Madame Serpent

THE LOVE CHILD

THREE WOMEN who watched the horrific spectacle knew that from now on their lives would be different.

Anne d’Etampes left the pavilion feeling apprehensive, ten years she had ruled the King of France and, through him, France. There was no one in the land more important than herself; even men such as Montmorency and the Cardinal of Lorraine, if they wished to enjoy the King’s favour, must first seek that of his beloved Duchess. The most beautiful woman of the court, she was also one of the cleverest. Francis had said of her that among the wise she was the most beautiful, among the beautiful the most wise. She saw her power now, hanging by a thread; and that thread was the life of the King.

The King and the new Dauphin, it would be said, were different as two Frenchmen could be; but in one important point there was a similarity. Francis, all his life, had been guided by women; in truth, he had been ruled by them, but so subtly that he had never realized it. In his youth there had been his mother and later his sister; their rule had been overlapped by that of Madame de Chateaubriand, who, in her turn had been ousted by Anne herself. These four women had one quality in common; they were all clever; Francis would not have tolerated them if they had not been. So much for Francis, And Henry? He was of a different calibre; there had been no loving parent and sister in his childhood; instead, there had been Spanish guards to jeer at him. But the woman had appeared at the right moment, a woman who had those very qualities which delighted the father― beauty and wisdom; and more completely under the sway of a woman than Francis had ever been, was young Henry in the hands of Diane de Poitiers.

There was more in this hatred of Diane and Anne for each other than mere jealousy. They were each too clever to care that the other might be considered more beautiful, except where beauty could be counted as a weapon to gain the power they both desired.

The more intellectual of the two women was Anne. Writers and artists of the court were her close friends, and they, like herself, were in the new faith which was beginning to spread over the continent of Europe. Anne passionately wished to see the Reformed Faith brought into France. She had many with her; all the ladies of the Petite Bande, for instance, and they were most influential in the land; then there was her uncle, the Cardinal of Melun, and Admiral Chabot de Brion.

The admiral was more than a supporter, for, believing in the equality of the sexes, Anne saw no reason why, since Francis was to unfaithful her, she should remain faithful to him.

Diane, the enemy of the Reformed Faith, had sworn to fight against it.

Montmorency, now the closest male friend of the Dauphin allied with his young friend’s mistress. The Cardinal of Lorraine supported Diane, with three of his nephews, young men of great energy and ambition: these were Francis, Charles and Claude, the sons of the Duke of Guise. With such adherents, Diane could feel strong even against the influential woman of the court.

So Anne, thinking of these matters, wondered afresh what mischievous enemy of hers had, by proxy, slipped the poison into the Dauphin’s cup.

But there was nothing to be done but wait and watch, and lose no opportunity of ousting her rival. The Dauphin was young; the woman was old; and the little Italian was not without charm.

Try herself as she might, Anne could not help but see herself as the moon that is beginning to wane.

As Henry led Catherine back to their apartments, she also was thinking of the change that had come over her life. Her face was impassive; she gave no sign that the scene she had just aroused any emotion in her. Henry looked yellowish-green. He had seen death before; he had seen even such cruel death; but this touched him more deeply than anything he had ever seen before. He wished he had not so much to gain from his brother’s death.

Catherine turned to him as soon as they were alone. ‘How glad I am that it is over!’

He did not speak, but went to the window and looked out.

Surely, thought Catherine, he must be glad. A short while ago a Duke, now a Dauphin― with the crown almost within reach. He must be secretly rejoicing.

She went to him and laid a hand on his arm. She was sure he did not notice her touch, since he did not draw away from it.

She said: ‘Now it is avenged, we must try to forget.’

Then he turned and looked into her eyes. ‘ I cannot forget,’ he said. ‘He was my brother. We were together― in prison. We loved each other. I could never forget him.’

His lips trembled, and, seeing him softened by his memories she sought to turn the situation to her advantage. ‘Oh, Henry, I know. He was your dear brother. But you must not grieve, Henry, my love. You have your life before you. Your wife who loves you― and longs to be a wife in very truth.’

