_The Birth of the Bourgeoisie and the English Occupation_
‘Servanti Civem querna corona datur.’
_Town Motto._[83]
Whilst the Cathedral was a-building, events had happened at Chartres
which serve to indicate the importance of the position attained by the
town in feudal France by virtue of the power of its Counts, the
greatness of its Bishops and the prosperity of its commerce. The legate,
Pierre Léon, who was afterwards to become the anti-pope Anaclete, held a
council here and, in 1130, the legitimate Pope sought refuge at
Chartres, where Henry the First of England came to prostrate himself
before him. As to the Counts, their greatness had been increased by the
inheritance of the County of Champagne. They were not chary of using
their strength to advance their own importance. Thibault the Great, son
of Adèle, Countess of Chartres and daughter of William the Conqueror,
allied himself with the King of England and waged continual warfare with
the King of France. When his foreign ally died, Thibault’s brother
Stephen ascended the English throne, and he himself became Duke of
Normandy.
[Illustration]
His eldest son, Henry, was one of those who took the Cross when S.
Bernard came to Chartres, preaching the Crusade of 1145. On that
memorable occasion the Abbot of Clairvaux was elected, by acclaim in the
Cathedral, Generalissimo of the Christian forces. But with the example
of the disastrous leadership of Peter the Hermit before his eyes, S.
Bernard wisely declined. ‘Who am I,’ he wrote to the Pope, ‘that I
should order the lines of battle, and go out before the faces of armed
men, or what is more remote from my profession?’ Count Henry gained
great renown in the Holy Land, and when at last, after fifty years of
opposition to his King, the old Count died, he left to his valorous
eldest son the County of Champagne, and Chartres and Blois passed to his
second son, Thibault, owing homage to Henry. This Thibault, surnamed Le
Bon, aided the King against Henry Plantagenet, and was rewarded by being
made Seneschal of France. The amicable relations which were now at last
established between the race of Thibault and the throne were still
further strengthened by the marriage of Louis-le-Jeune with Alice of
Champagne, the sister of Thibault, and mother, by this marriage, of
Philippe-Auguste. Thibault himself, through the good offices of the
Queen, obtained the hand of the King’s daughter by his first wife. The
alliance thus consolidated bore fruit for the King when he took the
offensive against the King of England in 1167. For the troops of
Chartres and of Champagne followed the royal standard on that occasion.
A few years before, a younger brother of Count Thibault, William of the
White Hands, had succeeded Robert-le-Breton as Bishop of Chartres, and
he soon became the adviser of the princes whose relative he was.
Philippe-Auguste used to speak of him as ‘the watchful eye of his
Council.’ Together with Count Henry and the King, he received the exiled
Thomas of Canterbury with open arms, and succeeded in effecting a
reconciliation between him and the English King, whose imperious will he
had thwarted. The reconciliation was hollow. Before long France was
filled with horror at the news of the murder of À Becket. Louis demanded
vengeance from the Pope: Count Thibault wrote to the Roman pontiff that
the ‘dogs of the Court had spilled the blood of the just’; the Bishop of
Chartres excommunicated all the Continental possessions of the King of
England.
But it was not till three years later that hostilities broke out between
France and England, when the three sons of Henry Plantagenet--Henry,
Geoffrey and Richard Cœur-de-Lion--united with Louis and the Princes
of Champagne against their father. That redoubtable coalition of
Frenchmen, Chartrains, Champenois and Angevins was, however, no match
for the English King. Beaten near Verneuil, Louis was obliged to make
terms with his enemy in the following year (1174).
The blood of the martyred À Becket had sprinkled his friend and
secretary, John of Salisbury. ‘By the grace of God and the merits of the
martyr, S. Thomas,’ as he himself expresses it, he was called to succeed
William _aux Blanches-Mains_ in the bishopric of Chartres. The life of
the great writer was nearly over when he came there, bringing with him,
as a gift to the treasure of the Cathedral, a phial containing some
drops of the blood of the master whom he had so faithfully served at
Canterbury and followed in exile, and the dagger with which that master
had been murdered. But, short as was his tenure of the See, he left his
mark upon the history of Chartres. He overthrew the exorbitant
pretensions of the secular lords who claimed as _choses_ of their domain
all serfs set free by the Church, and thus rendered illusory the
enfranchisement of ecclesiastical serfs, and he obtained for clerks
brought to justice that they should henceforth not be condemned to
undergo trial by ordeal, whether of duel, hot iron, or hot or cold
water.
