The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King (39 page)

Theirs was a great love—the perfect meeting of minds and bodies. Henri adored Diane without reservation: “I [beg] you to remember him who has known but one God and one friend, and rest assured you will never be ashamed of having allowed me to be your servant, and as such I implore you to keep me forever.” All his letters and notes are signed with the interlaced initials “HD.”

A number of historians like to claim that Diane’s relationship with Henri was motivated entirely by self-interest. But her interest lay always with Henri and his with her. Why should she not be the most fortunate woman in his realm? She had cared for him since his childhood, mothered him, counseled him, and finally, she had fallen in love with this handsome, athletic young man who blatantly worshipped her. He freely gave what he had to give both as king and lover, and she repaid him with her total devotion, love, and wise counsel.

Diane de Poitiers was the choice of the king’s heart. If he could have married her, he would gladly have done so. One can understand that he felt her place should be beside him for the world to see. When one considers the extent of the hold Diane had on Henri, she could have asked for so much more. It is a sign of her breeding, her sensitivity and basic good manners that so few people were aware of her true relationship with the king. Diane was discreet not only because she wished to be seen as the pure widow eternally in mourning for her husband, but also out of respect for the institution of the monarchy. These were the values and the behavior she had been taught by the inimitable Anne de Beaujeu.

W
ITH the death of James V of Scotland in November 1542, his tiny daughter Mary Stuart had inherited the throne. To the annoyance of Henry VIII, who sought to incorporate Scotland into his kingdom, Mary was instantly recognized as sovereign Queen of Scots by the king of France. In September 1547, the English scored a great victory over the Scots at the bloody Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, near Edinburgh, and it became clear to Scotland’s dowager-queen, Marie de Guise, and the Scottish nobles that an alliance with France was in their best interests. Although stunned at first by the enormous implications of such a union, in January 1548, the regent, James Hamilton, second Earl of Arran, signed a contract with Henri II that the queen of Scotland would marry the dauphin of France. Arran was Mary’s cousin and the heir apparent, and he had hoped that the little queen would marry his own son instead of Henri’s heir; but because of the menace of England, his country needed a strong ally.

In June 1548, the French fleet of over one hundred vessels landed their men at Leith near Edinburgh to join the fifty captains who had arrived the previous December. Their number included German and Italian mercenaries and totaled six thousand. This force marched to besiege the important market town of Haddington in East Lothian, occupied by the English. In a nunnery there, the French and Scots signed a treaty which decreed that, because of the pending marriage of the dauphin of France to the queen of Scotland, France would defend Scotland. Scotland would need protection because, once the English realized that Mary Stuart would no longer be the bride of their Own child-king Edward VI,
and would instead join her kingdom to France, retribution would surely follow, and there was a real threat that Mary would be kidnapped and forced to marry Edward. Even before the Scottish Parliament had consented to the marriage, in view of the danger to their little queen’s life, and to the great sadness of Marie de Guise, preparations began for her daughter to leave for France as soon as possible. The dowager-queen had lost her two sons with James V
¹
; her only other son (by her first husband, a French duke) lived in France; and now she was losing her enchanting daughter. But despite the urgings of her Guise relations to return to France, Marie de Guise would stay behind to protect her daughter’s inheritance.

Meanwhile, the French took extraordinary precautions to avoid the possibility of the English intercepting and capturing Mary Stuart. On June 24, the galleys intended to escort Mary slipped out of the Firth of Forth heading for the west coast. Mary was seen in Dumbarton and the English must have had a good idea that she would try to leave from there for France, taking the long western route. In July, the Scottish Parliament consented to the marriage on condition that they could count on the French to defend them as they would their own country, while respecting Scotland’s independence. Mary embarked on July 28, but the ships stayed in the Firth of Forth until August 7, when a long-awaited east wind sprang up. Following a wide northern route, the galleys reached the west coast of Ireland, successfully evading the English ships lying in wait off St. Abb’s Head. On August 20, Mary landed safely in France in the tiny port of Roscoff near Brest, where a small chapel still stands to mark the spot.

While his soldiers were demonstrating French might and guile to the English by spiriting away Mary, Queen of Scots, Henri II, encouraged by Montmorency, decided to go on tour to Turin, capital of his conquered territory of Piedmont, situated between France and the north of Italy. In April 1548, accompanied by only a small entourage, he made his first progress through this domain as its king. The bulk of the court remained near Lyons, the first city to stage a royal “entry” for Henri other than Paris. Diane’s brother Guillaume died at this time, so
she was unable to join the king on his stately progress through Piedmont. Judging from the letters that passed between the king and his mistress, he missed her dreadfully.

Henri II made a leisurely, triumphal progress through the country and was lavishly received. During September, the king and Montmorency left the court’s gentle caravan in order to quell the wholesale rebellion of La Rochelle and the people of the salt marshes. Henri had tried to increase the
gabelle
, or salt tax. Montmorency put down the rebellion very harshly while the king rejoined the queen, Diane, and their suite at Ainay, then journeyed to the Rhône to sail in the royal galleys toward Lyons. The new king was jubilant. The earlier morose young man had disappeared, and he rejoiced in his good fortune.

