PARIS OF PHILIP THE FAIR
With the ending of Saint Louis’ life (in 1270) such stability and beauty
as he had achieved for his kingdom seemed to pass away. The fifteen
years’ reign of his son, Philip III, was lacking in eventfulness. He was
with his father on the Crusade that cost Louis his life, and he came
back to Paris, the “king of the five coffins,” bringing with him for
burial at Saint Denis not only his father’s body but that of his uncle,
his brother-in-law, his wife, and his son. Louis’ body lay in state in
Notre Dame.
Philip inherited his father’s gentleness of spirit, but none of his
intelligence or administrative ability. His physical courage won for him
the nickname of “the Bold,” but it was through a train of circumstances
with which he seems to have had little to do and not through war that
the throne became enriched by the acquisition of some valuable
territories in the south.
Probably, also, he did not realize that when he raised to the nobility a
certain silversmith whose work he admired he struck a blow at the
hereditary pride of the lords, and showed a new power which threatened
the integrity of their class. Naturally, too, it encouraged the
democracy.
A comparatively trivial happening of this reign shows the increasing
boldness of the democratic spirit. The king took as his favorite a man
who had been his father’s barber, and who probably possessed the
traditional conversational charm attaching to his occupation. When
Philip made him wealthy with lands, houses and gold the nobles of the
court could not restrain their jealousy, and accusations charging him
with the medieval equivalent of graft and even with baser crimes were
soon so persistent and apparently so well-proven that even his royal
master either was convinced or thought it wise to seem to believe. At
any rate the man was hanged in company with Paris thieves of the meaner
sort. To the commonalty of Paris who were not in a position to hear the
whispers and accusations of the court this seemed an unmerited
punishment, and they did not hesitate to express vivid opinions
concerning the victim of what they supposed to be aristocratic greed.
When an aristocrat engaged in petty graft his reproof was not so swiftly
administered. Enguerrand de Marigny, under whose direction the palace
was enlarged by Philip the Bold’s son, Philip the Fair, was accused of
charging rental for the booths along the Galérie des Merciers which
connected the Great Hall with the Sainte Chapelle and whose stalls were
supposed to be given rent free to tradespeople whose goods might be of
interest to the folk who had daily tasks at the palace. Nothing came of
the accusation, however, unless it may be thought to have been punished
in common with other financial misdeeds of which Marigny was accused by
Philip the Fair’s successor, Quarrelsome Louis--le Hutin--, and for
which he was hanged on the Montfaucon gallows which he had built when he
was Philip’s “Coadjutor and Inspector.”
Guilty or not, de Marigny was set a poor example by his master, for
Philip the Fair (1285-1314) was so consumed by avarice that he spared
neither friends, vassals, burgesses nor ecclesiastics if by taxing them
or dragging them into warfare he might add to his treasures. His greed
led him into the pettiness of debasing the coinage, and inspired him to
defy the pope himself, though he claimed sovereignty over all the
monarchs of Europe. He was a masterful ruler--Philip--but one who worked
for his own interests and not for those of his people.
Probably, however, his subjects were entirely in sympathy with Philip’s
evident desire upon his accession to know where he stood with England.
If he wanted to bring about an immediate quarrel his wish was balked,
for when he summoned Edward I to appear before him to take the oath of
allegiance “for the lands I hold of you” the English king came to Paris
without a whimper and offered public acknowledgment to his suzerain.
Philip made a trifling quarrel between some French and English sailors
an excuse for war, and the Flemish, who were also Philip’s vassals, were
soon involved. Flanders manufactured woolen cloths which went all over
Europe. Raw wool was imported from England. For commercial reasons it
behooved the Flemish to stay at peace with England and to regard
England’s enemies as their enemies. Philip was willing enough to be
considered in that light since it gave him a chance to invade a country
whose industries with their resultant wealth fairly made his palms
tingle.