Philosopher and man of affairs, secretary of Archbishop Theobald,
intimate friend of Nicholas Breakspear (the only Englishman who has ever
filled the chair of S. Peter), and the devoted adherent of Thomas à
Becket, John was born at Salisbury, but his enthusiasm for culture he
owed to his training as a youth under Abelard at Paris, and in the
school of Chartres. For that school still maintained the reputation
which it had acquired under Fulbert. In his book _Metalogicus_, John,
who has been termed the ‘central figure of English learning’ in his
time, has left us a lively account of the method of teaching practised
by Bernard Sylvester, ‘the old man of Chartres, the most fruitful source
of letters in all France,’ and by his successors. The breadth of view,
the sound common sense, and the lack of pedantry which characterise John
of Salisbury’s contributions to logic and to political thought are due,
we may believe, not only to his practical training in the Archbishop’s
household at Canterbury, but also to the ‘humane’ teaching of Bernard
and his school. John of Salisbury died in 1180, and was buried in the
Monastery of S. Marie-de-Josaphat, now destroyed (_see_ p. 98). His
books he left to the Cathedral library. He was succeeded by his friend
Pierre, Abbot of Celles, and afterwards of S. Remy, at Reims, with whom
he had passed a great part of his exile, when the exquisite _chevet_
there, one of the earliest bits of pointed architecture, was being
built. This excellent bishop spent the two years of his episcopate in
the execution of public works, the abolition of vexatious feudal
customs, and the distribution of alms. At his own charges he constructed
the town walls from the Porte des Épars to the Church of S. Foy, and
repaved the streets. He obtained from the Count a modification in the
exercise of the right of Banvin. For, according to usage, it was
forbidden to sell wine during a period of time called the ban, in order
to give the lord an opportunity of selling his wine without competition.
Thibault consented to abolish this custom, whilst exacting a small toll
from those who sold wine in inns during the ban. And the charity of
Pierre de Celles was so abounding that, at his funeral, the crowd flung
itself upon his coffin and embraced his corpse. His successor was Renaud
de Mouçon, under whom the Cathedral was built. He, like Thibault, had
taken the Cross in 1189, but, unlike the Count, returned home alive and
well.
The thirteenth century saw yet another Count of Chartres lay down his
life in battle with the Infidels. For Louis, who had been made King of
Bithynia by the Emperor Baldwin after the sack of Constantinople (1204),
was attacked by the Bulgarians before Andrinople and perished
heroically. Jean de Friaize, seeing that he had been twice severely
wounded, exhorted him to retire. ‘Nay,’ he cried. ‘Leave me to fight
and die. God grant that I may never be reproached with having fled the
battle!’ His son took part in the crusade against the Moors and also in
that other holy war, more popular because less distant, which Simon de
Montfort conducted. Following their Count and their Bishop, thousands
marched south to massacre the Albigenses, because they entertained the
heresy of the Manichæans, which admits the existence of two gods,
identified with the principles of good and evil.
Meantime, whilst bishops and counts were warring against Turks, Moors
and Albigenses, Chartres was left in the hands of the Countess
Catherine, in whose name a marshal of her palace and a provost of the
town administered justice. The jealousy between the Count’s men and the
_protégés_ of the Chapter which was always smouldering broke out in a
startling fashion about this time. The outbreak is worth mentioning, for
it throws light upon the growing power and self-assertion of the people.
Speaking generally, the tendency at this period was for the notable
citizens of the town to become, under the title of _Avoués_, vassals or
_protégés_ of the Chapter, but the trades and corporations, revolting
against the oppression of the _Avoués_, who tried to exact from them all
the taxes and impositions laid upon the town, strove to secure their
liberties and customs by rallying to the Count. On the pretext, then, of
some injury done to a serf of the Countess by the Dean William, the
people burst suddenly into the cloister and laid siege to the house of
the Dean.
The Chapter demanded the intervention of the marshal and the provost,
but those officers, instead of stopping the riot, incited the mob to
break down the doors and smash the windows of the house. The Dean from
the first had wisely taken refuge in the Cathedral, but his retainers,
barricading themselves, returned the assaults of the rioters with a
rain of tiles and faggots. Maddened by this resistance, the mob procured
a heavy waggon, and using it as a battering-ram burst open the main
entrance and sacked the house, hurling all the furniture out of windows.
Next day the outraged Chapter excommunicated the town and _banlieue_. No
services were held; the altar of Notre-Dame was stripped of its
ornaments; and even the curfew bell was not allowed to ring. Every day
from the top of the jubé a priest pronounced the terrible curse known as
‘the great excommunication, the anathema and fulmination.’ At this
solemn moment the candles were lit and the bells rung confusedly, and,
as the priest finished his malediction, all became silent again and the
candles were extinguished. But this demonstration, usually so effective,
was received with shouts of laughter and screams of abuse.
