The Confessions of Catherine de Medici Read online

  We stared at each other. His hooded green eyes shone mischievously. Mortified, I realized I’d forgotten my obeisance. As I started to curtsy, he waved a jeweled hand.

  “Mais non, ma fille,” and he embraced me, rousing spontaneous applause. “Bienvenue en France, petite Catherine,” King François I breathed in my ear.

  He brought me to his family. I kissed the hand of Queen Eleanor, the emperor’s sister, a rigid Spanish princess fenced in by women. I then greeted the king’s eldest son born of his first marriage to the late queen Claude. François, called the dauphin in honor of his being heir to the throne, was a tall youth with gentle brown eyes and the pallor of a chronic invalid. I almost bumped heads with his daughters, the princesses Marguerite and Madeleine, who were so nervous they curtsied at the same time as me. As we giggled in unison, I saw they were close to me in age, and I thought perhaps we might become friends.

  I turned to the king. He gave me a small twist of a smile. I understood. “Is His Highness Prince Henri not here?” I asked.

  François’s face darkened. “He’s a boor,” he muttered. “He doesn’t know the meaning of propriety. Nor, it seems, does he own a timepiece. But do not worry. The wedding takes place tomorrow, and by God he will be here.”

  It sounded far more like a threat than a reassurance. I lifted my chin. “How could he not?” I said in a voice loud enough for all to hear. “It’s not every day France has occasion to wed Italy.”

  François went still. He lowered his gaze and his hand slipped into mine. “Spoken like a true princess,” he murmured, and raising our clasped hands he cried, “Let the feast begin!”

  He swept me into a banqueting chamber, where I sat on the dais beside him. The court swarmed the tables arrayed below us; as servitors entered bearing platters of honeyed heron and roast swans, the king craned his head to me and whispered, “My son may be reluctant to show pleasure with his bride, but I, petite Catherine, I am enchanted.”

  Without hesitation I replied, “Then perhaps it is Your Majesty whom I should wed.”

  He laughed. “And you’ve got courage to match those pretty black eyes.” He paused, searching my face. “I wonder if my son will appreciate you, Catherine de Medici.”

  I forced out a smile, even as his words sent a chill through me. Had I come all this way to be the wife of a prince who wanted nothing to do with me?

  As platter after platter was set before me, and François drank goblet after goblet of spiced wine, I began to feel invisible until he touched my hand and said, “Montmorency’s nephews wish to greet you, my dear. Smile. They are his pride and joy, born of his beloved late sister.”

  I started to attention. Standing before me were the constable and three young men.

  They made an immediate impression with their tawny good looks, highlighted by their unadorned white doublets, and their sense of quiet familial unity.

  Montmorency said, “May I present my eldest nephew, Gaspard de Coligny, seigneur of Châtillon?”

  I leaned forward. Gaspard de Coligny had thick, dark gold–colored hair and lucent pale blue eyes, his angular face imbued with melancholy. He might have been Milanese, attractive yet remote, as the nobles of that city are apt to be. I thought him in his early twenties. In fact, he had just turned sixteen.

  “I am honored,” he said in a low voice. “I hope Your Highness will find happiness here.”

  I gave him a tremulous smile. “Thank you, my lord.”

  He paused, his eyes searching mine. I thought he would say something else, but he bowed once more and returned with his brothers to their table, leaving me to stare after him, as if he’d revealed something precious I might never find again.

  François sighed. “His father died recently. It is why he wears white, the color of mourning here. Madame de Coligny passed away years ago; with his father gone, Gaspard is now head of his family. The constable dotes on him.” He slid his eyes to me. “You could do worse when it comes to friends. Montmorency is one of my most loyal men and his family lineage is ancient. His nephew shares these traits, and at court, ma petite, lineage is everything.”

  So, Gaspard de Coligny was an orphan, like me. Was this why I felt such kinship with him?

