Courtesan

  “So, my son is fond of yours, is he?”

  “I am told that he is, Your Majesty.”

  “Then the Prince shall not have your son’s company on his journey.”

  “As Your Majesty wishes. Will there be anything further?”

  “No, Saint-André. I suspect that is quite enough for one day.”

  When the tutor had gone, Barre returned. He went back to preparing the King’s wardrobe as though the exchange had not occurred. The others present shuffled around the room or engaged in private whispers to mask the fact that they had heard everything. François only shook his head, propped his chin in his long hand, and slumped farther down in the settee.

  “Oh, Monty, what in the name of God am I to do?”

  The Grand Master moved forward with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.

  “I tell you, that boy means to have me pay for his blasted incarceration for the rest of my life!” the King moaned. “And yet I cannot undo, God forgive me, what either of my sons endured at the hands of the bloody Emperor! I had no choice. . .You know I had no choice. It was either my sons, or me!” He sprung forward and paced the length of his bedchamber. His strides were long and his sable-trimmed dressing robe streamed back like the wings of a great crimson bird.

  Anne de Montmorency was brusk, sober and ambitious. He was one of three men who held the most influence over the King. They had all been with him since before his accession to the throne eighteen years ago. It was Montmorency, however, who held a place in the King’s heart upon which no other courtier seemed likely to encroach. Monty (as the King called him to avoid the embarrassment of his feminine name) had fought beside him in the wars, shared the same games and the same whores. For his fidelity, he had been rewarded with the most powerful post in the French Court.

  “I know that Your Majesty has not agreed in the past upon this score, but I still say that your son requires less restrictive companionship.”

  “Oh, nonsense. You’ve always been too soft on the boy, Monty. Your judgment is tainted.”

  “Most humbly, Your Majesty, it would do him far more good than the imperious sort of governors he has thus encountered since his return from his Spanish prison.”

  “And why would that be?” he asked, beginning to show his irritation.

  “If I may hazard a guess, I should imagine His Highness sees tutors such as Monsieur La Croix as a further extension of his captors. A boy his age is bound to rebel.”

  “Well, I still say that lenience is not the answer! Not for insolence!”

  “But perhaps Your Majesty would find it the answer to adolescence.”

  “Great Zeus, Monty! Why must you always disagree with me? It doesn’t look at all good,” the King moaned.

  “If I may remind Your Majesty, you have remarked to me many times that my unfeigned opinion is of value here.”

  “Oh, so it is,” he acquiesced, as he looked around the room at his more laudatory collection of advisors. “But We really must disagree with you in this. If you recall, We have tried that approach at your urging with Monsieur Renault. Surely you have not forgotten him. The old fool deserted Us within a month’s time, despite his reputation for managing boys far more difficult than Henri. No. There must be another way to bring him around.”

  Another intrusion at the bedchamber door distracted the King. One of the guards gripped the iron handle, but before he could open it, François was chiding him.

  “Well go on! Open it, you fool! Go on! Ah, it appears I shall have no peace at my lever this morning, as it is!”

  A young chambermaid, costumed in an aubergine velvet gown, slipped past the guards and hurried into the chamber. Her head was lowered and the rest of her face was hidden by a veil and hood.

  “Well, what is it?” François gestured impatiently. As he stood before her with his hands at his hips, his dressing gown flew open again. The girl gasped and surrendered her face to her hands. Seeing her embarrassment, the King looked down. Until that moment he had not been aware that beneath his open dressing gown, he was completely bare. Amused, he strode casually toward her and closed the robe.

  “Well then, that was a sight now, was it not? You may consider that a. . .royal vision if you like! Hah!” he chuckled, as pleased with his sense of humor as he was with himself.

  The pages, gentlemen-of-the-chamber and guards followed the King’s lead and laughed among themselves. The young girl could not compete with the King’s bawdy humor or the laughter of so great a throng of men. She began to cry into her hands. Suddenly her innocence pleased him.

