Navarre, died shortly before Christmas 1549, leaving her daughter and all those who knew her bereft. Henri spent his days and most of his nights in the company of Diane, while I found joy only when I retreated into the simple pleasures of motherhood.
Henri was frugal and did not waste his days pursuing every pretty woman who caught his eye. Yet unlike his father, he possessed a zeal for persecuting Protestants-a zeal created and nurtured by Diane. Perhaps she thought that burning heretics would make God forget that she was a whore. She shrouded herself in a cloak of piety and virtue, and delighted in drawing a sharp contrast between Henri’s “morality” and his father’s debauchery. But like his father, Henri was ruled by his mistress: Diane wanted lands seized from Protestants and placed in the hands of Catholics, and Henri accomplished it. She desired to see Protestants imprisoned and executed, and so it was done- although there were many Protestant sympathizers at Court, including Montmorency’s young nephew Gaspard de Coligny, Antoine de Bourbon, and the King’s own cousin Jeanne of Navarre, who had embraced Martin Luther’s teachings during her stay in Germany. Nobility conferred protection; only commoners risked persecution.
Every morning after meeting with his advisers, Henri went to Diane’s chambers to discuss government business; he took no action without her approval and delegated so much power to her that she signed royal documents in the King’s stead.
Like his father, Henri failed to see the jealousy his mistress’s power generated among his courtiers. Nor did he see the dissatisfaction brewing in the countryside, where Protestant villagers were outraged by the new laws forbidding their form of worship. Paris was almost entirely Catholic, so Henri did not listen to the advisers who warned him that his harsh intolerance of the new religion was fostering rebellion. He listened only to Diane, who in turn listened to the Guise brothers. Like Diane, they despised Protestantism and were eager to influence the Crown.
The people’s hearts began to turn from Henri, and the Protestants grew to hate him. I spoke privately with him on the matter several times; King Francois had taught me the importance of earning the people’s love. Perhaps I was too direct, for Henri dismissed me abruptly, accusing me of overestimating my own intelligence and underestimating Diane’s.
I spent years eclipsed by Diane, years during which my intellect and capabilities were ignored, years when I saw the country harmed and greedy, calculating nobles rewarded by my ingenuous husband. I yearned to speak out but complained to no one, for I had purchased with the prostitute’s life exactly what I had requested: I was Henri’s wife and mother to his children-and not a whit more.
Diane continued to keep her promise and sent Henri to my bed. I did not realize then that she was so confident in her position that she had begun to shun my husband’s physical attentions, and that Henri had begun to look in other arms for solace.
Our son Charles-Maximilien-as sickly as his predecessors, with a red-violet, walnut-sized birthmark just beneath his nose-was born in 1550, three years after Henri assumed the throne. We built a large nursery in the palace King Francois I had renovated at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just west of Paris, where Henri had grown up. The chateau was built around a central courtyard, with sweeping lawns that spurred Mary to chase Francois, but running made my elder son gasp so horribly that he fainted. In the days just after Charles’s birth, I watched from my window as Mary ran alone, a swift, solitary little figure on the grassy expanse.
My husband became a solicitous father during Charles’s early months, visiting the nursery almost daily. He abandoned the old King’s itinerant habit, keeping the Court at Saint-Germain for the children’s sake. After Diane broke her leg in a fall from the saddle and went to her chateau at Anet to recuperate, Henri remained with me at Saint-Germain. I admit, his choice pleased me-until I learned its true cause.
On the first cold night of autumn, I sat in my chamber in front of the mirror while Madame Gondi brushed out my hair. It was late, but I was enjoying our conversation about how little Francois had been allowed to hold his infant brother, Charles, for the very first time, and how he-after being convinced that the baby’s red birthmark was not catching-had kissed Charles and solemnly pronounced him acceptable.
As Madame Gondi and I were speaking, I heard a woman’s heartbroken wail coming from the nursery above us. I ran out of my chambers and up the stairs, propelled by maternal urgency.
On the landing, one of Mary’s Scottish bodyguards stood beneath the lighted wall lamp. He had heard the cry but had not reacted to it; in fact, he was restraining a knowing smirk.
I ran past him toward the double doors of the now quiet nursery. Just beyond, two figures stood in the wavering light cast by a sconce in front of the closed door of the chamber inhabited by Mary’s governess. They were arguing-and at the realization, I stopped half a corridor away in the shadows.
It was Montmorency, broad-shouldered and gray-bearded, his back pressed against the door, his hand upon the latch, and Diane, who leaned heavily upon a crutch tucked under one arm. Apparently she had just traveled all the way from Anet and had rushed into the chateau without pausing to remove her cloak. The lamplight revealed shadowed hollows beneath her eyes and the slackness of age along her jaw. The hair at her temples was more silver now than gold. She was dressed elegantly in a high ruffed collar of exquisite black lace, accentuated by a large diamond brooch at her throat, and ivory satin skirts embroidered with gold scrollwork. But even such sartorial glory could not hide the fact that she was worn and frazzled, her dignity replaced by shrewishness as she tucked into Montmorency.
“You insult me, Monsieur, with your lies!” she hissed, shaking her forefinger at the Grand Master. “He is in there-I know it! Open the door-or move aside, and I will do it myself.”
Montmorency’s voice was soothing. “Madame, you are beside yourself. Please lower your voice, lest you wake the children.”
“The children!” She released an exasperated gasp. “I am the only one here thinking of the children!” She lurched forward, balancing on the crutch, and reached beyond the solid Grand Master for the door. “Open it now or I will go in myself! I demand to speak to Madame Fleming!”
The door behind Montmorency swung inward, causing him to take a staggering step backward, almost colliding with the man emerging from the governess’s room: my husband. Unlike Diane, Henri was in his prime, with his father’s long, handsome face and full, dark beard, his attractiveness enhanced by the sort of deep relaxation he showed on returning from a particularly vigorous hunt. His head was bare, his hair tousled; his doublet rode up a bit at the hips. At the sight of Diane, he smoothed down the hem. The room behind him was dark as he shut the door, and Montmorency moved to block it.
At the sight of the evidence that her suspicions were true, Diane averted her face in pain. The three players stood stunned and silent in the face of disclosure until she lifted her wounded countenance again.
“Your Majesty!” she exclaimed, anguished. “Whence do you come?”
At the sight of his livid paramour, Henri directed his attention to the carpet beneath his feet.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he murmured, so softly that I strained to hear. “I was only speaking with the lady.” Poor guileless Henri, too slow to concoct a feasible lie.
“Speaking!” Diane hissed. “Let me go ask Madame Fleming the subject of your conversation!”
She started again for the door, but Montmorency’s bulk stymied her.
“This is unseemly,” he scolded her. “You have no right to speak so to the King!”
Henri turned on him with a dangerous look, and Montmorency fell silent at once.
“Your Majesty,” Diane said, more quietly yet no less indignantly, “you have betrayed your dear friends the Guises and their niece Queen Mary with such behavior. You have betrayed your son the Dauphin as well, for he is to marry the child who has that-that
I marked that she had not thought to mention the betrayal of the King’s wife.
“I mean to hurt no one,” Henri said, but he could not look at her. “Please, can we discuss this tomorrow? And not here, in the hall, lest we wake the children…”
“But it is on their account I must raise the alarm.” In the most politic of strokes, Diane loosed her wrath on the Grand Master. “I was told of this. Told that
“It’s not his fault,” Henri said softly. “It’s all mine. Forgive me, Madame, and do not be angry; I can bear