However, a fire which destroyed the lower streets on the banks of the
Eure filled the rioters with fear. The revolutionists, thinking that
they beheld the finger of God, were ready to submit, but the Dean and
Chapter had already summoned the King, who came incontinent to Chartres,
and after inquiry ordered the Count’s people to make _amende honorable_
and to pay for the damage they had done. But the bishop returning from
abroad was not satisfied, and at his request Phillippe-Auguste ordered
the offenders to pay a heavy fine and to make _amende honorable_ in full
church, on a feast day, _nuds en chemise_, and bringing rods with which
they were to be scourged before the altar of the Virgin. And this was
actually done. Thus, says the chronicler, the Church by the aid of
Heaven emerged from this tribulation.
But the quarrel between the two parties was not quenched. It broke out
five years later, and was settled again to the disadvantage of the
Counts. Later, in a collision between the _bourgeois_ and the men
attached to the Cathedral, two of the latter were killed. The murderers
were pursued by some canons and protected by others. One canon was
assassinated by his brethren. A new excommunication was pronounced upon
the town. The synod appointed to judge the matter, not thinking itself
safe in the presence of the growing power of the Third Estate, removed
to Mantes. The banishment of the murderers and the intervention of S.
Louis succeeded in producing an apparent calm. But the storm soon broke
out afresh, and the people plundered and the Chapter excommunicated as
vigorously as ever.
Troublesome as these perpetual conflicts between the rival authorities
were, it is to be observed that the liberty of the cloister and the
privileges of the clergy, which were in dispute, were institutions which
led to the emancipation of some Chartrain families formerly subject to
the Counts. The ecclesiastical corporations, in fact, set an example in
this matter of enfranchisement which the Counts were slow to follow. And
it was probably due to this antagonism that the feudal lords of Chartres
delayed for so long the grants of a communal charter to the town.
It was not till the King Philippe-le-Bel bought the County of Chartres
from Jeanne, the widow of S. Louis’s son, Pierre de France, and gave it
to his own brother, Charles de Valois (1293), that the dispute was
finally closed. Three years later the town received its charter and the
_Bourgeoisie_ began to come into its own. The granting of the charter
was a business transaction. The need of money was great in France. The
differences of the King with the Pope, with England and the Flemings,
rendered it imperative that he should prepare for war. Under the new
conditions, when the King’s domain included
[Illustration: Courtyard in the Old Hotel de Ville]
two-thirds of all France and the days of feudalism had passed away, it
was necessary both to maintain a fleet and to pay mercenaries. Philip,
whose short-sighted methods of raising money had already got him into
difficulties with Flanders and the Church, now sent his men through the
‘good towns of France’ to collect contributions. ‘But,’ says Souchet,
the old historian of Chartres, ‘the people of Paris, Rouen, Orleans and
other cities rose and slew the commissioners who prosecuted their charge
with more violence than was needful,’ and the contemporary _Chronique de
la Saint-Magloire_ records:--
‘En Normandie et en Chartrain
De ce suis je trestot certain
Que en France, que en Champaigne
Il n’y a nul qui ne s’en plaigne
Des coustumes qu’estoient levées
Sur blé, sur vin et sur denrées.’
In these circumstances, therefore, Count Charles of Valois, when he
wished to raise money in Chartres to aid his royal brother, found that
there was only one way of doing it and that was by granting to the
citizens, who, as we have seen, had long been restive because they were
subject to all kinds of feudal charges and services of which the
surrounding towns had been freed, a kind of Charter of _Commune_. For a
cash consideration of 12,000 _livres tournois_, he confirmed several
usages which were already by tacit consent practised, and he compounded
for the annual tribute paid to the Counts by the town. It would be
interesting to quote this document in full, but I must be content to
give a summary of it. Shortly, it provided that the citizens should in
future be exempt from paying the Count the annual tribute of £400, and
exempt also, unless in cases of pressing necessity, from _Taille_, _Ost_
and _Chevauchée_; their horses were not to be impressed for the use of
the Count, their personal liberty was to be respected and, for
criminals, before their trial, bail allowed after a certain period of
imprisonment. Lastly, the citizens were authorised to assemble and elect
_Procureurs_ or Governors for the needs and necessities of the town
after the form and manner of the citizens of Orléans. The Count also
undertook to make good the use and custom of the town by which
contracting parties in case of dispute were judged exclusively by local
courts.
Charters usually promised more than they gave. In spite of
remonstrances, the citizens did have to supply considerable sums in
tribute from time to time in the ensuing centuries. Whether under the
name of loans, or advances, or _octrois_, Kings like François I. and
Henry IV. bled the merchants freely, and, if they protested too loudly,
quickly brought them to their senses by the threat of force. But, in the
meantime, whilst Charles de Valois, with the aid of the Chartrain
contribution, was asserting the rights of his wife to the throne of
Constantinople, or earning, at Florence, a place in Dante’s _Inferno_,
the town of Chartres, profiting by his absence, was quietly organising
and ameliorating its administration.