  A host of other nobles followed, tripping over themselves in their haste to ensure the king saw that they too respected his new daughter-in-law. By the twentieth course, and after twice as many greetings, I despaired of remembering everyone’s names and titles. I was grateful when the king rose to declare that I must be tired. He led me from the dais to the one opposite ours, where Queen Eleanor had sat out the evening in ironclad silence.

  I felt pity for her. Like me, Eleanor had been used on the royal market and apparently refused to adapt. I’d heard the Spanish were thus, zealous of their identity, and I knew her example was one I’d be wise not to emulate. Come what may, I must blend in, become one with this court, which for better or worse was my new home. As I passed the constable, I glanced at his nephew. Gaspard inclined his head; I looked in vain for a glimpse of his eyes.

  Pages dressed in the Valois colors of blue and white opened the door. François left me to the attentions of my women; I didn’t speak with them as they relieved me of my costume, meeting Lucrezia’s knowing eyes as I lay down in the unfamiliar bed.

  Alone, I lay awake and thought that my aunt Clarice had been wrong.

  I might be not so important after all.

  SIX

  I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING TO FIND MY LADIES CLUSTERED about me. Not having slept well in over a week, I buried my head under the pillows. Lucrezia dared to shake my shoulder. “My lady, His Majesty and the court await you. The ceremony, it is scheduled for today.”

  I groaned. Then I went still. I peered from under the pillow. I could smell the heated lavender in the copper tub my ladies had hauled in and filled with hot water, see the frothing folds of my wedding costume arranged on the table. “Is he here?” I asked.

  Anna-Maria gave a sad shake of her head. I felt a wave of humiliation. “Well,” I snapped, “if he’s not here, who exactly am I supposed to marry today?”

  Lucrezia replied, “His Majesty says that if need be he’ll see you wed by proxy.”

  At this, Anna-Maria burst into tears. In between her sobs, I gathered that she deemed me the unhappiest princess in Christendom.

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, trying to make the best of an awful situation. “But there must be happier ones.” I submitted to their ministrations, emerging two hours later weighted in my cerulean velvet, with diamond arabesque sleeve cuffs like shards at my wrists.

  Despite the suffocating heat, a crowd milled in the courtyard. I paused. God help me, I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to marry some boy who didn’t have the decency to show his face. Then François emerged from among his gentlemen. He bowed, raised my hand to his lips. His smile was sardonic. “You said perhaps you ought to wed me instead. Well, now is your chance.”

  I had to smile. An aging satyr, he was still unlike any man I’d ever met.

  More of the same awaited me at the cathedral, only now the sea of courtiers, nobles, and petty officials had become an ocean. Once more, all eyes—glittering like birds of prey’s above powdered cheeks—fixed on me as I descended from the carriage and resisted the urge to yank the sweat-sodden folds of my gown from between my buttocks. François guided me to the altar as if I were a galleon in my overblown costume. As I approached I saw no sign of my groom.

  The king stood beside me. The bishop looked as if he wished the earth would swallow him. François barked: “Well? What are we waiting for? The bride is here and I will stand as proxy. On, man, on!”

  I wondered if his wedding to Queen Eleanor had been like this. How could it be otherwise? Political marriage, by its very nature, wasn’t designed to inspire sonnets. But even in the most politic of alliances, the actual couple was present to recite their vows.

  The bishop fidgeted with his missal, seeking the appropriate passage, though he must have
had ample time to prepare. I wanted to giggle. The entire occasion struck me as ridiculous, a farce of a marriage founded on a lie.

  In that moment, the clanking of spurs on marble flagstone shattered the quiet. In a fluid movement, everyone swiveled about. I saw a tall youth striding toward us, yanking off leather gauntlets and shoving them into his belt. Behind him surged a coterie of disheveled men. François stiffened. No one needed to tell me the bridegroom had made his appearance.

