This war was, on both sides, remarkable for cruelty. If Joan de Clisson

gave to the sword all the people in a castle, belonging to Charles of

Blois, to which she had been admitted on a supposition of pacific

intentions, Charles of Blois, on his side, finding in another castle

thirty knights, partisans of the Count of Montfort, had their heads shot

from catapults over the walls of Nantes, which he was besieging, and, at

the same time that he saved from pillage the churches of Quimper, which

he had just taken, he allowed his troops to massacre fourteen hundred

inhabitants, and had his principal prisoners beheaded. One of them,

being a deacon, he caused to be degraded, and then handed over to the

populace, who stoned him. It is characteristic of the middle ages that

in them the ferocity of barbaric times existed side by side with the

sentiments of chivalry and the fervor of Christianity: so slow is the

race of man to eschew evil, even when it has begun to discern and relish

good. War was then the passion and habitual condition of men. They made

it without motive as well as without prevision, in a transport of feeling

or for the sake of pastime, to display their strength or to escape from

listlessness; and, whilst making it, they abandoned themselves without

scruple to all those deeds of violence, vengeance, brutal anger, or

fierce delight, which war provokes. At the same time, however, the

generous impulses of feudal chivalry, the sympathies of Christian piety,

tender affections, faithful devotion, noble tastes, were fermenting in

their souls; and human nature appeared with all its complications, its

inconsistencies, and its irregularities, but also with all its wealth of

prospective development. The three Joans of the fourteenth century were

but eighty years in advance of the Joan of Arc of the fifteenth; and the

knights of Charles V., Du Guesclin and De Clisson, were the forerunners

of the Bayard of Francis I.

An incident which has retained its popularity in French history, to wit,

the fight between thirty Bretons and thirty English during the just now

commemorated war in Brittany, will give a better idea than any general

observations could of the real, living characteristics of facts and

manners, barbaric and at the same time chivalric, at that period. No

apology is needed for here reproducing the chief details as they have

been related by Froissart, the dramatic chronicler of the middle ages.

In 1351, “it happened on a day that Sir Robert de Beaumanoir, a valiant

knight and commandant of the castle which is called Castle Josselin, came

before the town and castle of Ploermel, whereof the captain, called

Brandebourg [or Brembro, probably Bremborough], had with him a plenty of

soldiers of the Countess of Montfort. ‘Brandebourg,’ said Robert, ‘have

ye within there never a man-at-arms, or two or three, who would fain

cross swords with other three for love of their ladies?’ Brandebourg

answered that their ladies would not have them lose their lives in so

miserable an affair as single combat, whereby one gained the name of fool

rather than honorable renown. ‘I will tell you what we will do, if it

please you. You shall take twenty or thirty of your comrades, as I will

take as many of ours. We will go out into a goodly field where none can

hinder or vex us, and there will we do so much that men shall speak

thereof in time to come in hall, and palace, and highway, and other

places of the world.’ ‘By my faith,’ said Beaumanoir, ‘tis bravely said,

and I agree: be ye thirty, and we will be thirty, too.’ And thus the

matter was settled. When the day had come, the thirty comrades of

Brandebourg, whom we shall call English, heard mass, then got on their

arms, went off to the place where the battle was to be, dismounted, and

waited a long while for the others, whom we shall call French. When the

thirty French had come, and they were in front one of another, they

parleyed a little together, all the sixty; then they fell back, and made

all their fellows go far away from the place. Then one of them made a

sign, and forthwith they set on and fought stoutly all in a heap, and

they aided one another handsomely when they saw their comrades in evil

case. Pretty soon after they had come together, one of the French was

slain, but the rest did not slacken the fight one whit, and they bore

themselves as valiantly all as if they had all been Rolands and Olivers.

At last they were forced to stop, and they rested by common accord,

giving themselves truce until they should be rested, and the first to get

up again should recall the others. They rested long, and there were some

who drank wine which was brought to them in bottles. They rebuckled

their armor, which had got undone, and dressed their wounds. Four French

and two English were dead already.”

It was no doubt during this interval that the captain of the Bretons,

Robert de Beaumanoir, grievously wounded and dying of fatigue and thirst,

cried out for a drink. “Drink thy blood, Beaumanoir,” said one of his

comrades, Geoffrey de Bois, according to some accounts, and Sire de

Tinteniac, according to others. From that day those words became the

war-cry of the Beaumanoirs. Froissart says nothing of this incident.

Let us return to his narrative.

“When they were refreshed, the first to get up again made a sign, and

recalled the others. Then the battle recommenced as stoutly as before,

and lasted a long while. They had short swords of Bordeaux, tough and

sharp, and boar-spears and daggers, and some had axes, and therewith they

dealt one another marvellously great dings, and some seized one another

by the arms a-struggling, and they struck one another, and spared not.

At last the English had the worst of it; Brandebourg, their captain, was

slain, with eight of his comrades, and the rest yielded themselves

prisoners when they saw that they could no longer defend themselves, for

they could not and must not fly. Sir Robert de Beaumanoir and his

comrades, who remained alive, took them and carried them off to Castle

Josselin as their prisoners; and then admitted them to ransom courteously

when they were all cured, for there was none that was not grievously

wounded, French as well as English. I saw afterwards, sitting at the

table of King Charles of France, a Breton knight who had been in it, Sir

Yvon Charnel , and he had a face so carved and cut that he showed full

well how good a fight had been fought. The matter was talked of in many

places, and some set it down as a very poor, and others as a very

swaggering business.”

The most modern and most judicious historian of Brittany, Count Daru,

who has left a name as honorable in literature as in the higher

administration of the First Empire, says, very truly, in recounting this

incident, “It is not quite certain whether this was an act of patriotism

or of chivalry.” He might have gone farther, and discovered in this

exploit not only the characteristics he points out, but many others

besides. Local patriotism, the honor of Brittany, party spirit, the

success of John of Montfort or Charles of Blois, the sentiment of

gallantry, the glorification of the most beautiful one amongst their

lady-loves, and, chiefly, the passion for war amongst all and sundry--

there was something of all this mixed up with the battle of the Thirty,

a faithful reflex of the complication and confusion of minds, of morals,

and of wants at that forceful period. It is this very variety of the

ideas, feelings, interests, motives, and motive tendencies involved in

that incident which accounts for the fact that the battle of the Thirty

has remained so vividly remembered, and that in 1811 a monument,

unpretentious but national, replaced the simple stone at first erected on

the field of battle, on the edge of the road from P1o6rmel to Josselin,

with this inscription: “To the immortal memory of the battle of the

Thirty, gained by Marshal Beaumanoir, on the 26th of March, 1350 (1351).”

With some fondness, and at some length, this portion of Brittany’s

history in the fourteenth century has been dwelt upon, not only because

of the dramatic interest attaching to the events and the actors, but also

for the sake of showing, by that example, how many separate associations,

diverse and often hostile, were at that time developing themselves, each

on its own account, in that extensive and beautiful country which became

France. We will now return to Philip of Valois and Edward III., and to

the struggle between them for a settlement of the question whether France

should or should not preserve its own independent kingship, and that

national unity of which she already had the name, but of which she was

still to undergo so much painful travail in acquiring the reality.

Although Edward III. by supporting with troops and officers, and

sometimes even in person, the cause of the Countess of Montfort, and

Philip of Valois by assisting in the same way Charles of Blois and Joan

of Penthievre, took a very active, if indirect, share in the war in

Brittany, the two kings persisted in not calling themselves at war; and

when either of them proceeded to acts of unquestionable hostility, they

eluded the consequences of them by hastily concluding truces incessantly

violated and as incessantly renewed. They had made use of this expedient

in 1340; and they had recourse to it again in 1342, 1343, and 1344. The

last of these truces was to have lasted up to 1346; but, in the spring of

1345, Edward resolved to put an end to this equivocal position, and to

openly recommence war. He announced his intention to Pope Clement IV.,

to his own lieutenants in Brittany, and to all the cities and

corporations of his kingdom. He accused Philip of having “violated,

without even sending us a challenge, the truce which, out of regard to

the sovereign pontiff, we had agreed upon with him, and which he had

taken an oath, upon his soul, to keep. On account whereof we have

resolved to proceed against him, him and all his adherents, by land and

sea, by all means possible, in order to recover our just rights.” It is

not quite clear what pressing reasons urged Edward to this decisive

resolution. The English Parliament and people, it is true, showed more

disposition to support their king in his pretensions to the throne of

France, and the cause of the Count of Montfort was maintaining itself

stubbornly in Brittany, but nothing seemed to call for so startling a

rupture, or to promise Edward any speedy and successful issue. He had

lost his most energetic and warlike adviser; for Robert d’Artois, the

deadly enemy of Philip of Valois, had been so desperately wounded in the

defence of Vannes against Robert de Beaumanoir, that he had returned to

England only to die. Edward felt this loss severely, gave Robert a

splendid funeral in St. Paul’s church, and declared that “he would listen

to nought until he had avenged him, and that he would reduce the country

of Brittany to such plight that, for forty years, it should not recover.”

