Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, the — Volume 1 [Court memoir series] eBook

Five or six days afterwards, those who were engaged in this plot, considering that it was incomplete whilst the King my husband and the Prince de Conde remained alive, as their design was not only to dispose of the Huguenots, but of the Princes of the blood likewise; and knowing that no attempt could be made on my husband whilst I continued to be his wife, devised a scheme which they suggested to the Queen my mother for divorcing me from him.  Accordingly, one holiday, when I waited upon her to chapel, she charged me to declare to her, upon my oath, whether I believed my husband to be like other men.  “Because,” said she, “if he is not, I can easily procure you a divorce from him.”  I begged her to believe that I was not sufficiently competent to answer such a question, and could only reply, as the Roman lady did to her husband, when he chid her for not informing him of his stinking breath, that, never having approached any other man near enough to know a difference, she thought all men had been alike in that respect.  “But,” said I, “Madame, since you have put the question to me, I can only declare I am content to remain as I am;” and this I said because I suspected the design of separating me from my husband was in order to work some mischief against him.

LETTER VI.

Henri, Duc d’Anjou, Elected King of Poland, Leaves France.—­Huguenot Plots to Withdraw the Duc d’Alencon and the King of Navarre from Court.—­Discovered and Defeated by Marguerite’s Vigilance.—­She Draws Up an Eloquent Defence, Which Her Husband Delivers before a Committee from the Court of Parliament.—­Alencon and Her Husband, under a Close Arrest, Regain Their Liberty by the Death of Charles IX.

We accompanied the King of Poland as far as Beaumont.  For some months before he quitted France, he had used every endeavour to efface from my mind the ill offices he had so ungratefully done me.  He solicited to obtain the same place in my esteem which he held during our infancy; and, on taking leave of me, made me confirm it by oaths and promises.  His departure from France, and King Charles’s sickness, which happened just about the same time, excited the spirit of the two factions into which the kingdom was divided, to form a variety of plots.  The Huguenots, on the death of the Admiral, had obtained from the King my husband, and my brother Alencon, a written obligation to avenge it.  Before St. Bartholomew’s Day, they had gained my brother over to their party, by the hope of securing Flanders for him.  They now persuaded my husband and him to leave the King and Queen on their return, and pass into Champagne, there to join some troops which were in waiting to receive them.