinal talks of ordering him here.""If he comes," cried the queen, "I am saved!"Thus the leaders of the great movement of the Reformation in France were justified in hoping for an ally in Catherine de' Medici.
"There is one thing to be considered," said the queen. "The Bourbons may fool the Huguenots and the Sieurs Calvin and de Beze may fool the Bourbons, but are we strong enough to fool Huguenots, Bourbons, and Guises? In presence of three such enemies it is allowable to feel one's pulse.""But they have not the king," said Albert de Gondi. "You will always triumph, having the king on your side.""/Maladetta Maria/!" muttered Catherine between her teeth.
"The Lorrains are, even now, endeavoring to turn the burghers against you," remarked Birago.