Philip of Valois, on his side, gave signs of getting ready for war. In

1343 he had convoked at Paris one of those assemblies which were

beginning to be called the states-general of the kingdom, and he obtained

from it certain subventions. It was likewise in 1343 and at the

beginning of 1344, that he ordered the arrest, at a tournament to which

he had invited them, and the decapitation, without any form of trial, of

fourteen Breton and three Norman lords whom he suspected of intriguing

against him with the King of England. And so Edward might have

considered himself threatened with imminent peril; and, besides, he had

friends to avenge. But it is not unreasonable to suppose that his fiery

ambition, and his impatience to decide, once for all, that question of

the French kingship which had been for five years in suspense between

himself and his rival, were the true causes of his warlike resolve.

However that may be, he determined to push the war vigorously forward at

the three points at which he could easily wage it. In Brittany he had a

party already engaged in the struggle; in Aquitaine, possessions of

importance to defend or recover; in Flanders, allies with power to back

him, and as angry as he himself. To Brittany he forwarded fresh supplies

for the Count of Montfort; to Aquitaine he sent Henry of Lancaster, Earl

of Derby, his own cousin, and the ablest of his lieutenants; and he

himself prepared to cross over with a large army to Flanders.

The Earl of Derby met with solid and brilliant success in Aquitaine.

He attacked and took in rapid succession Bergerac, La Reole, Aiguillon,

Montpezat, Villefranche, and Angouleme. None of those places was

relieved in time; the strict discipline of Derby’s troops and the skill

of the English archers were too much for the bravery of the men-at-arms,

and the raw levies, ill organized and ill paid, of the King of France;

and, in a word, the English were soon masters of almost the whole country

between the Garonne and the Charente. Under such happy auspices Edward

III. arrived on the 7th of July, 1345, at the port of Ecluse (Sluys),

anxious to put himself in concert with the Flemings touching the campaign

he proposed to commence before long in the north of France. Artevelde,

with the consuls of Bruges and Ypres, was awaiting him there. According

to some historians, Edward invited them aboard of his galley, and

represented to them that the time had come for renouncing imperfect

resolves and half-measures; told them that their count, Louis of

Flanders, and his ancestors, had always ignored and attacked their

liberties, and that the best thing they could do would be to sever their

connection with a house they could not trust; and offered them for their

chieftain his own son, the young Prince of Wales, to whom he would give

the title of Duke of Flanders. According to other historians, it was not

King Edward, but Artevelde himself, who took the initiative in this

proposition. The latter had for some time past felt his own dominion in

Flanders attacked and shaken; and he had been confronted, in his own

native city, by declared enemies, who had all but come to blows with his

own partisans. The different industrial corporations of Ghent were no

longer at one amongst themselves; the weavers had quarrelled with the

fullers. Division was likewise reaching a great height amongst the

Flemish towns. The burghers of Poperinghe had refused to continue

recognizing the privileges of those of Ypres; and the Ypres men, enraged,

had taken up arms, and, after a sanguinary melley, had forced the folks

of Poperinghe to give in. Then the Ypres men, proud of their triumph,

had gone and broken the weavers’ machinery at Bailleul, and in some other

towns. Artevelde, constrained to take part in these petty civil wars,

had been led on to greater and greater abuse, in his own city itself,

of his municipal despotism, already grown hateful to many of his fellow-

citizens. Whether he himself proposed to shake off the yoke of Count

Louis of Flanders, and take for duke the Prince of Wales, or merely

accepted King Edward’s proposal, he set resolutely to work to get it

carried. The most able men, swayed by their own passions and the growing

necessities of the struggle in which they may be engaged, soon forget

their first intentions, and ignore their new perils. The consuls of

Bruges and Ypres, present with Artevelde at his interview with King

Edward in the port of Ecluse (Sluys), answered that “they could not

decide so great a matter unless the whole community of Flanders should

agree thereto,” and so returned to their cities. Artevelde followed them

thither, and succeeded in getting the proposed resolution adopted by the

people of Ypres and Bruges. But when he returned to Ghent, on the 24th

of July, 1345, “those in the city who knew of his coming,” says

Froissart, “had assembled in the street whereby he must ride to his

hostel. So soon as they saw him they began to mutter, saying, ‘There

goes he who is too much master, and would fain do with the countship of

Flanders according to his own will; which cannot be borne.’ It had,

besides this, been spread about the city that James Van Artevelde had

secretly sent to England the great treasure of Flanders, which he had

been collecting for the space of the nine years and more during which he

had held the government. This was a matter which did greatly vex and

incense them of Ghent. As James Van Artevelde rode along the street, he

soon perceived that there was something fresh against him, for those who

were wont to bow down and take off their caps to him turned him a cold

shoulder, and went back into their houses. Then he began to be afraid;

and so soon as he had dismounted at his house, he had all the doors and

windows shut and barred. Scarcely had his varlets done so, when the

street in which he lived was covered, front and back, with folk, and

chiefly small crafts-folk. His hostel was surrounded and beset, front

and back, and broken into by force. Those within defended themselves a

long while, and overthrew and wounded many; but at last they could not

hold out, for they were so closely assailed that nearly three quarters of

the city were at this assault. When Artevelde saw the efforts a-making,

and how hotly he was pressed, he came to a window over the street, and

began to abase himself, and say with much fine language, ‘Good folks,

what want ye? What is it that doth move ye? Wherefore are ye so vexed

at me? In what way can I have angered ye? Tell me, and I will mend it

according to your wishes.’ Then all those who had heard him answered

with one voice, ‘We would have an account of the great treasure of

Flanders, which you have sent to England without right or reason.’

Artevelde answered full softly, ‘Of a surety, sirs, I have never taken a

denier from the treasury of Flanders; go ye back quietly home, I pray

you, and come again to-morrow morning; I shall be so well prepared to

render you a good account, that, according to reason, it cannot but

content ye.’ ‘Nay, nay,’ they answered, with one voice, ‘but we would

have it at once; you shall not escape us so; we do know of a verity that

you have taken it out and sent it away to England, without our wit; for

which cause you must needs die.’ When Artevelde heard this word, he

began to weep right piteously, and said, ‘Sirs, ye have made me what I

am, and ye did swear to me aforetime that ye would guard and defend me

against all men; and now ye would kill me, and without a cause. Ye can

do so an if it please you, for I am but one single man against ye all,

without any defence. Think hereon, for God’s sake, and look back to

bygone times. Consider the great courtesies and services that I have

done ye. Know ye not how all trade had perished in this country? It was

I who raised it up again. Afterwards I governed ye in peace so great,

that, during the time of my government, ye have had everything to your

wish, grains, wools, and all sorts of merchandise, wherewith ye are well

provided and in good case.’ Then they began to shout, ‘Come down, and

preach not to us from such a height; we would have account and reckoning

of the great treasure of Flanders which you have too long had under

control without rendering an account, which it appertaineth not to any

officer to do.’ When Artevelde saw that they would not cool down, and

would not restrain themselves, he closed the window, and bethought him

that he would escape by the back, and get him gone to a church adjoining

his hostel; but his hostel was already burst open and broken into behind,

and there were more than four hundred persons who were all anxious to

seize him. At last he was caught amongst them, and killed on the spot

without mercy. A weaver, called Thomas Denis, gave him his death-blow.

This was the end of Artevelde, who in his time was so great a master in

Flanders. Poor folk exalted him at first, and wicked folk slew him at

the last.”

