Many conjectures have been made as to Catherine's barrenness, which
lasted ten years. Strange calumnies still rest upon this queen, all of
whose actions were fated to be misjudged. It is sufficient to say that
the cause was solely in Henri II. After the difficulty was removed,
Catherine had ten children. The delay was, in one respect, fortunate
for France. If Henri II. had had children by Diane de Poitiers the
politics of the kingdom would have been dangerously complicated. When
the difficulty was removed the Duchesse de Valentinois had reached the
period of a woman's second youth. This matter alone will show that the
true life of Catherine de' Medici is still to be written, and also--as
Napoleon said with profound wisdom--that the history of France should
be either in one volume only, or one thousand.
Here is a contemporaneous and succinct account of the meeting of
Clement VII. and the king of France:
"His Holiness the Pope, having been conducted to the palace, which
was, as I have said, prepared beyond the port, every one retired
to their own quarters till the morrow, when his Holiness was to
make his entry; the which was made with great sumptuousness and
magnificence, he being seated in a chair carried on the shoulders
of two men and wearing his pontifical robes, but not the tiara.
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