A tale of two women

France in the 16th century was marked by religious upheaval, wars of conquest and political intrigue. It was also known as the age of the French Renaissance when the arts and architecture flourished during the reign of King Francois I, from 1515 until 1547. It was a time when graceful pleasure palaces were built and artistic expression was guided by the leading artists of Florence who had come to France to live and work at the invitation of the king.

Francois I was a great patron of the arts who had a lifelong passion for the arts and culture of Italy. He imported and acquired the works of Italian masters that left an enduring impression on him from visits to the Northern Italian States in his youth. The King likewise inspired a new architectural style. Across the seat of power at the Loire, palaces of exquisite beauty replaced decaying feudal castles. At the Palace of Fountainbleau, the King amassed a collection of 1,500 books of classics and other literary works that would swell to 3,560 volumes in 20 years and would later form the basis for the Bibliothèque Nationale or the National Library.

Francois I took great pride in the discovery of the new world, funding the expedition of Jacques Cartier which then led to the building of a navy. Elsewhere in Europe, towering historical figures reigned; there was the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who ruled over the largest empire in the era, King Henry VII of England who would later break ties with the Catholic church to marry Anne Boleyn, the Medici popes – Leo X and Clement VII, whose alliances would shift the balance of power between Francois I, Charles V and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent.

It was perhaps a great irony in those times that religious and political turmoil co-existed with enlightenment and progress. While the French King lived amid opulent surroundings and the pomp of court life, torture and brutality were employed by the state to stamp out heresy and any opposition to the Catholic faith.

It was against this backdrop that Diane de Poitiers, a woman of noble birth, came to attention and prominence in the court of Francois I. A chief lady in waiting to the two wives of Francois I, Queen Claude and Queen Eleanor, Diane was known for her beauty, her refined manner and her upright character. In an age when marital fidelity was a rarity, she married Louis de Brézé, a close military adviser to the King, a man older than her father and remained faithful to him until his death. She was by all accounts a learned woman who was steeped in literature and the arts, a woman of exceptional physical endurance who rode for three-hour stretches each morning well into middle age. Raised by Anne de Beaujeu, Princesse de France, Diane learned the values of dignity of rank, nobility of character, grace, refinement and deportment – the standards of behavior she strived to live by. Yet she would become the subject of controversy and intrigue. Her close relationship with Francois I led many to believe she had a long-standing affair with the King. But she is best remembered for being at the center of a love triangle between King Henri II of France and his wife, Catherine de’ Medici.

In The Serpent and The Moon, Princess Michael of Kent tells the story of Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de’ Medici as each vies for a place in the life and the heart of King Henri II. The second son of Francois I, Henri II succeeded his father to the throne upon the sudden death of his elder brother, the crown prince Francois.

During the reign of Henri II, from 1547 until 1559, France had come to the full glory of the renaissance and the French Court was widely regarded as the most refined and the most elegant in all of Europe. Diane de Poitiers was at the center of court, eclipsing the influence of Catherine de’ Medici herself. Diane was 19 years older than Henri II. She had seen him grow up, a shy and uncertain youth who was distant to the affections of his father. She had given him solace as a young man returning to France after four years of being held hostage in Spain by Emperor Charles V in place of his father. A deep bond and affection developed between Diane and the young Prince. Diane brought joy into his life and the confidence he lacked and would later need when he would rule France. She was both an enchantress and a steadying presence in his life.

To Diane, the Prince offered a romantic love she had never known. He fought jousting matches in her honor. He honored her as a full partner in his life, entrusting the royal household and his children to her care. When Prince Henri d’ Orléans acceded the throne to become King Henri II, Diane was his mistress and would become the most powerful woman in the realm.

Though Diane de Poitiers was never formally acknowledged as the official mistress of the King, there was little doubt as to her role and the power she wielded at the court. Diane was given a prime possession of the crown – the Château de Chenonceau. She was conferred the title Duchesse de Valentois, a rank that put her on equal footing with the royal children. She presided over vast estates and offices. A dominant presence in the life and the reign of Henri II, Diane de Poitiers emerges as a mother figure, a lover, a friend and an adviser to the king, and occupied a singular place in his court. In the diplomatic dispatches of day, the influence of Diane de Poitiers on the court and the King was never taken for granted nor was it underestimated.

Catherine de’ Medici stands in sharp contrast to her rival, Diane de Poitiers. A crowned queen marginalized by her husband and the influence of his mistress, she was largely relegated to the task of child bearing. She had little to do with the rearing of her own children as that was left in the hands of Diane de Poitiers. Consumed by hatred, bitterness and revenge, she lived by the motto "hate and wait." She turned to soothsayers and sorcery in desperation, waiting for the time to assert her rightful influence as queen. Catherine de’ Medici was an intellectual, a woman of taste, who sought all the luxuries befitting her stature, yet lacked the allure and the beauty of Diane de Poitiers.

