The existence of a monarch, without his lot be cast amidst very
halcyon days indeed, is much like the life of a seaman, borne up upon
uncertain and turbulent waves. Exposed to a thousand storms, from
which a peasant's cot would be sufficient shelter, his whole being is
spent in watching for the tempest, and his whole course is at the
mercy of the wind.
It was with bitterness of heart, and agony of spirit, that Philip
Augustus saw gathering on the political horizon around many a dark
cloud that threatened him with a renewal of all those fatigues,
anxieties, and pains, from which he had hoped, at least, for some
short respite. He saw it with a wrung and burning bosom, but he saw it
without dismay; for, strong in the resources of a mind above his age,
he resolved to wreak great and signal vengeance on the heads of those
who should trouble his repose; and, knowing that the sorrow must come,
he prepared, as ever with him, to make his revenge a handmaid to his
policy, and, by the punishment of his rebellious vassals, not only to
augment his own domains as a feudal sovereign, but to extend the
general force and prerogative of the crown, and form a large basis of
power on which his successors might build a fabric of much greatness.
However clearly he might see the approach of danger, and however
vigorously he might prepare to repel it, Philip was not of that frame
of mind which suffers remote evil long to interfere with present
enjoyment. For a short space he contemplated them painfully, though
firmly; but soon the pain was forgotten, and like a veteran soldier
who knows he may be attacked during the night, and sleeps with his
arms beside him, but still sleeps tranquilly, Philip saw the murmured
threatening of his greater feudatories, and took every means of
preparation against what he clearly perceived would follow: but this
once done, he gave himself up to pleasures and amusements; seeming
anxious to crowd into the short space of tranquillity that was left
him, all the gaieties and enjoyments which might otherwise have been
scattered through many years of peace. Fêtes, and pageants, and
tournaments succeeded each other rapidly; and Philip of France, with
his fair queen, seemed to look upon earth as a garden of smiles, and
life as a long chain of unbroken delights.
Yet, even in his pleasures, Philip was politic. He had returned to
Paris, though the summer heat had now completely set in, and June was
far advanced; and sitting in the old palace on the island, he was
placed near one of the windows, through which poured the free air of
the river, while he arranged with his beloved Agnes the ceremonies of
a banquet. Philip was famous for his taste in every sort of pageant;
and now he was giving directions himself to various attendants who
stood round, repeating with the most scrupulous exactness every
particular of his commands, as if the very safety of his kingdom had
depended on their correct execution.
While thus employed, his minister Guerin, now elected bishop of
Senlis, though he still, as I have said, retained the garments of the
knights of St. John, entered the apartment, and stood by the side of
the king, while he gave his last orders, and sent the attendants away.
"Another banquet, sire!" said the bishop, with that freedom of speech
which in those days was admitted between king and subject; and
speaking in the grave and melancholy tone which converts an
observation into a reproach.
"Ay, good brother!" replied Philip, looking up smilingly; "another
banquet in the great _salle du palais_; and on the tenth of July a
tournament at Champeaux. Sweet Agnes! laugh at his grave face!
Wouldest thou not say, dear lady mine, that I spake to the good bishop
of a defeat and a funeral, instead of a feast and a _passe d'armes_?"
"The defeat of your finances, sire, and the burial of your treasury,"
replied Guerin coldly.
"I have other finances that you know not of, bishop," replied the
king, still keeping his good humour. "Ay, and a private treasury too,
where gold will not be wanting."
"Indeed, my liege!" replied the bishop. "May I crave where?" Philip
touched the hilt of his sword. "Here is an unfailing measure of
finance!" said he; "and as for my treasury, 'tis in the purses of
revolted barons, Guerin!"
"If you make use of that treasury, sire," answered the bishop, "for
the good of your state, and the welfare of your people, 'tis indeed
one that may serve you well; but if you spend it----." The bishop
paused, as if afraid of proceeding, and Philip took up the word.
"If I spend it, you would say, in feasting and revelry," said the
king, "I shall make the people murmur, and my best friends quit me.