[Illustration: Statue of James Van Artevelde----296]

It was a great loss for King Edward. Under Van Artevelde’s bold

dominance, and in consequence of his alliance with England, the warlike

renown of Flanders had made some noise in Europe, to such an extent that

Petrarch exclaimed, “List to the sounds, still indistinct, that reach us

from the world of the West; Flanders is plunged in ceaseless war; all the

country stretching from the restless Ocean to the Latin Alps is rushing

forth to arms. Would to Heaven that there might come to us some gleams

of salvation from thence! O Italy, poor father-land, thou prey to

sufferings without relief, thou who wast wont with thy deeds of arms to

trouble the peace of the world, now art thou motionless when the fate of

the world hangs on the chances of battle! “The Flemings spared no effort

to re-assure the King of England. Their envoys went to Westminster to

deplore the murder of Van Artevelde, and tried to persuade Edward that

his policy would be perpetuated throughout their cities, and “to such

purpose,” says Froissart, “that in the end the king was fairly content

with the Flemings, and they with him, and, between them, the death of

James Van Artevelde was little by little forgotten.” Edward, however,

was so much affected by it that he required a whole year before he could

resume with any confidence his projects of war; and it was not until the

2d of July, 1346, that he embarked at Southampton, taking with him,

besides his son, the Prince of Wales, hardly sixteen years of age, an

army which comprised, according to Froissart, seven earls, more than

thirty-five barons, a great number of knights, four thousand men-at-arms,

ten thousand English archers, six thousand Irish, and twelve thousand

Welsh infantry, in all something more than thirty-two thousand men,

troops even more formidable for their discipline and experience of war

than for their numbers. When they were out at sea none knew, not even

the king himself, for what point of the Continent they were to make, for

the south or the north, for Aquitaine or Normandy. “Sir,” said Godfrey

d’Harcourt, who had become one of the king’s most trusted counsellors,

“the country of Normandy is one of the fattest in the world, and I

promise you, at the risk of my head, that if you put in there you shall

take possession of land at your good pleasure, for the folk there never

were armed, and all the flower of their chivalry is now at Aiguillon with

their duke; for certain, we shall find there gold, silver, victual, and

all other good things in great abundance.” Edward adopted this advice;

and on the 12th of July, 1346, his fleet anchored before the peninsula of

Cotentin, at Cape La Hogue. Whilst disembarking, at the very first step

he made on shore, the king fell “so roughly,” says Froissart, “that blood

spurted from his nose. ‘Sir,’ said his knights to him, ‘go back to your

ship, and come not now to land, for here is an ill sign for you.’ ‘Nay,

verily,’ quoth the king, full roundly, ‘it is a right good sign for me,

since the land doth desire me.’” Caesar did and said much the same on

disembarking in Africa, and William the Conqueror on landing in England.

In spite of contemporary accounts, there is a doubt about the

authenticity of these striking expressions, which become favorites,

and crop up again on all similar occasions.

For a month Edward marched his army over Normandy, “finding on his road,”

says Froissart, “the country fat and plenteous in everything, the garners

full of corn, the houses full of all manner of riches, carriages, wagons

and horses, swine, ewes, wethers, and the finest oxen in the world.” He

took and plundered on his way Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan,

and St. Lo. When, on the 26th of July, he arrived before Caen, “a city

bigger than any in England save London, and full of all kinds of

merchandise, of rich burghers, of noble dames, and of fine churches,” the

population attempted to resist. Philip had sent to them the constable,

Raoul d’Eu, and the Count of Tancarville; but, after three days of petty

fighting around the city and even in the streets themselves, Edward

became master of it, and on the entreaty, it is said, of Godfrey

d’Hareourt, exempted it from pillage. Continuing his march, he occupied

Louviers, Vernon, Verneuil, Mantes, Meulan, and Poissy, where he took up

his quarters in the old residence of King Robert; and thence his troops

advanced and spread themselves as far as Ruel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St.

Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine, and almost to the gates of Paris, whence could be

seen “the fire and smoke from burning villages.” “We ourselves,” says a

contemporary chronicler, “saw these things; and it was a great dishonor

that in the midst of the kingdom of France the King of England should

squander, spoil, and consume the king’s wines and other goods.” Great

was the consternation at Paris. And it was redoubled when Philip gave

orders for the demolition of the houses built along by the walls of

circumvallation, on the ground that they embarrassed the defence. The

people believed that they were on the eve of a siege. The order was

revoked; but the feeling became even more intense when it was known that

the king was getting ready to start for St. Denis, where his principal

allies, the King of Bohemia, the Dukes of Hainault and of Lorraine, the

Counts of Flanders and of Blois, “and a very great array of baronry and

chivalry,” were already assembled. “Ah! dear sir and noble king,” cried

the burghers of Paris as they came to Philip and threw themselves on

their knees before him, “what would you do? Would you thus leave your

good city of Paris? Your enemies are already within two leagues, and

will soon be in our city when they know that you are gone; and we have

and shall have none to defend us against them. Sir, may it please you to

remain and watch over your good city.” “My good people,” answered the

king, “have ye no fear; the English shall come no nigher to you; I am

away to St. Denis to my men-at-arms, for I mean to ride against these

English, and fight them, in such fashion as I may.” Philip recalled in

all haste his troops from Aquitaine, commanded the burgher-forces to

assemble, and gave them, as he had given all his allies, St. Denis for

the rallying-point. At sight of so many great lords and all sorts of men

of war flocking together from all points, the Parisians took fresh

courage. “For many a long day there had not been seen at St. Denis a

king of France in arms and fully prepared for battle.”

Edward began to be afraid of having pushed too far forward, and of

finding himself endangered in the heart of France, confronted by an army

which would soon be stronger than his own. Some chronicles say that

Philip, in his turn, sent a challenge either for single combat or for a

battle on a fixed day, in a place assigned, and that Edward, in his turn

also, declined the proposition he had but lately made to his rival. It

appears, further, that at the moment of commencing his retreat away from

Paris, he tried ringing the changes on Philip with respect to the line he

intended to take, and that Philip was led to believe that the English

army would fall back in a westerly direction, by Orleans and Tours,

whereas it marched northward, where Edward flattered himself he would

find partisans, counting especially on the help of the Flemings, who, in

fulfilment of their promise, had already advanced as far as Bethune to

support him. Philip was soon better informed, and moved with all his

army into Picardy in pursuit of the English army, which was in a hurry to

reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its march northward. It was

more than once forced to fight on its march with the people of the towns

and country through which it was passing; provisions were beginning to

fall short; and Edward sent his two marshals, the Earl of Warwick and

Godfrey d’Harcourt, to discover where it was practicable to cross the

river, which, at this season of the year and so near its mouth, was both

broad and deep. They returned without having any satisfactory

information to report; “whereupon,” says Froissart, “the king was not

more joyous or less pensive, and began to fall into a great melancholy.”

He had halted three or four days at Airaines, some few leagues from

Amiens, whither the King of France had arrived in pursuit with an army,

it is said, more than a hundred thousand strong. Philip learned through

his scouts that the King of England would evacuate Airaines the next

morning, and ride to Abbeville in hopes of finding some means of getting

over the Somme. Philip immediately ordered a Norman baron, Godemar du

Fay, to go with a body of troops and guard the ford of Blanche-Tache,

below Abbeville, the only point at which, it was said, the English could

cross the river; and on the same day he himself moved with the bulk of

his army from Amiens on Airaines. There he arrived about midday, some

few hours after that the King of England had departed with such

precipitation that the French found in it “great store of provisions,

meat ready spitted, bread and pastry in the oven, wines in barrel, and

many tables which the English had left ready set and laid out.” “Sir,”

said Philip’s officers to him, as soon as he was at Airaines, “rest you

here and wait for your barons and their folk, for the English cannot

escape you.” It was concluded, in point of fact, that Edward and his

troops, not being able to cross the Somme, would find themselves hemmed

in between the French army and the strong places of Abbeville, St.

Valery, and Le Crotoi, in the most evil case and perilous position

possible. But Edward, on arriving at the little town of Oisemont, hard

by the Somme, set out in person in quest of the ford he was so anxious to

discover. He sent for some prisoners he had made in the country, and

said to them, “right courteously,” according to Froissart, “‘Is there

here any man who knows of a passage below Abbeville, where-by we and our

army might cross the river without peril?’ And a varlet from a

neighboring mill, whose name history has preserved as that of a traitor,

Gobin Agace, said to the king, ‘Sir, I do promise you, at the risk of my

head, that I will guide you to such a spot, where you shall cross the

River Somme without peril, you and your army.’ ‘Comrade,’ said the king

to him, ‘if I find true that which thou tellest us, I will set thee free

from thy prison, thee and all thy fellows for love of thee, and I will

cause to be given to thee a hundred golden nobles and a good stallion.’”

The varlet had told the truth; the ford was found at the spot called

Blanche-Tache, whither Philip had sent Godemar du Fay with a few thousand

men to guard it. A battle took place; but the two marshals of England,

“unfurling their banners in the name of God and St. George, and having

with them the most valiant and best mounted, threw themselves into the

water at full gallop, and there, in the river, was done many a deed of

battle, and many a man was laid low on one side and the other, for Sir

Godemar and his comrades did valiantly defend the passage; but at last

the English got across, and moved forward into the fields as fast as ever

they landed. When Sir Godemar saw the mishap, he made off as quickly as

he could, and so did a many of his comrades.” The King of France, when

he heard the news, was very wroth, “for he had good hope of finding the

English on the Somme and fighting them there. ‘What is it right to do

now?’ asked Philip of his marshals. ‘Sir,’ answered they, ‘you cannot

now cross in pursuit of the English, for the tide is already up.’”