She saw at once her mistake. She who was sly in intrigue, was clumsy in love; intrigue was natural to her, but love, coming suddenly, she did not understand its ways.

He disengaged himself. ‘I would I knew who had killed him,’ he said; and his eyes glowed as they looked straight into hers. She flinched and he saw her flinch.

He turned from her quickly as though he wished to put great a distance between them as possible, as though when was near her he could not rid his mind of a terrible suspicion.

‘Henry― Henry― where are you going?’ She knew where he was going, and the knowledge enflamed her, robbing her again of that control which she had learned was her strongest weapon.

He said coldly: ‘I do not think it necessary that I should keep you informed of my movements.’

‘You are going to her again― again. You desert your wife on such a day― to go and make sport with your mistress.’ She saw the hot colour creep up under his skin; she saw his mouth set in the prim line she knew so well.

‘You forget yourself,’ he said. ‘I have told you that Madame la Grande Sénéchale is not my mistress. She is my greatest friend whose calm good sense gives me great relief from the tantrums of others which I must endure from time to time.’

He was gone. She stared after him. He lied! She was his mistress. How like him to lie on such a matter, because he would think it was the noble and chivalrous thing to do! But he was noble and chivalrous in very truth.

So on this day, when she found herself the Dauphine of France, being in love, could forget her new exalted rank and must concern herself solely with the relationship of Henry and Diane.

I will find out if he speaks truth! she vowed. If I have to hide in her apartments, I will find out. ――――――― Diane, leaving the pavilion, accompanied by her women, was considering her new importance.

When they reached her apartments, she made her women kneel and offer prayers for the soul of the Count. She knelt with them, and when the prayers were over, she bade them disrobe her; she said the spectacle had made her feel a little ill, and she wished to be left to rest awhile.

She watched these women of hers closely. Annette, Marie, and Thérèse had always shown her the utmost respect, but did she now notice in their eyes something more? Perhaps they were realizing the change that had come into her life, for indeed they would be stupid if they were not.

‘Bring me a cushion here, Thérèse. Thank you.’ She was always courteous to them and she knew that they would have loved her if they had not been a little afraid of her. They believed her to be a sorceress. ‘Just put that rug lightly over me, Annette. I do not wished to be disturbed.’

They hesitated.

‘Yes?’ Diane studied her long white fingers, sparkling with jewels. On the first finger of the right hand, she wore a ruby, a present of Henry’s.

‘If it should be Monsieur d’Orléans, Madame?’

Diane raised her eyebrows and Annette blushed hotly. ‘Forgive me,’

muttered Annette, I meant Monsieur le Dauphin.’

‘If it should be the Dauphin,’ said Diane, ‘you may come and let me know.

Then I will tell you whether or not I will see him. For anyone else, remember, I am not to be disturbed.’

They left her, and she smiled to think how they would be whispering about her, awed because she made no difference in her treatment of her lover now that he was the heir to throne.

Little had she thought when, at the King’s command, she had held out the hand of friendship to his son that she would one day, become the most powerful woman in France. The King was far from well; and when he was gone, Henry, her Henry, would triumphantly mount the throne; and it would be for her to see who was at his elbow then, for her to say who should have a strong hand in the management of affairs.

Madame d’Etampes, that insolent harlot, should be banned from the court; she should pay for all the insults she had dared to throw at Diane de Poitiers. All that pleasure was to come. Diane, closing her eyes, saw herself beside the young King receiving the homage of his subjects in place of the pale-faced insignificant Italian girl. What a mercy the child was meek. Some wives might have made themselves very unpleasant.

At whose command had Montecuccoli poisoned young Francis? Was it true that he had received instructions from the Imperial generals? It was possible.

People thought that Henry’s Italian wife had a hand in the matter; but they were ready blame any Italian and they did not know the self-effacing child. They had heard stories of poisoning and violence in Italy, so they were ready to look upon all Italians as murderers.

