PICTURES OF THE OLD FRENCH COURT
[Illustration: AMBOISE.]
Pictures of the
Old French Court
Jeanne de Bourbon
Isabeau de Bavière
Anne de Bretagne
By
Catherine Bearne
_Author of_
“Lives and Times of the Early Valois Queens”
_ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD H. BEARNE FROM ANCIENT
PRINTS, ORIGINAL DRAWINGS, &c._
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
1900
PREFACE
In a former book I endeavoured, from information gathered out of the
records of the first half of the fourteenth century, to give some idea
of the court and social conditions of France at that time, and also of
the first three Valois Queens, whose very existence appears unknown
to the average English reader. This was no easy matter owing to the
scarcity of details, which had to be carefully gleaned from amongst
masses of histories and chronicles of battles, sieges, conspiracies,
general councils, and other public events.
The present volume treats of the years between the latter part of the
fourteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, about which so
much more information exists that I have found it necessary to abandon,
for want of space, my intention of giving a short account of the courts
of Marie d’Anjou and Charlotte de Savoie, wives of Charles VII. and
Louis XI., who took very little part in public affairs; and to give a
much shorter account of the reign of Anne de Bretagne.
Very little has been written about Isabeau de Bavière, and much less
still concerning Jeanne de Bourbon, whereas a great deal is known of
Anne de Bretagne, the history of whose life has more than once been
related. To an interesting biography of her by Louisa Stuart Costello,
and an invaluable one by Le Roux de Lincy I am much indebted. I have,
as before, consulted many early chronicles, histories, and letters,
French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish, besides the works of
various excellent modern writers, whose names I quote. Accuracy being
of the greatest importance in books like these, I give, in reply to the
observation of a critic, that the lines I quoted referring to the siege
of Cassel are incorrect, the original of De Nangis:--
“In dicto vero castro, in regis et totius Francorum exercitus
derisum et subsannationem, in quodam eminenti loco posuerant
Flammingi quemdam gallum permaximum de tela tincta, dicentes:
‘Quando gallus iste cantabit, rex Cassellum capiet vi armorum.’
Unde et gallice in gallo scriptum erat:
‘Quand ce coq chanté aura,
Le Roy Cassel conquestera.’”[1]
I quoted these lines from the “Grandes Chroniques.”[2]
To another critic who says he has never heard of the “Grand
dictionnaire de Morèry,” and suggests that no such book exists, I
can only reply that I have it upon my shelves. It is in several
folio volumes, was published at Paris 1699, and is quoted by various
historians. It is sometimes spelt “Morèri.”
CONTENTS
_REIGN OF CHARLES V. AND JEANNE DE BOURBON._
CHAPTER I. PAGE
The House of Bourbon--Marriage of Pierre de Bourbon and Isabelle
de Valois--Birth of their children--Betrothal of Jeanne to the
Comte de Savoie--To the Dauphin Humbert--Her marriage with the
heir of France--Character of Charles--Death of Philippe VI.
--Coronation of King and Queen--Charles invested with Duchy of
Normandy--Marriage of the Queen of Spain--Pedro el Cruel--
Marriage of the Comtesse de Savoie--Death of the Duc de Bourbon
at Poitiers 1
CHAPTER II.
France after the Battle of Poitiers--The Jacquerie--The Marché de
Meaux--The Comte de Foix and the Captal de Buch--Rescue of the
Dauphine--Vengeance of the nobles 16
CHAPTER III.
Return of Charles and Jeanne to Paris--Marriage of Catherine de
Bourbon to the Comte de Harcourt--The Céléstins--The Treaty of
Bretigny--Marriage of Isabelle de France to Giovanni Visconti--
Return of the King--Death of the children of the Dauphine--The
plague--The Duchy of Burgundy 33
CHAPTER IV.
King Jean returns to England--His death--Coronation of Charles V.
and Jeanne de Bourbon--Murder of Blanche, Queen of Spain--The
Céléstine Church--The Abbey of Chelles--The King’s library--
Magnificence of the Court--Birth and death of the second Princess
Jeanne 49
CHAPTER V.
