Виктория Холт - Loyal in Love - Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

However, while my father had been there my mother was unimportant. She had had to accept his infidelities. He was a great lover of women. The Evergreen Gallant, the people called him, and right up to his death he was involved with women. The Duc de Sully—his very able minister and friend—had deplored this characteristic; but it was no use. Great King that he was he was first of all a lover and the pursuit of women was to him the most urgent necessity of his life. He could not exist without them. While this is doubtless a great weakness in a king, it is a foible which people indulgently shrug aside and indeed often applaud. “There is a man,” they say, with winks, nods and affectionate smiles.

Even at the time of his death he was involved in a romantic intrigue. I learned all about it from Mademoiselle de Montglat, who was the daughter of our governess and who, because she was so much older than I, had been set in charge of me by her mother. I called her Mamanglat as at first she was like a mother to me and later like an elder sister; and I was more fond of her than anyone I knew. Mamanglat became affectionately shortened to Mamie, and Mamie she remained to me forever.

We were all terrified of Madame de Montglat, who was always reminding us that she had the royal permission to whip us if we misbehaved, and as we were the Royal Children of France, higher standards had been set for us than for all other children.

Mamie was not a bit like her mother. Although in a way she was a governess, she was more like one of us. She was always ready to laugh, tell us the latest scandal and to help us out of those scrapes into which children fall and which would have brought down the wrath of Madame de Montglat on our heads if they had come to her knowledge.

It was from Mamie that I began to understand what was going on around me, what it meant to be a child in a royal nursery, the pitfalls to be avoided—the advantages and the disadvantages. It seemed to me that there were more of the latter and Mamie was inclined to agree with me.

“Your father loved you children,” she told me. “He used to say you were all beautiful and he could not understand how two such as the Queen and himself could have begotten you. I used to have to peep out at you because my mother forbade me to appear before the King.”

“Why?”

“Because I was young and not ill favored—good looking enough to catch his eyes, she thought.”

Then Mamie would be overcome with laughter. “The King was like that,” she finished.

Being very young and ignorant of the world I wanted to ask a great many questions, but did not always do so being afraid of exposing my ignorance.

“You were his favorite,” said Mamie. “The baby—the child of his old age. He was proving, you see, that he could still get beautiful children—not that he need have worried. There was constantly some woman claiming that her child was his. Well, what was I saying? Oh…you were the favorite. He was always fond of little girls and weren’t you named for him…well, as near as a girl could be. Henriette Marie. Henriette for him and Marie for your mother. Royal names both of them.”

From Mamie I learned the gossip of the Court—past and present—much that was necessary for me to know and more besides. I heard from her that before he had married my mother, my father had been married to La Reine Margot, daughter of Catherine de Médicis—one of the most mischievous and fascinating women France had ever known. My father had hated Margot. He had never wanted to marry her and it was rather dramatically said that their marriage had been solemnized in blood, for during the celebrations the most terrible of all massacres had taken place—that which had occurred on the Eve of St. Bartholomew; and it was because so many Huguenots had been in Paris to attend the marriage of their leader’s son to Catholic Margot that they had been conveniently situated for destruction.

I supposed something like that would haunt a bride and bridegroom forever. It was a mercy that my father escaped. But all his life—until the last fatal moment—he had had a knack of escaping. He had lived his life dangerously and joyously. Often careless of his royalty he had had an easy familiarity with his men. No wonder he had been popular. He had done a great deal for France too. He cared about the people; he had said he wanted every peasant to have a chicken in his pot on Sundays; moreover he had brought about a compromise between the Catholics and Huguenots and that had seemed an impossible task. He himself had paid lip service to the Catholics with his famous quip of Paris being worth a Mass when he had realized the city would never surrender to a Protestant.

He had been a wonderful man. When I was very young I used to weep tears of rage because he had been taken from me before I could know him.

He had been a good soldier, but it was said that he never let anything—not even the need to fight an enemy—stand in the way of his love affairs.

The object of his passion at the time of his death had been the daughter of the Constable de Montmorency. She was only sixteen years old but no sooner had my father set eyes on her than he declared she must be his “little friend.”

Mamie loved to tell these stories. She had a certain histrionic talent, which she loved to display and which often made me helpless with laughter. She could never tell anything dramatic without acting it. I remember her explaining, dropping her voice to conspiratorial confidence.

“However…before presenting his daughter Charlotte to Court, the Constable de Montmorency had betrothed her to François de Bassompierre who was a very magnificent gentleman of the House of Cleves—handsome, witty, and as he was also a Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber, he was much sought after. Monsieur de Montmorency thought it an excellent match.

“But when the young lady came to Court and the King saw her, that was the end of her romance with François de Bassompierre.”

How I loved to listen to her as she threw herself into the part she was playing for me!

“The King was determined that Bassompierre should not have her because he was a passionate young man and deeply in love with her and therefore could not be expected to become the kind of accommodating husband whom the King favored because they were always willing to stand aside when the need arose. One morning—so the story goes—when the King was about to rise from his bed, he sent for Bassompierre—remember he was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. ‘Kneel, Bassompierre,’ said the King. Bassompierre was astonished for the King was never one to stand on ceremony, but if you wish to present some suggestion which may not be acceptable it is always best to reduce the person whom you intend to deprive or displease by stressing your own superiority.”

I nodded. I could understand that.

“The King was full of guile. He knew men well and that meant he could usually wriggle satisfactorily out of awkward situations.” Mamie had thrown herself upon my bed and assumed an air of royalty. “‘Bassompierre,’ said the King, ‘I have been thinking a good deal of you and I have come to the conclusion that it is time you were married.’” Mamie leaped from the bed and assumed a kneeling position beside it. “‘Sire,’ said Bassompierre. ‘I should be married now, but the Constable’s gout has been troubling him of late and for this reason the ceremony has been postponed.’” She was back on the bed, royal again. “‘I have just the bride for you, Bassompierre. What think you of Madame d’Aumale? When you marry, the Duchy of Aumale shall come to you.’ ‘Sire,’ said Bassompierre, ‘have you a new law in France? Is a man then to have two wives?’” She was back on the bed. “‘Nay, nay, François. In Heaven’s name, one is enough for a man to manage at a time. I will tell you all. I know of your commitment to Mademoiselle de Montmorency but the truth is that I myself have become madly enamored of her. If you married her I should begin to hate you…especially if she showed any affection for you. Now I am fond of you, Bassompierre, and I know you would be the last one to wish for a rift in our friendship. Therefore I cannot see you married to this girl. I shall give her to my nephew Condé. That will keep her near me…in the family…and she can comfort my old age. Condé likes hunting better than women. I shall make him an allowance as compensation. Then he can leave the delightful creature to me.’”