The expected knock intruded on her thoughts.

‘Madame, Monsieur le Dauphin is here.’

‘Bring him to me in five minutes,’ she instructed.

Her women marvelled together. She did not hesitate to keep the Dauphin waiting― the Dauphin who was almost the King!

Diane took a mirror and looked at herself. She was wonderful. She was not surprised that they thought her a sorceress. No sign of fatigue; her skin as fresh as ever; her dark eyes clear.

She threw back her long hair and put down the mirror, as, the five minutes up, the door opened and Henry came in.

He came to the bed and knelt.

‘My dear!’ she said.

He kissed her hands in the eager way he had never lost. He was, though, no longer the quiet boy; he was an impatient lover. But he did forget that, though he had been raised to a dizzy eminence, she was still his goddess.

He rose and sat beside her on the bed. She took his face in her hands and kissed it.

‘You may be the Dauphin of France,’ she said, ‘but never forget you are my Henry.’

‘The Dauphin of France,’ he said, ‘what is that? But when you say I am yours, I am the happiest man in France.’

She laughed softly. ‘Ah! So I have taught you to make gallant speeches then?’

He turned his face to hers, and with a gesture which reminded her of the boy he had been such a short while ago, he buried his face against the soft white satin of her gown.

There was a short silence before he said: ‘Diane, who instructed that young man to kill my brother? I would I knew.’

Looking down at his dark head, she thought, Does he know? Does he suspect anyone? ‘Henry,’ she said in a whisper, ‘you cannot think of any who might have done this thing?’

And when he lifted his face to hers he said simply: ‘There are some to whose advantage it has been. Myself, for instance.’

No! she thought. It was nothing. He knows no more than I do. If he did, he’d tell me; there are no secrets between us. ‘Promise me, my love,’ she said, ‘that you will never drink rashly. Let everything― everything― be tasted before it touches your lips.’

He said quietly, ‘I have a feeling that I am safe, Diane.’ Then he turned to her eagerly as though he wished to banish unpleasantness in the happiness she could give him. ‘Let us forget this. Francis is dead. Nothing can bring him back.

I pray God that if it is ordained that I should wear the crown, I shall do it with honour; and if I am unworthy, I can only hope that it will be taken from me.’

She caught him to her suddenly. She knew he had had no part in the murder of his brother. She knew that in her lover, she was lucky, for being a practical woman she could not help thinking, as she lay in his arms, of the glorious future that awaited the uncrowned Queen of France.

By the spring of the following year, the speculation over the Dauphin’s death had, in a large measure, ceased. One of the accused Imperial generals had been killed in battle before he could hear the charge against him; as for the others declared it was ridiculous. There was for a time much discussion as to what should be done about bringing the accusers to justice, but eventually the matter was dropped. The Imperialists of Spain laughed the accusation to scorn; and the French could not but feel half-hearted about it. And as no discussion would bring young Francis back to life, the King preferred to forget.

Catherine knew that there were still many to whisper about the Italian woman, as they called her throughout France; there were still plenty to believe that she was involved in the plot that had destroyed Francis and put her husband within easy reach of the throne.

She used her young woman Madalenna to spy for her. Poor, silly little Madalenna! She was afraid of her mistress, seeing in her something which others, who did not live so close to her, failed to observe. It fascinated the child, but it fascination of a snake for its prey. Many tasks had been allotted to her and these often led her into strange places. She been obliged to hide in the apartments of the Grande Sénéchale herself when the Dauphin visited her, and had had to report to her mistress everything she had seen and heard. The girl had been terrified of being discovered; she could not have imagined what would have happened to her if the Dauphin or the Grande Sénéchale had become aware of her presence in the cupboard in which she had shut herself. But, terrified as she was of these tasks which were set her, she was more terrified of her mistress, and for that reason they were performed with careful craft.

