Catherine de Medici, Her Obsession With Astrologers And The Occult

Queen Catherine de Medici paced nervously back and forth along the majestic eastern gallery of the Louvre palace trying to keep her wits about her.

She had a hard time thinking of anything else but what Cosme Ruggieri, her favorite astrologist had just told her.

As her eyes nervously scanned the outlines of the church of Saint Germain  L’Auxerrois, the parish church of the royal family that lay directly across from her bedroom window, she knew she must leave.

He had told her that her death would be near Saint Germain, without any other elaboration.

She had often resented being awakened by the loud bells so early in the morning after having retired late from her sumptuous banquets.

Now she feared for her life! Those pretty delicate filigree portals, turrets, and windows of the church that look the same today, became a dreaded reminder in Catherine’s eyes of a dangerous destiny she must avoid!

Catherine de Medici, born in 1519 in Florence, was a ruthless ambitious woman who obsessively relied on her Italian astrologers, Nostradamus, clairvoyants, and magicians throughout her life.

She rarely made any decision unless she consulted at least with her astrologers. She was very dependent on clairvoyants as well to obtain information not readily visible.

Likewise, she used magicians to pursue her darker and more sinister projects of destruction and cruel revenge.  She left a paper trail of many letters to these various individuals requesting information, favors or works of black magic.

I was fascinated by reading her own ample handwritten letters, which allowed me an inner window into her psyche.

A book published in 1911 by author Eugène Defrance:  Catherine de Medici et Ses Astroloques et Magiciens, offered a  collection of these letters, many of which were officially archived along with other royal documents in the National Archives.

For many years, I have been intrigued by the imposing yet impressive tower that she constructed for her personal astrologer, Cosme Ruggieri in 1574.

It always seemed out of place sitting next to the old Bourse de Paris, now both undergoing renovation.

Juxtaposed between Rue Coquilliere and facing Rue de Louvre, that area once was a temporary home to Catherine de Medici.

She was so spooked by one of Ruggieri predictions about Saint Germain that she felt compelled to construct a new palace for herself and of course an astrological observer tower for her trusty sidekick astrologer.

The queen’s mansion was, unfortunately,  later destroyed to make room for the elegant round galleries of Les Halles aux Ble that became the  Bourse de Paris, built in 1767,  but the tower somehow miraculously survived.

Behind her authoritarian personality, Catherine was a woman, who was constantly subjected to feelings of distrust that often bordered on paranoia.

Even though she was a Queen of France, her world was one of shadowy intrigue and complots, from which she felt she must be protected.

She was also quite aware of her husband’s devoted love for his mistress Diane de Poitiers, 20 years his senior, who she called “la putain”, the whore.

For that very reason, she had over 300 spies, nicknamed the Flying Squadron, who circulated amongst the court and supplied her with gossip to help her keep up with her husband’s whereabouts.

Catherine also favoured several dwarfs that she kept around her, convinced that they offered some sort of occult protection.

She was always looking for double meanings and quickly suspected any hint of possible lurking dangers or threats to her dominion.

I could say she had strong traits of a paranoid personality but was not in the realm of it by a strict definition.

She strived to protect herself from any possible unseen threats by seeking to know the future through astrology and clairvoyants.

She was very controlling and dominating, which was a way to deal with her fears, and used black magic in an attempt to control others’ interference and therefore protect her own destiny.

In 1552, Luca Gaurico, another Italian astrologer made an ominous prediction that her husband would be killed, later told also by Ruggieri.

In 1555, she called Nostradamus to the court to be one of her physicians and clairvoyants.   This consultation, one of several she had with the famous physician and clairvoyant proved to solidify her faith in the occult.

Nostradamus surprisingly told her that her husband King Henri II would be mortally wounded in a duel.   It turned out that he was amazingly accurate in his predictions.  Henri II did indeed die from an injury suffered from a duel in June 1559.

He also predicted that three of her sons would be kings, which eventually happened!

Another incredible prediction of his was that her oldest son, Francois II would have an unhappy marriage without children and be involved between two islands of discord, and die before he was 18.