The development of the municipality and the subsequent absorption of the
domain of Chartres by the Crown by no means diminished the loyalty of
its citizens. A worthy reception was given to Philippe-le-Bel when he
came with his son, the boy Prince Charles, after his victory over the
Flemish at Mons-en-Puelle, to render thanks and offer his armour at the
shrine of the Vierge-Noire. The King also founded in commemoration of
his victory a service in honour of Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire. Down to
the year 1793 the martial ex-voto of the royal father and son was shown
from the pulpit on each anniversary of the defeat of the Flemings. In
that year, however, the rich armour was stripped of the precious metals
with which it was adorned. The gold was sent to the mint in Paris. The
remaining fragments, pieced together, may be seen in the town museum
(_see_ p. 317). The example of Philippe-le-Bel was followed some years
later by Philippe de Valois after his similar victory at Cassel. Fully
armed, he rode into the Cathedral, knelt before the ancient statue, and
left a thousand pounds to redeem the armour and steel which he had
dedicated to the Virgin.
It was at this period that Chartres may be said to have reached the
zenith of its prosperity. From this time forward we have to trace the
process of its decay. For not only was Chartres, like all provincial
towns, destined to suffer from the centralising tendency of the new era
which succeeded that of feudalism, but it was also condemned by its
position at the gates of Paris not to escape any of the catastrophes
attendant upon the political and social developments of the day. Its
history, however, becomes on that account more rather than less
interesting. It was taken and retaken in the fifteenth century by the
Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the English and the French, twice
besieged in the sixteenth century by the Huguenots of the Prince de
Condé and of Henry IV., and torn asunder by the passions of the Fronde
in the seventeenth.
With the fourteenth century France entered upon a period of disaster and
defeat. To the terrible ravages of the Black Death were added the
horrors of famine, and the shame and devastation of the Hundred Years’
War. The odds in that war, brought on by the continual intervention of
the French King on behalf of Scotland and his obstinacy in the matter of
Guienne, must have seemed at the first enormously in favour of France.
But the vast superiority of the French in numbers and wealth was to
prove useless in the face of the English yeomen. Crécy and Poitiers
revealed the fact, bewildering to feudalism, that the superb bravery of
French knighthood was futile when confronted with the English unmounted
churl shooting his cloth-yard shaft. A cavalry charge in the face of
those archers had no more chance of being successful than the charge of
the Dervishes at Omdurman, or the later frontal attacks of our own
infantry upon positions defended with magazine rifles. King John, taken
prisoner at Poitiers, was carried captive to London, whilst in France,
his routed soldiery turned into free companies of bandits, pillaged the
country, and held the Chartrains prisoners for six months within their
walls. The captive lords procured the sums needed for their ransom by
extortion from the peasantry, who were driven by oppression and famine
into frantic insurrection, butchering their lords and firing their
castles. And Paris, impatient of the weakness and misrule of the
Regency, rose in arms against the Crown.
Chartres in these days was compelled to strain every nerve to defend
herself. A band of mercenaries was engaged to garrison the town. The
Church of S. Saturnin, which was then in front of the Porte des Épars,
and several convents, hospitals and mansions outside the walls, which
might have given a foothold to the enemy, were destroyed. And in 1358 an
order was issued that everyone should co-operate to fortify the town,
‘which is the safety and salvation of all the people within and
without.’ Money for this purpose was raised by an extra tax upon beasts
and skins. The ramparts of the town were now defended by a ditch and
moat, and the gates, which had formerly been square and without
ravelins, were modified and reconstructed in accordance with the more
modern ideas of fortification, which the introduction of
[Illustration: Porte Guillaume]
gunpowder and artillery had developed. Cannons were mounted on the
walls. The Porte Drouaise, Porte S. Michel and the Porte des Épars have
disappeared, but the Porte Guillaume remains to show us what they were
like. This gate, named after the Vîdame Guillaume de Ferrières (1182),
has been referred to the tenth century by local enthusiasts. But that
date is too ambitious, except perhaps for the foundations. The inside of
the gate, on the town side, and part of the vaulting belong to the year
1182, when the enlargement of the town _enceinte_ took place and the
perimeter of the walls and fortifications was extended, especially in
the quarter between the Gates Châtelet, des Épars and S. Michel. But the
outside of the Porte Guillaume, its façade very much as we have it now,
was constructed after Poitiers. With its well-preserved crenellated
parapet and machicoulis, and the openings for the play of the
drawbridge, it presents a fine specimen of the military architecture of
that period, and reminds one not a little of the contemporary towers of
the Bastille at Paris (1369), a plan of which is in the town museum. The
drawbridge used to connect the main towers of the gateway with an
advanced fortification surrounded by the waters of the moat. The reader
will gain a clear idea of the arrangement by referring to the old print
reproduced on page 275. The strength of the Porte Guillaume was so
great, that though dominated by the heights of S. Barthélémy and S.
