THE WAR OF PUBLIC WEAL
1464-1465
The era of good feeling between Louis XI. and his Burgundian kinsmen
was of short duration, and no wonder. The rich rewards confidently
expected as fitting recompense for five years' kindness more than
cousinly, towards a penniless refugee were not forthcoming.
The king was lavish in fine words, and not chary in certain
ostentatious recognition towards his late host, but the fairly
munificent pension, together with the charge of Normandy settled upon
the Count of Charolais, proved only a periodical reminder of promises
as regularly unfulfilled on each recurring quarter day, while the post
of confidential adviser to the inexperienced monarch, which Philip had
intended to occupy, remained empty.
Louis put perfect trust in no one but turned now to one counsellor,
now to another, and used such fragments of advice as pleased his whim
and paid no further heed to the giver.
Not long after Louis's coronation there occurred that change in
Philip's bodily constitution that comes to all active men sooner or
later. His health began to give way, his energies relaxed, and matters
that had been of paramount importance throughout his career were
allowed to slip into the background of his desires. In the famous
treaty of 1435, no article was rated at greater importance than that
which placed the towns on the Somme in Philip's hands, subject to a
redemption of two hundred thousand gold crowns. Whether Charles VII.
had actually pledged himself that the mortgage should hold at least
during Philip's life does not seem assured, but that any sum would be
insufficient to induce the duke to release them unless his intellect
were somewhat deadened, is clear.
In 1462, when he recovered from a sharp attack, possibly the result
of his indulgence in the pleasures of the table during the prolonged
festivities at Paris, he did not regain his previous vigour. This was
the time, by the way, when opportunity was afforded his courtiers to
prove that devotion to their seigneur outweighed personal vanity. When
his head was shaved by order of the court physician, more than five
hundred nobles sacrificed their own locks so that their becoming curls
might not remind their chief of his own bald head. The sacrifice was
not always voluntary, adds an informant.[1] Philip forced compliance
with this new fashion upon all who seemed reluctant to be
unnecessarily shorn of what beauty was theirs by nature's gift. This
servility may have consoled Philip for the deprivation of his hair. In
his depressed condition any solace was acceptable.
It was just when the duke was in this enfeebled state that Louis,
through the mediation of the Croys, pushed forward his proposition to
redeem the towns and Philip agreed, possibly relying upon the chance
that it would be no easy matter for the French king to wring the
required sum from his impoverished land. Philip's assent was, however,
promptly clinched by a cash payment of half the amount[2]; the
remainder followed.
Amiens, Abbeville, and the other towns, valuable bulwarks for the
Netherland provinces, fine nurseries for the human material requisite
for Burgundian armies, rich tax payers as they were, all tumbled into
the outstretched hands of the duke's wily rival.
The transaction was hurried through and completed before a rumour of
its progress came to the ear of the interested heir. Charles was in
Holland sulking and indignant. He had expected good results from his
tender devotion during his father's acute illness, a devotion shared
by Isabella of Portugal who hastened to her husband's bedside from her
convent seclusion when Philip was in need of her ministrations. But,
in his convalescence, Philip renewed his friendship for the Croys
whom Charles continued to distrust with bitterness that varied in its
intensity, but which never vanished from his consciousness. The young
man felt misjudged, misused, and ever suspicious that personal danger
to himself lurked in the air of his father's court.
The various rumours of plots against his life may not all have been
baseless. At last, one of own cousins, the Count of Nevers, was
accused of having recourse to diabolic means of doing away with the
duke's legitimate heir.[2] Three little waxen images were found in his
house, and it was alleged that he practised various magic arts withal
in order to win the favour of the duke and of the French king, and
still worse to cause Charles to waste away with a mysterious sickness.
The accusations were sufficient to make Nevers resign all his offices
in his kinsman's court and retire, post-haste, to France. Had he been
wholly innocent he would have demanded trial at the hands of his peers
of the Golden Fleece as behooved one of the order. But he withdrew
undefended, and left his tattered reputation fluttering raggedly in
the breeze of gossip.
