le guast.—his character.—anjou affects to be jealous of the guises.—dissuades the queen-mother from reposing confidence in marguerite.—she loses the favour of the queen-mother and falls sick.—anjou’s hypocrisy.—he introduces de guise into marguerite’s sick chamber.—marguerite demanded in marriage by the king of portugal.—made uneasy on that account.—contrives to relieve herself.—the match with portugal broken off.
i continued to pass my time with the queen my mother, greatly to my satisfaction, until after the battle of moncontour. by the same despatch that brought the news of this victory to the court, my brother, who was ever desirous to be near the queen my mother, wrote her word that he was about to lay siege to st. jean d’angely, and that it would be necessary that the king should be present whilst it was going on.
she, more anxious to see him than he could be to have her near him, hastened to set out on the journey, taking me with her, and her customary train of attendants. i likewise experienced great joy upon the occasion, having no suspicion that any mischief awaited me. i was still young and without experience, and i thought the happiness i enjoyed was always to continue; but the malice of fortune prepared for me at this interview a reverse that i little expected, after the fidelity with which i had discharged the trust my brother had reposed in me.
soon after our last meeting, it seems, my brother anjou had taken le guast to be near his person, who had ingratiated himself so far into his favour and confidence that he saw only with his eyes, and spoke but as he dictated. this evil-disposed man, whose whole life was one continued scene of wickedness, had perverted his mind and filled it with maxims of the most atrocious nature. he advised him to have no regard but for his own interest; neither to love nor put trust in any one; and not to promote the views or advantage of either brother or sister. these and other maxims of the like nature, drawn from the school of machiavelli, he was continually suggesting to him. he had so frequently inculcated them that they were strongly impressed on his mind, insomuch that, upon our arrival, when, after the first compliments, my mother began to open in my praise and express the attachment i had discovered for him, this was his reply, which he delivered with the utmost coldness:
“he was well pleased,” he said, “to have succeeded in the request he had made to me; but that prudence directed us not to continue to make use of the same expedients, for what was profitable at one time might not be so at another.” she asked him why he made that observation. this question afforded the opportunity he wished for, of relating a story he had fabricated, purposely to ruin me with her.
he began with observing to her that i was grown very handsome, and that m. de guise wished to marry me; that his uncles, too, were very desirous of such a match; and, if i should entertain a like passion for him, there would be danger of my discovering to him all she said to me; that she well knew the ambition of that house, and how ready they were, on all occasions, to circumvent ours. it would, therefore, be proper that she should not, for the future, communicate any matter of state to me, but, by degrees, withdraw her confidence.
i discovered the evil effects proceeding from this pernicious advice on the very same evening. i remarked an unwillingness on her part to speak to me before my brother; and, as soon as she entered into discourse with him, she commanded me to go to bed. this command she repeated two or three times. i quitted her closet, and left them together in conversation; but, as soon as he was gone, i returned and entreated her to let me know if i had been so unhappy as to have done anything, through ignorance, which had given her offence. she was at first inclined to dissemble with me; but at length she said to me thus: “daughter, your brother is prudent and cautious; you ought not to be displeased with him for what he does, and you must believe what i shall tell you is right and proper.” she then related the conversation she had with my brother, as i have just written it; and she then ordered me never to speak to her in my brother’s presence.
these words were like so many daggers plunged into my breast. in my disgrace, i experienced as much grief as i had before joy on being received into her favour and confidence. i did not omit to say everything to convince her of my entire ignorance of what my brother had told her. i said it was a matter i had never heard mentioned before; and that, had i known it, i should certainly have made her immediately acquainted with it. all i said was to no purpose; my brother’s words had made the first impression; they were constantly present in her mind, and outweighed probability and truth. when i discovered this, i told her that i felt less uneasiness at being deprived of my happiness than i did joy when i had acquired it; for my brother had taken it from me, as he had given it. he had given it without reason; he had taken it away without cause. he had praised me for discretion and prudence when i did not merit it, and he suspected my fidelity on grounds wholly imaginary and fictitious. i concluded with assuring her that i should never forget my brother’s behaviour on this occasion.