Madalenna was not sure what it was about her mistress that so frightened her. It might have been because of what lay beneath her smiles and fine manners, her humility with those about her; yes beneath that correct and smiling façade there was, for one thing, a passionate love for the Dauphin, and for another, a delight in discovering what was not meant for her eyes and ears; there was craft instead of guile; there was fierce pride instead of humility. And because Madalenna knew that there was much else besides, she was afraid. She remembered how her mistress’s eyes had glistened after that sojourn of Madalenna’s in the Sénéchale’s cupboard; her eyes glittering, her lips tightly pressed together, the Dauphine had insisted on hearing each indelicate detail, as though begging for what must have been torture, to go on and on. It was uncanny, thought Madalenna; and often when her thoughts turned to her mistress, she would cross herself.

She was glad now that the Dauphin was away from court.

Henry was at Piedmont. The French had invaded Artois and had enjoyed a successful campaign; but restlessness quickly overtook the King, and no sooner did he find himself among his soldiers than he longed for the comfort and luxury of the court, the intellectual conversation and the voluptuous charm of his mistress. So he had called off the war, disbanded his army with the exception of a garrison which he left in the town of Piedmont under Montmorency and Dauphin Henry, and returned to Paris where the court was en fête to welcome him.

Summer came and Fontainebleau was beautiful in summer. Francis, as restless as ever, found some peace in this palace among his statue and paintings.

He would spend much time, between bouts of feasting and love-making, marvelling at his Italian pictures― Leonardo’s Gioconda, Michelangelo’s Leda, and Titian’s Magdalen among them. Then he would tire of his masterpieces temporarily, and there would be a spate of comedies and mosques, balls and feastings; or he would ride out in the forest and spend days with his Petite Bande. Catherine was no more at peace than was the King, though none would have guessed it. When he rode out to the chase, she was often beside him. He liked to show her his masterpieces and discuss them with her, since many of them were her countrymen. It was one of his pleasures to hear her speak of Florence; and they would often chat in Italian.

But the love of her husband meant so much to Catherine that she would have gladly bartered the friendship of the King for it. She dreamed of Henry, longed for him, and although she was delighted that, being in Piedmont, he was not seeing Diane, she longed for his return.

Madalenna brought the news to Catherine. It was the sort of news, Catherine thought grimly, that she would be the last to hear.

‘The Dauphin, Madame la Dauphine, is enamoured, they are saying, of a young Italian girl― a merchant’s daughter of Piedmont. She is very young and they say very beautiful, he visits her so often that― that―’

Catherine gripped the girl’s wrist; there was in her eyes that fierceness which mention of Henry always put there. ‘Come, come, Madalenna, that what?’

‘They say, that there is to be a child― and that the Dauphin and the lady are very happy about it.’

Catherine let the girl’s arm drop. She walked to the wind and looked out.

She did not want Madalenna to see the tears which had come to her eyes.

Madalenna must think of her strong― cruel if necessary, but always strong. So he had fallen in love! And the court was whispering of it, delighting in this fresh scandal which was wounding further Catherine de’ Medici’s already tortured heart. He had escaped at last from his aged charmer― but not to his wife, who loved him fiercely that when she thought of him she lost all her control. Oh, the humiliation! Was she to be humiliated forever? That it should be a girl of her own race― a young girl, younger than herself! A merchant’s daughter of Piedmont, and Catherine his wife, was a Medici of Florence― a Medici and a Queen-to-be; yet he could not love her, and she could not have his child!

She closed her eyes, forcing back the tears.

Madalenna stammered: ‘I― I thought you would― wish to know. I hope I did no wrong.’

‘Have I not told you that all the news you gather must be brought to me?

Now, Madalenna, tell me everything. What is the court saying concerning my husband and his newest mistress?’

‘I― I do not know.’

‘You need not be afraid, Madalenna. The only time when you need be afraid of me is when you hold anything back.’

‘They are laughing at― the Sénéchale.’

Catherine burst into loud laughter which she suppressed almost immediately. ‘Yes? Yes?’

