THE LION AND THE LILIES
"Fair stood the wind for France."--_Michael Drayton._
I yield to no one in my love and admiration for Henry V. in his nobler
aspects, but I am not writing his story now. He came to France, not as
the debonair and joyous prince of our affections, but as a conqueror;
came, he told the unhappy French, as the instrument of God, to punish
them for their sins. The phrase may have sounded less mocking then than
it does to-day. France knew all about the sins; she had suffered under
them, almost to death; it seemed hard that she must bear the punishment
too.
Neither John of Burgundy nor Bernard of Armagnac was at Agincourt. They
hovered apart, two great eagles--or vultures, shall we say?--watching,
ready to pounce when their moment struck. The battle lost and won, both
chiefs made a dash for Paris and the king. Armagnac made the better
speed; Burgundy arrived to find his enemy, with six thousand fierce
Gascons, already in possession of the city, king and Dauphin both in his
hands, and the self-constituted Constable of France, in lieu of Charles
d'Albret, slain in the great battle.
Savage though he was, Armagnac was a Frenchman, and a great captain. For
some months he kept not only Burgundy but England at bay, holding the
royal city against all comers. He even made a dash on Harfleur (now,
1415, in the hands of the English) which might have been successful but
for the cowardice of some of his followers. He promptly hanged the
cowards, but the moment was lost. Returning to Paris, he found the
Burgundians making headway; banished, hanged, drowned, beheaded, right
and left, imposed tremendous taxes, and for a time fancied himself, and
seemed almost to be, virtual king of France.
It was only seeming; Burgundy's hour was at hand. Among those banished
by Armagnac was Queen Isabel, whom (after drowning one of her lovers in
a sack) he had sent off to prison in the castle of Tours. Down swept
John the Fearless, carried her off, proclaimed her Regent, and in her
name annulled the recent tax edicts. This was a mortal blow to Armagnac.
His Gascons held Paris for him, but without money he could not hold
them. Furious, he laid hands on whatever he could find; "borrowed"
church vessels of gold and silver and melted them down to pay his men.
All would not do. Paris now hated as much as it feared him and his
Gascons. A little while, and hate, aided by treachery, triumphed over
fear. One night the keys of the St. Germain gate were stolen from their
keeper--some say by his own son. Eight hundred Burgundians crept in,
headed by the Sire de l'Isle-Adam: crept, pounced, first on that Palace
where Tragedy and Madness kept watch and watch; then, the king once in
their hands, on the holders of the city. The Dauphin fled to the
Bastille. Armagnac and his chief followers were betrayed and imprisoned.
The banished Butchers returned, thirsting for blood. The hunt was up.
What followed was a foreshadowing of St. Bartholomew, of the Terror, of
the Commune. Paris went mad, mad as her king in the forest of Le Mans.
All day long frenzied bands, citizens and Burgundians together, roamed
the streets, seizing and slaying; all night the tocsin rang, rousing the
maddened people to still wilder delirium. On the night of June 12th,
1418, they broke open the prisons and murdered their inmates without
discrimination; Armagnacs, debtors, bishops, State and political
prisoners, even some of their own party; a slash across the throat was
the kindest death they met. Count Bernard of Armagnac was among the
first victims: for days his naked body hung on view in the Palace of
Justice, while in the streets the Paris children played with the
stripped corpses of his followers. Private grudge or public grievance
could be revenged by merely raising the cry of "Armagnac." A sword
swept, and the score was wiped out. Between midnight of Saturday the
twelfth and Monday the fourteenth of June (1418) sixteen hundred persons
were massacred in the prisons and streets of Paris.
So fell the Armagnacs: and in their fall dragged their opponents with
them.
Paris streets were full of unburied corpses; Paris gutters ran blood;
Paris larders were bare of food. The surviving Armagnacs, assembled at
Melun, kept supplies from entering the city on one side, the English on
the other. Hunger and Plague, hand in hand, stalked through the dreadful
streets. Soon fifty thousand bodies were lying there, with no sword in
their vitals. Men said that those who had hand in the recent massacres
died first, with cries of despair on their lips. While the city crouched
terror-stricken, certain priests arose, proclaiming the need of still
more bloodshed; the sacrifice was not complete, they cried. Two prisons
still remained, the Grand Châtelet and the Bastille, crammed with
prisoners; among them might be, doubtless were, Armagnacs held for
ransom by the greedy Burgundians. To arms, once more!