Philip went disconsolate to lie at Abbeville, whither all his men

followed him. Had he been as watchful as Edward was, and had he, instead

of halting at Airaines “by the ready-set tables which the English had

left,” marched at once in pursuit of them, perhaps he would have caught

and beaten them on the left bank of the Somme, before they could cross

and take up position on the other side. This was the first striking

instance of that extreme inequality between the two kings in point of

ability and energy which was before long to produce results so fatal for

Philip.

When Edward, after passing the Somme, had arrived near Crecy, five

leagues from Abbeville, in the countship of Ponthieu which had formed

part of his mother Isabel’s dowry, “‘Halt we here,’ said he to his

marshals; ‘I will go no farther till I have seen the enemy; I am on my

mother’s rightful inheritance which was given her on her marriage; I will

defend it against mine adversary, Philip of Valois;’ and he rested in the

open fields, he and all his men, and made his marshals mark well the

ground where they would set their battle in array.” Philip, on his side,

had moved to Abbeville, where all his men came and joined him, and whence

he sent out scouts “to learn the truth about the English. When he knew

that they were resting in the open fields near Crecy and showed that they

were awaiting their enemies, the King of France was very joyful, and said

that, please God, they should fight him on the morrow [the day after

Friday, August 25, 1346]. He that day bade to supper all the high-born

princes who were at Abbeville. They were all in great spirits and had

great talk of arms, and after supper the king prayed all the lords to be

all of them, one toward another, friendly and courteous, without envy,

hatred, and pride, and every one made him a promise thereof. On the same

day of Friday the King of England also gave a supper to the earls and

barons of his army, made them great cheer, and then sent them away to

rest, which they did. When all the company had gone, he entered into his

oratory, and fell on his knees before the altar, praying devoutly that

God would permit him on the morrow, if he should fight, to come out of

the business with honor; after which, about midnight, he went and lay

down. On the morrow he rose pretty early, for good reason, heard mass

with the Prince of Wales, his son, and both of them communicated. The

majority of his men confessed and put themselves in good ease. After

mass the king commanded all to get on their arms and take their places in

the field according as he had assigned them the day before.” Edward had

divided his army into three bodies; he had put the first, forming the

van, under the orders of the young Prince of Wales, having about him the

best and most tried warriors; the second had for commanders earls and

barons in whom the king had confidence; and the third, the reserve, he

commanded in person. Having thus made his arrangements, Edward, mounted

on a little palfrey, with a white staff in his hand and his marshals in

his train, rode at a foot-pace from rank to rank, exhorting all his men,

officers and privates, to stoutly defend his right and do their duty; and

“he said these words to them,” says Froissart, “with so bright a smile

and so joyous a mien that whoso had before been disheartened felt

reheartened on seeing and hearing him.” Having finished his ride, Edward

went back to his own division, giving orders for all his folk to eat

their fill and drink one draught: which they did. “And then they sat

down all of them on the ground, with their head-pieces and their bows in

front of them, resting themselves in order to be more fresh and cool when

the enemy should come.”

Philip also set himself in motion on Saturday, the 26th of August, and,

after having heard mass, marched out from Abbeville with all his barons.

“There was so great a throng of men-at-arms there,” says Froissart, “that

it were a marvel to think on, and the king rode mighty gently to wait for

all his folk.” When they were two leagues from Abbeville, one of them

that were with him said, “Sir, it were well to put your lines in order of

battle, and to send three or four of your knights to ride forward and

observe the enemy and in what condition they be.” So four knights pushed

forward to within sight of the English, and, returning immediately to the

king, whom they could not approach without breaking the host that

encompassed him, they said by the mouth of one of them, “Know, sir, that

the English be halted, well and regularly, in three lines of battle, and

show no sign of meaning to fly, but await your coming. For my part, my

counsel is that you halt all your men, and rest them in the fields

throughout this day. Before the hindermost can come up, and before your

lines of battle are set in order, it will be late; your men will be tired

and in disarray; and you will find the enemy cool and fresh. To-morrow

morning you will be better able to dispose your men and determine in what

quarter it will be expedient to attack the enemy. Sure may you be that

they will await you.” This counsel was well pleasing to the King of

France, and he commanded that thus it should be. “The two marshals rode

one to the front and the other to the rear with orders to the bannerets,

‘Halt, banners, by command of the king, in the name of God and St.

Denis!’ At this order those who were foremost halted, but not those who

were hindermost, continuing to ride forward and saying that they would

not halt until they were as much to the front as the foremost were.

Neither the king nor his marshals could get the mastery of their men, for

there was so goodly a number of great lords that each was minded to show

his own might. There was, besides, in the fields, so goodly a number of

common people that all the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered

with them; and when these folk thought themselves near the enemy, they

drew their swords, shouting, ‘Death! death!’ And not a soul did they

see.”

“When the English saw the French approaching, they rose up in fine order

and ranged themselves in their lines of battle, that of the Prince of

Wales right in front, and the Earls of Northampton and Arundel, who

commanded the second, took up their place on the wing, right orderly and

all ready to support the prince, if need should be. Well, the lords,

kings, dukes, counts, and barons of the French came not up all together,

but one in front and another behind, without plan or orderliness. When

King Philip arrived at the spot where the English were thus halted, and

saw them, the blood boiled within him, for he hated them, and he said to

his marshals, ‘Let our Genoese pass to the front and begin the battle, in

the name of God and St. Denis.’ There were there fifteen thousand of

these said Genoese bowmen; but they were sore tired with going a-foot

that day more than six leagues and fully armed, and they said to their

commanders that they were not prepared to do any great feat of battle.

‘To be saddled with such a scum as this that fails you in the hour of

need!’ said the Duke d’Alencon on hearing those words. Whilst the

Genoese were holding back, there fell from heaven a rain, heavy and

thick, with thunder and lightning very mighty and terrible. Before long,

however, the air began to clear and the sun to shine. The French had it

right in their eyes and the English at their backs. When the Genoese had

recovered themselves and got together, they advanced upon the English

with loud shouts, so as to strike dismay; but the English kept quite

quiet, and showed no sign of it. Then the Genoese bent their cross-bows

and began to shoot. The English, making one step forward, let fly their

arrows, which came down so thick upon the Genoese that it looked like a

fall of snow. The Genoese, galled and discomfited, began to fall back.

Between them and the main body of the French was a great hedge of

men-at-arms who were watching their proceedings. When the King of France

saw his bowmen thus in disorder he shouted to the men-at-arms, ‘Up now

and slay all this scum, for it blocks our way and hinders us from getting

forward.’” Then the French, on every side, struck out at the Genoese, at

whom the English archers continued to shoot.

“Thus began the battle between Broye and Crecy, at the hour of vespers.”

The French, as they came up, were already tired and in great disorder:

“howbeit so many valiant men and good knights kept ever riding forward

for their honor’s sake, and preferred rather to die than that a base

flight should be cast in their teeth.” A fierce combat took place

between them and the division of the Prince of Wales. Thither penetrated

the Count d’Alenccon and the Count of Flanders with their followers,

round the flank of the English archers; and the King of France, who was

foaming with displeasure and wrath, rode forward to join his brother

D’Alencon, but there was so great a hedge of archers and men-at-arms

mingled together that he could never get past. Thomas of Norwich, a

knight serving under the Prince of Wales, was sent to the King of England

to ask him for help. “‘Sir Thomas,’ said the king, ‘is my son dead or

unhorsed, or so wounded that he cannot help himself?’ ‘Not so, my lord,

please God; but he is fighting against great odds, and is like to have

need of your help.’ ‘Sir Thomas,’ replied the king, ‘return to them who

sent you, and tell them from me not to send for me, whatever chance

befall them, so long as my son is alive, and tell them that I bid them

let the lad win his spurs; for I wish, if God so deem, that the day

should be his, and the honor thereof remain to him and to those to whom I

have given him in charge.’ The knight returned with this answer to his

chiefs; and it encouraged them greatly, and they repented within

themselves for that they had sent him to the king.” Warlike ardor, if

not ability and prudence, was the same on both sides. Philip’s faithful

ally, John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, had come thither, blind as he

was, with his son Charles and his knights; and when he knew that the

battle had begun he asked those who were near him how it was going on.

“‘My lord,’ they said, ‘the Genoese are discomfited, and the king has

given orders to slay them all; and all the while between our folk and

them there is so great disorder that they stumble one over another and

hinder us greatly.’ ‘Ha!’ said the king, ‘that is an ill sign for us;

where is Sir Charles, my son?’ ‘My lord, we know not; we have reason to

believe that he is elsewhere in the fight.’ ‘Sirs,’ replied the old

king, ‘ye are my liegemen, my friends, and my comrades; I pray you and

require you to lead me so far to the front in the work of this day that I

may strike a blow with my sword; it shall not be said that I came hither

to do nought.’ So his train, who loved his honor and their own

advancement,” says Froissart, “did his bidding. For to acquit themselves

of their duty, and that they might not lose him in the throng, they tied

themselves all together by the reins of their horses, and set the king,

their lord, right in front, that he might the better accomplish his

desire, and thus they bore down on the enemy. And the king went so far

forward that he struck a good blow, yea, three and four; and so did all

those who were with him. And they served him so well and charged so well

forward upon the English, that all fell there and were found next day on

the spot around their lord, and their horses tied together.”

