Thanks to the unwillingness, or
inability, of the King of France to put him in actual possession of his
governorship of Guienne, we had the pleasant task, now and then, of
wresting some town from the troops of the League or of Henri III. Our
Henri had to take by force the places ceded to him by the King of France
as Marguerite's dower, but still withheld from him. One of these was
Cahors, in the taking of which I fought for days in the streets, always
near our Henri, where the heart of the fighting was. It was there that
Blaise Tripault covered himself with glory and the blood of the enemy,
and was openly praised by the King.
But my life in the south had other pleasures besides those of fighting.
As Henri's was a miniature kingdom, so was his court, at cheerful Nerac
or sombre Pau, a miniature court; yet it had its pretty women and
gallant gentlemen. Gaiety visited us, too, from the greater world. When
the King of France and the Queen-mother thought it to their interest to
seem friendly to our Henri, they ordered Marguerite to Nerac. Catherine
herself came with her, bringing the Flying Squadron, that Henri and his
Huguenots might be seduced into the onesided treaties desired by her.
Catherine was one of the few, I think, who foresaw Henri's possible
future. Her astrologer, Cosmo Ruggieri, had predicted that he would
succeed her three sons to the throne of France, and I suppose she could
not endure the thought of this.
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