‘Though some say she never was his mistress, and that she but mothered him, tutored him― and since she is but his great friend and adviser, this matter will not change their relationship.’

Catherine put her face close to that of the girl. ‘But we do not say that, eh, Madalenna? Those who say it have no sly little maid to hide in cupboards and spy on those two in their tender moments.’

Madalenna flushed and drew back. This was another of her mistress’s traits which frightened her― the loud laughter, the sudden coarseness of one who to the world outside her apartment was so demure, one might almost say, prudish.

‘I should not have done it, Madame, but for your orders.,’ said Madalenna.

‘But you remember, Madalenna, that when you obey orders you work for yourself. If you were found― shall we say in a cupboard?― you would doubtless have some story to tell.. There will be need, I doubt not, when the Dauphin returns from Piedmont, for you to hide in yet another cupboard.’

Catherine laughed again. She pinched the girl’s check. ‘Have no fear, my child. You will work well. And I shall reward you by keeping you beside me.

You would not wish to return to Florence, Madalenna. Life is very cruel in Florence. You never saw my kinsman Alessandro. Any, Madalenna, who would leave Paris for Florence would not be in their right senses. And who would go back to Italy when they might stay in France? Do not fret. You shall stay. Now tell me what was said about me.’

Madalenna looked at the floor. ‘They say it is odd that he can get this humble girl with child― and wife.’

‘What else?’

‘They say he has a fondness for Italian―’

‘For tradesmen, eh? Do they not say their merchant Dauphine has given him a taste for trade?’

Madalenna nodded.

‘But it is not at their Dauphine they mock, is it, Madalenna? It is at Madame Diane, is it not?’

‘Madame d’Etampes is delighted. There is to be a great ball in honour of the King,’ she added quickly, hoping to divert Catherine’s attention.

‘In honour of the Piedmontese!’ said Catherine, laughing again.

But when she dismissed Madalenna, she wept a little, sitting upright that she might more easily hold back her tears. The girl’s name was Filippa; she had heard it mentioned without knowing why people discussed her. Filippa, the Piedmontese. She tried to see those prim lips kissing the imagined face which must be very beautiful― dark, soft, Italian beauty; Italian love that was quick and passionate, as fiercely demanding as her own.

How cruel was life! It seemed more cruel that it should have been an Italian girl, and so young. Where do I fail? she asked herself again and again. Why should he love an unlettered girl of my own race, and despise his noble wife? But when she joined the masque and overheard the whisperings, the sly jests, the allusions, she was happier, because she believed this to be Diane’s tragedy rather more than her own.

Henry was coming back to Paris, and Catherine was filled with eager anticipation that alternately soared to hope and down to despair.

She spent much time at the secluded house that backed the river. Special perfumes were made for her; she had become practised in the art of using cosmetics. Henry, she was determined, should find a different Catherine on his return.

He was seducible; the little Piedmontese had proved that.

She would win from the girl as the girl had won him from Diane.

She was pretty now; she smelt deliciously of the strange perfume which the Ruggieri brothers had made especially for her; she felt her spirits rise when she heard the trumpets and horns of Henry and his company as they rode through the streets of the capital.

With a madly beating heart, she went down to the court of the Bastille where the King would ceremoniously receive his son.

The walls were hung with the loveliest of French tapestry for this occasion, and the hall was illumined by a thousand torches. There was to be a banquet, followed by a ball.

Francis, who loved such occasions, looked younger than he had for some weeks and his magnificence outshone that of all others.

Henry came into the court on a flourish of trumpets; he went at once to the King, who embraced him warmly and kissed him on both cheeks. Then Henry received the Queen’s embrace.

‘And here,’ said Francis, putting an arm about Catherine and bringing her forward, ‘is our dear daughter and your beloved wife, who‚ I need not tell you, has been living for this day since you left her side.’

