Catherine de' Medici and the Oracle of the Decapitated Head

Sébastien Thill

Catherine de' Medici is a major figure of the 16th century and the Kingdom of France. Highly esteemed at the court of Francis I, she is credited, for example, with introducing the fork and tablecloths to court life. Passionate about fashion, she is also said to have introduced many novelties, such as the first high heels and the corset.

And yet, she is associated with a persistent "black legend," depicted as a cantankerous person, jealous of power, stopping at no crime to maintain her influence.

This "black legend" was widely spread by pamphlets of the time and then by literature (including Alexandre Dumas's "La Reine Margot," published in 1845), but historical research has provided a more nuanced portrait of her.

Having become Queen of France in 1549, she then had to face both internal tensions and external attacks, all of which seriously threatened her sovereignty.

Thus, her name is inextricably linked to the Wars of Religion opposing Catholics and Protestants.

It was she who ordered, for example, the massacre of Protestants on the night of August 23, 1572, St. Bartholomew's Day.

In this context of permanent peril, she proved to be a skilled and tireless negotiator, obsessed with safeguarding the state, following in this the lesson that Niccolò Machiavelli had dedicated, in The Prince, to her father, Lorenzo II de' Medici.

But did you know that she had resorted to prestidigitation to achieve her ends?

It is May 25, 1574. Catherine de' Medici is at the bedside of her ailing son, Charles IX, at the Château de Vincennes; he suffers from consumption.

The magician Cosimo Ruggieri, Catherine's favorite mage-healer, is by their side.

He encourages them not to move and to stay in the Château's chapel.

Not far from them is a child, frightened by a curious decor set up right before their eyes.

First, an altar has been arranged for the occasion (black tablecloth, torches at the four corners, tabernacle in the middle, and a chalice filled with coagulated blood on which a white host is placed).

Right next to it, on a silver platter, rests a black host as well as a small crystal flask filled with a red liquid.

Ruggieri recites magical words and, with one hand, draws three circles on the floor with chalk.

Then suddenly, he seizes a dagger hitherto attached to his belt and violently plunges it into the middle of the altar, crying "Aïram!" (an anagram of Marie, the Virgin's name).

Suddenly, candles and torches go out; only the liquid in the small crystal vial glows.

A monk then entered the room, grabbed the child, forced him to swallow the host, and then gagged him.

Ruggieri then grabs a large wicker trunk and locks the child inside, whose head remains outside, looking petrified.

Violently seizing the dagger, Ruggieri plunges it into the child's throat. Blood gushes out, and the severed head is proudly presented for everyone in the room to see.

The head is then placed on the black host, and Ruggieri orders the King to address Satan, through the severed head, and ask him whatever questions he wishes.

Charles IX is stunned; he can't believe his eyes, and yet, he sees with terror the head, eyes, eyelids, and mouth moving as if the child were still alive.

Initially inaudible, the voice of the decapitated one becomes increasingly clear: "Death comes from healing, Catherine will save France."

Shocked by this vision, Charles IX and his mother abruptly leave Vincennes to take refuge in the Louvre.

Suffering for five days and five nights, Charles IX summons the Duke of Alençon and the King of Navarre to his bedside to inform them of the news: in case of misfortune, the Regency must be entrusted to his mother.

Relieved and exhausted, he demands the arrival of a priest to administer the last rites.

Charles IX, his favorite son, dies in unbearable pain on May 30, 1574, thus granting his mother the full power of the Regency, in accordance with the orders of the decapitated one.

This disappearance also echoes a tenacious memory that left a lasting mark on the sovereign: the accidental death, during a tournament organized in Paris in early summer 1559, of Henry II, her husband, struck in the head by the lance of his opponent that day.

It is undoubtedly in search of refuge that Catherine de' Medici was always fascinated by occult forces: she thus enlisted the services of the famous Nostradamus, for example.

It should be noted, however, that Ruggieri remained Catherine de' Medici's favorite magician.

How to explain the episode of the "talking decapitated one"? Undoubtedly, the macabre spectacle had been planned for a long time.

It was still necessary to develop the trickery and casting to make the scene credible.

To play the priest, he simply requested the services of a reluctant priest, whose life he had saved (by warning him of an imminent Royal Guard expedition, which prevented his arrest that day).

For the child, it was while walking on Rue des Lavandières that he spotted a lively, agile, and alert child. It was this child whom he had abducted and taken to Vincennes for the scene's rehearsals.

Some accessories were also made for the occasion to make the miracle realistic: a wax replica of the child's head, which he would pull out of the trunk just before the decapitation, a hole drilled in the altar allowing the magician to dispose of the wax head (by turning his back to the audience and allowing the child to take his head out of the trunk where he had been confined, and pushed behind the altar just after the decapitation).

What is less known, however, is that the child was actually decapitated after the departure of the King and Queen, to preserve the secret... Plunging his parents into terrible distress, they even dared to ask at the highest level (Catherine de' Medici!) for an investigation to be made to discover the secret of his disappearance right in front of their home.

Ruggieri had already distinguished himself one day by crafting a rigged mirror (with a secret opening, revealing thick smoke and, in its swirling tendrils, a face capable of the most astonishing predictions: the death of her son Francis II, that of Charles IX, the end of the Valois, and the advent of the Bourbons with the crowning of Henry IV).

That day, Ruggieri made one last prediction: "Beware of Saint Germain. He will be your death!"

Catherine de' Medici never forgot these predictions, and when old age came, very ill and seeking refuge in Blois, she asked for her usual confessor to be brought, who unfortunately could not be found.

Thus, a certain Abbé de Chablis replaced him.

His real name: Julien de Saint-Germain. She knew.

A few hours later, she breathed her last.

Ruggieri, for his part, continued to practice for many years as an astrologer and enchanter.

Accused of conspiracy against Henry III, he was finally pardoned but definitively abandoned his role as a mage for that of an "almanac maker" and "fortune teller," under the name of Jean Querberus.