The favourites of Henry of Navarre

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Preface

Turee years ago the reviewers and the public gave a flattering reception to a book written by Le Petit Homme Rouge on the Court of the Tuileries in the days of the Second French Empire. He now offers a work in some respects similar to and in others different from his previous effort. For instance, this volume contains no elaborate descriptions of Court life and ceremonial, though these are incidentally dealt with ; and while, on the other hand, monarchs, nobles, and statesmen again throng Le Petit Homme Rouge’s pages, they are men of long ago, offering frequently but little resemblance to those about whom the author wrote in his earlier work. This time, moreover, his theme is more particularly Woman in connection with History. He holds the view that, although women have been debarred by the Salic Law from reigning in France, they have really exercised more power and influence there than in any other country. It is, indeed, certain that the fair and frail creatures, with whom one or another Sovereign became infatuated in the days of the old monarchy, often proved, for good or for evil, important factors in the national life, and that due account of them and their influence should therefore be taken by every student who desires to arrive at a right understanding of French history. The present volume, then, treats of the Favourites of that famous monarch, Henri de Navarre; and although he was a ruler who never deliberately entrusted the authority vested in himself to either wife or mistress, the readers of this book will probably recognize that his personal career and the fortunes of his Kingdom were profoundly influenced by his numerous entanglements with women.

viii PREFACE

The author believes that he has gathered together in a volume of moderate length a large amount of information hitherto scattered here and there, and often not easily accessible, while at times it has only been conveyed in works overburdened with details that offer little if any interest to the British reader. At the same time, there have been hitherto very few books limited to the Favourites of Henri de Navarre, yet also professing to give fairly detailed accounts of all of them. An anonymous volume of the kind was issued at Amsterdam in 1743, and nearly fifty years ago M. de Lescure produced in Paris a more elaborate one, which is frequently quoted in this present work. It must be said, however, that latter-day research in many directions has demonstrated the inaccuracy of a good many of Lescure’s facts and a good many of his conclusions. At the present time his book is somewhat similar to the curate’s egg, that is, “excellent in parts” only ; for, since it was written, public and private archives have disclosed many of their secrets, and documents have come to light invalidating much which was once regarded as being probable if not altogether beyond dispute.

In the following pages the author has availed himself of this great advance in our historical knowledge, and hopes to have attained to a higher degree of accuracy than was formerly possible; whilst, by carefully examining and sifting evidence, he thinks that he may have elucidated certain points which had hitherto remained more or less obscure.

He has not forgotten that his book is intended for the British public, and although he has much to say about women who were frail as well as fair, and claims the rights to which every conscientious historical writer is entitled—for historical writing is valueless unless it adequately sets forth the truth— he does not think that he has written a single word to which any reasonable exception can ‘be taken. On the other hand, he has not indulged in moralizing, for he holds that the facts he recounts speak amply for themselves, and that his readers a

PREFACE ; "ax will easily draw their own conclusions from them. The book makes no claim whatever to be a complete history of Henri de Navarre’s career and rule; but, in order that the King’s position at one and another period may be the better understood, there are not infrequent glances at political and military affairs. Moreover, the writer has had to refer incidentally to a very large number of characters, with a good many of whom the English reader is scarcely familiar. There are instances also when one or another personage, after figuring for a while under some particular title, suddenly becomes known by another ; and, further, more or less important questions of relationship occasionally present themselves. The author has therefore been at some pains to supply, either in his text or in his footnotes, a variety of information respecting those subordinate characters, in order that no confusion may arise in the reader’s mind. |

That said, Le Petit Homme Rouge respectfully submits his work to the judgment of the critics and the public, in the hope that it may meet with some at least of the favour which was so generously extended to his previous volume.

: Paris, Easter, 1910.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Ees

Ill.

IV.

Vv.

Vi.

Vil.

Vill.

Ix.

XI.