Certainly “Hands off” was not his motto. By underhand means he contrived
to get some of Edward’s French possessions away from him and he forced
the Parliament of Paris to approve his action. Naturally such behavior
drove Philip’s opponents together. Philip suspected some new coalition
and ordered the Count of Flanders to come to Paris. Guy obeyed
unwillingly, and he was confirmed in his belief that it was a mistaken
step when Philip, upon hearing that Guy and Edward were arranging a
marriage between Edward’s son Edward and Philippa, Guy’s daughter, flew
into a rage and straightway cast the count and his two sons into the
tower of the Louvre. There they stayed for several months, gaining their
freedom only at the expense of poor Philippa, who, as hostage, replaced
them within the grim walls on the river bank.
For the next few years there was constant trouble in the north. The
imprisonment of an entirely innocent girl gave zest to the Flemish rage
over Philip’s arrogant demands. Guy betrothed another of his daughters
(he had eight daughters and nine sons) to the English crown prince and
sent an embassy to announce the new arrangement to Philip and to tell
him that he considered himself freed from his allegiance.
In the resulting war Philip was victorious. Guy and his immediate
followers went to Paris and gave themselves up to the king before the
steps of the palace while the queen looked on sneeringly from a window.
It was not Philip’s nature to be magnanimous and he hurried his enemy
off to prison. With the queen he soon after paid a visit to his new
possessions where Jeanne was filled with jealousy of the rich apparel of
the women of Bruges. “There are only queens in Bruges,” she cried. “I
thought that only I had a right to royal state.”
The governors whom Philip put over Flanders suffered from their master’s
disease, greed of gold, and so outrageous was their behavior that
Flanders revolted. In the battle of Courtrai the French suffered a
defeat that made terrible inroads on the ranks of the nobility. This
loss was of benefit to the personal power and the pocketbook of the
king, however, through his inheritance of estates and his privileges as
guardian of children orphaned by the battle.
Philip was in a fury over the check to his arms at Courtrai. He took Guy
of Flanders out of the Louvre and sent him to arrange a peace. The
Flemish were elated by success and would not listen to him, and the now
aged count, who had been promised his liberty if he succeeded, returned
again to his prison and to the death that was soon to give him a
long-delayed tranquillity.
The war went on with varying fortune. Philip’s chief advantage was at
the battle of Mons-en-Puelle. When he returned to Paris crowds gathered
before the cathedral to see their monarch ride in full equipment into
Notre Dame, bringing his horse to a stand before the statue of Notre
Dame de Paris to whom he had vowed his armor if he might be given the
victory. During the Revolution the equestrian statue which had worn
this same suit of mail for four centuries and a half was broken up in
the destruction that was meted out to all representations of royalty.
The struggle with Flanders lasted even beyond Philip’s reign. On the
whole the results--direct and indirect--of the contest were in Philip’s
favor. In England he was able to exert a more or less open influence
through his daughter, Isabelle, to whom the often-betrothed English
prince (who came to the throne as Edward II) was at last united.
Probably the bridegroom’s pride in having married the handsomest woman
of her country was somewhat neutralized by developments of her character
which won for her the nickname of “the she-wolf of France.”
Meanwhile Philip became involved in a quarrel with the pope that lasted
for many years and set its mark for all time on the relations and
possible relations between France and Rome. In the course of one of his
attempts to replenish his treasury Philip insisted that imposts should
be levied on the clergy. They had previously been free, and they turned
to the pope to support their refusal. This action precipitated an
immediate quarrel which was patched up but broke out again under
pressure of the king’s behavior. What with his wars and what with his
natural acquisitiveness Philip was always needing and always obtaining
money in ways deserving of sternest censure. Beside debasing the
coinage, he had used infamous methods with the Jews, he had sold patents
of nobility to men considered unsuitable to enjoy the honor of belonging
to the aristocracy, and he had given their freedom to all serfs who were
able to pay for it.
The king rebuked Philip in a bull. Philip personally superintended its
burning by the Paris hangman. When the pope sent another the king
summarized it for the popular understanding into “Boniface the Pope to
Philip the Fair, greeting. Know, O Supreme Prince, that thou art subject
to us in all things.” This document Philip caused to be read aloud in
many public places together with what purported to be his answer;
“Philip to Boniface, little or no greeting. Be it known to thy Supreme
Idiocy that we are subject to no man in political matters. Those who
think otherwise we count to be fools and madmen.”