But," continued he in a gayer tone, "let us quit all sad thoughts, and
talk of the feast,--the gay and splendid feast,--where you shall
smile, Guerin, and make the guests believe you the gentlest counsellor
that ever king was blest withal. Nay, I will have it so, by my faith!
As to the guests, they are all choice and gay companions, whom I have
chosen for their merriment. Thou shalt laugh heartily when placed
between Philip of Champagne, late my sworn enemy, but who now becomes
my good friend and humble vassal, and brings his nephew and ward, the
young Thibalt, count of all Champagne, to grace his suzerain's
feast--when placed between him, I say, and Pierre de Courtenay, whose
allegiance is not very sure, and whose brother, the Count of Namur, is
in plain rebellion. There shalt thou see also Bartholemi de Roye, and
the Count de Perche, both somewhat doubtful in their love to Philip,
but who, before that feast is over, shall be his humblest creatures.
Fie, fie, Guerin!" he added, in a more reproachful tone, "will you
never think that I have a deeper motive for my actions than lies upon
the surface? As to the tournament, too, think you I do not propose to
try men's hearts as well as their corslets, and see if their loyalty
hold as firm a seat as they do themselves?"
"I never doubt, sire," replied the bishop, "that you have good and
sufficient motives for all your actions; but, this morning, a sad
account has been laid before me of the royal domains; and when I came
to hear of banquets and tournaments, it pained me to think what you,
sire, would feel, when you saw the clear statement."
"How so?" cried Philip Augustus. "It cannot be so very bad!--Let me
see it, Guerin!--let me see it. 'Tis best to front such things at
once.--Let me see it, man, I say!"
"I have it not here, sire," answered the bishop; "but I will send it
by the clerk who drew it up; and who can give you farther accounts,
should it be necessary."
"Quick then!" cried the king,--"quick, good bishop!" And walking up
and down the hall, with an unquiet and somewhat irritated air, he
repeated, "It cannot be so bad! The last time I made the calculation,
'twas somewhere near a hundred thousand livres. Bad enough, in
truth--but I have known that long! Now, sir clerk," he continued, as a
secretary entered, "read me the account, if it be as I see on wax. Was
no parchment to be had, that you must draw the charter on wax[10] to
blind me? Read, read!"
--------------------
[Footnote 10: Later instances exist of wax having been used in the
accounts of the royal treasury of France.]
--------------------
The king spoke in the hasty manner of one whose brighter hopes and
wishes--for Imagination is always a great helpmate of Ambition, and as
well as its first prompter, is its indefatigable ally--in the manner
of one whose brighter hopes and wishes had been cut across by cold
realities; and the clerk replied in the dull and snuffling tone
peculiar to clerks, and monstrously irritating to every hasty man.
"Accounts of the Prévôt de Soissons, sire," said the clerk: "Receipts:
six hundred livres, seven sous, two deniers. Expenses: eighteen
livres, to arm three cross-bowmen; twenty livres to the holy clerk;
seventy livres for clothing and arming twenty serjeants on foot.
Accounts of the sénéchal of Pontoise," continued the clerk, in the
same slow and solemn manner: "Receipts: five hundred livres,
_Parisis_. Expenses: thirty-three livres, for wax-tapers for the
church of the blessed St. Millon; twenty-eight sous for the carriage
to Paris of the two living lions, now at the kennel of the
wolf-hounds, without the walls; twenty livres, spent for the robes for
four judges; and baskets for twenty eels--for seventeen young wolves."
"Death to my soul!" cried the impatient king: "make an end, man!--come
to the sum total! How much remains?"
"Two hundred livres, six sous, one denier," replied the clerk.
"Villain, you lie!" cried the enraged monarch, striking him with his
clenched fist, and snatching the tablets from his hand. "What! am I a
beggar? 'Tis false, by the light of heaven!--It cannot be," he added,
as his eye ran over the sad statement of his exhausted finances,--"it
cannot surely be! Go, fellow! bid the bishop of Senlis come
hither! I am sorry that I struck thee. Forget it! Go, bid Guerin
hither,--quick!"