Introduction

CHARLOTTE DE SAUVES

A QUARTETTE OF BEAUTIES: TIGNONVILLE, DAYELLE, REBOURS, AND FOSSEUX

A ROYAL SEPARATION

CORISANDA

LA BELLE GABRIELLE—WOOED AND WON

LA BELLE GABRIELLE—PALMY DAYS

LA BELLE GABRIELLE—DISAPPOINTMENT AND DEATH

HENRIETTE D’ENTRAGUES—THE FELINE FAVOURITE

HENRIETTE D’ENTRAGUES—AMBITION AND FALL

THE PRINCESS DE CONDE—THE ASSASSINATION OF THE

KING AND AFTERWARDS

Appendix

WOMEN ASSOCIATED WITH HENRI DE NAVARRE NATURAL CHILDREN OF HENRI DE NAVARRE AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

SONGS ATTRIBUTED TO HENRI DE NAVARRE

PAGE

294 301

ILLUSTRATIONS

HENRI DE NAVARRE QUEEN MARGUERITE CORISANDA

GABRIELLE D’ESTREES

HENRIETTE D’ENTRAGUES

PRINCESSE DE CONDE

Frontispiece To face page 24 88 128 216 280

THE FAVOURITES OF HENRY OF NAVARRE

INTRODUCTION

The Popularity of Henri de Navarre—His amorous Nature—His Parentage and Ancestry—His Birth, Appearance, Habits and Early Years—His Marriage with Marguerite de Valois—Marguerite’s striking Beauty— Marguerite and the Duke de Guise—Wedding of Henri and Marguerite— The Massacre of St. Bartholomew—Marguerite and the Massacre—QGuise and Coligny—The suggested Annulment of Marguerite’s Marriage— Predicament of Henri and Condé—Henri as “ Prince Hal’’— Henri and Alengon seek to Escape—They are foiled by Marguerite—A second Plot for Escape—La Mole and Coconas—Marguerite’s alleged Love for La Mole—His Trial and Execution—The strange Legend of the Severed Heads— Henri and Alengon threatened—Marguerite helps her Husband— Another unsuccessful Scheme for Hscape—Death of King Charles IX.

A creat King is not necessarily a popular one. For instance both Francis I and Louis XIV rank among the most remarkable men who ruled France in her monarchical days, yet neither acquired a shred of popularity among the millions under his sway. But the same cannot be said of the monarch whom the French call “Henri Quatre,” but who is generally known to present-day Englishmen as “ Henry of Navarre,” an appellation which properly belongs only to the earlier part of his strenuous career. Macaulay helped to popularize it, however, and there is perhaps a particular reason why it should have prevailed among us. Broadly speaking, ours is a Protestant country, and “Henry of Navarre” was the champion of Protestantism ;

whereas “ Henri Quatre” was a Catholic King. B

Even in these republican days that sovereign’s memory may well appeal to many Frenchmen. A forgotten eighteenthcentury writer, Gudin de la Brenellerie, wrote of him that he was

‘¢ Tie seul Roi dont le pauvre ait gardé la mémoire ”’— a famous line, the authorship of which is little known and which is almost always misquoted, the practice being to substitute peuple for pauvre. But, as Gudin was wont to explain on occasions when that error was perpetrated in his presence, the peuple (which, in his time, meant the nation, not merely the inferior or working classes) had reason to remember other monarchs in a favourable sense, among them being Louis XII, on whom, as will be recollected, the appellation of ‘ Pere du Peuple,” was bestowed. When, however, Gudin penned the line which alone, of all his writings, has survived, he was thinking, he said, of Henri’s desire to improve the lot of his lowlier subjects, and introduce plenty into their homes, a desire he expressed by the wish that the humblest peasant in France might have a fowl in his pot on Sundays.

But it is not merely on account of Henri’s kindly thoughts for the poor that his memory has remained green in France. It is because he was the living synthesis of the French race in all that appeals to the imagination. He was a skilful, brave, victorious, tolerant and clement monarch, a good King and a great one, and also, pre-eminently a Man. His passions and failings contributed as much as his virtues to his popularity. A King who can be as intrepid, as hardy, as adventurous, as fond of women, as big a sportsman, drinker, gambler, jester, and railer as men who are not Kings, appeals to the primal instincts ; and one can well understand the vogue enjoyed by the song—

“Vive Henri quatre !

Vive ce roi vaillant, Ce diable-a-quatre, Qui eut le triple talent De boire, et de battre, \ Et d’étre vert-galant !”

