March 5, 1554
Abbey of Fontevrault

Yesterday after leaving the Inn of the Two Ducks we rode here to the Abbey of Fontevrault. We arrived in the evening. We spent the night in what is called the Grand Moustier, which is the convent for the nuns. This is a strange place. One feels the presence of many ghosts – the ghosts of lepers and victims of the most horrible and disfiguring diseases – for once there was a hospital. Also the ghosts of penitent women as well as the ghosts of those women battered and beaten by their husbands or fathers who sought refuge with the nuns. And the ghosts of the Plantagenets, the royal French family of Anjou from which came some of England’s and France’s most illustrious Kings and Queens. Diane and I wandered through the deep shadows of the chapel where the Plantagenets lie in their eternal sleep. We found the tombs of King Henry II, King of both England and France four hundred years ago, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. She is a heroine of both Diane de Poitier’s and mine. Daring and bold she travelled all the way to Turkey and Palestine on the Second Crusade.

And then there was the tomb of their son Richard the Lionheart, who became King of England and also went to the Holy Land to fight. So I walked amongst these ghosts. And suddenly I had a thought. Suppose I had lived four hundred years ago and by some strange quirk of fate had been sent to the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine to be married to her son Richard. Would I have liked her any better or any less than I do Queen Catherine? She is said to have been very strong-willed. I think perhaps no kingdom can have two Queens, even if the Queens be kind and loving or pliable and retiring.

Tomorrow we go to Chinon and the citadel where Joan of Arc stayed.