Comet--Meeting of Parliament--Marriage of the Queen’s sister--
The Louvre and its gardens--Christine de Pisan--The Dauphin
--His christening--War--French victories--Prosperity of
France--Hôtel St. Paul--Birth of Marie de France--Capture and
liberation of the Queen’s mother--Bonne, Comtesse de Savoie--
Birth of Louis and Isabelle de France--Louis, Duc de Bourbon 68
CHAPTER VI.
Illness of the Queen--Her recovery--Floods in Paris--Death of
several princesses of the royal family--Bertrand du Guesclin--
Court of Charles V. and Jeanne de Bourbon--The peers of France
--The King’s will--Betrothal of his daughters--Visit of the
Emperor--The Emperor Charles and the Duchess-dowager de Bourbon
--Birth of the Princess Catherine--Death of the Queen--Of the
Princess Isabelle--Grief of the King--His death 89
_REIGN OF CHARLES VI. and ISABEAU DE BAVIERE._
CHAPTER I.
The House of Wittelsbach--Stephan von Wittelsbach and Taddea
Visconti--Birth of Isabeau--Negotiations for her marriage--
Her journey to Brussels--The fair of Amiens--Her interview with
the King--Her wedding--Charles and Louis de France 107
CHAPTER II.
Royal Family and Court of France--Birth and death of Charles and
Jeanne de France--Dress and amusements--The Abbey of St. Denis
--Knighthood of the King of Sicily--The ball--Duchesse de
Berry--Valentine Visconti 124
CHAPTER III.
State entry of Isabeau into Paris--Magnificent fêtes--Southern
tour of Charles and Louis--Bad health of Charles--Bonne
d’Artois and Jean de Clermont--Dreadful storm--Birth of Dauphin
--Death of Blanche, Duchesse d’Orléans--Pierre de Craon and the
Constable de Clisson--Madness of the King 147
CHAPTER IV.
Tyranny of the Duchess of Burgundy--Birth of Marie de France--
The Duchesse de Berry saves La Rivière--Doctor Hassely--The
King recovers--The Masquerade--Dreadful fire--King ill--
The sorcerers--King recovers--Dr. Fréron--King ill again
--Accusations against Louis and Valentine d’Orléans--Birth of
Louis de France--Betrothal of Isabelle de France to Richard II.
of England--Their marriage--Disastrous crusade--Marriage of
Jeanne de France to Duc de Bretagne--Marie de France takes the
veil 166
CHAPTER V.
Illness of the King--Execution of the sorcerers--Birth of Jean de
France--Death of Queen Blanche de Navarre--Household of Isabeau
--Ludwig of Bavaria--Ancient Paris--The Queen’s châteaux
--Burgundy and Orléans--Henry of Lancaster--The plague--
Revolution in England--The Dauphin Charles 192
CHAPTER VI.
Courage of the young Queen of England--Death of the Dauphin--
Birth of Catherine de France--Intrigues of Louis d’Orléans, and
quarrels at Court--Return of the Queen of England--Burgundians
and Orléanists--Birth of Charles de France--Dreadful storms--
Death of Duke of Burgundy--Illness of Duc de Berry--Conduct
of Savoisy--Frère Jacques Legrand--The Princess Marie’s choice
--Accident in the forest--The King and the Dauphin--Jean
Sans-peur--The King ill--Eclipse--Royal weddings--The great
winter--Murder of Louis d’Orléans 212
CHAPTER VII.
Departure of Royal Family--Hundred Years’ War--Valentine
d’Orléans--Queen’s return to Louvre--Death of Valentine--
Forced reconciliation--Philippe de Bourgogne and Michelle de
France--Misconduct of the Duc de Bretagne--Death of Isabelle de
France--Of the Duc de Bourbon--Quarrels of the Duke and Duchess
of Aquitaine--Of the princes 242
CHAPTER VIII.