Charles stayed in Holland aloof from the ducal court until a fresh
incident drove him thither to give vent to his indignation. Only three
days had Philip de Commines been page to Duke Philip, then resident at
Lille, when an embassy headed by Morvilliers, Chancellor of France,
was given audience in the presence of the Burgundian court, including
the Count of Charolais. The future historian,[4] then nineteen years
old, was keenly alive to all that passed on that November fifth, 1464.
Morvilliers used very bitter terms in his assertion that Charles had
illegally stopped a little French ship of war and arrested a certain
bastard of Rubempré on the false charge that his errand in Holland,
where the incident occurred, was to seize and carry off Charles
himself. Moreover, one knight of Burgundy, Sir Olivier de La Marche
had caused this tale to be bruited everywhere,
"especially at Bruges whither strangers of all nations resort.
This had hurt Louis deeply, and he now demanded through his
chancellor that Duke Philip should send this same Sir Olivier de
La Marche prisoner to Paris, there to be punished as the case
required. Whereupon, Duke Philip answered that the said Sir
Olivier was steward of his house, born in the County of Burgundy
and in no respect subject to the Crown of France."
Philip added that if his servant had wrought ill to the king's honour
he, the duke, would see to his punishment. As to the bastard of
Rubempré, true it was that he had been apprehended in Holland,[5] but
there was adequate ground for his arrest as his behaviour had been
strange, at least so thought the Count of Charolais. Philip added that
if his son were suspicious
"he took it not of him for he was never so, but of his mother
who had been the most jealous lady that ever lived. But
notwithstanding" [quoth he] "that myself never were supicious, yet
if I had been in my son's place at the same time that this bastard
of Rubempré haunted those coasts I would surely have caused him to
be apprehended as my son did."
In conclusion, Philip promised to deliver up Rubempré to the king were
his innocence satisfactorily proven.
Morvilliers then resumed his discourse, enlarging upon the treacherous
designs of Francis, Duke of Brittany, with whom Charles had lately
sworn brotherhood at the very moment when he was the honoured guest
of King Louis at Tours. During this discussion the Count of Charolais
became very restive. Finally he could no longer endure Morvilliers's
indirect slurs, and
"made offer eftsoon to answer, being marvellously out of patience
to hear such reproachful speeches used of his friend and
confederate. But Morvilliers cut him off, saying: 'My Lord of
Charolais, I am not come of ambassage to you, but to my Lord your
father.' The said earl besought his father divers times to give
him leave to answer, who in the end said unto him: 'I have
answered for thee as methinketh the father should answer for the
son, notwithstanding if thou have so great desire to speak bethink
thyself to-day and to-morrow speak and spare not.'"
Then Morvilliers to his former speech added that he could not imagine
what had moved the earl to enter into the league with the Duke of
Brittany unless it were because of a pension the king had once given
him together with the government of Normandy and afterwards taken from
him.
In regard to Rubempré, Commines adds to his story Charles's own
statement given on the morrow:
"Notwithstanding, I think nothing was ever proved against him, though
I confess the presumption to have been great. Five years after I
myself saw him delivered out of prison." This from Commines. La Marche
is less detailed in his record[6] of the Rubempré incident:
"The bastard was put in prison and the Count of Charolais sent me
to Hesdin to the duke to inform him of the arrest and its cause.
The good duke heard my report kindly like a wise prince. In truth
he at once suspected that the craft of the King of France lurked
at the bottom of the affair. Shortly afterwards the duke left
Hesdin and returned to his own land, which did not please the King
of France who despatched thither a great embassy with the Count
d'Eu at the head. Demands were made that I should be delivered to
him to be punished as he would, because he claimed that I had been
the cause of the arrest of the bastard of Rubempré and also of the
duke's departure from Hesdin without saying adieu to the King of
France, but the good duke, moderate in all his actions, replied
that I was his subject and his servitor, and that if the king or
any one else had a grievance against me he would investigate it.
The matter was finally smoothed over [adds La Marche], and Louis
evinced a readiness to conciliate his offended cousin."
