Henry & Diane

A love/sad/fantastic story illustrated with the character's real portraits.

It all started when a French man got kidnapped in Spain and in exchange for his freedom he agreed to deliver his two sons to his captors.

I know, that sounds terrible. But this man was the king of France, and his two sons were princes. So, okay. When you’re royalty you can not expect your dad to love you in the traditional way. Inevitably he will end up marrying you off to a stranger in order to strengthen his alliances. Or maybe he will use you as bargain in the event his pretty ass getting kidnapped.

When these two little brothers finished packing up their things to join captivity (or, obviously, when their servants were finished packing up their things), it was time to say so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu, to the French court. The younger prince, first-named Henry, was charmed by a woman who said goodbye to him with a tender kiss on the forehead. That woman was Diane de Poitiers, and the prince was only seven years old.

This is prince Henry II as a kid.

Henry and his older brother spent 4 years away in Spain. I will not tell you what the older brother was thinking about during this period of time, because he does not matter, but I will tell you that Henry was thinking about beautiful Diane. I have never heard of a kiss on the forehead making such a strong impression like this before. Then, to celebrate the return of the two little princes, the king ordered a big fair.

THE QUEEN OF HIS HEART

At the beginning of the festivities, according to tradition, the two brothers would ride before the court and stand in front of a lady to whom they would offer their favours. Henry, little but sassy, went against the protocol that said he should choose his stepmother and stopped instead in front of Diane. In the midst of giggles from the court, Diane accepted the boy’s kindness. Thus, he participated in the fair using her colors tied to his armour.

This is Diane — you can see she embeds the Moon, her emblem, on her diadem.

Before moving on, there is one thing that we need to make clear: Diane was great. In addition to being the most beautiful lady in court, she was very rich, elegant, rode as an amazon, spoke several languages, was well-read in philosophy, politics, diplomacy, knew how to make interesting conversations to anyone and was an excellent huntress. She was the living and breathing version of her homonymous Greek goddess and she knew that, so much so that her emblem was a moon (equal to the goddess symbol). Such set of attributes made her one of the most influential people of the nobility and her company searched by almost everyone.

Portrait of Henry II of France, by François Clouet, in 1547. Today it is part of the art collection of the Versailles.

That whole thing of spending four years in captivity without special tutors made Henry a little royal brat. He had no notions of etiquette and was late on his studies. For this reason the kink summoned the court’s best lady, Diane, to put the boy back on the rails. From then on, tutor and pupil developed an unparalleled partnership and then fell in love when he reached a slightly more appropriate age. It was, as they say, a meeting of souls: the gunpowder to the nitroglycerin, the butter in the popcorn. (If you are sticking to the age difference detail, please let go, for this story's sake. Also, that would not be a problem if Henry was a girl and Diane a grown ass man 20 years his elder, so forget about it.)

This is Catherine de Medici. She was also a smart girl, but, well, you can see nature was not as kind to her looks as it was to Diane.

The king died. The older brother died (I said he did not matter). Henry inherited the throne and suddenly Diane found herself in the shoes of counselor, best friend and lover to the king. At that time rulers as Henry may have had many luxuries, but he would not have the luxury of marrying the girl he fell in love with. So, when the time came, Diane herself counselled her bae to marry Catherine de Medici from Italy for various diplomatic issues.

Henry never loved Catherine, and she, poor thing, fell in love with him on their wedding day, also the day they met.

Cath soon understood she had no chance of getting Diane — experienced, muse, goddess— from the pedestal where Henry had put her. The connection between Henry and Diane was so strong that it was normal for her to sign documents for him. On one occasion, the Pope sent a gift to Catherine… and another of equal value to Diane. Henri began to apply the monogram HD in everything: walls, official documents, staff uniforms, everywhere! To honor Diane's beauty Henry commissioned paintings, sculptures, frescoes, carvings… He even gave her a castle! And not any castle, but the castle of Chenonceau, one particular castle that Catherine wanted for herself!!

This is the HD monogram in the Louvre Palace, at the time a royal residence.

Of course our sis Cath was bitter about the situation, but there was not much she could do about it. At that time, it was common and accepted for rulers to take mistresses, since they rarely got married to someone they cared about. Sometimes the mistresses were a bit discriminated, but that was not the case with Diane, so chill she was. It must have been hell for Cath. I honestly feel for her.

Also in the Louvre, a statue of the goddess Diane, commissioned by Henry to honor his mistress.

THE QUEEN OF CYANIDE
Perhaps as escape from all of this mess, Catherine kind of developed a psychopathy. She became an expert on poisons, killing for fun several poor fellas who crossed her over. However, incredible as it may seem, she did not kill Diane. I think because in a very disturbing way Diane kind of helped the her marriage. I explain, but prepare to cringe:

Henry did not want to go to bed with Catherine. After 11 years of marriage and no children, Diane encouraged her bae to sleep with his wife. Gossip sais he would go to bed with Diane to get things heated, then change to Catherine’s bed for the grand finale and then return to Diane’s bed to spend the rest of the night in her arms. Weird? That would be how he and Catherine had 10, as in a TEN, kids.
So you see Diane was a bitter pill, but Cath took it. The two girls attempted to have a normal coexistence. Diane took care of Cath’s children, and even of Cath herself during childbirth and when she had scarlet fever.

EPILOGUE

Now, like every good story, this one has fantastic elements as well:
Nostradamus was Catherine’s trusty and one of his prophecies was about Henry’s death. In fact, he predicted a bloody death, and at the same time Henry would join a tournament of those in which two horsemen gallop toward each other wearing helmets and spears with the goal of overthrowing the horse’s opponent. Both Catherine and Diane became apprehensive and tried to prevent the king from attending the tournament. He insisted and died at the age of 40, with a spear in his eye.

Catherine became the reigning queen and had no more reason to pamper Diane. So she got her out of the castle of Chenonceau and added serifs to all of the D’s of all HD monograms, so they would look more like C’s.

Without making a big fuss, Diane retired to one of her other properties where she could grieve in peace. She died a few years later at the age of 67. Recent tests on samples of her hair indicated a gold percentage 250 times higher than normal. That is, she died intoxicated with her own wealth.

**The end**

This is me in Chenonceau, touristing, in 2013.