Riots led by Burgundy--The Duc d’Aquitaine’s ball--His quarrels
with Burgundy--The Comte de Charolais--The Battle of Azincourt
--Death of Louis d’Aquitaine--The Dauphin Jean--His court
--His death--Imprisonment of the Queen--Jean Sans-peur
rescues her--Enters Paris by night--Massacre of Armagnacs--
The Dauphin Charles--Murder of Jean Sans-peur--Marriage of
Catherine de France to Henry V.--Departure for England--Birth
of a son--Return to Paris--Festivities--Death of Henry V.--
Death of Charles VI.--Retirement of the Queen--Henry VI. enters
Paris--Treaty of Arras--Death of Isabeau 260
Marie D’Anjou, wife of Charles VII.; Charlotte de Savoie, wife of
Louis XI. 299
_REIGN OF ANNE DE BRETAGNE, WIFE OF CHARLES VIII. and LOUIS XII._
CHAPTER I.
Birth of Anne and Isabelle--Their childhood--Louis d’Orléans--
Alain d’Albret--Death of François II.--First council--French
war--Marriage ceremony--Siege of Rennes 303
CHAPTER II.
Joustes before Rennes--Death of Isabelle--Betrothal of Anne--
Marguérite of Austria--Marriage of Anne to Charles VIII.--Birth
of the Dauphin--Italian war--Return of Charles--Death of Dauphin
--Birth and death of other children--Death of Charles VIII. 316
CHAPTER III.
Despair of the Queen--Resumes duchy--Friendship with Louis XII.
--Returns to Bretagne--King’s divorce--Charlotte d’Aragon--
Marriage of Anne to Louis XII.--Italian war--Birth of Claude
de France--Splendour of the Court--Hôtel des Tournelles--The
Maids of Honour--Disasters in Italy 328
CHAPTER IV.
Ludovico Sforza--Shipbuilding--Queen’s gardens--Library--
Treasures--Dress--Betrothal of Claude de France--Archduke’s
visit--Illness of King--Maréchal de Gié--Second illness of
King--Queen in Bretagne--Second betrothal of Princess Claude 341
CHAPTER V.
Story of Anne de Graville--Illness of Claude--Court of Anne de
Bretagne--Italian war--Marriage of Marguérite d’Angoulême--
Dress and customs at Court--Birth of Renée de France--The
Prince de Chalais--The Queen ill--Birth and death of a son--
League of Cambrai--Sea-fight--Death of the Queen 353
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Amboise _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Jeanne de Bourbon 6
Meaux 25
French Noble, Fourteenth Century 56
Lady of French Court, Fourteenth Century 67
The Bastille 80
Meeting of the Queen and her Mother 86
Shield of Jeanne de Bourbon 105
Isabeau de Bavière 117
Nevers 186
The Prioress of Poissy 190
Bedroom of the Fifteenth Century 197
Old Paris 202
The Louvre, from the Hôtel de Nesle 207
Hôtel Barbette 237
Bourges 257
Man in Armour, Fifteenth Century 273
Map of English Possessions in France, 1380-1422 287
Shield of Isabeau de Bavière 298
Marie d’Anjou 299
Shield of Marie d’Anjou 300
Charlotte de Savoie 301
Shield of Charlotte de Savoie 302
Anne de Bretagne 310
Trumpeter 316
Tour d’Amboise 323
Louis XII. 330
Bourges 333
Lady of Fifteenth Century 339
Blois 342
Loches 349
Shield of Anne de Bretagne 364
PICTURES OF THE OLD FRENCH COURT
_REIGN OF CHARLES V. AND JEANNE DE BOURBON_
CHAPTER I
1332-1356
The House of Bourbon--Marriage of Pierre de Bourbon and Isabelle
de Valois--Birth of their children--Betrothal of Jeanne to the
Comte de Savoie--To the Dauphin Humbert--Her marriage with
the heir of France--Character of Charles--Death of Philippe
VI.--Coronation of King and Queen--Charles invested with
Duchy of Normandy--Marriage of the Queen of Spain--Pedro el
Cruel--Marriage of the Comtesse de Savoie--Death of the Duc de
Bourbon at Poitiers.
