Part 28 (1/2)

At his first dinner, Charles IX., not seeing Amyot, asked for him. Some Guisard, no doubt, told the King what had pa.s.sed between Amyot and the Queen-mother.

”What!” cried he, ”has he been made away with because I created him High Almoner?”

He went off to his mother in the violent state of a child when one of his fancies is contravened.

”Madame,” said he, as he entered her room, ”did I not comply with your wishes, and sign the letter you asked of me for the Parlement, by virtue of which you govern my kingdom? Did you not promise me, when you laid it before me, that my will should be yours? and now the only favor I have cared to bestow excites your jealousy.--The Chancellor talks of making me of age at fourteen, three years from hence, and you treat me as a child!--By G.o.d, but I mean to be King, and as much a King as my father and grandfather were kings!”

The tone and vehemence with which he spoke these words were a revelation to Catherine of her son's true character; it was like a blow from a bludgeon on her heart.

”And he speaks thus to me,” thought she, ”to me, who made him King.”--”Monsieur,” she said, ”the business of being King in such times as these is a difficult one, and you do not yet know the master minds you have to deal with. You will never have any true and trustworthy friend but your mother, or other adherents than those whom she long since attached to her, and but for whom you would perhaps not be alive at this day. The Guises are averse both to your position and your person, I would have you know. If they could sew me up in a sack and throw me into the river,” said she, pointing to the Seine, ”they would do it to-night. Those Lorrainers feel that I am a lioness defending her cubs, and that stays the bold hands they stretch out to clutch the crown. To whom, to what is your preceptor attached? where are his allies? what is his authority? what services can he do you? what weight will his words have? Instead of gaining a b.u.t.tress to uphold your power, you have undermined it.

”The Cardinal de Lorraine threatens you; he plays the King, and keeps his hat on his head in the presence of the first Prince of the Blood; was it not necessary to counter-balance him with another cardinal, invested with authority equal to his own? Is Amyot, a shoemaker who might tie the bows of his shoes, the man to defy him to his face?--Well, well, you are fond of Amyot. You have appointed him! Your first decision shall be respected, my Lord! But before deciding any further, have the kindness to consult me.

Listen to reasons of State, and your boyish good sense will perhaps agree with my old woman's experience before deciding, when you know all the difficulties.”

”You must bring back my master!” said the King, not listening very carefully to the Queen, on finding her speech full of reproofs.

”Yes, you shall have him,” replied she. ”But not he, nor even that rough Cypierre, can teach you to reign.”

”It is you, my dear mother,” he exclaimed, mollified by his triumph, and throwing off the threatening and sly expression which Nature had stamped on his physiognomy.

Catherine sent Gondi to find the High Almoner. When the Florentine had discovered Amyot's retreat, and the Bishop heard that the courtier came from the Queen, he was seized with terror, and would not come out of the Abbey. In this extremity Catherine was obliged to write to him herself, and in such terms that he came back and obtained the promise of her support, but only on condition of his obeying her blindly in all that concerned the King.

This little domestic tempest being lulled, Catherine came back to the Louvre. It was more than a year since she had left it, and she now held council with her nearest friends as to how she was to deal with the young King, whom Cypierre had complimented on his firmness.

”What is to be done?” said she to the two Gondis, Ruggieri, Birague, and Chiverni, now tutor and Chancellor to the Duc d'Anjou.

”First of all,” said Birague, ”get rid of Cypierre; he is not a courtier, he will never fall in with your views, and will think he is doing his duty by opposing you.”

”Whom can I trust?” cried the Queen.

”One of us,” said Birague.

”By my faith,” said Gondi, ”I promise to make the King as pliant as the King of Navarre.”

”You let the late King die to save your other children; well, then, do as the grand Signors of Constantinople do: crush this one's pa.s.sions and fancies,” said Albert de Gondi. ”He likes the arts, poetry, hunting, and a little girl he saw at Orleans; all this is quite enough to occupy him.”

”Then you would be the King's tutor?” said Catherine, to the more capable of the two Gondis.

”If you will give me the necessary authority; it might be well to make me a Marshal of France and a Duke. Cypierre is too small a man to continue in that office. Henceforth the tutor of a King of France should be a Marshal and Duke, or something of the kind----”

”He is right,” said Birague.

”Poetry and hunting,” said Catherine, in a dreamy voice.

”We will hunt and make love!” cried Gondi.

”Besides,” said Chiverni, ”you are sure of Amyot, who will always be afraid of a drugged cup in case of disobedience, and with Gondi you will have the King in leading strings.”

”You were resigned to the loss of one son to save the three others and the Crown; now you must have the courage to keep this one _occupied_ to save the kingdom--to save yourself perhaps,” said Ruggieri.

”He has just offended me deeply,” said Catherine.