This was all very dashing but Philip was shrewd enough to see that it
was necessary when contending with a power that proclaimed itself
accountable only to God to have the support of his people. He summoned
to meet in Notre Dame (April 10, 1302) the first National Assembly. It
was called the States General because it was made up of representatives
of the three upper classes or estates--the clergy, the nobility and the
burgesses of the free cities. It may well have been a satisfied body
that gathered under the Gothic arches of the great church. Its members
did not realize that their powers were only advisory and that they would
be expected to advise the king to do what he wanted to. All that they
were yet to learn. For the moment they felt that this meeting was a
concession from a king who had curbed the power of the nobles, who was
trying to prevent the clergy from even entering the hall where was
sitting the Parliament of Paris, increasingly made up of lawyers, and
who made it clear that he tolerated the burgesses only because they were
occasionally useful.
To the burgesses this was in truth a proud moment, for it was their
first admission to any body of the kind on even terms with the other two
estates. They were to find out that, because the voting always was done
by classes, they were to be outnumbered two to one on almost every
question with a unanimity that betrayed the fear that their presence
excited in the lords and clergy.
It was not until the fifteenth century that deputies from the peasantry
sat with the Third Estate. In the five centuries between the calling of
the first States General and the Revolution the Assembly was summoned
only thirteen times. When Louis XVI ordered an election in the futile
hope that something might be suggested that would help France in her
trouble it had been one hundred and seventy-five years since a sitting
had been held.
The first States General found itself in something of a predicament. It
was clear that it was expected to endorse Philip’s attitude toward the
pope, yet such a course would place the clergy at variance with the head
of the church. Of course they yielded. Boniface was a long way off;
Philip was near at hand, and the dungeons of the Grand Châtelet and of
the Louvre were always able to hold a few more prisoners. The pope was
notified that the affairs of France were the concern of France and not
of an outsider. The pope replied with excommunication. Philip retaliated
with charges for which, he said, the pontiff should be tried. Boniface,
justly enraged, threatened to depose Philip and make the German emperor
king of France. Philip once more laid his case before his subjects, this
time in the palace garden. Hot and heavy raged the quarrel after this.
It resulted in the popes becoming for seventy years no more than
dependents upon the will of the French crown, and practically its
prisoners at Avignon on French soil.
Having negotiated the election of a pope of French birth, Philip used
him as a tool for the accomplishment of his mercenary and cruel plans
against the Order of Knights Templar. This order, at once religious and
military, had been founded to protect pilgrims to the Holy Sepulcher.
Its duties over with the ending of the Crusades, idleness may, perhaps,
have done its proverbial work. No one believes, however, that Philip’s
charges of corruption in both religious practices and in manner of
living were other than shamefully exaggerated excuses for seizing rich
possessions which he had coveted ever since the time when, during a
Paris riot caused by an unjust tax, he had taken refuge in the Temple to
the north of the city. There he had seen the gathered treasures, and the
fact that he owed his life to the Templars did not deter him from
devising elaborate plans to rob them.
Early in the morning of October 13, 1307, all the Templars in France
were seized in their beds and thrown into ecclesiastical prisons. There
were one hundred and forty arrests in Paris. The knights listened,
astounded, to what purported to be a confession by the Grand Master,
Jacques de Molay, of the truth of the abominable charges brought against
the Order. They were promised liberty if they confirmed the confession.
To the lasting credit of the Order only a few bought their freedom by
perjury. The rest were “put to the question” with a wealth of hideous
ingenuity which has seldom been approached in the grisly history of the
torture chamber. In Paris alone thirty-six died as a result of their
rending on the rack, and the others said anything that would put an end
to suffering worse than death.
The methods employed by Philip became known to the pope, and although he
had sworn to do the king’s behest in regard to some unknown deed, and
this proved to be the deed, yet he had the courage to send a commission
to Paris to search into the truth of the rumors that had reached him. It
sat in the Abbey of Sainte Geneviève. Under shelter of the commission’s
protection scores of witnesses from all over France told what they had
endured, and denied their extorted confessions. Jacques de Molay himself
was tortured physically and tormented mentally, but he persisted in a
denial. His courage gave strength to over two hundred other knights who
came before the commission to show the wounds by which they had been
forced into saying what was not true.