Frenzied Paris responded, as--alas!--she has so often done. The public
executioner, mounted on a great white horse, led the shouting mob first
to one, then to the other great State Prison. Before the Bastille, John
of Burgundy met them, imploring them to spare the prisoners; humbling
himself even to take the hangman's bloody hand: in vain. All were slain,
and the Duke had only the poor satisfaction of killing the executioner
himself a few days later.
Bernard of Armagnac dead, Charles of Orleans safe, since Agincourt, in
an English prison (writing, for his consolation and our delight, the
rondels and triolets which will keep his name bright and fresh while
Poesy endures), John the Fearless was in very truth virtual king of
France. Being so, it behooved him to make some head against Henry of
England, who was now besieging Rouen. This was awkward for John, as he
had for some time been Henry's secret ally, but Rouen was in extremity,
Paris in danger; even his own faithful followers began to look askance
and to demand active measures against perfidious and all-conquering
Albion. John temporized by sending four thousand horsemen to Rouen,
weakening by just so much his hold on the capital. He dared not declare
himself openly on the side of England; dared only make a secret treaty
with Henry, recognizing his claim to the French crown.
Before setting out from England to besiege Rouen, Henry had paid
friendly visits to his prisoner-kinsmen, the Dukes of Orleans and
Bourbon, and succeeded in alarming both thoroughly. "Fair cousin," he
said to the latter, "I am returning to the war, and this time I shall
spare nothing: yes, this time France must pay the piper!" and again,
perhaps to Orleans this time, "Fair cousin, soon I am going to Paris. It
is a great pity, for they are a brave people; but, _voyez vous_, they
are so terribly divided that they can do nothing."
Ominous words for a young gentleman to hear who was just writing,
perhaps, that he would no longer be the servant of Melancholy.
"Serviteur plus de vous, Merencolie,
Je ne serez car trop fort y travaille!"
Rondel and triolet were laid aside, and the two princes wrote urgent
letters to their cousin Charles, imploring him to make peace on Henry's
own conditions: poor Charles, who did not know his own name or the names
of his children, who still whispered, "Who is that woman? Save me from
her!"
Meantime Henry sent his own messengers, in the shape of some eight
thousand famishing Irishmen, whom he carried across the Channel
and--_dumped_ seems the fitting word--in Normandy, bidding them forage
for themselves. Unarmed, but fearing nothing, and very hungry, the Irish
roamed the country mounted on ponies or cows, whichever was "handy by,"
seeking what they might devour. Monstrelêt describes them; may have seen
them with his own eyes. "One foot was shod, the other naked, and they
had no breeches. They stole little children from the cradle, and rode
off on cows, carrying the said children"; to hold them for ransom, be it
said.
My little measure will not hold the siege of Rouen. It was one of the
terrible sieges of history, and those who love Henry of Monmouth must
read of it with heavy hearts. In January, 1419, when fifty thousand
people were dead of famine in and around the city, submission was made.
Henry entered the town, with no doubt in his own mind and little in
those of others, as to who was actually King of France.
He found the kingdom still rent in twain. The Dauphin Louis was dead,
and Charles, his younger brother, had succeeded to the title and to the
leadership of the Orleans party. The weak, irresolute, hot-headed boy of
sixteen was surrounded by reckless Gascons who lived by their swords
and wits, caring little what they did, so money might be got, yet who
were Frenchmen and had red blood in their veins. The peace now openly
concluded between Henry and Burgundy roused them to frenzy. English rule
was not to their mind. They beset the Dauphin with clamors for revenge
to which he lent only too willing an ear. The affair was arranged, and
as in the case of the murder of Orleans twelve years before, began with
a reconciliation. The Dauphin longed to see his dear cousin of Burgundy;
begged that they might meet; suggested the Bridge of Montereau as a
fitting place for the interview. With some misgivings, the Duke
consented, spite of the warnings of his friends. "Remember Louis of
Orleans!" they said. "Remember Bernard of Armagnac! Be sure that those
others remember them well!"