Henri’s amorousness, his perpetual worship at the shrine of beauty, has helped, perhaps, more than anything else, to fix

I INTRODUCTION 3 his personality in the popular mind. What Lescure wrote many years ago is still true to-day. Ask an average Frenchman who Sully was, and the chances are that he will hesitate to answer. But ask him who was “la belle Gabrielle,” and he will reply both immediately and accurately. The names of many of the greatest ministers of Kings are forgotten, but the names of those Kings’ mistresses abide. In the case of Henri IV, it must be conceded that he did not surrender the reins of government to any woman, however great might be his attachment to her. He was neither a Louis XIV nor a Louis XV. He could refuse the requests of Gabrielle d’Estrées, and he placed Henriette d’Entragues under arrest.

One day Henri asked the ambassador of the Emperor Rodolph II, whether that monarch had any mistresses. “ If he has,” the envoy replied, “‘ they are kept secret.” “It is true,” the King retorted, ‘that. some men have not sufficient great qualities to cast over their failings.” After he had selected Pierre Mathieu to write a history of himself for his son (the future Louis XIII), Mathieu read to him one day a passage respecting his partiality for women. ‘‘ What is the use of revealing that weakness?” asked Henri. “It will be a lesson for your son,” said Mathieu ; whereupon the King after a pause replied, ‘‘ Yes, yes, the whole truth must be told. If you were to remain silent about my failings, people would not believe you respecting the rest. Well, set them down, then, so that my son may know and avoid them.”

Henri’s love-affairs were probably more numerous than those of any other King of France, not even excepting Louis XV. The escapades of his early youth are not worthy of mention, but in the appendix to the present volume will be found a list of the many fair women who appear to have attracted his attention from the time of his marriage onward. In the body of the work chiefly those who really exercised an influence on his career will be spoken of, and they, as it happens, are numerous enough. It is not intended that this volume should be either a complete biography of the great soldier-king or a full study of his times, and in no sense will it be a panegyric; but by the light of what will be set forth— incidents neglected by grave historians as beneath their notice, or so altered or disfigured by novelists, playwrights, and others, as to have little likeness to the truth—it may be easier, perhaps, to understand one of the most remarkable and interesting personalities the world has known, as well as some of the most momentous changes which marked his period.

Henri, Prince of Bearn, later King of Navarre, and ultimately King of France, was born at the chateau of Pau on December 12, 1553. His father, Antoine de Bourbon, was one of three brothers first himself, secondly Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, and thirdly Louis, Prince de Condé—who traced their line and kinship with the Royal House of France back to Robert de Clermont, youngest son of St. Louis, and husband of Beatrice of Burgundy, heiress, through her mother, of the old Lords of Bourbon, who on their side were descended from one of the captains of Pépin le Bref, Charlemagne’s father. Robert de Clermont assumed the name of Bourbon on his marriage, and in 1327 the barony, for such it had hitherto been, was raised to the rank of a duchy. The Dukes de Bourbon played conspicuous parts in national affairs during the reigns of Charles V, Charles VI, and Charles VII, and at the time of Francis I the house rose to universal celebrity by reason of the chequered career of that great soldier, Duke Charles, best known as the Constable de Bourbon.

- Antoine, the father of the Prince who became Henri IV of France, bore the title of Duke de Vendéme, when in October, 1548, he espoused Princess Jeanne d’Albret, daughter of Henri II, King of Navarre, by his marriage with Marguerite d’Angouléme, sister of Francis I, and author of The Heptameron. Eight years previously, Jeanne, then not yet in her teens, had been married, almost perforce, to William III, Duke of Cleves, with the object of cementing an alliance between that Prince and Francis I; but although the latter insisted that the Duke should be bedded with his child-bride in presence of the whole court, in order that the marriage might be reputed indissoluble, it was never consummated, but was obligingly annulled by Pope Paul III at the instigation of Francis himself, when in 1543 the Duke of Cleves deserted his cause for that of the Emperor Charles V. Jeanne’s subsequent

I INTRODUCTION 5 marriage with Antoine de Bourbon did not prove a happy one, though at the time of the wedding her satisfaction appeared boundless. “I never saw so joyous a bride,” her cousin, the Dauphin, afterwards Henri II of France, wrote to Constable de Montmorency, “she does naught but laugh.” *

Antoine, then thirty years of age, was a very good-natured man, easy in his ways, generous to a fault, possessed of great personal bravery, and not without claims to some little culture if he were indeed the author of the various songs and such like which have been ascribed to him. But at the same time he evinced no strength of character. Unstable in religion, irresolute in policy, fickle in his affections, he became, as he advanced in life, more and more inclined to dissolute courses, much to the chagrin of his consort. She, twenty years old at the time of this second marriage, was inclined to extravagance, but her intelligence was far higher than her husband’s, and her character was all energy and resolution, which she largely transmitted to her son.