But Philip was not to be balked of his prey. The archbishop of Sens, who
was also metropolitan of Paris held a special court in the Hôtel de
Sens. This palace was replaced almost two centuries later by the Hôtel
de Sens now to be
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE CLUNY.
See pages 197-198.]
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE SENS.]
seen on the rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul, a house well worth a visit from
lovers of line and proportion as well as from antiquarians. To his court
the archbishop summoned half a hundred of the knights who had denied
their confessions, and the tribunal promptly convicted them of heresy
and condemned them to be burned. The pope’s commissioners had no control
over a local court and could not save the poor wretches. On a day in
May, 1308, they were taken out of the city on the northeast and there
suffered their cruel punishment, every one of them protesting to the
assembled crowd the innocence of the Order. Six others were burned on
the Grève.
Five years later the pope ordered the dispersal of the Order and Philip
was at last able to take possession of their treasure--to repay himself
for the heavy expenses of the trial!
While the Grand Master lived, however, even though he was in prison for
life, the king did not feel secure in his ill-gotten gain. A year after
the general dispersal the Parisians thronged one day into the Parvis de
Notre Dame--the raised open space before the cathedral--where a
representative of the pope, the archbishop of Sens and other church
dignitaries sat enthroned. There Jacques de Molay and three other
officers of the late Order were confronted with their false or extorted
confessions. If it was done to harry them into some betrayal of feeling
which could be taken advantage of for their destruction it was
successful. De Molay protested against this untruth being again
attributed to him. The crowd, eager for excitement, pressed closer to
hear the ringing words of the old soldiers. Then, in the dusk of
evening, noble and burgess and cleric pushed to the western end of the
Cité where they could look across to some small islands, to-day walled
and made a part of the land on which the Pont Neuf rests between the two
arms of the Seine. On one of these islets the fagots were piled. A
witness says; “The Grand Master, seeing the fire, stripped himself
briskly; I tell just as I saw; he bared himself to his shirt,
light-heartedly and with a good grace, without a whit of trembling,
though he was dragged and shaken mightily. They took hold of him to tie
him to the stake, and they were binding his hands with a cord, but he
said to them, ‘Sirs, suffer me to fold my hands a while and make my
prayer to God, for verily it is time. I am presently to die, but
wrongfully, God wot. Wherefore woe will come ere long, to those who
condemn us without a cause. God will avenge our death.’”
While the flames leaped scarlet against the river and the sky the Grand
Master summoned pope and king to appear with him before the bar of the
Almighty. They who heard must have shuddered, and shuddered yet again
when in fact Pope Clement died within forty days and Philip the Fair
within the year.
In Paris the huge establishment of the Temple with its many buildings,
its considerable fields and gardens and its walls, had been independent
of the city, and over its inhabitants the Grand Master had power of life
and death. When Philip took possession of its treasure he turned over
the enclosure to the Knights of Saint John who held it as his subjects.
In the course of time the quiet precincts of the Temple became a haven
for impoverished nobles, for unlicensed doctors and for small
manufacturers “independent” of the guilds, for all these found sanctuary
here. Later the growth of the city smothered the grounds with streets
and houses and did away with most of the buildings. In 1792 when Louis
XVI was imprisoned in the large tower and the other members of the royal
family in the smaller tower the few buildings that were left were torn
down so that they might not serve as hiding places for any rescue party.
Napoleon had the donjon demolished in 1811, and everything that was left
of the once superb commandery melted into the Square du Temple under the
beautifying process instituted by Napoleon III. Until a very few years
ago one of the sights of Paris for seers in search of the unusual was
the Temple Market edging the square, where old clothes, old curtains,
old upholstery--every sort of second hand “dry goods”--offered a chance
for the securing of occasional wonderful bargains provided the purchaser
was either fluent in his own behalf or indifferent to what was said to
him.
Not far from the site of the Temple there stands to-day the church of
Saint Leu, a part of which dates from the fourteenth century. It has
small architectural value, but a quaint picture within tells a tale of
legendary interest. A statue of the Virgin used to stand at the corner
of the rue aux Ours, not far from the church. One day an impious Swiss
soldier struck the figure with his sword and blood spurted from it. The
man was hung upon the scene of his crime, and the statue was preserved
in the Priory of Saint Martin-des-Champs. For more than three centuries
afterward and until, indeed, the destructive spirit of the Revolution
did away with customs as it did with buildings, it was usual to
celebrate this happening by carrying through the streets a straw man in
Swiss costume which was burned on the corner of the rue aux Ours.