Chéron, it withstood all the assaults and batteries of besiegers, and
the town was never taken from this side. Deservedly, therefore, it
remains almost intact, though nearly all the rest of the fortifications
of Chartres have been converted into boulevards and
‘Its once grim bulwarks tamed to lover’s walks
Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure.’
Close under it, in old days, was a chapel dedicated to S. Fiacre,
whither pilgrims afflicted by the distressing complaint known as Mal de
S. Fiacre used to come in hopes of healing. But this has long since
disappeared.
The new defences of Chartres were soon shown to be needed.
Charles-le-Mauvais, a third competitor to the throne of France, plotted,
but in vain, to surprise the town. Nor were his English allies more
successful. For no sooner had the ‘Jacquerie’[84] or peasant rising been
crushed, than Edward again poured ravaging over the wasted lands of
France, for the Dauphin refused to sanction the humiliating terms upon
which the English King proposed to treat with the captive King John. The
sufferings of the country around Chartres under the repeated ravages of
the soldiery of all nations were now unspeakable. The enemy passed over
the vineyards, the cornfields and the gardens of La Beauce like a storm,
but they were only succeeded by the unpaid troops of the French.
Plunder, indeed, was forbidden them, but plunder was their only means of
living. ‘Damoiselle Picorée’ (Miss Plunder) ‘sold me this’ was the
private soldier’s proverbial explanation as he helped to accomplish the
ruin of those he was supposed to defend. And at the inn, when the bill
was being prepared, he would lay his sword with a clatter on the table
and exclaim with intention, ‘God send me no need of thee.’ Whether there
was need or no would depend usually upon the landlord’s physical courage
and capacity.
The bitter cry of France at this juncture is voiced by a document
embodying a resolution of the canons.
‘The persecution of the Church,’ it is written, ‘can only be compared to
that of Jerusalem; there are no friends left to us, and those entrusted
with our affairs do us more harm than our enemies. None dare quit the
city: our houses are sacked, our property in the country burnt, our
retainers killed or imprisoned. Our debtors do not pay their debts, and
the voice of the Church is of no avail. Justice is departed from the
land with the captive King. There is no more confidence in the royal
safe-conduct, and that of the English is abhorred by the nobles and the
people. We, therefore, the canons of Notre-Dame met in general assembly,
decree that the fruits and emoluments of the prebends shall be shared in
common among all the canons in order that each may have a morsel of
bread to break; that each resident canon shall provide himself with
arms, and maintain two knights and an armed page to resist the assaults
of the enemy.’
But an event was shortly to happen which relieved France, for a while at
least, from the presence of a foreign enemy. The misery of the land at
last bent Charles to submission, and Edward III., weary of constant
warfare in a famished country, at last concluded a peace. The incident
which induced him to sign the Treaty of Brétigny was regarded by all his
contemporaries as miraculous. The part which ‘our Lady of Charters’
played in this affair is recorded in the fascinating chronicles of Sir
John Froissart. ‘Edward,’ he tells us, ‘having put the realm of France
into great tribulation, intended to lay siege to Paris after August and
not to return again to England till he had France at his pleasure.
Leaving garrisons, therefore, to make war in France, Champagne, Poictou,
Ponthieu, Vexin, Normandy and all the realm of France, he came into
“the good country of Beauce” with the idea of staying in Brittany till
the vintage season. But he was led to change his mind.
‘All this season the Duke of Normandy was at Paris, and his two brethren
and the Duke of Orléans, their uncle, and their Counsels. They imagined
well the courage of the King of England, and how that he and his men
brought the realm of France into great poverty, and saw well how the
realm could not long endure in that case, for the rents of the lords and
of the churches were nigh lost in every part. As then there was a sage
and discreet person Chancellor of France, called Sir William of
Montague, Bishop of Terouenne, by whose counsel much of France was
ruled, and good cause why, for ever his counsel was good and true, and
with him there were two other clerks of great prudence, the Abbot of
Cluny and the master of the Friars Preachers, called Sir Simon of
Langres, a master in divinity; these two clerks, at the desire of the
Duke of Normandy and of the whole Council of France, departed from Paris
with certain articles of peace, and Sir Hugh of Geneve, Lord of Autun,
in their company, and they went to the King of England, who rode in
Beauce towards Galardon. These two clerks and two knights spake with the
King and began to fall in treaty for a peace, to be had of him and his
allies; to the which treaty the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster
and the Earl of March were called. This treaty was not as then
concluded, for it was long a-driving and always the King went forward.
