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since he loves her so much…. He continues to yield himself more and more to her yoke and has become entirely her subject and slave.”
    Evidently Diane’s signature perfume, a lightly peppered scent, acted as an aphrodisiac for Henri. Privacy was scarce during this era, and in the presence of trusted attendants and advisers (and the occasional ambassador), the lovers felt comfortable getting blatantly physical. Signor Alvarotti, the Venetian ambassador, wrote in 1549 that on one occasion when Diane and Henri began to indulge in some heavy foreplay, the king caressed her with such abandon that the bed collapsed and Diane cried, “Sire, do not jump on my bed so violently or you will break it.”
    It would not have been unusual for Diane’s serving women to remain in the chamber during their mistress’s lovemaking, but in their presence she never entirely disrobed, for according to them, “one never saw her with hanging breasts as she was always wearing a bustier.” From Catherine’s two spy holes in the floor, however, she managed to see everything.
    Two men loyal to Catherine de Medici, the duc de Nemours and Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes, offered to disfigure Henri’s maîtresse en titre , either by cutting off Diane’s nose or by throwing vitriol, or acid, in her face—whichever method Catherine preferred. The queen declined their offer. Her motto was “Odiate et aspetate” —“Hate and wait.” She favored endurance over violence, but her fortitude was not superhuman.
    Even for the official entry into Lyon on September 23, 1548, a city filled with Italian émigrés, especially financiers—the world fromwhich Catherine de Medici had emerged—Henri entered with Diane de Poitiers at his side on the first day of festivities. They were greeted everywhere by the good citizens of Lyon with the HD insignia and metaphorical tributes to Diane in poetry and theatrical spectacles, as though she were the queen of France. So as not to forfeit the king’s favor, the Lyonnais had decorated the entire city in black and white. Catherine was publicly mortified and never forgot the city’s slight.
    Her entrance into the city did not take place until the following day at dusk, when the light was too dim to see the procession. Her detractors insisted that the scheduling was Henri’s idea “so that her ugliness should pass unnoticed.” The Lyonnais had scrambled to replace all of the black and white buntings and banners with green ones, Catherine’s signature color, and rewrote the tributes in her honor. That day, Catherine was covered cap-à-pie in diamonds, lest no one forget who was the real queen. Diane rode behind her in the cavalcade. But when Henri formally greeted the dignitaries of Lyon he kissed his own hand and then touched his lips to Diane’s hand before kissing the hand of his queen. The city’s movers and shakers were appalled and embarrassed.
    At Lyon, on October 8, 1548, Henri granted Diane the title of duchesse de Valentinois. This elevation placed her on a par with princes of the blood, because in France, dukedoms were reserved for members of the blood royal. Henri also had a gold medal struck with Diane’s profile on it. The motto on the obverse read, “Omnium Victorem Vici” —“I conquered him who conquered all.” As a further insult to Catherine, Henri announced that Diane would henceforth be one of her ladies-in-waiting.
    Henri placed so much trust in his maîtresse en titre that they generated and signed government documents in tandem; the king would begin a letter, and Diane might finish it. And at the bottom, the signature would read HenriDiane . With Diane’s encouragement Henri enacted sumptuary laws that restricted expenditures for lavish entertainments and other displays of wealth; the court was drastically reduced and the number of attendants slashed. These new strictures even affected the queen, who would be limited to only four ladies-in-waiting, all of whom were to be “serious and