  “Well now, chérie, it cannot have been that awful, can it?” he joked, and the guard behind her winked in return to the King. “All right then, come, come. What was it that brought you here to my bedchamber at such an hour?”

  She could scarcely raise her head much less manage a reply.

  “Out with it, girl,” snorted the corpulent Chancellor Duprat, another of the King’s powerful aides, as he moved closer. “His Majesty has not got all day!”

  “I. . .I have come to claim the Comtesse de Sancerre’s things.”

  “Oh, was that her name?” the King muttered, brushing a casual hand across his face so that only Montmorency, Duprat and a few others nearest to him could hear.

  “Come here, chérie,” the King finally said.

  As the girl advanced, he took her hand as if to shake it. Then, without a blink of his eye, pulled her hand down onto his bare penis. A look of sheer terror overcame her shy face, and she struggled with an involuntary spasm to free herself.

  “What is the matter, Mademoiselle? Surely you know what an honor it is to hold the royal jewels!” he said, tilting his head back with a throaty laugh. The wise courtiers once again followed suit, watching skillfully to laugh only so long as their King.

  “Very well, ma petite. There you go. Now, off with you!” he said, pointing to the mass of deep blue silk spread out on the floor near his bed. The girl, who by now had managed to collect herself, bowed discreetly and filled her arms with the opulent cloth. She then backed out of the chamber with careful steps through a filter of laughter.

  After she had gone, the King turned to Montmorency. “Who was that?” he asked with an impetuous grin.

  “Really, Your Majesty, I must object,” he replied, knowing from experience why the King had asked. “She is just thirteen and only this month returned from the convent. We really have been all through this sort of thing, have we not?” he asked with as much of a discouraging tone as his position would allow. François scowled back at him.

  “Your Majesty might recall that it was precisely these kinds of ladies, I shall grant you of slightly less noble breeding, but these types nonetheless, who led you into trouble the last time.”

  Trouble for the King meant the French disease, syphilis, so named because it was believed to have originated in France and then spread to various other European countries during wartime. The King had fallen victim to it several years before, and after a series of brutal treatments, now cast a wary eye at the prospect of its return.

  “I think Your Majesty would agree that we have managed to keep you amused with a rather steady stream of. . .well, more certain types of ladies, those whose backgrounds we can more thoroughly investigate.”

  “Like the Comtesse de Sancerre?”

  “Precisely. Then of course there is always your favourite, your Mademoiselle d’Heilly.”

  “Yes, yes.” He wrapped his arm around the Grand Master and strolled back toward his mirror. The courtiers and dignitaries followed them like yearling geese. “But it is the variety that amuses me, Monty.”

  Jean de La Barre, having heard the exchange, took this cue to move forward. “Sire, I feel I must tell you that as it is, Mademoiselle d’Heilly is very angry after your. . .selection for last evening. It would appear that she expected to be invited to your bedchamber.”

  “Well, I am King, and she is only my whore!” he bellowed, raising a small vase of Venetian glass from
the nightstand and tossing it toward the fire in a self-indulgent show of superiority. The vase hit the wall above the mantel and splinters of glass sprayed the room. After a moment, he recanted. “Oh, perhaps you are right. After these many years, she has come to expect certain things. Very well them, Barre. Have the jeweler fashion something for her. Emeralds are her favorite. Have it delivered to her apartments with a note professing my undying love and humble apology for my. . .indiscretion. The Court poet, that one she so enjoys, can create something endearing, do you not suppose?”

  “Most certainly, Sire.”

  “All right then, see to it at once. And on your way, pay a visit to my companion of last night. Duchesse. . .no, no, Comtesse of. . .of whatever. Invite her to dine with Us. Tell her I shall come to her apartments at noontide. Oh, and Barre. . .since they tell me she is married. . .do see that she is alone.”

