If, therefore, foreign ladies (except Madame de Bourbon, who was daughter of France) were capable of governing France so well, why should not our own ladies do as much, having good zeal and affection, they being born here and suckled here, and the matter touching them so closely?
I should like to know in what our last kings have surpassed our last three daughters of France, Élisabeth, Claude, and Marguerite; and whether if the latter had come to be queens of France they would not have governed it (I do not wish to accuse the regency, which was very great and very wise) as well as their brothers. I have heard many great personages, well-informed and far-seeing, say that possibly we should not have had the evils we did have, now have, and shall have still; adducing reasons too long to put here. But the common and vulgar fool says: “Must observe the Salic law.” Poor idiot that he is! does he not know that the Germans, from whose stock we issued, were wont to call their women to affairs of State, as we learn from Tacitus? From that, we can see how this Salic law has been corrupted. It is but mere custom; and poor women, unable to enforce their rights by the point of the sword, men have excluded, and driven them from everything. Ah! why have we no more brave and valiant paladins of France,—a Roland, a Renaud, an Ogier, a Deudon, an Olivier, a Graffon, an Yvon, and an infinity of other braves, whose glory and profession it was to succour ladies and support them in the troubles and adversities of their lives, their honour, and their fortunes? Why are they here no longer to maintain the rights of our Queen Marguerite, daughter of France, who barely enjoys an inch of land in France, which she quitted in noble state, though to her, perhaps, the whole belongs by right divine and human? Queen Marguerite, who does not even enjoy her county of Auvergne, which is hers by law and equity as the sole heiress of the queen, her mother, is now withdrawn into the castle of Usson, amid the deserts, rocks, and mountains of Auvergne,—a different habitation, verily, from the great city of Paris, where she ought now to be seated on her throne and place of justice, which belongs to her in her own right as well as by that of her husband. But the misfortune is that they are not there together. If both were again united in body and soul and friendship, as they once were, possibly all would go right once more, and together they would be feared, respected, and known for what they are.
(Since this was written God has willed that they be reconciled, which is indeed great luck.)
I heard M. de Pibrac say on one occasion that these Navarre marriages are fatal, because husband and wife are always at variance,—as was the case with Louis Hutin, King of France and of Navarre, and Marguerite de Bourgogne, daughter of Duc Robert III.; also Philippe le Long, King of France and Navarre, with Jeanne, daughter of Comte Othelin of Bourgogne, who, being found innocent, was vindicated well; also Charles le Bel, King of France and of Navarre, with Blanche, daughter of Othelin, another Comte de Bourgogne; and further, King Henri d’Albret with Marguerite de Valois, who, as I have heard on good authority, treated her very ill, and would have done worse had not King François, her brother, spoken sternly to him and threatened him for honouring his sister so little, considering the rank she held.
The last King Antoine of Navarre died also on ill terms with Queen Jeanne, his wife; and our Queen Marguerite is now in dispute and separation from her husband; but God will some day happily unite them in spite of these evil times.
I have heard a princess say that Queen Marguerite saved her husband’s life on the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew; for indubitably he was proscribed and his name written on the “red paper,” as it was called, because it was necessary, they said, to tear up the roots, namely, the King of Navarre, the Prince de Condé, Amiral de Coligny, and other great personages; but the said Queen Marguerite flung herself on her knees before King Charles, to implore him for the life of her husband and lord.[15] King Charles would scarcely grant it to her, although she was his good sister. I relate this for what it is worth, as I know it only by hearsay. But she bore this massacre very impatiently and saved several, among them a Gascon gentleman (I think his name was Léran), who, wounded as he was, took refuge beneath her bed, she being in it, and the murderers pursuing him to the door, from which she drove them; for she was never cruel, but kind, like a daughter of France.
They say that the quarrel between herself and her husband came more from the difference in their religion than from anything else; for they each loved his and her own, and supported it strongly. The queen having gone to Pau, the chief town of Béarn, she caused the mass to be said there; and a certain secretary of the king, her husband, named le Pin, who had formerly belonged to M. l’Amiral, not being able to stomach it, put several of the inhabitants of the town who had been present at the mass into prison. The queen was much displeased; and he, wishing to remonstrate, spoke to her much louder than he should, and very indiscreetly, even before the king, who gave him a good rebuke and dismissed him; for King Henri knows well how to like and respect what he ought; being as brave and generous as his fine and noble actions have always manifested; of which I shall speak at length in his life.
The said le Pin fell back upon the edict which is there made, and to be observed under penalty, namely, that mass shall not be said. The queen, feeling herself insulted, and God knows she was, vowed and declared she would never again set foot in that country because she chose to be free in the exercise of her religion; whereupon she departed, and has ever since kept her oath very carefully.
I have heard it said that nothing lay so heavily on her heart as this indignity of being deprived of the exercise of her religion; for which reason she begged the queen, her good mother, to come and fetch her and take her to France to see the king and Monsieur, his brother, whom she honoured and loved much. Having arrived, she was not received and seen by the king, her brother, as she should have been. Seeing this great change since she had left France, and the rise of many persons she would never have thought of to grandeurs, it irked her much to be forced to pay court to them, as others, her equals, were now doing; and far from doing so herself, she despised them openly, as I well saw, so high was her courage. Alas! too high, certainly, for it caused her misfortunes; had she been willing to restrain herself and lower her courage the least in the world she would not have been thwarted and vexed as she has been.
As to which I shall relate this story: when the king, her brother, went to Poland, he being there, she knew that M. du Gua, much favoured by her brother, had made some remarks to her disadvantage, enough to set brother and sister at variance or enmity. At the end of a certain time M. du Gua returned from Poland and arrived at Court, bearing letters from the king to his sister, which he went to her apartment to give her and kiss hands. This I saw myself. When she beheld him enter she was in great wrath, and as he came to her to present the letter she said to him, with an angry face: “Lucky for you, du Gua, that you come before me with this letter from my brother, which serves you as a safeguard, for I love him much and all who come from him are free from me; but without it, I would teach you to speak about a princess like myself, the sister of your kings, your masters and sovereigns.” M. du Gua answered very humbly: “I should never, madame, have presented myself before you, knowing that you wish me ill, without some good message from the king, my master, who loves you, and whom you love also; or without feeling assured, madame, that for love of him, and because you are good and generous, you would hear me speak.” And then, after making her his excuses and telling his reasons (as he knew well how to do), he denied very positively that he had ever spoken against the sister of his kings otherwise than very reverently. On which she dismissed him with an assurance that she would ever be his cruel enemy,—a promise which she kept until his death.