In spite of La Marche, the matter proved to be one not easily disposed
of by soft phrases flung into the breach. Charles obeyed his father
and prepared in advance his defence to the chancellor. When he had
finished his own statement about Rubempré, he proceeded to the point
of his friendship with the Duke of Brittany, declaring that it was
right and proper and that if King Louis knew what was to the advantage
of the French sovereign, he would be glad to see his nobles welded
together as a bulwark to his throne. As to his pension, he had never
received but one quarter, nine thousand francs. He had made no suit
for the remainder nor for the government of Normandy. So long as he
enjoyed the favour and good will of his father he had no need to crave
favour of any man.
"I think verily had it not been for the reverence he bore to his said
father who was there present" continues the observant page, "and to
whom he addressed his speech that he would have used much bitterer
terms. In the end, Duke Philip very wisely and humbly besought the
king not lightly to conceive an evil opinion of him or his son but to
continue his favour towards them. Then the banquet was brought in and
the ambassadors took their leave. As they passed out Charles stood
apart from his father and said to the archbishop of Narbonne, who
brought up the rear of the little company:
"'Recommend me very humbly to the good grace of the king. Tell him he
has had me scolded here by the chancellor but that he shall repent it
before a year is past.'" His message was duly delivered and to this
incident Commines attributes momentous results.
Exasperated at the nonchalant manner in which Louis's ambassadors
treated him, indignant at the injury to his heritage by the redemption
of the towns on the Somme, and further, already alienated from his
royal cousin through the long series of petty occasions where the
different natures of the two young men clashed, in this year 1464,
Charles was certainly more than ready to enter into an open contest
with the French monarch. It was not long before the opportunity came
for him to do so with a certain éclat.
In the early years of his own freedom, before he learned wisdom, Louis
XI. had planted many seeds of enmity which brought forth a plentiful
crop, and the fruit was an open conspiracy among the nobles of the
land.
One of the causes of loosening feudal ties was the gradual growth of
the body of standing troops instituted in 1439 by Charles VII. These,
in the regular pay of the crown, gave the king a guarantee of support
without the aid of his nobles. By the date of Louis's accession,
certain ducal houses besides that of Burgundy had grown very
independent within their own boundaries: Orleans, Anjou, Bourbon, not
to speak of Brittany.[7] Now the efforts to curtail the prerogatives
of these petty sovereigns, begun by Charles VII., were steady and
persistent in the new reign. They had no longer the power of coining
money, of levying troops, or of imposing taxes, while the judicial
authority of the crown had been extended little by little over France.
Then their privileges were further attacked by Louis's restrictions of
the chase.
It was the accumulation of these invasions of local authority, added
to a real disbelief in the king's ability, that led to a formation of
a league among the nobles, designed to check the centralisation policy
of the monarch, a League of Public Weal to form a bulwark against the
tyrannical encroachments of their liege lord.
Not to follow the steps of the growth of this coalition, it is
sufficient for the thread of this narrative to say that it comprised
all the great French nobles, the princes of the blood as well as
others. Men whom Louis had flattered as well as those whom he had
slighted alike fell from his standards, distrustful of his ability to
withstand organised opposition, and they threw in their lot with the
protestors so as not to miss their share of the spoil.
The Count of Charolais, as already mentioned, was in a mood when
his ears were eagerly open to overtures from Louis's critics. The
redemption of the towns on the Somme he was unable to prevent, but the
affair left him very sore. Shortly after its completion, the count
did, indeed, succeed in depriving the Croys of their ascendency over
the Duke of Burgundy, but when that long desired victory was attained,
the towns had one and all accepted their transfer and were under
French sovereignty. When the count joined the league, the hope of
ultimate restoration was undoubtedly prominent among the motives for
his own course of action, though his intimacy with the chief leader of
the revolt, the Duke of Brittany, might easily have led to the same
result.
Towards Francis of Brittany, Louis XI. had been especially wanting in
tact during the first months of his reign. The king treated him as a
vassal of France, while the duke held that he and his forbears owed
simple homage to the crown, not dependence. Therefore, in order to
resist being subordinated, the Duke of Brittany resolved not to leave
his estates except in a suitable manner. His messages to the king
were sent in all ceremony, he rendered proper homage, declared his
readiness to serve him as a kinsman and as a vassal for certain
territories, but demanded freedom to exercise his hereditary rights
and to enjoy his hereditary dignities.[8]
"Rude and strange" were the terms employed by the king in response to
these statements, and then he proceeded to encroach still farther on
the duke's seigniorial rights by attempts to dispose of the hands of
Breton heiresses in unequal marriages, and to arrogate to himself
other rights--all sufficient provocation to justify Francis of
Brittany in becoming one of the chiefs in the league. Very delightful
is Chastellain's colloquy with himself[9] as to the difficulty of
maintaining perfect impartiality in discussing the cause of this
Franco-Burgundian war, but unfortunately the result of his patient
efforts is lost.