The royal house of Bourbon descends from Saint Louis through his sixth
son, Robert, Comte de Clermont and Sire de Bourbon. The pedigree is as
follows:--
Saint Louis.
|
Robert de France, Comte de Clermont et Sire de Bourbon.
|
Louis I., Duc de Bourbon et Comte de Clermont.
|
+-----------------------+------------------------+
| | |
Pierre I., Duc de Bourbon. Jeanne, Jacques, Comte
| _m._ Charles V. de la Marche.
| |
Louis II., Duc de Bourbon. Louis, Comte
| de Vendôme.
| |
+------+-----------+------------------+ Jean II., Comte
| | | de Vendôme.
| | | |
Jean, Louis, Other François, Comte
Duc de Bourbon. Comte de Montpensier. daughters. de Vendôme.
| | |
| | Charles, Duc
| | de Vendôme.
| +------------------------+ |
+---------------------------+ | Antoine, Duc
| | | de Vendôme et
Charles I., Duc de Bourbon. Pierre II., | Roi de Navarre.
| Duc de Bourbon | |
Jean II., Duc de Bourbon. et | Henri IV.
| Sire de Beaujeu. |
LOUIS, COMTE DE CLERMONT. | |
| |
| |
| |
SUSANNE, DUCHESSE DE BOURBON, |
_m._ |
her cousin, Charles, Constable de Bourbon,
descended from LOUIS, COUNT DE MONTPENSIER.
{1335}
Jeanne de Bourbon was the great-granddaughter of Saint Louis. Her
father was Pierre, Duc de Bourbon, and her mother Isabelle, one of
the younger daughters of Charles, Comte de Valois.[3] Their eldest
daughter, Jeanne, was born February 3, 1335, and within a year or so of
each other their second daughter, Blanche, and their son Louis.[4] The
other daughters were Bonne, Catherine, Marguérite, Isabelle (?), and
Marie.[5]
The Duchesse de Bourbon being a half-sister of Philippe, and her
husband one of his favourite companions, they spent most of their time
and money also, at Paris, Vincennes, and the other royal palaces in the
gay, brilliant days when first the Valois came to the throne.
Jeanne was born at Vincennes, and passed her childhood at that
magnificent court over which she was so early chosen to reign. She was
betrothed at six years old to Amadeo VI. (afterwards called the Green
Count) of Savoy.[6] With the state and splendour that surrounded her
earliest years were mingled those national calamities which had already
begun to cast their shadow over the kingdom of France.
{1346}
The Hundred Years’ War had broken out soon after her birth. The
disastrous sea-fight ending in the total destruction of the French
navy, took place in 1338.
Taxes were high; there had been bad harvests, bringing famine and
pestilence. France was already less prosperous than she had been under
the Capétiens kings.
The terrors and troubles of the English war must have left a deep
impression on the imagination of the gentle child, who seems to have
been remarkable for her beauty and sweetness of disposition. She was
between nine and ten years old at the time when the English host lay
encamped near Paris, when gates and walls were strictly guarded and men
were arming in haste, while fugitives poured into Paris all day, and
the nights were illumined with flames of burning castles and villages.
Her father was in the battle of Crécy, but returned in safety, and not
long afterwards her little sister Bonne was married to the younger
son of the Duc de Brabant. The Princess Joan, eldest daughter of the
Duc de Normandie, was married on the same day to the elder son of the
Duc de Brabant, by the desire of the King, who wrote orders that his
granddaughter and niece should be ready on a certain day to meet the
two boys who were to be their husbands. The ceremony took place, but
both the boys died a little later of the plague. Joan afterwards became
Queen of Navarre, and Bonne Countess of Savoy.
{1348}
The Duchesse de Bourbon and her children must have left Paris and
returned to their home in the Bourbonnais, for the Duke wrote there
from Paris on July 22, 1348, to announce to his eldest daughter, whose
engagement to the Comte de Savoie had been broken off, that her uncle,
Gui, Comte de Forez, had brought proposals of marriage for her from
Humbert, Dauphin du Viennois, which he had accepted. But the plague was
then raging all over the Lyonnais, so that it was out of the question
to run the risk of travelling at that time. The Duke therefore induced
the Dauphin to consent to the marriage being deferred for the present.