While this was passing, Agnes de Meranie had turned to one of the
windows, and was gazing out upon the river and the view beyond. She
would fain have made her escape from the hall, when first she found
the serious nature of the business that had arisen out of the
preparations for the fête; but Philip stood between her and either of
the doors, both while he was speaking with his minister, and while he
was receiving the statement from the clerk; and Agnes did not choose,
by crossing him, to call his attention from his graver occupation. As
soon, however, as the clerk was gone, Philip's eye fell upon her, as
she leaned against the casement, with her slight figure bending in as
graceful an attitude as the Pentelican marble was ever taught to show;
and there was something in her very presence reproved the monarch for
the unworthy passion into which he had been betrayed. When a man loves
deeply, he would fain be a god in the eyes of the woman that he loves,
lest the worship that he shows her should lessen him in his own.
Philip was mortified that she had been present; and lest any thing
equally mortal should escape him while speaking with his minister, he
approached and took her hand.
"Agnes," said he, "I have forgot myself; but this tablet has crossed
me sadly," pointing to the statement. "I shall be no longer able to
give festal orders. Go you, sweet! and, in the palace gardens, bid
your maidens strip all the fairest flowers to deck the tables and the
hall----"
"They shall spare enough for one crown, at least," replied Agnes, "to
hang on my royal Philip's casque on the tournament-day. But I will
speed, and arrange the flowers myself." Thus saying, she turned away,
with a gay smile, as if nothing had ruffled the current of the time;
and left the monarch expecting thoughtfully the bishop of Senlis's
return.
The minister did not make the monarch wait; but he found Philip
Augustus in a very different mood from that in which he left him.
"Guerin," said the king, with a grave and careful air, "you have been
my physician, and a wise one. The cup you have given me is bitter, but
'tis wholesome; and I have drunk it to the dregs."
"It is ever with the most profound sorrow," said the hospitaller, with
that tone of simple persuasive gravity that carries conviction of its
sincerity along with it, "that I steal one from the few scanty hours
of tranquillity that are allotted to you, sire, in this life. Would it
were compatible with your honour and your kingdom's welfare, that I
should bear all the more burthensome part of the task which royalty
imposes, and that you, sire, should know but its sweets! But that
cannot be; and I am often obliged, as you say, to offer my sovereign a
bitter cup that willingly I would have drunk myself."
"I believe you, good friend--from my soul, I believe you!" said the
king. "I have ever observed in you my brother, a self-denying zeal,
which is rare in this corrupted age; or used but as the means of
ambition. Raise not your glance as if you thought I suspected you.
Guerin, I do not! I have watched you well; and had I seen your fingers
itch to close upon the staff of power,--had you but stretched out your
hand towards it,--had you sought to have left me in idle ignorance of
my affairs,--ay! or even sought to weary me of them with eternal
reiteration, you never should have seen the secrets of my heart, as
now you shall--I would have used you Guerin, as an instrument, but you
never would have been my friend. Do you understand me, ha?
"I do, royal sir," replied the knight, "and God help me, as my wish
has ever been only to serve you truly!"
"Mark me, then, Guerin!" continued the king. "This banquet must go
forward--the tournament also--ay, and perhaps another. Not because I
love to feast my eyes with the grandeur of a king--no, Guerin,--but
because I would be a king indeed! I have often asked myself,"
proceeded the monarch, speaking slowly, and, as was sometimes his
wont, laying the finger of his right-hand on the sleeve of the
hospitaller's robe--"I have often asked myself whether a king would
never fill the throne of France, who should find time and occasion
fitting to carry royalty to that grand height where it was placed by
Charlemagne. Do not start! I propose not--I hope not--to be the man;
but I will pave the way, tread it who will hereafter. I speak not of
acting Charlemagne with this before my eyes;" and he laid his hand
upon the tablets, which showed the state of his finances, "But still I
may do much--nay, I have done much."