After Paris, Lyons, ancient capital of the Gauls, was the second richest city in France, predominantly due to its trade in gold and silver. Lyons was also the second most progressive, cultured city in France, and its citizens wanted to stage a spectacular state entry for their new king. Sixteenth-century France was in the grip of the cult of antiquity and the provinces followed the lead of Paris. To honor Henri II, the city chose to stage a Roman triumph.

The celebrations began on September 23, 1548. The guard of honor, consisting of 338 infantry, wore new black and white uniforms, and the hundreds of representatives of the various guilds that paraded in front of the king also wore only black and white. The façades of the houses and balconies along the processional route were covered with tapestries. Although there was no mention of Diane de Poitiers in the official address, it was to her that the dignitaries turned after greeting the king, her fingers they kissed. Everywhere Henri looked, he saw his cipher joined to that of the woman he loved: on the canopy above him, on the fluttering pennants, on the carpet beneath his feet, on the saddlecloths of the horses.

The pageant was staged in an artificial forest complete with live deer, set up in the main square. A group of beautiful nymphs was central: they played Amazons stalking elegantly through the undergrowth, their tunics cut to expose one breast, their hair caught up in ropes of pearls and precious stones. Brantôme describes their leader, a strikingly beautiful girl who represented the goddess Diana, wearing a brief black
tunic covered with silver stars, black knee-high stockings, crimson stocking-sleeves edged and laced in gold, and short red satin boots covered with pearls and embroidery. A silver crescent set with diamonds glittered on her forehead; her Turkish bow hung from her shoulder, and she carried a golden arrow in her hand.

Several of the nymphs led
levrettes
and various small hunting hounds on silken cords of black and white. Others accompanied running dogs and carried little gilded daggers, spears, and golden hunting horns, all hung with ribbons or tassels in black and white silk. The cornet players and trumpeters wore gold and silver sashes with more black and white ribbons.

Suddenly, out of the undergrowth, a mechanical lion appeared at the feet of the goddess Diana, who slipped a silver and black leash about his neck.
²
He was the trophy of their hunt and the symbol of the city of Lyons. The goddess presented the lion to the king while reciting a poem from the city written in his honor. As Diane and the queen watched the spectacle, the meaning of this gesture was not lost on either of them, or on the audience: the goddess Diana presents the city of Lyons to the king, just as Diane gives him her devotion, a lion/city tamed by love. He was her Actaeon; she, Diana, goddess of the hunter’s moon. It was a charming conceit and tableau, which delighted those watching. History does not relate the feelings of the two rivals, but one can imagine Diane’s glow of triumph to be accepted by this great city as the king’s lover, just as one can sense the humiliation of the queen.

More entertainment followed: a staged combat between twelve Roman gladiators, six in red against six wearing white; and a staged naval battle, with one set of participants wearing black and white against another in red and green, the queen’s colors. Needless to say, the black and white team won.

The famous courtesan Louise Labé, muse and mistress of French and Italian poets, and herself an outstanding poet in both languages, held a literary salon in the city.

In honor of the state entry, Louise Labé planted the interlaced “HD” initials and moon symbols in her garden and posed there, dressed as a
chevalier
in velvet doublet and hose, and sporting a plumed velvet beret. Her lover, the poet Olivier de Magny, included this poem
³
dedicated to Diane in his
Odes:

Throughout all of these festivities, it was perfectly clear whom the city had chosen to honor. For the rest of her life, Catherine de’ Medici never forgot the humiliation she had suffered in Lyons. Matteo Dandolo described the unhappy Catherine: “She has the big eyes and thick lips of the Medici. Many say she strikingly resembles her great-uncle, Pope Leo. But, nevertheless, she loves the king above everything, so much so that the object of all her thoughts seems to be nothing else but how to please him and to be with him. For this reason, without bothering about the effort or the fatigue, she follows him wherever she can.” Today, Henri’s treatment of Catherine may seem callous, yet it
should be remembered that he neither chose her nor wanted her as his partner for life. Henri was devoted to another, and blind to Catherine’s love. The serpent lay still.

The next day, it was the queen’s turn to make her official entry and receive the city’s homage. The same pageant was performed for Catherine, but this time the nymphs and Amazons wore satin in Catherine’s green. All the ladies of the court were present, including Marguerite de Navarre and Jeanne d’Albret. Diane, striking in the stark simplicity of her black and white, rode on a dancing black stallion behind the queen’s litter, and drew the crowd’s cheers. Although they disliked many of her policies, in particular, her intolerance of Protestants, few of them could resist the magnetism of her dramatic, silent presence. The Spanish ambassador was there and wrote home describing Catherine’s entry: “It is indeed true that little could be seen when the queen made her entry, because night came on … and the people say that, as she is not good-looking, the king gave orders that her pageant should be kept back until a late hour, so that Her Majesty should pass unnoticed.” This seems hard to believe of the courteous Henri. Brantôme tells us that although the queen’s entry was indeed at night, the town was so well lit that “one could see it as light as day: which went very well, for the lovely fireworks accompanied those in the eyes of the beautiful ladies, which worked together to make fire and light everywhere.”