Olivier de La Marche and Philip de Commines, however, were both
present in the Burgundian army and their stories are preserved. La
Marche had reason to remember the first actual engagement between the
royal and invading forces at Montl'héry, "because on that day I was
made knight." He does not say, as does Commines, that this battle was
against the king's desire. Louis had hoped to avoid any use of arms
and to coerce his rebellious nobles into quiescence by other methods.
Not that they characterised themselves as rebellious, far from it.
Clear and definite was their statement that in their obligation
"to give order to the estate, the police and the government of the
kingdom, the princes of the blood as chief supports of the crown,
by whose advice and not by that of others, the business of the
king and of the state ought to be directed, are ready to risk
their persons and their property, and in this laudable endeavour
all virtuous citizens ought to aid."[10]
Thus wrote Charles to the citizens of Amiens, and the words were
typical of similar appeals made in every quarter of the realm by the
various feudal chiefs to their respective subjects. In truth this war,
ostentatiously called that of the Public Weal, was but a struggle on
the part of the great nobles for local sovereignty. The weal demanded
was home rule for the feudal chiefs. The War of Public Weal was a
fierce protest against monarchical authority, against concentration. A
king indeed, but a king in leading strings was the ideal of the peers.
Thus matters stood in June, 1465. Louis almost alone, deserted by his
brother the Duke of Berry, and his nobles banded together in apparent
unity, hedged in by their pompous and self-righteous assertions that
all their thoughts were for the poor oppressed people whose burdens
needed lightening. Of all the great vassals, Gaston de Foix was the
single one loyal to the king.
The part of the great duke fell entirely to the share of the Count of
Charolais. A small force was levied for him within the Netherlands,
and he started for Paris where he hoped to meet contingents from the
two Burgundies and his brother peers of France with their own troops.
His men were good individually but they had not been trained to act as
one, and there was no coherence between the different companies.
July, 1465, found Charles at St. Denis, the appointed rendezvous. He
was first in the field. While he awaited his allies, his little army
became restive at the situation in which they found themselves, fifty
leagues from Burgundian territory with no stronghold as their base. It
was urged again and again upon the count that his first consideration
ought to be his men's safety. His allies had failed him. He should
retreat. "I have crossed the Oise and the Marne and I will cross the
Seine if I have but a single page to follow me," was the leader's firm
reply to these demands.
The leaguers were slow to keep their pledges, and Charles decided that
it was his mission to prevent Louis from entering his capital, to
which he was advancing with great rapidity from the south. To carry
out this purpose Charles disregarded all protests, crossed the Seine
at St. Cloud, and made his way to the little village of Longjumeau,
whither he was preceded by the Count of St. Pol, commanding one
division of the Burgundian army. Montl'héry was a village still
farther to the south, and here it was that La Marche and other
gentlemen were knighted. This ceremony was evidently part of the
count's endeavour to encourage his followers--all unwilling to risk an
engagement before the arrival of the allies.
To the king it was of infinite advantage that no delay should occur.
Nevertheless, it was Charles who opened active hostilities on July
15th, with soldiers who had not broken their fast that day. Armed
since early dawn, wearied by a forced march with a July sun beating
down upon their heads, their movements hampered by standing wheat and
rye, the men were at a tremendous disadvantage when they were led to
the attack. It was a hot assault. No quarter was given, many fled.
At length, Louis found himself abandoned by all save his body-guard.
Pressed against the hill that bounded the grain fields, the king at
last retreated up its slope into a castle on its summit.
Charles rode impetuously after the retreating royalists. Separated
from his men, he fell among the royal guard at the gate of the castle.