Philip paused, and thought for a moment, seeming to recall, one by
one, the great steps he had taken to change the character of the
feudal system; then raising his eyes, he continued:--"When the sceptre
fell into my grasp, I found that it was little more dignified than a
jester's bauble. France was not a kingdom,--'twas a republic of
nobles, of which the king could hardly be said to be the chief. He had
but one prerogative left,--that of demanding homage from his vassals;
and even that homage he was obliged to render himself to his own
vassals, for feofs held in their _mouvances_. At that abuse was aimed
my first blow."
"I remember it well, sire," replied the hospitaller, "and a great and
glorious blow it was; for, by that simple declaration, that the king
could not and ought not to be vassal to any man, and that any feof
returning to the crown by what means soever, was no longer a feof, but
became _domaine_ of the crown, you re-established at once the
distinction between the king and his great feudatories."
"'Twas but a step," replied the monarch; "the next was, Guerin, to
declare that all questions of feudal right were referable to our court
of peers. The proud Suzerains thought that there they would be their
own judges; but they found that I was there the king. But, to be
short,--Guerin _I_ have followed _willingly_ the steps that
_circumstances_ imposed upon my father. I have freed the commons,--I
have raised the clergy,--I have subjected my vassals to my court. So
have I broken the feudal hierarchy;--so have I reduced the power of my
greater feudatories; and so have I won both their fear and their
hatred. It is against that I must guard. The lesser barons love
me--the clergy--the burghers;--but that is not enough; I must have one
or two of the sovereigns. Then let the rest revolt if they dare! By
the Lord that liveth! if they do, I will leave the _domaines_ of the
crown to my son, tenfold multiplied from what I found them. But I must
have one or two of my princes. Philip of Champagne is one on whom
words and honours work more than real benefits. He must be feasted and
set on my right-hand. Pierre de Courtney is one whose heart and soul
is on chivalry; and he must be won by tournaments and lance-breakings.
Many, many others are alike; and while I crush the wasps in my
gauntlet, Guerin, I must not fail to spread out some honey to catch
the flies." So spake Philip Augustus, with feelings undoubtedly
composed of that grand selfishness called ambition; but, at the same
time, with those superior powers, both of conception and execution
that not only rose above the age, but carried the age along with him.
"I am not one, sire," said the minister, "to deem that great
enterprises may not be accomplished with small means; but, in the
present penury of the royal treasury, I know not what is to be done. I
will see, however, what may be effected amongst your good burghesses
of Paris."
"Do so, good bishop!" replied the king, "and in the mean time I will
ride forth to the hermit of Vincennes. He is one of those men, Guerin,
of whom earth bears so few, who have new thoughts. He seems to have
cast off all old ideas and feelings, when he threw from him the
corslet and the shield, and took the frock and sandal. Perhaps he may
aid us. But, ere I go, I must take good order that every point of
ceremony be observed in our banquet: I would not, for one half France,
that Philip of Champagne should see a fault or a flaw! I know him
well; and he must be my own, if but to oppose to Ferrand of Flanders,
who is the falsest vassal that ever king had!"
"I trust that the hermit may suggest the means!" replied Guerin, "and
I doubt little that he will; but I beseech you, sire, not to let your
blow fall on the heads of the Jews again. The hermit's advice was
wise, to punish them for their crimes, and at the same time to enrich
the crown of France; but having now returned by your royal permission,
and having ever since behaved well and faithfully, they should be
assured of protection."
"Fear not, fear not!" replied the king; "they are as safe as my honour
can make them." So saying, he turned to prepare for the expedition he
proposed.
Strange state of society! when one of the greatest monarchs that
France ever possessed was indebted, on many occasions, for the
re-establishment of his finances, and for some of his best measures of
policy, to an old man living in solitude and abstraction, removed from
the scenes and people over whose fate he exercised so extraordinary a
control, and evincing, on every occasion, his disinclination to mingle
with the affairs of the world.[11]
--------------------
[Footnote 11: The Chronicle of Alberic des Trois Fontaines gives some
curious particulars concerning this personage, and offers a singular
picture of the times.]
--------------------
But it is time we should speak more fully of a person whose history
and influence on the people amongst whom he lived, strongly developes
the character of the age.