The poetic evidence
Those making the case for a jealous rivalry have also perceived its traces in court literature dating from the late 1530s and early 1540s. Clement Marot indicates great admiration for Anne, dedicating two flattering pieces to her, awarding her the golden apple for her beauty and praising her complexion in his collection of short etrennes,poems of 1538, for the ladies of the court; Diane’s etrenne, however, feels equivocal, Marot claiming to have heard that she had had less fun in her youth than she was having in middle age (“au printemps/ qu’en autonne”).
This is surely a reference to her autumn-spring relationship with Henri.[575] A scurrilous poem by Jean Voule, also published in 1538, mocks Diane’s aged face and heavily-applied cosmetics. Referring to this poem, E. Desgardins writes that the rivalry “became so impassioned that the Duchess of Etampes inspired Jean Voule, poet from Champagne, author of a calumnious publication against Diane.”[576] Such writings, Thierry asserts, “originated in the hatred of the Duchess of Etampes for Diane de Poitiers: inspired and remunerated by the jealous mistress of Francois I, they could not do otherwise than express the emotions that animated her.”[577]But these poems, which have suggested a jealous rivalry to some historians, were composed by known Reformist sympathizers, and it is in this context, I believe, that they assume their full meaning. Anne was undoubtedly Protestant later in her life, described by the English envoy Thomas Hoby in 1566 as “a grave, godlie, wise, sober and courteious lady, one of the staies of the refourmed religion in Fraunce” and welcoming Protestants leaders in her castle at Challuau in 1576.[578] But historians have disagreed about how or when her convictions first appeared, Desgardins going so far as to see her beliefs as a function of her rivalry with Diane: “it seems probable that Anne de Pisseleu became a Protestant out of her hatred for Diane, ardent Catholic.”[579] The sincerity of Anne’s reformist tendencies, however, is evidenced by the fact that “during the period 1540—1546 an evangelical faction, whose anchor had long been Marguerite, continued to operate at court; ” it included “Admiral [Chabot], the Du Bellay brothers, and less reliably, madame d’Etampes,” writes Jonathan Reid.[580] Throughout the mid- 1540s, Reid documents, Marguerite and Anne were in close secret contact with the English, professing their support for the reformist cause and striving to bring peace between Henry VIII and Franpois I.
By 1545, St. Mauris wrote to Charles V that Protestants at the French court were receiving great favor because Anne “inclines to the Lutheran discipline,” and Queen Eleanor agreed.[581]Returning to the poets, Marot’s religious beliefs require no further explanation. His etrennes to Anne and Diane, considered from this perspective, seem to laud the regenerative new power of the Reformed religion and deplore the deception of Catholicism. The poem ridiculing Diane’s make-up, too, was composed by a known Reformist, Jean Voule (also known as Voultre, or Visagier), friend of Marot and part of the circle of Rabelais and Etienne Dolet.[582] Charles de Sainte- Marthe, himself part of the same circles, strengthens the impression that Anne was perceived as a religious ally, dedicating his Poesie franςoise to her. Sainte- Marthe, who had composed an admiring letter to Calvin in 1537, found himself imprisoned in Grenoble in 1540.[583] “In view of his tribulations,” writes Christine Scollen, “it is not surprising that Sainte-Marthe agreed to the suggestion of a friend, the Duc de Montausier, that he should dedicate the Poesie franςaise to the Duchesse d’Etampes, thus hoping to gain her protection in times of trouble.”[584] After a long storm, Sainte-Marthe writes in his dedication, he is steering his ship toward Anne’s “much desired port.”[585]
This court literature, casting doubt on the case for a personal rivalry between the mistresses, suggests instead that already in the late 1530s Anne was known to be participating in Reformist circles and was seen therefore as a potential patron, whereas the Catholic Diane would have been mistrusted by these poets. As Reid has recently suggested, Anne’s interest in the Reform can be dated to summer of 1542 at the latest, when she “vaunted to an ambassador that she had recently come to a knowledge of the word of God by reading the Gospel, and then turned to Marguerite to complain teasingly: ‘Madame, how could you have wanted to do me this ill-turn of hiding and depriving me of such a great good for so long? I am now so calm and confident that I count myself happy and do not know how to thank God enough.”[586] However, Anne’s long friendship with Marguerite of Navarre coupled with Marot’s admiration and Sainte-Marthe’s dedication suggest a still earlier date.
Francis Nawrocki has cautioned against imagining the conflicts at the court of Franpois I as what we would think of as factions, parties, coteries, or cabals, words whose connotations complicate their use when we apply them without the requisite nuance to “interactions among diverse movements, supple and evolving networks of service, information, and actions that were fundamentally more social than political.”[587] Members within or across the groups might work together or against each other at different times.
Never during the reign of Franpois I, writes Nawrocki, do we see anything like a party “to which adherence would be exclusive.”[588] Changes of tactics were motivated by shifts in the situation: Marguerite of Navarre, for example, switches sides depending on the issue, as does the king himself. Such movement is quite simply the inevitable result of factional court politics, which means, by definition, the spontaneous formation of groups to promote results in the absence of overarching institutions formally invested with the authority to arbitrate. Nothing like a political ideology of the type that unites members of modern political parties and determines their response to issues motivated members of factions. And if factions are also social formations, it is nonetheless difficult to find evidence of friendship as a motivating factor. Family interest generally took priority of friendship as a reason for decisions.Rather than thinking of court factions as entities akin to modern political parties, Nawrocki suggests that we might more accurately envision networks arranged in “pyramids of favor.” At the summits, the most important figures at times became embroiled in violent oppositions. But the peaks were constructed upon a common base whose members might seek favors from any of the most highly placed figures. Anne would have occupied the summit of a pyramid after 1541 or 1542, but she would also have occupied a middle stratum during other periods, depending on the issues at stake. Diane, imagined as part of a pyramid of favor, would never have occupied a summit position, at least not during Franpois I’s reign.
Although Anne and Diane were involved in the factions, then, the strife was not caused by a personal jealous rivalry between the women, or, if such a rivalry did exist between the two, their contemporaries did not record it. Many contemporaries remark on the antipathy between Anne and Montmorency, between Anne and the dauphin Henri, who was a great friend of Montmorency, and, as we have seen, a few suggest that Anne and Diane disliked each other.
But none characterizes the women as personal rivals leading their own factions much less blame them for court factionalism in general. Not that anyone would suggest that the women were friends. On the contrary. Anne fell and Diane rose with the death of Franpois I in 1547, and, despite the king’s plea that he look kindly upon Anne, Henri II quickly sent her and most of the previous administration packing. Obviously Diane did not intervene. But there is no need to invent tales of feminine jealousy to explain the women’s antagonism, which is explicable as a function of their relationships to the king and the dauphin, which, in turn, determined their positions in other factions.Feminist scholarship on early modern women has shown that women with access to the king and his intimates and a knack for promoting the members of their faction(s) could often participate in politics as effectively as men. This helped Anne and Diane. But, in addition, because of a combination of Franpois I’s genuine tendency to trust women for guidance, the particular intensity of the culture of dissimulation at the French court, and the abundance of feminine models from antiquity and classical mythology there, a tradition of powerful political mistresses was able to take hold.