  As I beheld Henri d’Orléans for the first time, I felt some relief. At least he was not ugly. At fourteen, he held his broad frame with the discipline of a born equestrian—one who, given the choice, would rather live in the saddle and thought little of that which did not yield to bridle or crop. He had the Valois aquiline nose, narrow eyes, and raven-wing hair, but his expression was morose, as if all joy had curdled inside him. He hadn’t changed his clothes, coming before us in his hunting gear with flecks of crusted blood on his jerkin, no doubt from some creature he’d slaughtered. Behind him, I glimpsed a tall rapier of a man of perhaps twenty years of age; he had a sharp thin face and he looked at me as if I were something unpleasant he’d stepped in. His lips pursed. He was Francis de Guise, I’d later discover, Henri’s closest friend and eldest son of the realm’s most ambitious and rabidly Catholic family, which had been ennobled with a dukedom by François and now owned vast tracts of land in northeastern France.

  I lifted my chin. My husband-to-be did not utter a word.

  François hissed, “Ingrate!” I went cold as Henri didn’t bother to glance in his father’s direction. My wedding was becoming a catastrophe; I had to intervene. I was a Medici, niece to the pope. More important, I was my aunt’s child, in every way that mattered.

  I turned to the bishop. “If you would …?” And François stepped aside for Henri to take his place. He smelled worse than he looked, and I stared straight ahead as I repeated the words that made me Henri d’Orléans’s wife.

  After the wedding, we were subjected to another banquet.

  This time, Henri sat at my side on the dais, and while we didn’t look at each other I was certain the hour at hand loomed in both our minds. So much, in fact, that I couldn’t eat anything of the fifty-seven courses set before us in dizzying succession nor feign my delight in the gifts that the nobles piled at our feet.

  At the stroke of midnight, the hundreds of courtiers crammed into the palace corridors to cheer us on to our nuptial suite. I surrendered my wedding gown for a white lawn nightdress and was led into the adjoining room. Henri stood by a vast bed hung with garlands, talking to his friend with the hawk’s stare. My husband wore a translucent linen shift that clung to his muscular body like wet skin. Most women, and some men, would have been overjoyed to have such a man in their bed. Maybe in some part of me, I was too, for my heart thumped like a drum. I also felt queasy as I avoided his friend Francis de Guise’s leering smile and allowed Lucrezia to tuck me under the covers. The bishop blessed the bed; the courtiers drank a final salute to our happiness, and the tapers were doused. Everyone left to resume their revels.

  Silence descended. I lay utterly still.

  I wasn’t ignorant of what people did on their wedding night. Lucrezia had given me a brief explanation and I had seen dogs mating; still, the thought was not appealing.

  He rose from the bed. My breath hissed through my teeth. He wouldn’t dare leave me alone! Then a flame flared, and he stepped from the shadows with a candle. He set the candle at the bedside, sat on the mattress, and cleared his throat.

  “I wish to apologize for any offense I may have caused you.”

  At the sound of these, his first words to me, I shifted up on my pillows.

  “I failed to greet you when we first met,” he added. “My behavior was inexcusable.”

  His apology sounded stilted and I suspected the king had reprimanded him.

  “It was,” I said. “Surely I did nothing to merit such offense.”

  He glanced away. The candle flame cast a wavering shadow across his chin. Thus would he look someday, I thought, when he grew a beard. He was very handsome, even if he still smelled like a goatherd, but that didn’t mean I should care for him. In fact, I sensed it would go far better for me if I did not.

  “No, you did nothing,” he said at length. “Though there are those who say …” He raised his eyes back to me. His look was cool, impersonal. “Some say this marriage isn’t worthy of me.”

  I was taken aback. “Not worthy? How so?”

  Now it was his turn to look discomfited. He hadn’t expected me to question him. What, did wives not have tongues in France?

  “I should think it’s obvious,” he said, with a stiff lift of his chin. “I am a prince of France, while you … you are the daughter of wool merchants.”

  I remained quite still against my pillows. I’d never heard anyone describe me thus and for a moment I almost laughed aloud, it was so absurd. My amusement died when I realized he was serious. He believed I was beneath him.

  “My family may come from modest origins,” I said, “but we now count among us two popes and several lords. In Italy, families like mine are considered noble, as we’ve—”

  “I know about your family,” he interrupted. He’d not expected my candor, either, it seemed; tears and maidenly pleas, yes, but never candor. Every moment that passed deepened my contempt. He was like any boy forced to do something against his will, eager to maim the object of his discomfort without a thought for the consequences.