  AFTER HIS LEVER, the toilette and dressing ritual complete, the King spent time alone on his silver prie-dieu in his private chamber for prayer. Then he advanced to his outer apartments to read his dispatches. He would also converse with his most intimate advisors, collectively called the conseil des affaires. He did not attend to the formal business of the Court until late morning, after having heard Mass in the royal chapel. Only then, properly attired and disposed, did the King of France receive those who had business with him.

  “Well, what have we on the agenda today, Duprat?” the King asked. Antoine Duprat, an obese, odorous man with blue fluid eyes and pale fleshy cheeks, looked up with surprise and then began to riffle through a collection of papers for the list of the King’s appointments.

  Duprat was His Majesty’s Chancellor, Chief Secretary, and the second of three in most favor at the Court of France. He was a ruthless little man who in his time had killed and ruined lives without benefit of contemplation. Now the years and the haunting echo of death taunted him and he spent his days far more absorbed by gluttony than in either corruption or hygiene.

  He sat beside François at the head of a long table in one of the drawing rooms. On the King’s right, sat Grand Master Montmorency and the Cardinals de Tournon and Lorraine. Philippe Chabot, Admiral of France, and the final member of the King’s triumvirate, had garnered the other end of the oblong-shaped table. He sat there, arms folded, his full lips set in a perpetual sneer.

  As the conseil des affaires began, a man dashed out from beneath one of the large wall tapestries at the far end of the room. He headed directly for the King.

  “My most humble pardon, Your Majesty, but I do crave a word with you on this matter of the Pope’s niece. I really can wait no longer. His Holiness, Pope Clement, anxiously awaits your reply.”

  The small dark-haired Italian man spoke quickly and in a French tongue thickly laced with the sound of his native language. Montmorency and the others turned around in their chairs. The man advanced still nearer to the King. Chabot, who was closest in proximity to him at the end of the table, bolted from his chair. He drew a long pearl-handled dagger from the scabbard at his waist and held it beneath the man’s chin. The royal guards rushed behind him and drew their rapiers. Montmorency rose and advanced toward the end of the table, but his gait was slower, more deliberate.

  “Monsieur,” he began without looking at the Ambassador. “How long is it that you have been in residence here at Court?”

  “It is now six months time, my lord.”

  “Six months? Well, certainly that would seem sufficient time for you to have noted that His Majesty hears no business until after Mass.”

  The Ambassador looked over at the King for confirmation, but François said nothing. The Italian Ambassador, who was also the Duke of Albany, lowered his head again. He took a deep breath and advanced further toward the King. The unexpected movement caused five chamber guards to raise their rapiers, and with them, to bar the little Italian man from advancing farther. Through the maze of steel he spoke.

  “I do beg Your Majesty’s most humble pardon, but I have been patiently awaiting an audience with you for several days. His Holiness the Pope grows more angry with me by the day for the delays and I. . .”

  “Silence!” The King at last voiced a thunderous command, his large amber eyes reduced to slits. The active room of courtiers fell silent. All eyes turned upon the Ambassador.

  “If you persist in forcing the matter without allowing Us time to consider the proposition, you must then relate to His Holiness that the answer is, ‘no.’ Never shall my son, the Crown Prince of France, be made to marry a commoner, even if she has had the good fortune of having been born the Pope’s niece!”

  The King stood as the last words left his mouth. The guards advanced from a nod given by the Grand Master and they escorted the grumbling Ambassador from the drawing room.

  The Treaty of Madrid had bound France with Spain and taken away France’s claim to Milan. Now, after seven years, peace was losing its appeal for the French Monarch. Each day he grew restless for territorial superiority over the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. There was something to be said for an Italian alliance, should he choose to forsake the treaty with Spain. Lately he had given it more than passing consideration. Such a marriage as the Pope proposed, through the Duke of Albany, would certainly secure his superiority over the equally ambitious Emperor. It would possibly even see Milan returned to him. Since his childhood he had been taught to think of Milan as his own. His great-grandmother, Valentina Visconti, had been the daughter of the Duke of Milan. It was his birthright. Milan belonged to France. Undaunted by his past acquisition and loss of that great city, and no matter what the treaty prohibited, François meant to have it once again under the French Crown.