The author points out, it was perhaps her great misfortune to fall in love with Henri II whose heart had been spoken for. When Catherine came to France to wed Henri II, many saw her as a scion of glorified merchants marrying into the oldest noble house in Europe – the Valois dynasty. The union between the Valois prince and the Medici heiress was arranged and negotiated by the Medici Pope Clement VII and King Francois I. Catherine was to bring a large part of Italian territory as her dowry, but with the death of Clement VII, the treaties between the Italian Pope and the French King were nullified by the new Pope, Paul III. France and Spain plunged into war over Italian territory for nearly half a century until the coffers of both states were all but drained and many of their military leaders died or were severely wounded. Shortly before the death of Henri II, the Peace of Câteau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559 with King Philip II of Spain, brought an end to nearly half a century of warfare. But in France, conflicts erupted between Catholics and Protestants intermittently until 1598, when the Edict of Nantes granted religious tolerance to all creeds.

Princess Michael of Kent weaves a riveting tale of love, power and intrigue amid the social and political tumult of 16th-century France. Her account vividly portrays all the pageantry of the age as well as the brutality that war and political conflict breeds. She lays a broad context from which to appreciate the lives and the personalities of Catherine de’ Medici and Diane de Poitiers. In the end, you come away with the notion that such women were shaped by the times in which they lived.

Princess Michael of Kent is a direct descendant of both Catherine de’ Medici and Diane de Poitiers. In her author’s note, she writes, " I have no intention of damning the one while glorifying the other. I simply want to tell the story of a beautiful, cultured and fascinating woman." In her story Diane de Poitiers comes across as a woman of many dimensions who mirrored the complexities of 16th-century France. "Diane’s character had as many phases as the moon… whereas her rival Catherine de’ Medici was famously duplicitous," writes, Princess Michael of Kent. Diane de Poitiers was dedicated to the values of her time, to education and enlightenment, yet was fiercely committed to the power structure, the social order, and was intolerant of religious dissent. Catherine de’ Medici, a formidable woman, was, as the author suggests, " a child of European politics." Orphaned early in life, she spent her early years in a Florentine monastery. She became both a witness and a victim of the political and dynastic power struggles of her time. She understood the political implications of her marriage on the fortunes of the Medici family.

Catherine’s marriage to Henri II might have gained her the French throne, but these were years spent with a husband who was indifferent to her needs and who put her in the odd situation of playing second fiddle to his mistress. Catherine de’ Medici outlived Henri II who died from the blow of a lance in a jousting tournament 12 days after he sustained fatal wounds on July 30, 1559. When the King died, Catherine could at last exercise her rights as queen. She banished Diane from court and confiscated the Château de Chenonceau, a property of the crown given to Diane as a coronation present from the King. Diane returned the crown jewels in her possession and with it she enclosed a letter to the queen asking forgiveness for all that had come between them. Diane retired to her Château at Anet, the ancestral home of her late husband where she lived her last days. Catherine de’ Medici finally came into her own as the de-facto ruler of France through the reigns of her three sons, Francois I, Charles IX and Henri III until her death in 1589.

The Serpent and The Moon dwells more closely on the life of Diane de Poitiers than Catherine de’ Medici’s because it was Diane who was the more prominent figure in the life and the times of Henri II. The full story of Catherine was still to unfold. In an age and a time when women were used as a means to achieve political ends, Diane proved to be a dynamic woman. Her years were spent building and extending her properties, arranging powerful alliances for her daughters, rearing the royal children and setting a culture of refinement at court that became the envy of all others in Europe. It was in her hands that artists and craftsmen were given further impetus to flourish in the School of Fountainbleau.

As rivals, both Catherine and Diane managed to co-exist in relative harmony. There were instances when both women helped each other in a manner that is difficult to comprehend today. Diane was present at the birth of all of the royal children and later tended to their health and welfare as though they were her own. Her residence at Anet became a vast playground for the royal children where she indulged all their childhood fancies. When the Scottish noblewoman, Lady Fleming, came to live at court and caught the King’s eye, Catherine and Diane joined forces to ensure that a third party would not affect their respective turfs. They respected the delicate balance of power between them. Catherine and Diane lived in a time that fostered the supremacy of men in the arts and on the battlefields but when the passions and the longings of the heart were kept beneath the surface.

In their world, the pursuit and the consolidation of power was everything. Happiness had nothing to do with marriage – at best it was a necessary diversion – a distraction from the harsh political and social realities of the day. Were love and power of the same currency in the time of the French Renaissance? Both had an element of conquest. Early in life, Diane learned from her mentor Anne de Beaujeu that fortunes were preserved and great families were formed through marriages that were arranged. The noblewomen of her day subscribed to that dictum. To a great extent, the interplay of love and power, the rules governing each would shape the course of their lives.

Whatever might be written about the life of Diane de Poitiers, whether admired or vilified as she had been in life, the love she shared with Henri II brought her fame and a place in French history.