hereupon she flew into a passion and commanded me not to make the least show of resentment at his behaviour. from that hour she gradually withdrew her favour from me. her son became the god of her idolatry, at the shrine of whose will she sacrificed everything.
the grief which i inwardly felt was very great and overpowered all my faculties, until it wrought so far on my constitution as to contribute to my receiving the infection which then prevailed in the army. a few days after i fell sick of a raging fever, attended with purple spots, a malady which carried off numbers, and, amongst the rest, the two principal physicians belonging to the king and queen, chappelain and castelan. indeed, few got over the disorder after being attacked with it.
in this extremity the queen my mother, who partly guessed the cause of my illness, omitted nothing that might serve to remove it; and, without fear of consequences, visited me frequently. her goodness contributed much to my recovery; but my brother’s hypocrisy was sufficient to destroy all the benefit i received from her attention, after having been guilty of so treacherous a proceeding. after he had proved so ungrateful to me, he came and sat at the foot of my bed from morning to night, and appeared as anxiously attentive as if we had been the most perfect friends. my mouth was shut up by the command i had received from the queen our mother, so that i only answered his dissembled concern with sighs, like burrus in the presence of nero, when he was dying by the poison administered by the hands of that tyrant. the sighs, however, which i vented in my brother’s presence, might convince him that i attributed my sickness rather to his ill offices than to the prevailing contagion.
god had mercy on me, and supported me through this dangerous illness. after i had kept my bed a fortnight, the army changed its quarters, and i was conveyed away with it in a litter. at the end of each day’s march, i found king charles at the door of my quarters, ready, with the rest of the good gentlemen belonging to the court, to carry my litter up to my bedside. in this manner i came to angers from st. jean d’angely, sick in body, but more sick in mind. here, to my misfortune, m. de guise and his uncles had arrived before me. this was a circumstance which gave my good brother great pleasure, as it afforded a colourable appearance to his story. i soon discovered the advantage my brother would make of it to increase my already too great mortification; for he came daily to see me, and as constantly brought m. de guise into my chamber with him. he pretended the sincerest regard for de guise, and, to make him believe it, would take frequent opportunities of embracing him, crying out at the same time, “would to god you were my brother!” this he often put in practice before me, which m. de guise seemed not to comprehend; but i, who knew his malicious designs, lost all patience, yet did not dare to reproach him with his hypocrisy.
as soon as i was recovered, a treaty was set on foot for a marriage betwixt the king of portugal and me, an ambassador having been sent for that purpose. the queen my mother commanded me to prepare to give the ambassador an audience; which i did accordingly. my brother had made her believe that i was averse to this marriage; accordingly, she took me to task upon it, and questioned me on the subject, expecting she should find some cause to be angry with me. i told her my will had always been guided by her own, and that whatever she thought right for me to do, i should do it. she answered me, angrily, according as she had been wrought upon, that i did not speak the sentiments of my heart, for she well knew that the cardinal de lorraine had persuaded me into a promise of having his nephew. i begged her to forward this match with the king of portugal, and i would convince her of my obedience to her commands. every day some new matter was reported to incense her against me. all these were machinations worked up by the mind of le guast. in short, i was constantly receiving some fresh mortification, so that i hardly passed a day in quiet. on one side, the king of spain was using his utmost endeavours to break off the match with portugal, and m. de guise, continuing at court, furnished grounds for persecuting me on the other. still, not a single person of the guises ever mentioned a word to me on the subject; and it was well known that, for more than a twelvemonth, m. de guise had been paying his addresses to the princesse de porcian; but the slow progress made in bringing this match to a conclusion was said to be owing to his designs upon me.
as soon as i made this discovery i resolved to write to my sister, madame de lorraine, who had a great influence in the house of porcian, begging her to use her endeavours to withdraw m. de guise from court, and make him conclude his match with the princess, laying open to her the plot which had been concerted to ruin the guises and me. she readily saw through it, came immediately to court, and concluded the match, which delivered me from the aspersions cast on my character, and convinced the queen my mother that what i had told her was the real truth. this at the same time stopped the mouths of my enemies and gave me some repose.
at length the king of spain, unwilling that the king of portugal should marry out of his family, broke off the treaty which had been entered upon for my marriage with him.