“The King of France,” continues Froissart, “had great anguish at heart

when he saw his men thus discomfited and falling one after another before

a handful of folk as the English were. He asked counsel of Sir John of

Hainault, who was near him and who said to him, ‘Truly, sir, I can give

you no better counsel than that you should withdraw and place yourself in

safety, for I see no remedy here. It will soon be late; and then you

would be as likely to ride upon your enemies as amongst your friends, and

so be lost.’ Late in the evening, at nightfall, King Philip left the

field with a heavy heart--and for good cause; he had just five barons

with him, and no more! He rode, quite broken-hearted, to the castle of

Broye. When he came to the gate, he found it shut and the bridge drawn

up, for it was fully night, and was very dark and thick. The king had

the castellan summoned, who came forward on the battlements and cried

aloud, ‘Who’s there? who knocks at such an hour?’ ‘Open, castellan,’

said Philip; ‘it is the unhappy King of France.’ The castellan went out

as soon as he recognized the voice of the King of France; and he well

knew already that they had been discomfited, from some fugitives who had

passed at the foot of the castle. He let down the bridge and opened the

gate. Then the king, with his following, went in, and remained there up

to midnight, for the king did not care to stay and shut himself up

therein. He drank a draught, and so did they who were with him; then

they mounted to horse, took guides to conduct them, and rode in such wise

that at break of day they entered the good city of Amiens. There the

king halted, took up his quarters in an abbey, and said that he would go

no farther until he knew the truth about his men, which of them were left

on the field and which had escaped.”

Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with his

army as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat than it

had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardor and intelligence, to

reap the fruits of his victory. In the difficult war of conquest he had

undertaken, what was clearly of most importance to him was to possess on

the coast of France, as near as possible to England, a place which he

might make, in his operations by land and sea, a point of arrival and

departure, of occupancy, of provisioning, and of secure refuge. Calais

exactly fulfilled these conditions. It was a natural harbor, protected,

for many centuries past, by two huge towers, of which one, it is said,

was built by the Emperor Caligula and the other by Charlemagne; it had

been deepened and improved, at the end of the tenth century, by Baldwin

IV., Count of Flanders, and in the thirteenth by Philip of France, called

Toughskin (Hurepel), Count of Boulogne; and, in the fourteenth, it had

become an important city, surrounded by a strong wall of circumvallation,

and having erected in its midst a huge keep, furnished with bastions and

towers, which was called the Castle. On arriving before the place,

September 3, 1346, Edward “immediately had built all round it,” says

Froissart, “houses and dwelling-places of solid carpentry, and arranged

in streets as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve years, for his

intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever time and

whatever trouble he must spend and take. He called this new town

Villeneuve la Hardie; and he had therein all things necessary for an

army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of a market on

Wednesday and Saturday; and therein were mercers’ shops, and butchers’

shops, and stores for the sale of cloth, and bread, and all other

necessaries. King Edward did not have the city of Calais assaulted by

his men, well knowing that he would lose his pains, but said he would

starve it out, however long a time it might cost him, if King Philip of

France did not come to fight him again, and raise the siege.”

Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful

Burgundian knight, “the which, seeing,” says Froissart, “that the King of

England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that all

sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city without

further notice. They went forth on a Wednesday morning, men, women, and

children, more than seventeen hundred of them, and passed through King

Edward’s army. They were asked why they were leaving; and they answered,

because they had no means of living. Then the king permitted them to

pass, and caused to be given to all of them, male and female, a hearty

dinner, and after dinner two shillings apiece, the which grace was

commended as very handsome; and so indeed it was.” Edward probably hoped

that his generosity would produce, in the town itself which remained in a

state of siege, a favorable impression; but he had to do with a

population ardently warlike and patriotic, burghers as well as knights.

They endured for eleven months all the sufferings arising from isolation

and famine; though, from time to time, fishermen and seamen in their

neighborhood, and amongst others two seamen of Abbeville, the names of

whom have been preserved in history, Marant and Mestriel, succeeded in

getting victuals in to them. The King of France made two attempts to

relieve them. On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled his troops at

Amiens; but they were not ready to march till about the middle of July,

and as long before as the 23d of June a French fleet of ten galleys and

thirty-five trans-ports had been driven off by the English. John de

Vienne wrote to Philip, “Everything has been eaten, cats, dogs, and

horses, and we can no longer find victual in the town unless we eat human

flesh. . . . If we have not speedy succor, we will issue forth from

the town to fight, whether to live or die, for we would rather die

honorably in the field than eat one another. . . . If a remedy be not

soon applied, you will never more have letter from me, and the town will

be lost as well as we who are in it. May our Lord grant you a happy life

and a long, and put you in such a disposition that, if we die for your

sake, you may settle the account therefor with our heirs!” On the 27th

of July Philip arrived in person before Calais. If Froissart can be

trusted, “he had with him full two hundred thousand men, and these French

rode up with banners flying as if to fight, and it was a fine sight to

see such puissant array; and so, when they of Calais who were on the

walls saw them appear and their banners floating on the breeze, they had

great joy, and believed that they were going to be soon delivered! But

when they saw camping and tenting going forward they were more angered

than before, for it seemed to them an evil sign.” The marshals of France

went about everywhere looking for a passage, and they reported that it

was nowhere possible to open a road without exposing the army to loss,

so well all the approaches to the place, by sea and land, were guarded by

the English. The pope’s two legates, who had accompanied King Philip,

tried in vain to open negotiations. Philip sent four knights to the King

of England to urge him to appoint a place where a battle might be fought

without advantage on either side; but, “Sirs,” answered Edward, “I have

been here nigh upon a year, and have been at heavy charges by it; and

having done so much that before long I shall be master of Calais. I will

by no means retard my conquest which I have so much desired. Let mine

adversary and his people find out a way, as they please, to fight me.”

Other testimony would have us believe that Edward accepted Philip’s

challenge, and that it was the King of France who raised fresh

difficulties in consequence of which the proposed battle did not take

place. Froissart’s account, however, seems the more truth-like in

itself, and more in accordance with the totality of facts. However that

may be, whether it were actual powerlessness or want of spirit both on

the part of the French army and of the king, Philip, on the 2d of August,

1347, took the road back to Amiens, and dismissed all those who had gone

with him, men-at-arms and common folk.

When the people of Calais saw that all hope of a rescue had slipped from

them, they held a council, resigned themselves to offer submission to the

King of England rather than die of hunger, and begged their governor,

John de Vienne, to enter into negotiations for that purpose with the

besiegers. Walter de Manny, instructed by Edward to reply to these

overtures, said to John de Vienne, “The king’s intent is, that ye put

yourselves at his free will to ransom or put to death such as it shall

please him; the people of Calais have caused him so great displeasure,

cost him so much money, and lost him so many men, that it is not

astonishing if that weighs heavily upon him.” “Sir Walter,” answered

John de Vienne, “it would be too hard a matter for us if we were to

consent to what you say. There are within here but a small number of us

knights and squires who have loyally served our lord the King of France

even as you would serve yours in like case; but we would suffer greater

evils than ever men have had to endure rather than consent that the

meanest ‘prentice-boy or varlet of the town should have other evil than

the greatest of us. We pray you be pleased to return to the King of

England, and pray him to have pity upon us; and you will do us courtesy.”

“By my faith,” answered Walter de Manny, “I will do it willingly, Sir

John; and I would that, by God’s help, the king might be pleased to

listen unto me.” And the brave English knight reported to the king the

prayer of the French knights in Calais, saying, “My lord, Sir John de

Vienne told me that they were in very sore extremity and famine, but

that, rather than surrender all to your will, to live or die as it might

please you, they would sell themselves so dearly as never did men-at-

arms.” “I will not do otherwise than I have said,” answered the king.

“My lord,” replied Walter, “you will perchance be wrong, for you will

give us a bad example; if you should be pleased to send us to defend any

of your fortresses, we should of a surety not go willingly if you have

these people put to death, for thus would they do to us in like case.”