  But it was not only territory that the French King craved. It was the world of Italian art and architecture that the key of Milan would open up to him. Leonardo da Vinci had answered the call, but he had arrived in France so aged that he had contributed little more to French history than having died there. Still there was Michelangelo, Raphaël and Cellini to be courted. Such cultural greats as these had all rejected his entreaties to come to France. If however, he could win the return of Milan, he might one day count them among his own national treasures. With their help, he dreamed that he would create the most magnificent palaces on earth. He would have in his personal collection works of art praised by all. If he could achieve this, the masters would no longer share their great gifts with Italy or Spain or even with England. Their work would all be for him; for France.

  “Perhaps Your Majesty should reconsider,” Chabot suggested cautiously once the Ambassador had gone. “A Medici marriage would bring to France a very strategic and much needed alliance with Italy.”

  Philippe Chabot, a small and impish looking man, was as cold as he was ruthless. Unlike Montmorency, he had not won his place in the triumvirate; he had taken it.

  “The dowry alone, quite likely, could finance your next campaign. . .provided of course, that there is to be a next campaign.” When he saw by the King’s expression that he had not completely abandoned the idea, Chabot continued. “And we must not forget that he is offering Pisa and Livorno in the bargain.”

  “But marry the Dauphin off to a merchant’s daughter? Make a commoner the next Queen? For the love of God, there is not enough money in all of Italy for a concession like that!” the King declared. Then he remembered Milan. The desire for it made him soften. “We shall give the matter over to further consideration. In the meantime, send the good Duke of Albany back to His Holiness with Our complete refusal. . .. Then let Us see just what else they may propose.”

  THE SERVE WAS a good one and Claude d’Annebault, though considerably smaller and less physically agile than the King, returned the serve with force. His Majesty scrambled for the return.

  “All right, Claude! Show Us what you’ve got between those legs of yours!” the King called out to his opponent. He whacked the small leather ball into the air with the force of his racket and it sailed across the string net.

  The gaming co
urt in winter for jeu de paume was a large indoor hall several yards from the main chateau. Inside was a long row of wooden benches. When the King played, they were always brimming with courtiers and heavily perfumed ladies to cheer him on. Both the King and his opponent wore tan puffed trunk hose over silk stockings. Their shirts were loose fitting and made of muslin. Montmorency stood on the sidelines beside Chabot, Barre and Duprat. Chabot took great pains to cheer the King with more animation than his rival, Anne de Montmorency.

  “Bravo, Your Majesty!”

  “Good return, Your Majesty!”

  Both men looked bitterly at the other as the words flowed simultaneously from their mouths. Admiral Chabot flashed an insipid smile and took a step forward, away from the Grand Master. The two men despised one another and nothing was spared between them in their quest for the King’s favor.

  They watched the King’s studied volley. Perspiration dripped from his forehead as he poised an arm overhead and prepared to return a serve. The movements of his tall, forceful body were at once strong and graceful. He was in the prime of his life and everyone who watched him play could see it. Yet, when his opponent missed the game point, it appeared to everyone that he had done so intentionally. The opponent, Marshal Claude d’Annebault, also among the King’s inner elite, hopped across the net and bowed before the Sovereign.

  “Good match, mon vieux!” declared the King. “But see to it that you practice a bit more before We sport with you again!” He playfully cuffed the Marshal’s head as he turned to leave the court.

  “Splendid game today, Your Majesty,” Montmorency flattered. As he walked on the right of the King, Chabot, as always, was on His Majesty’s left. Jean de La Barre and Chancellor Duprat trailed behind them.

  “Claude was too easy with Us in this game, Monty. He could easily have claimed victory in the final set. I suspect he fears truly to challenge the King.”

  “Your Majesty is much too modest. You are playing better than ever.”

  “So I am, indeed,” he agreed, and slapped the Grand Master on the back.