These ambassadors would not so leave the King, but still sued and
followed on their purpose, for they saw how the French King was in so
poor estate that the realm was likely to be in a great jeopardy, if the
war continued a summer longer. And on the other side, the King of
England required so great things and so prejudicial to the realm of
France, that the lords would not agree thereto for their honours, so
that all their treaty (the which endured a seventeen days, still
following the King) they sent ever their process daily to the Duke of
Normandy, to the city of Paris, ever desiring to have again answer what
they should do farther, the which process was secretly and sufficiently
examined in the Regent’s chamber at Paris, and answer was sent again by
writing to them what they should do and what they should offer; and so
these ambassadors were oftentimes with the King, as he went forward
toward the city of Chartres, as in other places, and great offers they
made to come to a conclusion of the war and to have a peace. To the
which offers the King of England was hard hearted to agree unto, for his
intention was to be King of France and to die in that estate. For if the
Duke of Lancaster, his cousin, had not counselled him to have peace he
would not have agreed thereunto. But he said to the King, “Sir, this war
that ye make in the realm of France is right marvellous and right
favourable for you: your men win great riches and ye lose your time, all
things considered, or ye come to your intent, ye may hap to make war all
the days of your life. Sir, I would counsel you (sith ye may leave the
war to your honour and profit) accept the offers that ben made unto you,
for, sir, you might lose more in a day than we have won in twenty
years.” Such fair and subtle words that the Duke of Lancaster said in
good intention, and for weal of the King and all his subjects, converted
the King by the grace of the Holy Ghost, who was chief worker in that
case. For on a day, as the King was before Charters, there fell a case
that greatly humbled the King’s courage. For while these ambassadors
were treating for this peace and had none agreeable answer, there fell
suddenly such a tempest of thunder, lightning, rain and hail in the
King’s oost, that it seemed that the world should have ended: there fell
from heaven such great stones that it slew men and horses, so that the
most hardiest were abashed.
‘Then the King of England beheld the Church of our Lady of Charters, and
avowed devoutly to our Lady to agree to the peace, and, as it was said,
he was as then confessed, and lodged in a village near to Charters,
called Brétigny. And there were made certain compositions of peace, upon
certain articles after ordained; and, the more firmly to be concluded by
their ambassadors, and by the King of England and his Council, there was
ordained, by good deliberation and advice, a letter called the Charter
of Peace’ (1360).
By this treaty the English King waived his claims on the crown of France
and on the Duchy of Normandy; but, on the other hand, his Duchy of
Aquitaine was not only restored to him, but freed from its obligations
as a French fief, and granted in full sovereignty with Ponthieu, as well
as Guisnes, and the new conquest of Calais.
The captive King, Jean-le-Bon, was ransomed and released, and he, like
his captor Edward, and the Black Prince before him, made a pilgrimage to
Notre-Dame, and passed piously beneath the Holy Chest, which it was
deemed safe at last to bring forth from its hiding-place in the Chapel
of S. Lubin.
A period of comparative quiet ensued under the administration of Charles
the Wise, who summoned the States-General to meet at Chartres, and
entrusted the patriotism of this and other principal towns with the task
of raising forces to deal with the roving bands of freebooters which,
under the name of _grandes compagnies_, swarmed over the country. The
campaigns conducted by Duguesclin against the English in the south left
Chartres undisturbed. She devoted herself to the restoration of order,
the enforcement of law, and the strengthening of her wall. One little
incident will show the progress which, in spite of war, and impositions
of every sort, had been made since the high days of feudalism.
The house of one Guillaume Morhier, knight and seigneur of S. Piat, was
forcibly entered by some bailiffs, who were charged to distrain upon him
for the benefit of a horse-dealer. Morhier’s daughter, when the chief
official was preparing to read his warrant to her, snatched the paper
out of his hands, and for this offence was roughly seized and, in spite
of her protests, dragged on her knees across the town, as though she had
been a common thief or murderess, and committed to prison in the
Tour-le-Roi. She was thrown into the cells used for women of loose life.
It was with the utmost difficulty that the unfortunate girl regained her
liberty, after two friends had appeared to go bail for her. Intense
indignation was aroused by this high-handed behaviour on the part of the
officials. For the Morhier family was one of the most important in the
district. The bailiffs, after a formal investigation of the case,
lasting over two years, were condemned to make full apology, and pay a
heavy fine. But the mere fact that Morhier did not, without trial, hang
then and there the servant of the law who had presumed to raise his hand
against his high-born daughter is significant of the advance that had
been made in the last two hundred years.
