Jean-François Solnon

HenrI III fostered Giordano Bruno, on whom I’ve written two books (see my Worlds of Giordano Bruno, Ch. V.) Bruno dedicated two books to him, including little Cantus Circaeus in Latin. HenrI sent B with his ambassador to England, Mauvisiere. My other Bruno book, my translation of his play, peformed at Bridewell Theatre; for a couple amusing Youtube scenes, see "Candelaio Final Edit."

Solnon I bought the year it was published in Cite Quebec, because of Bruno on p. 281ff. Henri makes many discoveries, from riding horses and using epee when age eight, to ceremonies when his brother Charles became king, Henri a year younger, age 10, to being elected King of Poland-- a desolate place for Henri's six months there, before Charles died fom pneumonia. Going to France through Italy, Henri discovers the Fork! in Venice -- which must've brought it from the Byzantine Empire which acquired it between 600 -1100 A.D.

Now I’m reading through, fascinated. My books on Bruno took me to Italy, specially his birthplace Napoli, also Venezia, Roma, Firenze, and Milano for its biblioteca — also where my daughter lived for a quarter century.
Firenze and the Medici I studied in a year post-doctoral seminar at Brown. So Catherine de Medici connects, the banker’s daughter and Henri’s mother, in fact the mother of nine, including three kings or more, one wife of Philip of Spain. We learn Catherine’s husband Francois (I) ignored her a decade, his mistress the older Diane de Poitier, who then required her royal lover to sleep with his wife! (p.18) Upon Francois’s death from jousting, his sickly son Francois II, who reigned a year, then died of a tumor behind his ear (30). Nostradamus, whom mother Catherine had consulted, and a mirror hall had predicted his early death, and that of the next child king.

Charles took over, coronated at Reims, age 11 (his majority at 13 [p.48])— Henri a year younger. After the interminable ceremony and the heavy cloak, the boy king could only cry (37). The boys had been taught as equestrians, but also Henri learned epee from a Milanese master named Pompee (22). More significantly, his tutor-governor was a brilliant forty year old friend of poets Ronsard and Montaigne: M de Carnavalet. Henri became a “pietre latiniste” but good at Greek.

Of course Henri lived when Protestantism grew in France, Calvinism, the Huguenots. His mother was notorious in her support for both sides, and Henri even said, as a boy under ten, to the wife of the Spanish ambassador, “Je suis un petit huguenot, mais je le serai, grand!” (36) The ambassador reported the boy was a heretic to his master Philippe II, but Catherine dismissed it as “Le badinage de petit enfants.”

Catherine decided for touring France, as had kings since Francois I, partly to recruit local leaders, in 108 eventual towns and cities. The carts and carriages smelled of leather (cuir) and dung (crottin) (49). Henri saw the sea for the first time, but sailing to Chateau d’Ilf gave him “mal de mar,” seasickness — as had I sailing five days from Jacksonville to my Westport, Mass.

Catherine wanted H to be duke of Poitiers, but that city was rife with huguenots, so she made him Duc d’Anjou, who became “General a seize ans" (title of Ch.IV). The official army head was the Constable of France (connetable), derived from “overseer of stables.”
That constable was Montmorency, who oversaw the early battles, mostly retreats from the hugeunots and their allies in the Pas-Bas (lowlands, rebelling against Spain). Lacking money to pay the troops, they became “plus soucieux de piller que de combattre”(65).
After Montmorency died, the Duc d’Anjou was not named constable, but generalissimo, and he eventually won a couple battles. During this time, heavy rain dampened arquebuses (76).

“Le vainqueur de Jarnac et de Montcontour avait choisi, comme sa mere, comme !e roi le parti de la paix” (89). Despite defeating the Huguenots in major battles, like Catherine his mother, Henri had chosen reconciling Catholics and Protestants.

Nevertheless, he was appointed to lay siege to Huguenot La rochelle; he enlisted the duc de Nevers,
militant Catholic who supported the Jesuites, who assigned one of them to read Latin to him in his bath (129). Even I, a militant Protestant, enjoy the Latin mass, sorrowing in American masses now in English.

Henri was smitten with Marie de Cleves, married to Condé. Poet Desportes wrote about Henri's leaving for the siege in love, "Je pars pour captiver un ville advesaire"(128). Months later, during the seige, he was elected King of Poland (by the nobles). But as he departed for Poland, Henri of Valois fell for Louise de Vaudemont, whom he later married.

A dozen Polish leaders and 250 gentlemen had come to France to escort their new king. They spoke Latin and drank beer, not wine, so someone said they were less inflamed than wine drinkers. The French mocked their long grey beards and shaven necks, but admired their Latin -- and Italian, the nobles to each other. At the last ceremony before leaving, each leader individually toasted the king's health. "Comme toutes buvaient chaque fois un Polonais vidait son verre, chaqu'un but ainsi dix fois"(145). All the others followed, so they each had ten drinks.

Henri served as Polish king only six months, depressed and isolated--the Poles needed a reason to party, the French, no. Then his brother Charles died of pneumonia, so Henri left the palace in disguise as a commoner. He traversed Germany avaoiding Protestant states, took ove a week to cross the Alps. Arriving in Venice, he met the Doge (a Mocenigo) on Murano, invited aboard the Bucintoro galley which toured the lagoon, stopping before San Nicolo, Lido which we lived next to fo a month (when I was researching Bruno in Venezia). San Nicolo was decorated by Palladio and Titian.

Only 23 as he spent ten days in Venice, the Doge or later, the Duke of Ferrara guided Henri. Some courtesans of Venice spoke Greek or Latin, many played music, or recited Petrarca; Henri spent a night with the most famous, Veronica Franco, a poet. He also dined with a new utensil, "la fourchette"(178). Most people still ate with their fingers, as American presidential candidate DeSantis eats pudding. Even a century after Henri, King Louis XIV ate ragout with his fingers.

Traversing Italy by the Po, Henri did not officially enter Milan, demurring at Spanish governance. He stayed at Monza, meeting Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan and zealous reformer via the Council of Trent, which urged better educated priests while forbidding their hiring family. Trent resulted in the end of the Sale of Indulgences, where the laity could pay off their sins.

He stayed a dozen days at Turin, meeting the Duke of Savoy who did not help him with Duke Montmorency, Damville, governor of Languedoc, whom Henri's mother Catherine wanted him to arrest. Instead, the king entered into an understanding with the Protestant, who soon breached it.
Damville failed to oppose Huguenot gains, and executed an assistant whom he suspected of poisoning him for King Henri III.

Before being crowned in Paris with Charlemagne's crown, and marrying Louise a couple days later,
Henri had joined the Confraternity of White penitents in Avignon (the city of Popes); he would not use the amchair offered him, but sat on a simple bench, clothed in white cloth despite December cold, which killed an achbishop. The huguenots persisted, even outside the city. Solnon puts it well, "En Avignon, les hosannas et les cloches ne réussissaient pas à étouffer le bruit des armes"(197).

Not long after Henri was chased from Paris by Leaguists, Spanish-allied, led by Duc Henri of Guise, he had Guise executed, which resulted in his own assassination by a priest, the Dominican Jacque Clement, who had been told a priest's killing a tyrant was not a mortal sin. Henri's geniality played in his death. Though he knew he was hated, he refused to shut off private interviews, in this case with a priest, who stabbed him in his bed. The un-clement Clement was thrown out the window.… (lisätietoja)