It served its purpose well; but when her mother, Catherine de Medici, and her royal brothers would gladly have broken off the marriage, Margot's will was the firmest of any. But though there was little of good in the life of the Queen Margot, there was ever something good in her heart.
She refused to be separated from her husband, merely to serve the intrigues of the Queen-Mother and the Guises.
"Once already I have been sacrificed to your plots," she said. "Because of that, I have a husband who will never love me. A night of blood stands between us. Yet will I do nothing against him, because he is my husband. Nor yet for you, my kinsfolk, because ye paid me away like the thirty pieces of silver which Judas scattered in the potter's field. I was the price of blood," so she taunted her mother, "and for that my husband will never love me!"
No, it was not for that, as history and legend tell all too plainly; but she was a woman, and had the woman's right to explain the matter so.
Rather, it was the root-difference of all lack of common interest and mutual love. Two young people, with different upbringings, with mothers wide apart as the heaven of Jeanne d'Albret and the inferno of the Medici, were suddenly thrown together with no bond save that of years to unite them. Each went a several way--neither the right way--and there is small wonder that the result of such a marriage was only unhappiness.
Said Henry of Navarre to Rosny, his best confidant, when there was question of his own wedding:
"Seven things are needed in the woman I ought to marry."
"Seven is a great number, Your Majesty," answered the Right Hand of the Bearnais; "but tell them to me, and I will at least cause search to be made. I will make proclamation for the lady who can put her foot into seven glass slippers, each one smaller than the other!"
"First, then," said the King of Navarre, posing a forefinger on the palm of his other hand, and speaking sagely, as a master setting out the steps of a proposition, "she must have beauty of person!"
"Good," said Rosny; "Your Majesty has doubtless satisfied himself that there are such to be found in the land--once or twice!"
"Wait, Rosny--let me finish!" said the King. And so continued his enumeration of wifely necessities, as they appeared to a great prince of the sixteenth century.