These words caused Edward to reflect; and the greater part of the English

barons came to the aid of Walter de Manny. “Sirs,” said the king, “I

would not be all alone against you all. Go, Walter, to them of Calais,

and say to the governor that the greatest grace they can find in my sight

is that six of the most notable burghers come forth from their town,

bare-headed, bare-footed, with ropes round their necks, and with the keys

of the town and castle in their hands. With them I will do according to

my will, and the rest I will receive to mercy.” “My lord,” said Walter,

“I will do it willingly.” He returned to Calais, where John de Vienne

was awaiting him, and reported the king’s decision. The governor

immediately left the ramparts, went to the market-place, and had the bell

rung to assemble the people. At sound of the bell men and women came

hurrying up hungering for news, as was natural for people so hard-pressed

by famine that they could not hold out any longer. John de Vienne then

repeated to them what he had just been told, adding that there was no

other way, and that they would have to make short answer. On this they

all fell a-weeping and crying out so bitterly that no heart in the world,

however hard, could have seen and heard them without pity. Even John de

Vienne shed tears. Then rose up to his feet the richest burgher of the

town, Eustace de St. Pierre, who, at the former council, had been for

capitulation. “Sir,” said he, “it would be great pity to leave this

people to die, by famine or otherwise, when any remedy can be found

against it; and he who should keep them from such a mishap would find

great favor in the eyes of our Lord. I have great hope to find favor in

the eyes of our Lord if I die to save this people; I would fain be the

first herein, and I will willingly place myself in my shirt and

bare-headed and with a rope round my neck, at the mercy of the King of

England.” At this speech, men and women cast themselves at the feet of

Eustace de St. Pierre, weeping piteously. Another right-honorable

burgher, who had great possessions and two beautiful damsels for

daughters, rose up and said that he would act comrade to Eustace de St.

Pierre: his name was John d’Aire. Then, for the third, James de Vissant,

a rich man in personalty and realty; then his brother Peter de Vissant;

and then the fifth and sixth, of whom none has told the names. On the

5th of August, 1347, these six burghers, thus apparelled, with cords

round their necks and each with a bunch of the keys of the city and of

the castle, were conducted outside the gates by John de Vienne, who rode

a small hackney, for he was in such ill plight that he could not go

a-foot. He gave them up to Sir Walter, who was awaiting him, and said to

him, “As captain of Calais I deliver to you, with the consent of the poor

people of the town, these six burghers, who are, I swear to you, the most

honorable and notable in person, in fortune, and in ancestry, in the town

of Calais. I pray you be pleased to pray the King of England that these

good folks be not put to death.” “I know not,” answered De Manny, “what

my lord the king may mean to do with them; but I promise you that I will

do mine ability.” When Sir Walter brought in the six burghers in this

condition, King Edward was in his chamber with a great company of earls,

barons, and knights. As soon as he heard that the folks of Calais were

there as he had ordered, he went out and stood in the open space before

his hostel and all those lords with him; and even Queen Philippa of

England, who was with child, followed the king her lord. He gazed most

cruelly on those six poor men, for he had his heart possessed with so

much rage that at first he could not speak. When he spoke, he commanded

them to be straightway beheaded, All the barons and knights who were

there prayed him to show them mercy. “Gentle sir,” said Walter de Manny,

“restrain your wrath; you have renown for gentleness and nobleness; be

pleased to do nought whereby it may be diminished; if you have not pity

on yonder folk, all others will say that it was great cruelty on your

part to put to death these six honorable burghers, who of their own free

will have put themselves at your mercy to save the others.” The king

gnashed his teeth, saying, “Sir Walter, hold your peace; let them fetch

hither my headsman; the people of Calais have been the death of so many

of my men that it is but meet that yon fellows die also.” Then, with

great humility, the noble queen, who was very nigh her delivery, threw

herself on her knees at the feet of the king, saying, “Ah gentle sir, if,

as you know, I have asked nothing of you from the time that I crossed the

sea in great peril, I pray you humbly that as a special boon, for the

sake of Holy Mary’s Son and for the love of me, you will please to have

mercy on these six men.”

[Illustration: Queen Philippa at the Feet of the King----314]

The king did not speak at once, and fixed his eyes on the good dame his

wife, who was weeping piteously on her knees. She softened his stern

heart, for he would have been loath to vex her in the state in which she

was; and he said to her, “Ha! dame, I had much rather you had been

elsewhere than here; but you pray me such prayers that I dare not refuse

you, and though it irks me much to do so, there! I give them up to you;

do with them as you will.” “Thanks, hearty thanks, my lord,” said the

good queen. Then she rose up and raised up the six burghers, had the

ropes taken off their necks, and took them with her to her chamber, where

she had fresh clothes and dinner brought to them. Afterwards she gave

them six nobles apiece, and had them led out of the host in all safety.

Edward was choleric and stern in his choler, but judicious and politic.

He had sense enough to comprehend the impressions exhibited around him

and to take them into account. He had yielded to the free-spoken

representations of Walter de Manny and to the soft entreaties of his

royal wife. When he was master of Calais he did not suffer himself to be

under any illusion as to the sentiments of the population he had

conquered, and, without excluding the French from the town, he took great

care to mingle with them an English population. He had allowed a free

passage to the poor Calaisians driven out by famine; he now fetched from

London thirty-six burghers of position and three hundred others of

inferior condition, with their wives and children, and he granted to the

town thus depeopled and repeopled all such municipal and commercial

privileges as were likely to attract new inhabitants thither. But, at

the same time, he felt what renown and importance a devotion like that of

the six burghers of Calais could not fail to confer upon such men, and

not only did he trouble himself to get them back to their own hearths,

but on the 8th of October, 1347, two months after the surrender of

Calais, he gave Eustace de St. Pierre a considerable pension “on account

of the good services he was to render in the town by maintaining good

order there,” and he re-instated him, him and his heirs, in possession of

the properties that had belonged to him. Eustace, more concerned for the

interests of his own town than for those of France, and being more of a

Calaisian burgher than a national patriot, showed no hesitation, for all

that appears, in accepting this new fashion of serving his native city,

for which he had shown himself so ready to die. He lived four years as a

subject of the King of England. At his death, which happened in 1351,

his heirs declared themselves faithful subjects of the King of France,

and Edward confiscated away from them the possessions he had restored to

their predecessor. Eustace de St. Pierre’s cousin and comrade in

devotion to their native town, John d’Aire, would not enter Calais again;

his property was confiscated, and his house, the finest, it is said, in

the town, was given by King Edward to Queen Philippa, who showed no more

hesitation in accepting it than Eustace in serving his new king.

Long-lived delicacy of sentiment and conduct was rarer in those rough and

rude times than heroic bursts of courage and devotion.

Philip of Valois tried to afford some consolation and supply some remedy

for the misfortune of the Calaisians banished from their town. He

secured to them exemption from certain imposts, no matter whither they

removed, and the possession of all property and inheritances that might

fall to them, and he promised to confer upon them all vacant offices

which it might suit them to fill. But it was not in his gift to repair.

even superficially and in appearance, the evils he had not known how to

prevent or combat to any purpose. The outset of his reign had been

brilliant and prosperous; but his victory at Cassel over the Flemings

brought more cry than wool. He had vanity enough to flaunt it rather

than wit enough to turn it to account. He was a prince of courts, and

tournaments, and trips, and galas, whether regal or plebeian; he was

volatile, imprudent, haughty, and yet frivolous, brave without ability,

and despotic without anything to show for it. The battle of Crecy and

the loss of Calais were reverses from which he never even made a serious

attempt to recover; he hastily concluded with Edward a truce, twice

renewed, which served only to consolidate the victor’s successes. A

calamity of European extent came as an addition to the distresses of

France. From 1347 to 1349 a frightful disease, brought from Egypt and

Syria through the ports of Italy, and called the black plague or the

plague of Florence, ravaged Western Europe, especially Provence and

Languedoc, where it carried off, they say, two thirds of the inhabitants.

Machiavelli and Boccaccio have described with all the force of their

genius the material and moral effects of this terrible plague. The court

of France suffered particularly from it, and the famous object of

Petrarch’s tender sonnets, Laura de Noves, married to Hugh de Sade, fell

a victim to it at Avignon. When the epidemic had well nigh disappeared,

the survivors, men and women, princes and subjects, returned passionately

to their pleasures and their galas; to mortality, says a contemporary

chronicler, succeeded a rage for marriage; and Philip of Valois himself,

now fifty-eight years of age, took for his second wife Blanche of

Navarre, who was only eighteen. She was a sister of that young King of

Navarre, Charles II., who was soon to get the name of Charles the Bad,

and to become so dangerous an enemy for Philip’s successors. Seven

months after his marriage, and on the 22d of August, 1350, Philip died at

Nogent-le-Roi in the Haute-Marne, strictly enjoining his son John to

maintain with vigor his well-ascertained right to the crown he wore, and

leaving his people bowed down beneath a weight “of extortions so heavy

that the like had never been seen in the kingdom of France.”