Henri, however, inherited his qualities and failings from many sources. Personal bravery had long been conspicuous among the Bourbons, and had also proved a distinguishing trait of the Prince’s grandfather on the maternal side—Henri (II) d’Albret, King of Navarre. The literary faculty, tinged with poetry and romance, which asserted itself so often in his correspondence, was derived not only from his parents, but also, and more particularly perhaps, from his grandmother, the Marguerite of the Heptameron, Le Myrouer de l Ame pécheresse,

. Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, La Coche, and many fugitive pieces. Through her, too, Henri was a Valois, and therefore not deficient in a sort of diplomatic rowerie. However, Marguerite’s brother, Francis I, had been the most chivalrous Prince, and likewise one of the most dissolute, of his times, and those traits displayed themselves in her grandson. But the amorous side of Henri’s nature was not derived solely from Valois sources, for both his father, Antoine de Bourbon, and his grandfather, Henri II of Navarre, were men of strong carnal passions. Briefly, the houses of Valois, Bourbon, and

* An amusing anecdote of their honeymoon tour figures in the Heptameron (Tale 66).

Albret, and also that of the superb, daring, and disputatious Gastons and Phoebuses of Foix,* combined to produce the qualities and failings which distinguished the Prince to whom, as we have said, Jeanne d’Albret gave birth at Pau in the winter of 1553.f

She had repaired thither at her father’s request. Some forty years previously Navarre proper had been conquered by Ferdinand the Catholic, and annexed to Spain, and although the Albrets still called themselves Kings of Navarre, they only governed the principality of Bearn, a part of Bigorre, and the county of Foix on the French side of the Pyrenees. Pau and Nérac were their usual residences, the chateau of the former _ locality having been considerably enlarged and embellished by Henri d’Albret and his consort Marguerite d’Angouléme. It is not quite certain in what room of this chateau Jeanne d’Albret gave birth to her son. Some authorities believe that the apartment was the old bed-chamber of the Kings of Navarre on the first floor, a room which, in Napoleonic times, became known as the “Chambre de V’Empereur”; but the most accredited opinion is that a second-floor room, called the “Chambre d’Henri IV,’ was the scene of the accouchement. The child’s cradle, fashioned out of the carapace of a tortoise, is still preserved there.

Henri d’Albret, brave and hardy, whatever his faults may have been, expressed to his daughter a particular desire that she should not present him with any “glum and tearful grandchild,” and in order that such might not prove the case, he promised, says Favyn’s old narrative, to give her both a will he had made in her favour and a gold chain long enough to encircle her neck five-and-twenty times, provided she would

* Catherine de Foix, the last heiress of that house, was by her marriage with Jean d’Albret the great grandmother of Henri LY.

+ He was her second son. The first, third, and fourth, Henri Duke de Beaumont, Louis Charles Count de La Marche, and another Charles, all died _ in infancy, the two former from the effects of accidents. Besides those four sons, on February 7, 1558, Jeanne gave birth, in Paris, to a daughter, Catherine, who was reared in the Huguenot faith and, unlike her brother Henri, never departed from it. On January 30, 1599, she espoused Henri de Lorraine, Duke de Bar, and died at Nancy on February 13, 1604. She will be occasionally referred to in our narrative.

I INTRODUCTION a sing a Bearnese air when the decisive moment arrived. And Favyn assures us that the brave Princess Jeanne complied with that request, and gave birth to her child while chanting the local Canticle of Our Lady at the End of the Bridge,* a canticle which began as follows :—

‘* Nouste Dame deii cap deii poun, Adyudat me a d’aquest’ hore!

And as the child came into the world, says Favyn, ‘ the good Henri, full of indescribable delight, placed the gold chain about the neck of the Princess, his daughter, and in her hand the box in which was his will, saying to her the while, ‘ These are yours, my daughter ; but this belongs to me.’ Whereupon, taking up the new-born babe in his long robes, he carried it to his own chamber, where he had it attended to. This little Prince came into the world without wailing or weeping, and the first sustenance he received ‘was from the hand of the King, his grandfather, who, taking a clove of garlic, rubbed it on his little lips, which sucked the juice of that theriac of Gascony ; after which the King, taking his gold cup, poured a drop of wine into his mouth, and he swallowed it right well. Whereupon the good King, being full of delight, began to say, in presence of all the noblemen and ladies who were in his chamber, ‘ Thou wilt be a real Bearnese !’”