There was a vehement assault resisted as vehemently by his meagre
escort. Several fell and Charles himself received a sword wound on his
neck where his armour had slipped. Recognised by the French, he might
have been taken or slain in his resistance, when the Bastard of
Burgundy rode in and rescued him. Very desperate seemed the count's
condition. When night fell, no one knew where lay the advantage. The
fugitives spread rumours that the king was dead and that Charles was
in possession, others carried the reverse statements as they rode
headlong to the nearest safety. It was a rout on both sides with no
credit to either leader. But in the darkness of the night, the king
managed to slip out of his retreat and march quietly towards the
greater security of Paris.
It was a very shadowy victory that Charles proudly claimed. All
through the night of July 15th, the Burgundians were discussing
whether to flee or to risk further fighting against the odds all
recognised. Daybreak found the council in session when a peasant
brought tidings that the foe had departed. The fires in sight only
covered their retreat. To be sure that same foe had taken Burgundian
baggage with them to Paris. But what of that? The Burgundians held the
battlefield and they made the best of it.
On July 16th, Louis supped with the military governor of Paris and
"moved the company, nobles and ladies, to sympathetic tears by his
touching description of the perils he had met and escaped." Charles,
meanwhile, effected a junction with his belated allies, Francis of
Brittany and Charles of France, the Duke of Berry, at Étampes. Thither
too, came the dukes of Bourbon and of Lorraine, but none of these
leaguers could claim any share in the battle of Montl'héry.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF MONTL'HÉRY, JULY 16, 1465 (COMINES, ED.
LENGLET DU FRESNOY, 1.)]
While these peers perfected their plans to force their chief into
redressing the wrongs of the poor people, the king was showing a very
pleasant side of his character to the Parisian citizens. In response
to a petition that he should take advice on the conduct of his
administration, he declared his perfect willingness to add to his
council six burgesses, six members of _parlement_, and the same number
from the university. Besides this concession, he relieved the weight
of the imposts and hastened to restore certain financial franchises to
the Church, to the university, and to various individuals. Three weeks
were consumed in establishing friendly relations in this all important
city, and then the king departed for Normandy to levy troops and to
collect provisions for a siege.[11] There was need for this last for
the allies had moved up to the immediate vicinity of Paris.
Before the king's return to his capital on August 28th, a formidable
array was encamped at Charenton and its neighbourhood. More
formidable, however, they were in numbers than in strength. Like all
confederated bodies there was inherent weakness, for there was no
leader whom all would be willing to obey. The Duke of Berry, heir
presumptive to the throne, was the only one among the peers whose
birth might have commanded the needful authority, but he had not
sufficient personal character to assert his position. So the
confederates remained a loose aggregation of small armies. The longer
they remained in camp the weaker they grew, the more disintegrated.
A pitched battle might have been a great advantage to these gallant
defenders of the Public Weal of France and that was the last desire of
their antagonist.
Many skirmishes took place between the Parisians and the leaguers, but
no engagement. Once, indeed, there were hurried preparations on the
part of the Burgundians to repulse an attack, of whose imminence they
were warned by a page before break of day, one misty morning. Yes,
there was no doubt. The pickets could see the erect spears and furled
banners of the enemy all ready to advance upon the unwary camp. Quick
were the preparations. There were no laggards. The Duke of Calabria
was more quickly armed than even the Count of Charolais. He came to a
spot where a number of Burgundians, the count's own household stood,
by the standard. Among them was Commines[l2] and he heard the duke
say: "We now have our desire, for the king is issued forth with his
whole force and marches towards us as our scouts report. Wherefore let
us determine to play the men. So soon as they be out of the town we
will enter and measure with the long ell." By these words he meant
that the soldiers would speedily have a chance to use their pikes as
yard sticks to measure out their share of the booty. False prophet
was the duke that time! When the daylight grew stronger, the upright
spears and furled banners of the advancing foe proved to be a mass of
thistles looming large in the magnifying morning mist! The princes
took their disappointment philosophically, enjoyed early mass, and
then had their breakfast.
The young Commines is surprised that Paris and her environs were rich
enough to feed so many men. Gradually the aspect of affairs changed.