Only one happy event distinguished the close of this reign. As early as

1343 Philip had treated, on a monetary basis, with Humbert II., Count and

Dauphin of Vienness, for the cession of that beautiful province to the

crown of France after the death of the then possessor. Humbert, an

adventurous and fantastic prince, plunged, in 1346, into a crusade

against the Turks, from which he returned in the following year without

having obtained any success. Tired of seeking adventures as well as of

reigning, he, on the 16th of July, 1349, before a solemn assembly held at

Lyons, abdicated his principality in favor of Prince Charles of France,

grandson of Philip of Valois, and afterwards Charles V. The new dauphin

took the oath, between the hands of the Bishop of Grenoble, to maintain

the liberties, franchises, and privileges of the Dauphiny; and the

ex-dauphin, after having taken holy orders and passed successively

through the Archbishopric of Rheims and the Bishopric of Paris, both of

which he found equally unpalatable, went to die at Clermont in Auvergne,

in a convent belonging to the order of Dominicans, whose habit he had

donned.

In the same year, on the 18th of April, 1349, Philip of Valois bought of

Jayme of Arragon, the last king of Majorca, for one hundred and twenty

thousand golden crowns, the lordship and town of Montpellier, thus trying

to repair to some extent, for the kingdom of France, the losses he had

caused it.

[Illustration: John II., called the Good----318]

His successor, John II., called the Good, on no other ground than that he

was gay, prodigal, credulous, and devoted to his favorites, did nothing

but reproduce, with aggravations, the faults and reverses of his father.

He had hardly become king when he witnessed the arrival in Paris of the

Constable of France, Raoul, Count of Eu and of Guines, whom Edward III.

had made prisoner at Caen, and who, after five years’ captivity, had just

obtained, that is, purchased, his liberty. Raoul lost no time in

hurrying to the side of the new king, by whom he believed himself to be

greatly beloved. John, as soon as he perceived him, gave him a look,

saying, “Count, come this way with me; I have to speak with you aside.”

“Right willingly, my lord.” The king took him into an apartment, and

showing him a letter, asked, “Have you ever, count, seen this letter

anywhere but here?” The constable appeared astounded and troubled.

“Ah! wicked traitor,” said the king, “you have well deserved death, and,

by my father’s soul, it shall assuredly not miss you;” and he sent him

forthwith to prison in the tower of the Louvre. “The lords and barons of

France were sadly astonished,” says Froissart, “for they held the count

to be a good man and true, and they humbly prayed the king that he would

be pleased to say wherefore he had imprisoned their cousin, so gentle a

knight, who had toiled so much and so much lost for him and for the

kingdom. But the king would not say anything, save that he would never

sleep so long as the Count of Guines was living; and he had him secretly

beheaded in the castle of the Louvre, whether rightly or wrongly; for

which the king was greatly blamed, behind his back, by many of the barons

of high estate in the kingdom of France, and the dukes and counts of the

border.” Two months after this execution, John gave the office of

constable and a large portion of Count Raoul’s property to his favorite,

Charles of Spain, a descendant of King Alphonso of Castille and

naturalized in France; and he added thereto before long some lands

claimed by the King of Navarre, Charles the Bad, a nickname which at

eighteen years of age he had already received from his Navarrese

subjects, but which had not prevented King John from giving him in

marriage his own daughter, Joan of France. From that moment a deep

hatred sprang up between the King of Navarre and the favorite. The

latter was sometimes disquieted thereby. “Fear nought from my son of

Navarre,” said John; “he durst not vex you, for, if he did, he would have

no greater enemy than myself.” John did not yet know his son-in-law.

Two years later, in 1354, his favorite, Charles of Spain, arrived at

Laigle in Normandy. The King of Navarre, having notice thereof,

instructed one of his agents, the Bastard de Mareuil, to go with a troop

of men-at-arms and surprise him in that town; and he himself remained

outside the walls, awaiting the result of his design. At break of day,

he saw galloping up the Bastard de Mareuil, who shouted to him from afar,

“‘Tis done.” “What is done?” asked Charles. “He is dead,” answered

Mareuil. King John’s favorite had been surprised and massacred in his

bed. John burst out into threats; he swore he would have vengeance, and

made preparations for war against his son-in-law. But the King of

England promised his support to the King of Navarre. Charles the Bad was

a bold and able intriguer; he levied troops and won over allies amongst

the lords; dread of seeing the recommencement of a war with England

gained ground; and amongst the people, and even in the king’s council,

there was a cry of “Peace with the King of Navarre!” John took fright

and pretended to give up his ideas of vengeance; he received his son-in-

law, who thanked him on bended knee. But the king gave him never a word.

The King of Navarre, uneasy but bold as ever, continued his intrigues for

obtaining partisans and for exciting troubles and enmities against the

king. “I will have no master in France but myself,” said John to his

confidant: “I shall have no joy so long as he is living.” His eldest

son, the young Duke of Normandy, who was at a later period Charles V.,

had contracted friendly relations with the King of Navarre. On the 16th

of April, 1356, the two princes were together at a banquet in the castle

of Rouen, as well as the Count d’Harcourt and some other lords. All on a

sudden King John, who had entered the castle by a postern with a troop of

men-at-arms, strode abruptly into the hall, preceded by the Marshal

Arnoul d’Audenham, who held a naked sword in his hand, and said, “Let

none stir, whatever he may see, unless he wish to fall by this sword.”

The king went up to the table; and all rose as if to do him reverence.

John seized the King of Navarre roughly by the arm, and drew him towards

him, saying, “Get up, traitor; thou art not worthy to sit at my son’s

table; by my father’s soul I cannot think of meat or drink so long as

thou art living.” A servant of the King of Navarre, to defend his

master, drew his cutlass, and pointed it at the breast of the King of

France, who thrust him back, saying to his sergeants, “Take me this

fellow and his master too.” The King of Navarre dissolved in humble

protestations and repentant speeches over the assassination of the

Constable Charles of Spain. “Go, traitor, go,” answered John: “you will

need to learn good rede or some infamous trick to escape from me.” The

young Duke of Normandy had thrown himself at the feet of the king his

father, crying, “Ah! my lord, for God’s sake have mercy; you do me

dishonor; for what will be said of me, having prayed King Charles and his

barons to dine with me, if you do treat me thus? It will be said that I

betrayed them.” “Hold your peace, Charles,” answered his father: “you

know not all I know.” He gave orders for the instant removal of the King

of Navarre, and afterwards of the Count d’Harcourt and three others of

those present under arrest. “Rid us of these men,” said he to the

captain of the Ribalds, forming the soldiers of his guard; and the four

prisoners were actually beheaded in the king’s presence outside Rouen, in

a field called the Field of Pardon. John was with great difficulty

prevailed upon not to mete out the same measure to the King of Navarre,

who was conducted first of all to Gaillard Castle, then to the tower of

the Louvre, and then to the prison of the Chatelet: “and there,” says

Froissart, “they put him to all sorts of discomforts and fears, for every

day and every night they gave him to understand that his head would be

cut off at such and such an hour, or at such and such another he would be

thrown into the Seine . . . whereupon he spoke so finely and so softly

to his keepers that they who were so entreating him by the command of the

King of France had great pity on him.”

With such violence, such absence of all legal procedure, such a mixture

of deceptive indulgence and thoughtless brutality, did King John treat

his son-in-law, his own daughter, some of his principal barons, their

relations, their friends, and the people with whom they were in good

credit. He compromised more and more seriously every day his own safety

and that of his successor, by vexing more and more, without destroying,

his most dangerous enemy. He showed no greater prudence or ability in

the government of his kingdom. Always in want of money, because he spent

it foolishly on galas or presents to his favorites, he had recourse, for

the purpose of procuring it, at one time to the very worst of all

financial expedients, debasement of the coinage; at another, to

disreputable imposts, such as the tax upon salt, and upon the sale of all

kinds of merchandise. In the single year of 1352 the value of a silver

mark varied sixteen times, from four livres ten sous to eighteen livres.

To meet the requirements of his government and the greediness of his

courtiers, John twice, in 1355 and 1356, convoked the states-general, to

the consideration of which we shall soon recur in detail, and which did

not refuse him their support; but John had not the wit either to make

good use of the powers with which he was furnished, or to inspire the

states-general with that confidence which alone could decide them upon

continuing their gifts. And, nevertheless, King John’s necessities were

more evident and more urgent than ever: war with England had begun again.

The truth is that, in spite of the truce still existing, the English,

since the accession of King John, had at several points resumed

hostilities. The disorders and dissensions to which France was a prey,

the presumptuous and hare-brained incapacity of her new king, were, for

so ambitious and able a prince as Edward III., very strong temptations.

