The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-06-04

Catherine at her best @She Ia beautnui
woman when her face Is yelled, says a
contemporary writer Il express myself
thus because she Is tall, her figure Is elegant
and her skin delicate. But as for her face
1t Is not at all beautiful; her mouth Is TOO
large, and her eyes big and pale. ms ID
the queen whom Francois Clouet drew
with lines as strong and subtle. with curves
as crafty and elusive, as the character OF
his sitter. This portrait is reproduced IN
the present book with the following COM
ment:. Catherine needed to wear no out
ward eauze, for there is yelled look about
her face, and the colorless eyes beneath
the braids Of brown hair, the full, rather
hanging lips add to the mystery, the in
human mystery, Of her face. Our author
adds that in the Catherine OF 1872 and later
all these characteristics had grown exoes-
sive. "The subtlety which In earlier days,
when fulfilment was still to come, could
not fail to arouse curiosity has now lost It's
interest; the face is more bloodless, the
cheeks and jaws heavier, while the massive
double chin coarsens the whole impression.
Catherine, we know, grew 80 unwieldy with
age that she could hardly walk, and we
feel that her mind also grew grosser ana
smut lCSelI huu thuO pbo S'oAN 'oSN 49,
cunning as a player OF State chess,
II the Catherine Of history has been drawn
by Clouet in thu picture to be seen IN the
Musee de Versailles, Pourbus also painted
her as faithfully, and perhaps with keener
sense of the drama in which she played.
The portrait by Pourbus hangs IN the pas
age between the Pitt Palace and the unzN'
and it shows us Catherine de Medici when
she was about thirty years old. Inc
battling eyes, the fullish lips, the long,
broad forehead. the rounded cheeks are
all before us. ROBBED in a rose-pink satin
rown sown with Orient pearls, black
train flowing behind her, jewel glowing
at her breast, she stands before us as II she
thought that she would endure forever.
Young remote, relentless, preeminent With
out being great, she dominates the gallery
wall to-day as she once dominated the
world of her own generation
There is no attempt made In this volume
IN whitewash Catherine de Medioi. Equity
oompels our author, however, to point out
that crimes not her own were ascrioed 10
her. and that she was by no means 30 wholly
black as she has been painted. She has
generally figured hitherto as kind OF
feminine stage villain, mysterious figure
surrounded by astrologers and secret
drawers filed with poison bottles; an enect
to which the elder Dumas, and occasionally
Michelet, in a day when history was still
artistic rather than scientific, contributed
not a little. Nowadays science has ex-
terminated merciessly the race OF Villains,
and is even tending to replace them by
victims OF constitutional infirmities. 1t is
here suggested that perhaps the truth In
the case of Cattle rine, as often, lies between
two extremes. On the one hand, II s ad-
mitted that "her poison cupboard at BIOS
which once figured in history and Is now
proved to be fable, is now but symooi
of a whole mythology that has gathered
around her name She dealt In negative
evil, an instrument OF mischief no less
Fl. ctive-p rhaps. indeed. no less deadly
than the common sort of poisonings ascribed
"a her. Most OF the sensational accusations
AGAINST Catherine are based on no solid
foundation. The only murders with
which she can he charged With certainty
wer, those OF Coiigny and Lignerollee.
She was, no doubt. pupil OF Machiavelh,
but she did not, like Cesar Borgia, carry
his tenets to irnplacable conclusions. At
all events. when she left Italy she was too
Young to have had much. il any, practise
in harm doing, and assuredly she did not
find much that was better than herself in
her imme date surroundings at the French
court. Diane de Poitiers and the Guises
kept a special stafi Of doctors at Paris to
nut an unobtr,lsive end to the owners of
benefices; and Margaret OF Angoueme.
% tla Pnfo wp forced
to celebrate mass in her bedroom, so as to
avoid the poison which prelate was anxious
to administer to her in the Communion
cup.
Touchinc the indiscriminate calumnies
Of which Catherine has been the target,
our author remarks: we may be sure
that people-especially women-must al
ways have seemed possible to themselves,
and hence monsters are necessarily unhis-
torical. Hence. too, whatever work OF
cleansing or Gearing hel1s to free the
| picture from deposits and make it tone
| with it's surroundings whether to be re-
| lieyed from layers OF incrusting lamp
| black or whitewash, must be work in
the cause OF truth. History Is not written
| in black and white but in subtle grays
and half-tints; and studying some char
acter from the past il often like looking at
figure in faded fresco on which We can
not get a full light, At first we see it's
robes as black; then, as we search more
closely and grow accustomed to the OBJ
| SECURITY, we find that the draperies are not
| Of one color, but Of manifold. twilight
shades, and it is only for the sake Of con-
venience that we use positive terms at
ALL Catherine, with Medician craft In her
veins, was far too diplomatic to be any
thing positively. Frankness, even in sin,
would have been to her a breach, not OF
morals, but of manners
From the evil deeds OF which Catherine
has been accused, but Of which she must
be accounted guiltees, the heinous con-
ception OF the massacre Of st. Bartholo-
news Eve must be excepted. It is here
argued, however, that st. Bartholomews
Eve cannot be taken as a measure Of Cathe-
rine's action, for the massacre was not
deliberately planned but was the outcome
Of her hand being forced through her own
shortsightedness. She had made a mis-
take natural to her. She had moderated
Coligny and his power, which threatened
to vie with herown. From the point Of view
Of her own interest his removal became
necessary and the Guises were but too
| H. L., 10 "a