The queen-mother occupied on the first upper floor of the apartments
of Queen Claude of France, wife of Francois I., in which may still be
seen, delicately carved, the double C accompanied by figures, purely
white, of swans and lilies, signifying /candidior candidis/--more
white than the whitest--the motto of the queen whose name began, like
that of Catherine, with a C, and which applied as well to the daughter
of Louis XII. as to the mother of the last Valois; for no suspicion,
in spite of the violence of Calvinist calumny, has tarnished the
fidelity of Catherine de' Medici to Henri II.
The queen-mother, still charged with the care of two young children
(him who was afterward Duc d'Alencon, and Marguerite, the wife of
Henri IV., the sister whom Charles IX. called Margot), had need of the
whole of the first upper floor.
The king, Francois II., and the queen, Mary Stuart, occupied, on the
second floor, the royal apartments which had formerly been those of
Francois I. and were, subsequently, those of Henri III. This floor,
like that taken by the queen-mother, is divided in two parts
throughout its whole length by the famous partition-wall, which is
more than four feet thick, against which rests the enormous walls
which separate the rooms from each other.
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