Nor did opportunities for attack, and chances of success, fail him any

more than temptations. He found in France, amongst the grandees of the

kingdom, and even at the king’s court, men disposed to desert the cause

of the king and of France to serve a prince who had more capacity, and

who pretended to claim the crown of France as his lawful right. The

feudal system lent itself to ambiguous questions and doubts of

conscience: a lord who had two suzerains, and who, rightly or wrongly,

believed that he had cause of complaint against one of them, was

justified in serving that one who could and would protect him. Personal

interest and subtle disputes soon make traitors; and Edward had the

ability to discover them and win them over. The alternate outbursts and

weaknesses of John in the case of those whom he suspected; the snares he

laid for them; the precipitancy and cruel violence with which he struck

them down, without form of trial, and almost with his own hand, forbid

history to receive his suspicious and his forcible proceedings as any

kind of proof; but amongst those whom he accused there were undoubtedly

traitors to the king and to France. There is one about whom there can be

no doubt at all. As early as 1351, amidst all his embroilments and all

his reconciliations with his father-in-law, Charles the Bad, King of

Navarre, had concluded with Edward III. a secret treaty, whereby, in

exchange for promises he received, he recognized his title as King of

France. In 1355 his treason burst forth. The King of Navarre, who had

gone for refuge to Avignon, under the protection of Pope Clement VI.,

crossed France by English Aquitaine, and went and landed at Cherbourg,

which he had an idea of throwing open to the King of England. He once

more entered into communications with King John, once more obtained

forgiveness from him, and for a while appeared detached from his English

alliance. But Edward III. had openly resumed his hostile attitude; and

he demanded that Aquitaine and the courtship of Ponthieu, detached from

the kingdom of France, should be ceded to him in full sovereignty, and

that Brittany should become all but independent. John haughtily rejected

these pretensions, which were merely a pretext for recommencing war. And

it recommenced accordingly, and the King of Navarre resumed his course of

perfidy. He had lands and castles in Normandy, which John put under

sequestration, and ordered the officers commanding in them to deliver up

to him. Six of them, the commandants of the castles of Cherbourg and

Evreux, amongst others, refused, believing, no doubt, that in betraying

France and her king, they were remaining faithful to their own lord.

At several points in the kingdom, especially in the northernprovinces,

the first fruits of the war were not favorable for the English. King

Edward, who had landed at Calais with a body of troops, made an

unsuccessful campaign in Artois and Picardy, and was obliged to re-embark

for England, falling back before King John, whom he had at one time

offered and at another refused to meet and fight at a spot agreed upon.

But in the south-west and south of France, in 1355 and 1356, the Prince

of Wales, at the head of a small picked army, and with John Chandos for

comrade, victoriously overran Limousin, Perigord, Languedoc, Auvergne,

Berry, and Poitou, ravaging the country and plundering the towns into

which he could force an entrance, and the environs of those that defended

themselves behind their walls. He met with scarcely any resistance, and

he was returning by way of Berry and Poitou back again to Bordeaux, when

he heard that King John, starting from Normandy with a large army, was

advancing to give him battle. John, in fact, with easy self-complacency,

and somewhat proud of his petty successes against King Edward in Picardy,

had been in a hurry to move against the Prince of Wales, in hopes of

forcing him also to re-embark for England. He was at the head of forty

or fifty thousand men, with his four sons, twenty-six dukes or counts,

and nearly all the baronage of France; and such was his confidence in

this noble army, that on crossing the Loire he dismissed the burgher

forces, “which was madness in him and in those who advised him,” said

even his contemporaries. John, even more than his father Philip, was a

king of courts, ever surrounded by his nobility, and caring little for

his people. Jealous of the order of the Garter, lately instituted by

Edward III. in honor of the beautiful Countess of Salisbury, John had

created, in 1351, by way of following suit, a brotherhood called Our Lady

of the Noble House, or of the Star, the knights of which, to the number

of five hundred, had to swear, that if they were forced to recoil in a

battle they would never yield to the enemy more than four acres of

ground, and would be slain rather than retreat. John was destined to

find out before long that neither numbers nor bravery can supply the

place of prudence, ability, and discipline. When the two armies were

close to one another, on the platform of Maupertuis, two leagues to the

north of Poitiers, two legates from the pope came hurrying up from that

town, with instructions to negotiate peace between the Kings of France,

England, and Navarre. John consented to an armistice of twenty-four

hours. The Prince of Wales, seeing himself cut off from Bordeaux by

forces very much superior to his own,--for he had but eight or ten

thousand men,--offered to restore to the King of France “all that he had

conquered this bout, both towns and castles, and all the prisoners that

he and his had taken, and to swear that, for seven whole years, he would

bear arms no more against the King of France; “but King John and his

council would not accept anything of the sort, saying that “the prince

and a hundred of his knights must come and put themselves as prisoners in

the hands of the King of France.” Neither the Prince of Wales nor

Chandos had any hesitation in rejecting such a demand: “God forbid,” said

Chandos, “that we should go without a fight! If we be taken or

discomfited by so many fine men-at-arms, and in so great a host, we shall

incur no blame; and if the day be for us, and fortune be pleased to

consent thereto, we shall be the most honored folk in the world.” The

battle took place on the 19th of September, 1356, in the morning. There

is no occasion to give the details of it here, as was done but lately in

the case of Crecy; we should merely have to tell an almost perfectly

similar story. The three battles which, from the fourteenth to the

fifteenth century, were decisive as to the fate of France, to wit, Crecy,

on the 26th of August, 1346; Poictiers, on the 19th of September, 1356;

and Azincourt, on the 25th of October, 1415, considered as historical

events, were all alike, offering a spectacle of the same faults and the

same reverses, brought about by the same causes. In all three, no matter

what was the difference in date, place, and persons engaged, it was a

case of undisciplined forces, without co-operation or order, and

ill-directed by their commanders, advancing, bravely and one after

another, to get broken against a compact force, under strict command, and

as docile as heroic. From the battle of Poictiers we will cull but that

glorious feat which was peculiar to it, and which might be called as

unfortunate as glorious if the captivity of King John had been a

misfortune for France. Nearly all his army had been beaten and

dispersed; and three of his sons, with the eldest, Charles, Duke of

Normandy, at their head, had left the field of battle with the wreck of

the divisions they commanded. John still remained there with the knights

of the Star, a band of faithful knights from Picardy, Burgundy, Normandy,

and Poitou, his constable, the Duke of Artois, his standard-bearer,

Geoffrey de Charny, and his youngest son Philip, a boy of fourteen, who

clung obstinately to his side, saying, every instant, “Father, ware

right! Father, ware left!”

[Illustration: “Father, ware right! Father, ware left!”----326]

The king was surrounded by assailants, of whom some did and some did not

know him, and all of whom kept shouting, “Yield you! yield you! else you

die.” The banner of France fell at his side; for Geoffrey de Charny was

slain. Denis de Morbecque, a knight of St. Omer, made his way up to the

king, and said to him, in good French, “Sir, sir, I pray you, yield!”

“To whom shall I yield me?” said John:

where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales?” “Sir, yield you to me; I will

bring you to him.” “Who are you?” “Denis de Morbecque, a knight of

Artois; I serve the King of England, not being able to live in the

kingdom of France, for I have lost all I possessed there.” “I yield me

to you,” said John: and he gave his glove to the knight, who led him away

“in the midst of a great press, for every one was dragging the king,

saying, ‘I took him!’ and he could not get forward, nor could my lord

Philip, his young son. . . . The king said to them all, Sirs, conduct

me courteously, and quarrel no more together about the taking of me, for

I am rich and great enough to make every one of you rich.’” Hereupon,

the two English marshals, the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Suffolk,

“seeing from afar this throng, gave spur to their steeds, and came up,

asking, ‘What is this yonder?’ And answer was made to them, ‘It is the

King of France who is taken, and more than ten knights and squires would

fain have him.’ Then the two barons broke through the throng by dint of

their horses, dismounted and bowed full low before the king, who was very

joyful at their coming, for they saved him from great danger.” A very

little while afterwards, the two marshals “entered the pavilion of the

Prince of Wales, and made him a present of the King of France; the which

present the prince could not but take kindly as a great and noble one,

and so truly he did, for he bowed full low before the king, and received

him as king, properly and discreetly, as he well knew how to do. . . .

When evening came, the Prince of Wales gave a supper to the King of

France, and to my lord Philip, his son, and to the greater part of the

barons of France, who were prisoners. . . . And the prince would not

sit at the king’s table for all the king’s entreaty, but waited as a

serving-man at the king’s table, bending the knee before him, and saying,

‘Dear sir, be pleased not to put on so sad a countenance because it hath

not pleased God to consent this day to your wishes, for assuredly my lord

and father will show you all the honor and friendship he shall be able,

and he will come to terms with you so reasonably that ye shall remain

good friends forever.”

[Illustration: King John taken Prisoner----326]

Henceforth it was, fortunately, not on King John, or on peace or war

between him and the King of England, that the fate of France depended.