The life of the Court, which naturally possessed a great attraction for a man of Condé’s temperament, was full of snares and pitfalls. It was not for the mere pleasure of beholding their pretty faces that Catherine recruited her entourage from the most beautiful young girls in France. During the lifetime of her husband, in the days before she had been called upon to play a political rôle, Catherine had been the most austere of queens, guarding the reputation of her ladies as jealously as she did her own, and visiting with her severe displeasure the slightest breach of decorum on their part. But when she found herself a widow, struggling in an endless web of plot and falsehood to protect her children’s heritage; beset on one side by the Catholics, on the other, by the Huguenots; often driven to her wits’ end to devise means to prevent the royal authority being submerged amid the strife of contending parties, her austerity gave way before political exigencies, and, recognizing how formidable a weapon she possessed in the charms of her “escadron volant,” she exploited them without scruple. “These maids-of-honour,” writes Brantôme, “were sufficient to set fire to the whole world; indeed, they burned up a good part of it, as many of us gentlemen of the Court as of others who approached their flames.”
Catherine received not a few remonstrances concerning the havoc wrought by the beaux yeux of these damsels. “You ought, Madame,” runs one of them, “to content yourself with a small train of maids-of-honour, and to look to it that they do not pass and repass through the hands of men, and that they are more modestly clothed.” But Catherine’s squadron had demonstrated its peculiar value on too many occasions for her to dream of disbanding it, or even of placing it on a peace-footing; and so its members continued to illuminate the Court ball-rooms, “like stars shining in a serene heaven.”[23] For the rest, her Majesty pretended to ignore the vices of her filles d’honneur, the better to make use of them when occasion for their services arose. No one could have shown more adroitness in throwing some isolated and often unconscious combatant in the path of the politicians and party-leaders whom she had reason to fear, to captivate their senses and surprise their secrets. It was against the Huguenot chiefs that this insidious mode of warfare was most frequently employed. “However austere they may wish to appear, these men are of their time, and share the weaknesses of their contemporaries. Women had, in many cases, launched them into adventures, women will check them in full career. Those who succeed without provoking scandal are highly praised and rewarded; the maladroit will be the less supported in their difficulties in that they are never able to invoke the excuse of a definite mission.”[24]
Knowing what we do of Catherine’s little ways, it is not difficult to imagine the tactics adopted. The destined victim, on some pretext or other, is lured to the Court. He comes, not ill-pleased to be afforded an opportunity of airing his grievances in the royal presence, but very resolved not to allow the Queen to penetrate the secrets of his party or to obtain from him the least concession. He is very coldly received, informed that his demands are unreasonable, and that the Queen fears that it will be impossible to accede to them. However, she has not the leisure to go further into the matter at that moment; let him return at the same hour on the following day, when she will hope to find him less exigent. And the audience is at end almost as soon as it has begun.
Somewhat piqued at the abruptness of his dismissal, he takes his departure, without the faintest suspicion that the most accomplished actress of the sixteenth century has been playing one of her many parts. Passing through the ante-chamber, he perceives, apparently awaiting her royal mistress’s summons, a demure damsel of disturbing beauty—it is always the freshest and most innocent-looking of the squadron who is detailed for this kind of service—who modestly lowers her eyes as they meet his, but not before he has had time to remark that they are in keeping with her other perfections. Our Huguenot, who, though he yawns through a long sermon each Sunday and conducts family worship every day of the week, that is to say, when he does not happen to be engaged in burning his Catholic neighbours’ chateaux over their heads, is none the less a courtier of beauty, finds himself wondering who the lady can be, and goes on his way not without a lingering hope that he may see her again.
On the morrow, he returns. This time, he is informed that the Queen is giving audience to one of the foreign ambassadors, and that he will have to wait for a few minutes. A quarter of an hour passes, and he is beginning to grow impatient, when the damsel whom he has seen on the previous day enters and advances to the door of the Queen’s cabinet, with something for her royal mistress in her hand. Here, however, she is stopped by the usher; Mademoiselle cannot be allowed to enter; her Majesty has given orders that she is on no account to be disturbed. And she, too, must wait. In the circumstances, Monsieur, who is, of course, a great noble, and may therefore be permitted what in others might be considered a liberty, ventures to address her. She answers with a modesty which charms him, and they converse very agreeably until presently he is summoned to the royal presence.
Here, some further pretext is invented for detaining him some days longer at the Court, but he resigns himself to the delay with a good grace, for those few minutes’ conversation in the ante-chamber have not been barren of result. A few hours later, he receives a courteous note from Catherine, greatly regretting the inconvenience to which he is being subjected and inviting him to a ball which she is giving the following evening. “The Religion” looks with scant favour on such worldly pleasures, but he tells himself that it would be churlish, perhaps impolitic, to refuse. Naturally, he meets Mademoiselle, arrayed in a ravishing toilette—very probably a present from the Queen—and looking more alluring than ever. He requests to be presented to her; they dance together, and he finds her as charming as she is beautiful. Opportunities for further meetings will not be wanting, for by this time the girl has received her instructions from headquarters; and soon there will be no further need for Catherine to devise pretexts for keeping the gentleman at Court.
When our Huguenot’s partisans learn what is going on, they will write letter upon letter, warning him that an ambush is being laid for him, and reproaching him with bringing discredit upon the Faith. But he is now fairly in the toils, and their warnings and reproaches will serve no purpose save to irritate him against them and loosen the ties which bind him to them. Perhaps, lured by the blandishments of his inamorata and incensed by the suspicions of his party, he will end by abandoning it altogether; at the least, a breach will be created between them which will not be easy to heal, and some very useful information, which has escaped his lips in unguarded moments, will find its way into Catherine’s cabinet.
It was thus that Condé’s elder brother, Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, had met Louise de la Beraudière,[25] Demoiselle de Rouet—la belle Rouet, as the Court called her—in whom he found so refreshing a contrast to his sharp-featured and austere consort that he permitted her to lead him whither she, or rather Catherine, willed.[26] She was the cause of his death. Wounded at the siege of Rouen and scarcely convalescent, he called her to him, and “behaved as though he considered that kings were immortal,” with the result that might be expected.
“Cy-gist le corps au vers en proye
Du roy qui mourut pour la Roye [Rouet].