Catherine, her heart hammering under her elaborate corsage, lifted her eyes shyly to her husband’s face. He embraced her formally. She saw in him no delight at seeing her again. She told herself that he was hiding his pleasure, that he was ashamed‚ because of the scandal which he would know to court. Yet she knew that she was deceiving herself.

‘Henry,’ she whispered, so softly that none but he could have heard.

He stepped back, prepared to greet others who came forward to kneel and kiss the hand of their future ruler.

Soon it would be the turn of the Grande Sénéchale to kneel to the Dauphin; and not only was Catherine watching, but she knew that, all about her, sly eyes would be turned towards those two, that jewelled fingers would preparing to nudge silk-clad ribs; the whole court, not the King and Madame d’Etampes, would be waiting to see the greeting between these two.

And now― Diane. To Catherine, she had never seemed so beautiful as she did at this moment. Her black-and-white gown was decorated with pearls; there were pearls in her raven-black hair. Serene, and completely sure of herself, she did not betray for a moment that she was aware of the interest she was creating, although, of course, she knew that everyone in the hall was watching her.

If Diane was capable of hiding her feelings, the Dauphin was not. He flushed and his eyes shone, so that it seemed to those close observers that he was no less in love with her than before. But into his eyes had crept a certain misery, a wretchedness and shame. There was a faint titter, which the King’s sharp glance immediately suppressed, though he himself was laughing inwardly.

Henry looked like a remorseful husband, he thought.

Diane rose, smiling; she said her words of welcome as everyone else had, and then she turned and gave her attention to the eldest son of the Duke of Guise. The Dauphin’s miserable eyes followed her.

The King commanded his son to sit beside him as he had much to say to him concerning military affairs.

The comedy was ended.

At the banquet which followed, Henry must, for courtesy’s sake, sit next to his wife, while Diane took her place with the Queen’s ladies. But everyone― and Catherine more than any― noticed that his eyes kept straying towards that regal figure in black and white, and that Diane seemed very happy talking to the Queen and her ladies of the charitable schemes they intended to carry out.

After the banquet Diane seemed to avoid the Dauphin, and kept at her side those redoubtable allies of hers, the young de Guises.

Catherine took an opportunity to slip away from the festivities. She called Madalenna to her. The girl’s eyes were round with fear; she had been dreading the return of the Dauphin; she knew, before she was told, what would be expected of her.

‘Go,’ said Catherine, her eyes glittering in her pale face, ‘go to the apartments of the Sénéchale. Make sure that you are hidden. I wish to know everything that takes place between them.’

When Diane retired to her apartments, Henry followed her after a short interval.

Diane was smiling serenely while her women asked her if they should help her disrobe.

‘Not yet, Marie. I think I may have a visitor.’

She had hardly spoken when there was a tap on the door.

‘Marie,’ she said, ‘should it be the Dauphin, tell him I will see him. Bring him in and leave us.’

Henry came shyly into the room, and she was reminded vividly of the boy whom she had met in the gardens on the first occasion they talked of horses.

Diane, smiling graciously, held out both her hands. Her women went out discreetly and shut the door.

‘I am so happy that you are returned,’ said Diane.

‘And I― am wretched,’ he answered.

‘Henry, that must not be. Please do not kneel to me. Why, it is I who should kneel to you. Come, sit beside me, as you used to do, and tell me what it is that makes you so wretched.’

‘You know, Diane.’

‘You mean the young Italian girl at Piedmont?’

He burst out: ‘It is true, Diane. All they say is true. I cannot understand myself. It was as though some devil possessed me.’

‘Please, do not distress yourself, Henry. You love this girl?’

‘Love? There is only one I love, only one I shall ever love in my life. I knew that all the time. But I was lonely, longing for you so much. Her hair was raven black, and it grew like yours, in ripples. You were not there, Diane, and I tried to grasp at what seemed like your shadow.’

She smiled at him, and, looking at her, he wondered how he could ever have thought the little Piedmontese could have resembled her. There was no one on Earth who could compare with Diane.