  “Still, you are fortunate to have a prince in your bed,” he went on, and I knew these weren’t his words. He might believe them now that he’d been apprised, but someone else had put this malicious notion in his head, someone he trusted. Who?

  I wasn’t about to defend myself to him, though a part of me wanted to remind him that my origins sufficed for his father, who’d hankered after my country for years and taken my dowry money and my uncle the pope’s promise of future duchies, quick as you please. Instead I said, “Indeed. It’s a great honor.”

  He stood silent, chest and jaw thrust out like a fighting cock’s. “Of course, I don’t fault you for your lack of lineage. I’m sure you would have preferred to remain in Italy with your people.”

  I was silent. I would never admit aloud how little I had left to mourn in my native land.

  “And I’m told this needn’t be disagreeable,” he said, interpreting my silence for agreement. “If we do as required, in time we can live as husband and wife.”

  It was a night of truth. I wasn’t yet fifteen, a novice in matters of the heart, but even I knew a successful marriage did not depend on personal preference. Women like me often wed strangers. If they had survived the disappointment, so could I.

  I nodded. Satisfied, he blew out the candle and slid back under the covers. “Good night,” he said, and he turned over. Within seconds, his breathing deepened, punctuated by a guttural snore. He slept like a man well exercised, which, in a manner of speaking, he was.

  I stayed awake for hours, staring up at the dark emptiness of the bed canopy.

  SEVEN

  FROM MARSEILLES WE TRAVELED TO THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE in the heart of France.

  Surrounded by laughing men in fitted velvets and bold ladies with painted faces, along with hundreds of carts bearing precarious loads of furniture, utensils, carpets, and tapestries—everything the court might need—I was in awe. Nothing I’d seen in Italy could compare to this court’s extravagance, snaking along the roads like a multicolored ribbon frayed at its edges by a cacophonous multitude of servants and barking hounds, the king always at its center, surrounded by his men. I often glimpsed a striking red-haired lady at his side, clad in jade satin, her long throat glistening with jewels, her hand touching François with familiar intimacy. She was not presented to me, but I guessed she must be his mistress and I thought of his staid Spanish queen, who’d bid me a stiff good-bye in Marseilles and gone another direction with her entourage.

  And the land
we traversed was astonishing—so immense it made Italy seem like a calcified spine. I beheld well-fed vales under luminous skies that arched overhead like azure-painted vaults; majestic forests that spread as far as the horizon and fertile fields cradling spacious townships, where livestock grazed in wide paddocks and rivers sloped in sinuous curves under stone bridges. At my side Lucrezia rode as wide-eyed and open-mouthed as me; and Anna-Maria, who’d weathered our travels with admirable nonchalance, whispered, “It’s like something out of a storybook. It doesn’t seem real.”

  I couldn’t have said it better. France was an enchanted realm, and I thought I could be happy here in ways I had not foreseen: free to create myself anew without the weight of the past. Anything seemed possible in such a beautiful country; and when the king caught my eye he winked, as if he could sense my thoughts, and he leaned to my ear to whisper, “Wait until you see my Château of Fontainebleau. You will discover that I’ve spared no expense in creating a palace worthy to hold its own even among the Medici.”

  He was right. Fontainebleau emerged from the alabaster mists of the Loire Valley like a fantastical dream, the first place in France I would call home. From stucco nymphs that seemed to writhe on the wainscoting of its gilded great gallery to lavish corridors festooned with the king’s prized collection of paintings, including Leonardo da Vinci’s superb Madonna of the Rocks and his odd little Giaconda, I recognized François’s passion for everything Italian. He had sought to re-create a vision of my land that I no longer held, one of supreme artistry and extroverted exuberance, and he was so delighted in my interest he even took me on a personal tour of his château, pointing out the oleander-dusted grottoes that echoed courtyards of Tuscany and bathing chambers that boasted heated floors and mosaics like those of ancient Rome.