Little Henri was reared in a simple and hardy manner, which laid the foundation of a vigorous constitution, though the latter was threatened early in his youth when his father took him to the Court of France, where Charles IX had recently succeeded his brother Francis Il. The lad did not

* So called from an oratory whither the women of Pau repaired to pray _ for a happy accouchement.

+ “Our Lady at the end of the bridge, help me at this present hour! Pray to the God of Heaven, that He will be pleased to deliver me speedily ! May He grant me the gift of a son; all, to the very mountain-tops, implore Him. Our Lady at the end of the bridge, help me at this present hour!”’

grow up absolutely handsome, for he had the Valois nose—that of Francis I and Marguerite d’Angouléme, narrower, however, and also longer and more beaklike than theirs. But his lips were red and his cheeks glowed with the blood of health until campaigning bronzed them to such a degree that periods came when he was as dark as a mulatto. Beneath an abundant crop of black wavy hair, which was carelessly brushed backward and which whitened at an early age, the brow was both broad and lofty, the rest of the long face tapering to the well-formed chin, A somewhat derisive smile, which at times became quite sarcastic, played round the mouth, and the young fellow’s nature looked out from his somewhat deep-set, but large, luminous, and liquid eyes—eyes as expressive as any man ever possessed, eyes which in turn sparkled with raillery, flashed with courage and ardour, or softened into tenderness and fascinated with an appeal which very few women could resist. It happened, however, that his eyesight began to fail him before he was fifty years old, and although we think, no spectacled portrait of him exists, we know, by contemporary writers, that he was compelled to wear glasses.

Quick and vivacious in his movements, Henri loved every form of exercise, and scarcely knew fatigue; he paid little if any attention to the laws of health, was careless of his attire and even of personal cleanliness, and was very irregular in his meals, though at times he ate inordinately and was extremely fond of rich dishes, in such wise that before many years elapsed he was troubled by digestive complaints, which necessitated the habitual use of the waters of Pougues.

His grandfather died in 1555, whereupon Jeanne d’Albret became Queen, and Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre. A. great religious conflict—the struggle between the Catholic and Huguenot elements in France—was impending. In 1558 Antoine went over to the Reformed Religion, which he subsequently abjured. Jeanne, on the other hand, remained—at all events, outwardly—a Catholic until her husband was mortally wounded at the siege of Rouen in 1562. After his death, assuming the entire government of her states, she, in her turn, espoused the Huguenot faith, closed the Catholic convents, forbade Catholic processions, and prescribed compulsory and gratuitous

I INTRODUCTION a elementary education wherever she held sway. A bitter contest ensued, the Catholic lords of Bigorre, Bearn, and Foix called in Catholic forces under Montluc and Terride; but Jeanne, helped by Elizabeth of England and her late husband's brother, the Prince de Condé, got an army together and placed it under the command of that same Gabriel de Lorges, Count de Montgomery, who had mortally wounded Henri II of France at a tournament. Montgomery drove the Catholics from Jeanne’s possessions, and virtually all the lords who had risen against her were massacred at the Chateau of Pau.

She had previously recovered possession of her young son, Henri, who as already mentioned had been sent to the French court, and she reared him in the Reformed faith, selecting as his tutor one Florent Chrétien, a native of Orleans, who was both a zealous Huguenot and a poet, one whose chief gift was | irony, which he employed skilfully enough in satirizing his contemporary Ronsard. Whatever may have been young Henri’s natural predisposition to wit and raillery it is allowable to believe that it was fostered by Florent Chrétien. The Prince acquired a good knowledge of history and took considerable interest in literature. We know that he read Amadis de Gaule and became acquainted in later years with Honoré d’Urfé’s Astrée. In Bearn he gleaned a knowledge of the Spanish language, and in Paris, among the entourage of Catherine de’ Medici, he learnt to speak Italian.