John the Fearless answered as became his reputation. It was his duty, he
said, to obtain peace, even at the risk of his own life. If they killed
him, he would die a martyr: if not, peace being secured, he would take
the Dauphin's men and go fight the English. Then they should see which
was the better man, Hannotin (Jack) of Flanders or Henry of England.
On the tenth of September (1419), he reached Montereau, and the long
crooked bridge spanning the broad Seine. Over the bridge the Orleanists
had built a roof, transforming it into a long gallery: in the centre, a
lodge of rough planks, a narrow door on either side. This was the place
of rendezvous, where the Dauphin awaited his visitor. The Burgundian
retainers disliked the look of it, and besought their master not to set
foot on the bridge. Let the Dauphin meet him on dry land, they said, not
on a crazy bridge over deep water. The Duke, partly of his own bold
will, partly through the wiles of a treacherous woman set on by his
enemies, laughed at their entreaties; entered the bridge as gayly as he
had entered that Paris street, hardly wider than this footway, where he
had looked on at the murder of Louis of Orleans, twelve years before.
"Here is the man I trust!" he said, and clapped the shoulder of Tanneguy
Duchâtel, who had come to lead him into the trap. Ten minutes later, and
he was lying as Orleans had lain, hacked in pieces, while the
Orleanists exulted over his body as he had done over that of their
leader.
I do not know that there is much to choose between these two murders, or
that we need greatly sorrow for either victim. Probably neither
gentleman would be at large, had he lived in our time.
And now Henry of Monmouth was king indeed. A few months, and the Treaty
of Troyes was signed, and Henry entered Paris in triumph, riding between
King Charles (who whispered and muttered and knew little about the
matter) and the new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, son of the
murdered man. To that ill-omened Palace of St. Paul they rode, and there
lodged together for a while. Henry's banner bore the device of a fox's
brush, "in which," says Monstrelêt, the chronicler, "the wise noted many
things." Henry had long been a hunter of the fox; now he came to hunt
the French. Paris, still torn and bleeding from the wounds of opposing
factions, welcomed anything that looked like peace with power; justice
was not looked for in those days. Yet it was in the name of Justice
that the two kings, sitting side by side on the same throne, heard the
solemn appeal of Philip of Burgundy and his mother for judgment upon the
murderers of John the Fearless. They demanded that the _soi-disant_
Dauphin, Duchâtel and the other assassins of the Duke, in garb of
penance and torch in hand, should be dragged in tumbrils round the city,
in token of their shame and their repentance. The Estates of the Realm,
summoned in haste, and the University of Paris, supported the demand;
the two kings agreed to it. Nothing was needed save the culprits
themselves, but they were not forthcoming. Appear before King and
Parliament to receive his just doom? The Dauphin thanked them! If the
King of England could play the hunter, Charles of Valois could play the
fox; _et voilà tout_! "I appeal," said the Dauphin, "to the sharp end of
my sword!" Thereupon he was denounced as a treacherous assassin, to be
deprived of all rights to the Crown and of all property. The
confiscation extended to his followers, and to all the Armagnac party,
living or dead; and the good citizens of Paris, fleeced to the bare
skin, helped themselves as best they might from the possessions of the
outlawed Prince and his recreant nobles.
The Palace of St. Paul saw in those days the soldier-wooing of Henry V.
and his wedding to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI.:
saw, two years later, the death of Charles himself, who faded out of
life some two months after his great conqueror; later still, in one of
its obscure chambers, neglected and despairing, the death of Isabel of
Bavaria. After that it saw little of note, for people avoided it; it was
an unlucky place, haunted forever by those twin shadows of Madness and
Terror. Gradually it crumbled, passed finally into the dimness of
forgotten things. To-day no stone of it stands upon another.