Francois II came to the throne at the very young age of 14 after his father Henri II died.

He married Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland creating more religious and political tension between Scotland and England,  and died at the mere age of 15.

Although outwardly, Catherine, now known as the “black widow” portrayed herself as a devout Roman Catholic and defender of the faith, but she was more intently guided by astrologers and magicians than any true remnants of her faith.

The whole Medici family, who were extremely wealthy and very influential  Florentine bankers also delved into the occult, so Catherine grew up immersed in this.

Her uncle was a pope, and though astrologers were tolerated, he and certainly the vast Roman Catholic clergy of France disapproved of the occult but in the end, had little to say of any real significance to change Catherine’s obsession of seeking seers and magicians.

In one of her Loire Valley châteaux, Chaumont sur Loire, she constructed a room with a magic mirror, a fountain for purification, and an altar upon which were a divining rod, various potions, amulets and pots of incense.  Ruggieri had his own bureau and bedroom there.

In her Chateau de Blois, there was a room full of small individual wooden compartments, said to have been used to stock various poisons.

There are also several accounts of Catherine being implicated in using black magic and poisonous potions to do away with her enemies.

Many suspected Catherine of poisoning the mother-in-law to be of her daughter Marguerite( La Reine Margot).

Jeanne d’Albret the mother of Henri IV was resistant to her son marrying Marguerite de Valois and had made displeasing comments about Catherine.

Strangely, Jeanne d’Albret soon died after accepting a pair of gloves from Catherine, suspected of having been laced with poisons.

She and her other son, King Charles IX were also accused of sending a poisonous apple to the Prince de Condé, whose physician intervened and prevented him from eating it out of fear that it was poisonous, which he later proved by feeding scrapings to a dog.

She instructed Ruggieri and other magicians to use wax effigies of enemies that were pierced with needles and incantations for their demise.

She was known to wear several talismans designed for her by Ruggieri for protection.  One was a snake around a star biting its tail with the motto fato prudentia major, meaning roughly: caution over fate.

Many rumors circulated over the cause of death of her second son Charles IX, who died of pleurisy at the age of 24.

Defrance offers letters from Catherine indicating that she became aware that her other son the Duc Alencon, jealous of his brother being made king, had in his possession a talisman to cause his brother harm, made by Ruggieri!

In one of her letters, she said she was told that Ruggieri had even asked if her son  Charles was bleeding yet.   Whether or not Charles IX’s sickness and death were brought on by spells of witchcraft or purely by chance is not known.

Ruggieri, who was involved in other spells, was eventually sent to prison. Strangely, it was Catherine, despite her anger of feeling betrayed, allowed her dependence on him,  to save him from the gallows.

I suspect that she preferred to profit from continuing to have him do her spells and predictions rather than allow him to be punished as he should have been.

Included in Defrance’s book is a horrifying and sickening account attributed to another author, said to be reliable, that Catherine was even involved in using child sacrifice as a way of divining the outcome of Charles IX sickness.

There isn’t any other account of this, but one must remember that Catherine and her son Charles IX masterminded the Saint Barthelemy massacre, where thousands of innocent Protestants were murdered in the streets of Paris in 1572.

The church bells of Saint Germain L’Auxerrois de Paris announced the beginning of the massacre which started nearby.

Catherine de Medici remained obsessed with astrologers, always Italian,  and magicians for the rest of her life.

After the death of her son Charles IX, her favourite son became king, Henri III. She continued to dominate his reign with as much influence as she had with her previous royal sons.

Like mother, like son, Henri III too relied on the occult but he seemed to have avoided using Ruggieri.

Catherine de Medici retired to her Chateau de Blois, priding herself on getting away from that cursed church of Saint Germain, where she feared she would die.

In January of 1589, a winter cold worsened and her fever returned even higher causing alarm to her physician who suspected pneumonia.

Catherine was counseled to seek a clergyman to administer the last rights.  A young priest was summoned to her bedside.

When Catherine asked him his name, he responded “Julien de Saint Germain”.

Realizing she had finally met her fate despite all of her obsessive precautions, she died on January 5, 1589, next to Father Saint Germain!