He was carried by his mother to La Rochelle when that port became the headquarters and chief stronghold of the Huguenots. Louis de Condé, Admiral Coligny, and Count Francois III de la Rochefoucauld were there at the time, and the young Prince received his first lessons in the art of war. At last, however, by the crafty diplomacy of Catherine de’ Medici, who so largely governed her son Charles IX, a pacification was arrived at, and many of the Huguenot leaders were attracted to Paris, among them being the young Prince of Bearn, to whom Charles, at his mother’s instigation, proposed to give his sister, the Princess Marguerite de Valois, in marriage.

That was not easily accomplished for the Pope was at first strongly opposed to the union of a Catholic Princess with a

Huguenot. Jeanne d’Albret, who repaired to Paris to conduct in part the negotiations for the match, was not opposed to it, but she was anxious that, directly the ceremony was over, her son should flee in all haste from “ that pestilential court” of the Louvre—‘ where,” said she, “the women so shamelessly make advances to the men,”—and carry his young bride into the salutary atmosphere of Bearn. “She [Marguerite] is beautiful and very intelligent and passing graceful,” Jeanne wrote to her son, “ but she has been bred in the most accursed and corrupt company there ever was. . . . For nought in this world would I have you remain there. . .. That is why I desire you should marry, and that you and your wife should withdraw from that corruption, which I already believed to be great, and find to be greater still.”

However, midst. the negotiations and preparations for the wedding, Jeanne d’Albret died. She was only forty-four years old, and it was surmised that her death had been brought about by means of some poisoned gloves, which she had purchased of one of the Italian purveyors to the Court; but her early demise was really due to pneumonia and pleurisy. However, her death was regarded as an evil omen in respect to the wedding which was about to take place.

Both in Bearn and in Paris, the bridegroom, then only halfway through his twentieth year, had already given proof of a sensual nature, a predisposition to sexual passion which was to last all his life. His destined bride, born May 14, 1553, and thus his senior by some seven months, was ripe for marriage,* tall, superbly built, and possessed of great powers of fascination, a grace ‘which was half proud and half gentle. She had the black hair of her father, Henri II of France,t a most beautiful snowy brow, a dazzling complexion, tender languorous eyes, and a small inviting mouth, the nose, however, being somewhat large and fleshy. Withal, she was a beautiful woman, one of whom a young Prince, in all the ardour of youth, might well

* An attempt, in which Sir Francis Walsingham was concerned, had previously been made to marry Marguerite to the ill-fated Dom Sebastian of Portugal.

+ Fair hair becoming the fashion, she ended by wearing fair wigs, and kept several footmen whose long fair hair was cropped periodically to supply the material for the wigs in question.

1 INTRODUCTION 11 have become enamoured. But it is asserted that she had no particular attraction for Henri, and on her side, though she had some friendly feeling for him, she had no love.

It is difficult to say what was the cause of Henri’s alleged coldness, but it is virtually certain that Marguerite’s dislike for the match was due to the circumstance that her heart was already given to Henri de Lorraine, at first Prince de Joinville and later Duke de Guise; in a word the famous “ King of the Barricades” murdered at Blois in 1588, by the order of King Henri III. Numerous historians have written respecting that attachment, and the famous scandalous pamphlet, Le Divorce Satyrique asserts that, apart from Henri de Guise, Marguerite had other favoured lovers prior to her marriage: for instance, M. d’Entragues,* M. de Charry of the King’s bodyguard, and the Prince de Martigues. She, in her memoirs, seeks to convey the impression that her heart was never given to Guise; but, reared as she had been at a court where dissimulation was an habitual practice, being essential for the enjoyment of comparative freedom and often indeed for the preservation of one’s life, she was one of those who, long before the days of Talleyrand, held speech to be a vehicle for disguising one’s thoughts.

Guise, for his part, was certainly enamoured of her, and secretly aspired to her hand. Little more than one-and-twenty years of age at this time, but daring, energetic, unscrupulous, masterful, with handsome face, anxious brow, haughty glance, sardonic laugh, and imperious gestures, his hand ever ready to grasp the hilt of his sword, this ambitious scion of Lorraine lived at the Court of France encompassed by dislike and distrust. Catherine de’ Medici, who foresaw his threatening aspirations to the royal crown, strove to thwart them; and on the day when Guise allowed it to be seen that he loved the Princess Marguerite and desired to wed her, he suddenly found himself in such danger that to save not only his liberty but perhaps his life as well, he had to renounce his pretensions and strive to conciliate his Sovereign and the Queen-mother by contracting another marriage, one with Catherine of Cleves,