The next thing of importance that happened at Chartres was the curious
episode of the _Paix Fourrée_. A terrible crime plunged France into all
the horrors of civil war. The Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless,
jealous of the popularity of the Duke of Orléans, caused him to be
assassinated (1407) at Paris. A year of struggle and recrimination
passed before Charles VI. could bring the murderer and the son of his
victim to make even a pretence of reconciliation. The Duke of Burgundy
demanded, without desiring, pardon, which the Duke of Orléans, without
forgiving, granted. Each swore aloud to live henceforth in peace with
his cousin, and swore beneath his breath to slay him. The ceremony took
place in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Armed men in battle array stood at
the porches of the church, and within, seated on a throne near the
crucifix, with the Queen and Dauphin, the Kings of Sicily and Navarre,
dukes, cardinals, and other nobles and officials near at hand, Charles
waited the arrival of John the Fearless, who had left Gallardon that
morning with six hundred men-at-arms.
Amidst profoundest silence the cruel conqueror of the Liégeois advanced
down the nave and made his submission to the imbecile King, who had so
feebly forgiven the murderer of his brother. Then again advancing
towards his ‘dear cousins,’ the children of the murdered duke, he
formally besought them to banish from their hearts all hatred and
feelings of revenge, and to live in amity with him. At these words, and
at the sight of their father’s murderer, the young princes burst into
tears. The Queen and Dauphin approached them, and begged them to
forgive, and, at the command of the King, the young duke and his brother
repeated the prescribed words of the treaty, and they and the Duke of
Burgundy, and all the princes of royal blood, swore upon the Cross and
the Gospels to obey the behest of the King in this matter. This done,
John the Fearless, without taking bite or sup in Chartres, mounted his
horse and rode away. Little wonder that John of Montagu, brother of the
former Bishop of Chartres, in registering this pact, wrote beneath it
these significant words, ‘Pax, Pax; et non est Pax’ (Peace, Peace; and
it is not peace). So also thought the excellent Fool of the Duke of
Burgundy, who, wrapping an ecclesiastical paten (_paix d’église_) in his
fur mantle (_fourrure_), remarked that it was but a patched-up peace
(Paix Fourrée).
The Fool’s verdict was soon justified. John the Fearless went to Paris,
and curried favour with the people of the market-place. His popularity
and democratic tendencies provoked the displeasure of the Orleanists,
who represented the old feudal party. In the civil war which ensued
between the Armagnacs, as the Orleanists were called, and the
Burgundians, Chartres, lying very much in the centre of the operations,
suffered almost equally from both sides.
The spirit of patriotism and the sense of unity were as yet scarce born
in France. The example and exigencies of civil war were not calculated
to promote their growth. Maddened by the assassination of the Duke of
Burgundy in the very presence of the Dauphin, with whom he had come to
confer, the Burgundians threw themselves into the hands of the English.
After the Battle of Agincourt, where, against still greater odds, the
English archers had inflicted a still more overwhelming defeat upon the
French knighthood than at Crécy and Poitiers, Henry V. had been steadily
reducing the province of Normandy. Now, by the aid of his new allies, he
concluded with the maniac Charles VI. the Treaty of Troyes (1420), which
handed over to England the crown of France and the whole kingdom.
Chartres had been taken in 1417[85] by John the Fearless, and converted
into his capital. Every citizen suspected of favouring the Armagnacs had
been expelled from the city. The capital of the Burgundians was
therefore not unnaturally one of the first towns to recognise Henry V.
in his new _rôle_ of heir to the French crown. The Dauphin, indeed,
marched from Blois to take vengeance upon the rebellious city, but he
promptly raised the siege when Henry, leaving Paris, advanced to relieve
it.
Henry took Dreux, and remained there a month. Then he returned to
Chartres as a pilgrim, with bare feet, and a candle in his hand. Rich
gifts were bestowed upon Notre-Dame by the English soldiery, amongst
which is mentioned a magnificent _ostensoir_ that disappeared during the
Revolution. The high bourgeoisie and clergy, captivated by the favours
of the English King, were now all addicted to _Anglescherie_
(Anglomania), a fault which they, with the rest of Europe, have since
managed to correct. Thus, whereas formerly a Bishop of Chartres had
equipped himself as a knight and gone to die at Agincourt in battle with
the enemy, the Bishop now could only maintain his See by devoting
himself to the English cause. This Jean de Frétigny did with success. As
a rival of Orléans and Châteaudun also, Chartres naturally favoured
Henry in days when centralisation and patriotism, that higher form of
selfishness, were almost unknown, as the tragic history of the Maid of
Orléans was shortly to show. Her brother, we may mention, was for a
while captain of Chartres.