‘My dear,’ she said, gently and caressingly, ‘there is no need to be sad. You went away, but now you are back. That, it would seem to me, is a matter for rejoicing.’

‘You will forgive me?’ he pleaded. ‘You will understand? It was a passing fancy― quick to demand satisfaction, and satisfied, I found that it had gone. It grew out of my longing for you.’

‘I always knew that,’ she told him. ‘For me and for you, there is one love and one love only.’ She turned towards him, took him into her arms. ‘There is no talk of forgiveness, love,’ she went on. ‘They whispered; they jeered.

Madame d’Etampes, you know. It might have been humiliating― for some.’

‘How I hate that woman! That they should dare to humiliate you, and that I should be the cause of it, grieves me deeply. It makes me hate myself. I wish I had been killed in battle before that happened.’

She kissed him tenderly, as she had done in the beginning of their relationship. Henry’s love for her was fierce and passionate; hers for him held in it a good deal that was maternal.

‘Then would it have been my turn to be desolate,’ she said. ‘There is one thing I could not have borne― and that that you did not come back to me.’

They sat down with their arms about each other. ‘Diane― it is forgiveness, then? It is as though― that never happened?’

‘There is nothing to forgive. It is, as I always knew, and have just explained, a nothing― a bagatelle. You were lonely and she was there, this pretty little girl, to amuse you. I am grateful to her because she made you happy for a time. Tell me this, you would not like her brought here― to Paris?’

‘ No! ‘

‘You no longer love her?’

‘I love only one; I shall always love only one.’

‘Then you no longer desire her?’

‘When I realized what I had done, I never wanted to see her again. Oh Diane, my only love, can we not forget it happened?’

‘We cannot do that, for I have heard that there is to be a child.’

He flushed a deeper red.

She laughed. ‘You were ever one to forget your status. That child will be the son― or daughter― of the King of France. Had you forgotten that?’

‘I am filled with shame. You are so good, so beautiful. You understand this wickedness of mine just as you understood my weakness, my folly, my shyness, and my shame. When I am with you, I cannot help but be happy, even though I have soiled this beautiful union of ours by my infidelity.’

Diane snapped her fingers. Her eyes were brilliant; her mouth smiled, for she was thinking that the court would soon be thinking it had laughed too soon.

She was going to take charge of this matter. It pleased her that the court should see her as Henry’s beloved friend rather than his mistress; the first and most important person in his life, his spiritual love.

‘My darling‚’ she said, ‘the child must be looked after; it must be educated in accordance with its rank.’

‘It’s rank!’

‘My dear, it is your child. That alone makes it of the utmost importance in my eyes. Henry, have I your permission to take charge of this matter? When the child is born, I wish to have it brought to France. I wish, personally, to superintend its education.’

‘Diane, you are wonderful!’

‘No,’ she smiled lightly. ‘I love you and would see you respecting yourself, taking to yourself that honour which is your due.’

He put his arms about her. ‘I dreamed about you,’ he said. ‘I thought of you continually, even when I was with her.’

Diane had slid into his arms. She had put aside the practical Frenchwoman now; she was ready to receive his adoration, which, from experience, she knew would quickly change to passion.

Catherine did not see her husband until the next day. Madalenna had managed to slip out of Diane’s apartment when the lovers were sleeping, so Catherine knew what had taken place.

She spent the night weeping silently. She knew that she been wrong to hope.

The clever witch had only to smile on him to cast her spell over him.

He appeared next day, flushed and triumphant, the forgiven lover who understands that his peccadillo is to be forgotten; he was wearing the black-and-white colours of Diane.

The court admired the Sénéchale more than ever; Catherine’s hatred for her was greater. Madame d’Etampes was disappointed; more, she was worried.

When the little Piedmontese gave birth to Henry’s baby, the Sénéchale kept her word; she had the child brought to her and made arrangements for its upbringing.

It was a girl, and, to the amazement and admiration of many, the Sénéchale had the child christened Diane.