A sudden flourish of trumpets breaks the silence. It is Catherine, in the early summer, coming, like Jezebel, to possess herself of her fair domain. She is habited in black and wears a velvet toque with an ostrich plume. A perfect horsewoman, she rides with a stately grace down the broad avenue leading from the high road, followed by her maids of honour—a bevy of some forty beauties, the escadron volant de la reine, who serve her political intrigues by fascinating alike Huguenots and Catholics.
To the right of the Queen-mother rides Madame Marguerite, her daughter—by-and-by to become infamous as Queen of Navarre, wife of Henry IV.—now a laughter-loving girl, who makes her brown jennet prance, out of pure high spirits. She is tall, like all the Valois, and finely formed. Her skin is very fair and her eyes full of expression; but there is a hard look on her delicately-featured face that belies her attractive appearance.
On the other side of the Queen-mother is her son, the young King, Charles IX. He has a weak though most engaging countenance. Naturally brave and witty and extremely frank and free, the artifices of his mother’s corrupt Court have made him what he now is—cruel, violent, and suspicious. Catherine has convinced him that he is deceived by all the world except herself, and leads him at her will. He is to marry shortly the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. Beside him is the vicious and elegant Duc d’Anjou, his next brother, of whom Charles is extremely jealous. Already Henry has been victor at Jarnac, and almost rivals Henry of Navarre in the number of battles he fights. He is to be elected King of Poland during his brother’s life. Henry is handsomer than Charles, but baby-faced and effeminate. He wears rouge, and is as gay as a woman in his attire. Catherine’s youngest son, D’Alençon, long-nosed, ill-favoured, and sullen, rides beside his sister.
Behind the royal Princess, is Francis, Duc de Guise, a man, as we have seen, of indomitable will and unflinching purpose; fanatical in his devotion to the Catholic Church, and of unbounded ambition. He secretly cherishes the settled purpose of his house,—destruction to the race of Valois. Ere long he will be assassinated at Orléans, by Poltrot, a Huguenot, a creature of Coligni, who firmly believes he will ensure his salvation by this crime. Such is Christianity in the sixteenth century! There are also two cardinals mounted on mules. Lorraine, a true Guise, most haughty and unscrupulous of politicians and of churchmen; and D’Este, newly arrived from Ferrara, insinuating, treacherous, and artistic. He has brought in his train from Italy the great poet Tasso, who follows his patron, and wears a garbadine and cap of dark satin. Tasso looks sad and careworn, spite of the high favour shown him by his countrywoman, the Queen-mother. Ronsard, the court poet, is beside Tasso, and Châtelard, who, madly enamoured of the widowed Queen, Mary Stuart, is about to follow her to Scotland, and to die of his presumptuous love ere long at Holyrood.
As this brilliant procession passes down the broad avenue through pleasant lawns forming part of the park, at a fast trot, a rider is seen mounted on a powerful black horse, who neither entirely conceals himself nor attempts to join the Court. As he passes in and out among the underwood skirting the adjoining forest, many eyes are bent upon him. The Queen-mother specially, turns in her saddle the better to observe him, and then questions her sons as to whether they recognise this solitary cavalier, whose face and figure are completely hidden by a broad Spanish hat and heavy riding-cloak.
At the moment when the Queen-mother has turned her head to make these inquiries and is speaking earnestly to Francis of Guise, whom she has summoned to her side, the unknown rider crosses the path of the Princess Marguerite (who in frolicsome mood is making her horse leap over some ditches in the grass), and throws a rose before her. Marguerite looks up with a gleam of delight, their eyes meet for an instant; she raises her hand, kisses it, and waves it towards him. The stranger bows to the saddle-bow, bounds into the thicket, and is seen no more. The royal party cross the drawbridge through two lines of attendants, picquers, retainers, pages, and running footmen, and dismount at the arched entrance from which a long stone passage leads to the great gallery, the staircase, and the various apartments.
Leaving the young King and the Princes, his brothers, to the care of the chamberlains who conduct them to their various apartments, the Queen-mother turns to the left, followed by the Princess, who is somewhat alarmed lest her mother should have observed her recognition of the disguised cavalier. They pass through the guard-room—a lofty chamber, with raftered ceilings and walls hung with tapestry, on which cuirasses, swords, lances, casques, shields, and banners are suspended, fashioned into various devices.
Beyond is a saloon, and through a narrow door in a corner is a small writing-closet within a turret. Catherine, who knows the château well, has chosen this suite of rooms apart from the rest. She enters the closet alone, closes the door, seats herself beside the casement, and gazes at the broad river flowing beneath. Her eyes follow the current onwards to where the stream, by a graceful bend, loses itself among copses of willow and alder. She smiles a smile of triumph. All is now her own. Then she summons her chamberlain, and commands a masque on the river for the evening, to celebrate her arrival. None shall say that she, a Medici, neglects the splendid pageantry of courts. Besides, the hunting parties, banquets, and masques are too precious as political opportunities to be disregarded.