Negotiating back and forth became more frequent. The disintegration of
the allies became more and more evident. Louis XI. bided his time and
then took the extraordinary resolution to go in person to the camp at
Charenton to visit his cousin of Burgundy. With a very few attendants,
practically unguarded, he went down the Seine. His coming had been
heralded and the Count of Charolais stood ready to receive him, with
the Count of St. Pol at his side. "Brother, do you pledge me safety?"
(for the count's first wife was sister of Louis) to which the count
responded: "Yes, as one brother to another."[13]
Nothing could have been more genial than was the king. He assured
Charles that he loved a man who kept his word beyond anything.
Veracity was his passion. Charles had kept the promise he had sent by
the archbishop of Narbonne, and now he knew in very truth that he was
a gentleman and true to the blood of France. Further, he disavowed the
insolence of his chancellor towards Charles, and repeated that his
cousin had been justified in resenting it. "You have kept your promise
and that long before the day."[14]
Then in a friendly promenade, Louis gave an opportunity to Charles and
St. Pol to state, informally, the terms on which they would withdraw
from their hostile footing, and count the weal restored to the
oppressed public whose sorrows had moved them to a confederation.
Distasteful as was every item to Louis, he accepted the requisition of
those who felt that they were in a position to dictate, and after a
little more parleying at later dates, the treaty of Conflans was duly
arranged. It was none too soon for the allies. They could hardly have
held together many days longer in the midst of the jealousies rife in
their camps.
The king paused at nothing. To his brother he gave Normandy, to
Charles of Burgundy the towns on the Somme with guarantee of
possession for his lifetime, while the Count of St. Pol was made
Constable of France.
[Illustration: LOUIS XI. WITH THE PRINCES AND SEIGNEURS OF THE WAR
OF PUBLIC WEAL TAKEN FROM CONTEMPORANEOUS MINIATURE IN ABBEY OF ST.
GERMAIN DES PRÉS (COMINES-LENGLET, II., FRONTISPIECE)]
Boulogne and Guienne, too, were ceded to Charles, lesser places and
pensions to the other confederates. The contest ended with complete
victory for the allies who were left with the proud consciousness
that they had set a definite limit to royal pretensions, at least, on
paper.
After the treaty was signed, the king showed no resentment at his
defeat but urged his cousin to amuse himself a while in Paris before
returning home. Charles was rash, but he had not the temerity to trust
himself so far. Pleading a promise to his father to enter no city gate
until on paternal soil, he declined the invitation and soon returned
to the Netherlands, where his own household had suffered change.
During his absence, the Countess of Charolais had died and been buried
at Antwerp. Charles is repeatedly lauded for his perfect faithfulness
to his wife, but her death seems to have made singularly little ripple
on the surface of his life. The chroniclers touch on the event very
casually, laying more stress on the opportunity it gave Louis XI.
to offer his daughter Anne as her successor, than on the event
itself.[15]
[Footnote 1: La Marche, ii., 227. Peter von Hagenbach was the
chamberlain to enforce this.]
[Footnote 2: The receipt for this half payment was signed October
8, 1462. (Comines, _Mémoires_, Lenglet du Fresnoy edition, ii.,
392-403.)]
[Footnote 3: Du Clercq, iii., 236; Comines-Lenglet, ii., 393.]
[Footnote 4: Commines, _Mêmoires_ I., ch. i. In the above passages
Dannett's translation is followed for the racy English.]
[Footnote 5: Commines says at The Hague; Meyer makes it Gorcum.]
[Footnote 6: III., 3.]
[Footnote 7: Lavisse iv^{ii}., 336.]
[Footnote 8: Chastellain, v., i, etc.]
[Footnote 9: V., II.]
[Footnote 10: Letter of the Count of Charolais to the citizens of
Amiens. (_Collection de Documents inédits sur l'histoire de France_.)
"Mélanges," ii., 317. In this collection taken from MS. in the Bibl.
Nat. there are many letters private and public about these events.]
[Footnote 11: Since its recovery from the English, there had been no
duke in Normandy. It was thus the one province open to the king.]
[Footnote 12: I., ch. xi. His vivacious story of the siege should be
read in detail.]
[Footnote 13: I., ch. xii.]
[Footnote 14: Commines, I., ch. xii.]
[Footnote 15: La Marche, iii., p. 27.]