Among the utilitarian institutions of the fourteenth century were the
_étuves_, public vapor baths, which were made desirable by the
scantiness of the water supply at home. These establishments were as
popular as necessary. When they were ready for action a crier went
through the streets shouting:
“My lords, you are going to bathe
And steam yourselves without delay;
The baths are hot and that’s the truth.”
Wars and persecutions show large in any period but every day living and
the minor happenings of social and civic growth weave the fabric on
which occasional events stand out like figures on a patterned cloth. The
shuttle of time flashed back and forth through Philip’s reign carrying
the brilliant woof of exploits that resulted in increasing concentration
of power, of wealth and of prestige in the monarch, and threading it
through the dull warp of the increasing poverty of the lower classes and
the lessening vigor of the nobles.
The persecution of the Templars was not the only persecution of the
time. The narrow-mindedness that was increasingly to begrudge freedom of
thought was beginning its death-dealing work. Here and there throughout
France heretics were put to trial every now and then. The king defiled
the day of Pentecost in 1310 by causing to be burned on the Grève a Jew
who had been converted but who had denied his new faith, a priest who
had been convicted of heresy, and a woman who had distributed heretical
tracts.
Perhaps Philip thought by such deeds to win pardon for the financial
exactions with which he tormented his people. He was constantly devising
new taxes. One of the chief duties of the uniformed militia which he
founded--dependent upon and consequently faithful to the crown--was the
collection of his unjust levies. As he lay dying at Fontainebleau he
said to his children gathered at his bedside, “I have put on so many
talliages and laid hands on so much riches that I shall never be
absolved.”
Paris did not increase much in extent or in population during Philip’s
reign. Its beauty lay in the harmony that was building every new
construction like its fellows, ogival (Gothic), with pointed windows and
doors and high-pitched roofs--a style superb in large edifices but
giving a pinched appearance to domestic architecture.
The Louvre served its grim purpose untouched through this period. Its
commander was raised to the rank of captain and was honored by being
forced to stand in no one’s presence but the king’s and to receive
orders only from his royal master.
The little church of Saint Julien still served as the chapel of the
University, and Philip decreed that the Provost of Paris, the king’s
representative in the city, should go there every two years and in the
presence of faculty and students should solemnly swear that he would
protect the rights of both professors and students and that he would
respect them himself. This meant the confirmation of Philip Augustus’s
regulations which made the dwellers in the University section answerable
only to the rector of the University. The schools of the left bank were
increased by the addition of the College of Navarre, founded by the
queen, Jeanne of Navarre, in gratitude for Philip’s victory at
Mons-en-Puelle.
A curious story is told of the origin of the monastery of the Carmes
Billettes in the city’s northern section that had been redeemed from the
marsh and hence was called the Marais, a name which it still retains. It
appears that in the reign of Philip the Fair a Jew of the Marais lent a
sum of money to a woman, and then offered to quit her of her debt if she
would bring him a consecrated wafer. When he had possession of it he
pierced it, and then plunged it in boiling water. At each attack upon it
blood spurted forth, and at last the nerve-shaken Jew screamed for help.
Forced to confess his deed he was put to the torture and his house was
torn down. Upon its site the king permitted the erection of a religious
establishment.
It was Philip who built the first quay to restrain the Seine from
damaging its banks. The king bought the Hôtel de Nesle of which the Tour
de Nesle, scowling across at the Louvre, was a part. Its grounds had
stretched down to the water where they fringed the stream with willows
under which the townspeople used to enjoy the shade on hot summer days.
The king had the trees cut down and a wall constructed to check the
swirl of the river whose two arms rejoin just above after their
separation by the island.
