The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King by Michael of Kent

Author:Michael of Kent
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Princess Michael of Kent
Published: 2013-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

De tant de mathématique?

Quelle princesse entend mieux

Du grand monde la peinture

Les chemins de la nature

Et la musique des cieux?

(Is there another lady who possesses such knowledge of mathematics? Is there in the whole world a princess who better understands painting, the ways of nature, and the music of the heavens?)

Catherine faithfully followed the king out hunting, and was never angered by Anne d’Etampes, who managed to annoy everyone else. The papal nuncio Girolamo Dandino reported that Catherine was loved by the king, her husband, and all the court. Her deviousness in being charming to everyone was a sign of her duplicitous character, which she would only dare show later in her life. Catherine went to enormous trouble to surprise the king with objets d’art and rare manuscripts from Italy. She would sit endlessly watching him play tennis, and even tried the game herself. No, François I would not repudiate this child of his beloved Florence and send her back in disgrace to Italy.

Diane may have prepared the successful strategy for Catherine, but she, too, had some work to do. She convinced Henri that Catherine could and would bear children and therefore should stay. Faced with the dauphin’s silence on the subject of rejecting his wife, the duc de Guise had to withdraw the offer of his daughter, Louise. Diane’s plan had saved the dauphine. In return, Catherine was obliged to spy for Diane, to recount the latest machinations of her enemies at court, to report the words of the king and, more important, those of the courtiers. For Catherine, no price was too high to pay to remain in France. But Diane’s promise that she would “deal with Henri” had confirmed to the dauphine that the relationship had evolved beyond the maternal.

What was Catherine’s reaction to the new situation she faced in her marriage? Like all the Medici, she was intensely proud and would have been humiliated by Henri’s preference for the older woman. His infidelity must have wounded Catherine; but, like Diane, she understood that her survival at the French court depended on their generous understanding of one another. Henri’s lack of interest in her made it clear that only the women’s mutual dependence would keep the dauphin near to them both. Diane was always discreet and went out of her way to make Catherine feel that her place was secure as Henri’s wife. The Florentine in turn had learned the art of dissimulation to perfection in her childhood, and she remained courteous to Diane, showing no signs of the jealousy and hatred buried deep inside her. It was court gossip that her secret motto now became “Odiate et Aspetate”—“Hate and Wait.” In later years she was to say, “Caress only your enemies.”

Despite the comforting words of the king, the Medici dauphine was not prepared to leave her future in God’s hands alone. In her desperate need to conceive Henri’s child, this enlightened daughter of the Renaissance returned to the beliefs and practices of medieval times, and subjected herself to the most repellent magic potions, even at the risk of making herself ill.

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