One year after Joan of Arc, the patriot before her time, had been put to
death by a judicial murder at Rouen without one word of protest from her
countrymen or the Church, Chartres was retaken by the French. The
manner of its taking was on this wise.
Two merchants of the town, Guillaume Bouffineau and Jean Lesueur by
name, who traded in salt, wine and corn with the people of Blois and
Orléans, were won over by the governor of the latter city to the side of
the French King, Charles VII. At his instigation they prepared a plan
for surprising the town, which took effect on the 11th of April. On that
day Bouffineau and Lesueur, accompanied by some soldiers disguised as
waggoners, arrived early in the morning at the gate S. Michel with
several loads of what they said was salt. They demanded admittance; and
as they had the reputation of being the best possible of citizens, the
guards lowered the drawbridge. Two waggons passed safely in; the third
was purposely upset on the bridge. Profiting from the confusion caused
by this accident, the conspirators attacked the guards, slew them, and
rushed into the town shouting, ‘La Paix, Ville Gagnée!’ Two strong
French detachments, commanded by Longueville, Dunois, Boussicault and La
Hire,[86] who had been lying in ambush near at hand, now arrived,
reinforced the assailants, and occupied the principal thoroughfares. The
English party was taken completely unawares, and was slow to rally; for
not only were the cries of the assailants confusing, but the eloquence
of a confederate monk was enthralling. He had assembled the people at
the other end of the town to hear him preach, and their interest in his
sermon prevented them from realising their danger till too late.
The Anglicising Bishop Frétigny, however, when he heard of the affair,
rushed to arms and fell fighting at the head of his men. The town was
taken. The conspiring bourgeois were rewarded with money and office.
Charles VII. achieved the pacification of Chartres with letters of
pardon and confirmation. A strong force of French troops garrisoned it
against any attempt of the English to retake it, and used it as a
convenient spot from which to make marauding expeditions against the
neighbouring English territory. It was, indeed, for a while a frontier
fort, guarding the French marches. Night and day, from the towers of
Notre-Dame, men watched the plains of La Beauce, ready to give the alarm
when the English, moving from their quarters in Normandy, threatened
this district. In 1491 the Chartrain garrison moved out and laid siege
to Gallardon, which was still held by the English. Talbot, marching on
the Ile-de-France, relieved his fellow-countrymen. But next year
Gallardon fell into the hands of the Chartrains. Gradually the English
were driven out of France, and the people of Chartres began to make a
desperate effort to restore their ruined commerce by developing the
[Illustration: CHARTRES IN 1500 (_from an old engraving_)]
navigation of their river Eure. Thereby they involved themselves in
continual and expensive litigation with the owners of riparian rights
and the jealous merchants of neighbouring towns.
Relieved from the pressure of a foreign enemy, the quarrels between the
Bishop and the Chapter broke out with renewed vigour. The disgraceful
and ridiculous scenes of the last century were repeated. Then the esteem
in which the clergy were held had been damaged by the exhibition of the
Bishop and the Chapter quarrelling over the question of authority,
excommunicating each other and continuing to say Mass. Apart from deeds
of violence--and these were not few--it was a sufficiently deplorable
object-lesson for the people. Canons in the Cathedral made such a
clatter with their chairs that the proclamations of the Bishop could not
be heard. Now, the Chapter, who refused to recognise the right of
mandamus claimed by the Bishop, was involved in a similar quarrel with
Miles d’Illiers. When he endeavoured to enforce his episcopal
jurisdiction upon the canons of the cloister, they declared that he was
violating the rights of the Holy See, to which alone they were
responsible, and forthwith excommunicated him. Nothing daunted, he
appeared in the choir of Notre-Dame. The canons rose from their stalls
and made for the doors, as if to avoid all contact with a man who had
been excommunicated. The Bishop, treating the matter as a jest,
pronounced his blessing on the fugitives, ‘to absolve them from the
excommunication which they were afraid of sharing with him.’ Then he
ordered his chaplains to continue divine service without the canons. The
violent and imperious temper of Miles d’Illiers brought him into
conflict, not only with the Chapter of the Cathedral, but also with the
abbeys and the town. He was usually in the wrong. Louis XI., who
divided his time between Chartres, where his devotion held him, and
Paris, whither the administration of his kingdom summoned him,
invariably decided against him when the cases of his aggression were
submitted to him. These affairs, endless litigation with reference to
the navigation of the river, the plague, and benefactions from the King
to the Cathedral, made up the history of Chartres till the end of the
fifteenth century.
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE TOWN]