In the palace the administrative work of the city and of France was
conducted, and so extensive was it now with all Philip’s territorial
additions and all his activities calling for court adjustment that the
ancient building was found to be much too small. Enguerrand de Marigny
superintended its enlargement, and so generously did he build that the
old palace came to be called “Saint Louis’ little hall.” The grandest
part of the new structure was the Great Hall, called to-day in its
rebuilt form the Salle des Pas Perdus. It was lofty and adorned with
much vivid blue and gold. Statues of all the kings of France from
Pharamond were placed on the upper parts of the pillars, visualizing
historical characters for the youth of the town who might read dates on
tablets affixed. For long years the curious were delighted by the sight
of the skeleton of what chroniclers have described as a sort of
crocodile, which had been found under the palace when the new
foundations were dug. Across one end of the room was the enormous marble
slab known as the table of Saint Louis. What is supposed to be a
fragment of it is now in the lower part of the palace. Around this table
met the members of three different law courts. When dinners or suppers
of ceremony were given by the monarch only royalties were allowed to sit
at this post of honor. An idea of its size may be gained from the
knowledge that the Clerks of the Basoche at a later time used to enact
plays upon it as a stage.
This organization, the Clerks of the Basoche, came into being in Philip
the Fair’s time. The clerks of the law courts used to hold trials to
adjust differences among themselves. They played the parts of attorneys
and court officers, and no doubt there was a fine display of imitative
rhetoric. The word _basoche_ probably is derived from _basilica_, and
was adopted because it was high-flown and unusual. The president was
called the King of the Basoche until Henry III, who felt a bit weak
about his own royal strength, forbade the use of the title.
In the court in front of the palace the clerks used to plant a tree or
pole on the last day of every May, and this entrance is called even now
the Cour du Mai. Here stood the tumbrils that carried the Revolutionary
victims to the guillotine. At the foot of the former staircase convicts
were branded, and here Beaumarchais gained the best possible free
advertisement when his books were burned as being hostile to the
well-being of society.
Opening out of the Salle des Pas Perdus is the “First Chamber,” the room
which replaces Saint Louis’ bedchamber. Many a stern tribunal has been
held there since the time of the gentle king. It was here that Louis XIV
commanded his abashed hearers to understand that “_I_ am the State,” and
here sat the court that gave Marie Antoinette a poor semblance of trial.
With its prisons on one side stirring with memories of the Revolution,
and its wonderful Gothic jewel, the Sainte Chapelle, on the other, the
Palace of Justice, with all its myriads of rooms for a myriad of
purposes, is one of the most story-laden and varied in Europe.
When Enguerrand de Marigny had finished his work of enlargement Philip
commanded a season of rejoicing in the city. For a whole week the
townsfolk poured in to the palace to see and to admire, and all the
shops were closed so that there might be no other distractions. These
same people had to pay the bills for the new construction, and, since
the privilege of free entrance was one of long standing it is to be
hoped that they felt themselves sufficiently rewarded for their enforced
outlay by the pleasure given to their esthetic sense.
To the ceremony of the knighting of the king’s three sons, which was a
part of the celebration, they were not admitted in numbers, as that was
in the more private Louvre.
Philip the Fair’s immediate successors, Louis X, le Hutin, the Quarreler
(1314-1316), Philip V, the Long (1316-1322), and Charles IV, the Fair
(1322-1328), were rulers of small account. They all did some fighting,
all inherited their father’s capacity to raise financial trouble for
their subjects, and all had serious domestic difficulties. Their wives
were unfaithful to them, and the three women were imprisoned or forced
to enter the Church. Two brothers, Pierre and Philip Gualtier d’Aulnay,
the lovers of Louis’ wife, Marguerite of Burgundy and of Charles’s wife,
Blanche, were executed on the Grève. Philip’s wife, Jeanne of Burgundy,
was the playful lady who dropped Buridan into the Seine from the Tour de
Nesle.
After Marguerite had been strangled in her prison Louis le Hutin married
Clémence of Hungary. His posthumous son, John I, lived but a few days,
and Philip the Long claimed the confirmation of the promise which the
Parliament of Paris, sitting in the palace, had made to support him
rather than let the throne go to a possible daughter of Louis. This
decision established the Salic law as applying to the throne.
Philip the Long had no children and was succeeded by his brother,
Charles the Fair. Charles was twice married after his repudiation of
Blanche, but he left only a daughter, born at the Louvre after his
death, and the crown therefore went to his first cousin, Philip of
Valois.