Humbert was scarcely a suitable husband for Jeanne, who was then eleven
years old, while he was a widower, whose only son had lost his life by
falling from his arms out of a balcony, as he was playing with him.
The shock of this accident and the loss of his heir had cast a gloom
over the life of the Dauphin, and when a second time the Duc de Bourbon
sought to delay the arrangements for the marriage, he replied that in
that case he considered himself free from all engagements. The Duc
de Bourbon, on hearing this, went to meet the Dauphin, and after an
interview between the two princes the negotiations were resumed, in
January, 1349, and the middle of February following was fixed upon for
their fulfilment. But whether the desire to quit the world and seek
the consolations of religion in the retirement of the cloister had
already taken strong hold upon his mind, or whether the secret ambition
and intrigues of the French court had any influence on the matter,
it was suddenly given out that the Dauphin had decided to renounce
the world and enter the order of St. Dominic, and had arranged for
the immediate cession of his estates to the King’s grandson, Charles,
eldest son of the Duke of Normandy. Humbert, the last prince of the
house of La Tour du Pin, had already, by treaties passed in 1343 and
1344, promised the Viennois, afterwards known as Dauphiné, to Philippe,
younger son of Philippe VI. Then the young Philippe had been made Duc
d’Orléans instead, and the province was to go to Jean, but at last it
was given to the heir of the Duke of Normandy, and from this time forth
that province, with the title of Dauphin, was the inheritance of the
eldest sons of France. To the Duc de Bourbon the King offered, instead
of Humbert de la Tour du Pin, his own grandson, for a son-in-law; an
exchange with which it is needless to say the Duke was well content.
The treaty was signed at Lyon in July, 1349.
[Illustration: Jeanne de Bourbon]
So Jeanne was, after all, to be Dauphine, but her husband, instead of
a widower old enough to be her father, was to be a young prince of her
own age and the future King of France.
{1350}
They were married at Vincennes in the following year, on the 8th of
April, 1350, both of them being about thirteen or fourteen years old.
Of course they were not strangers to each other, for they were cousins,
and had both been brought up at the court of their grandfather and
uncle in Paris, and at that ancient castle in the deep shade of the
forest, where generations of the children of France[7] had been born,
had played in childhood, grown to manhood or womanhood, ruled, loved,
suffered and died. The love of the forest and of all beauty in nature
and art lay deep in the heart of the young Dauphin, who in no way
resembled his father or grandfather. That Philippe and Jean de Valois,
the chivalrous King of Bohemia or the warlike Princes of Burgundy
should have had such a descendant would surely have seemed impossible
at that time and with those surroundings.
Charles had neither inherited the striking beauty nor the martial
tastes of the Valois. He was a quiet, delicate lad, tall, pale,
dark-eyed and rather timid. He cared very little for riding, and not at
all for war and warlike pastimes, but delighted in study and literary
pursuits. And he adored the Dauphine, whose bright beauty and charming
character made her the idol of the court and country. The children had
been attached to one another from the first, and as they grew older
Charles, both as Dauphin and King, ever turned for sympathy, counsel,
or consolation to Jeanne, whom he called “the light of his eyes and the
sunshine of the kingdom.”
The plague had now abated, and people were beginning to recover from
the fear and depression in which they had lately been living. The
royal family had suffered severely. The Dauphin had lost his mother
and grandmother; the two little princesses, sisters of himself and the
Dauphine, were widows; the Queen of Navarre, whose daughter Blanche the
King had just married, was also among the victims of the pestilence.
However, for the present the plague was over, and those who had escaped
now breathed freely and tried to console themselves in different ways
for the calamities of the last two years. The Duke of Normandy was
married just after his father to the widowed Comtesse d’Auvergne; there
were _fêtes_ again at court, and things seemed to be returning to their
usual state. The death of Philippe VI. came as a sudden shock in the
midst of the general rejoicing; but then followed the coronation of the
new King and Queen, which was celebrated with great magnificence. On
the same day the King knighted his two eldest sons, the Dauphin, and
Louis, afterwards Duc d’Anjou, his brother Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, his
stepson Philippe, Duc de Bourgogne, his cousins the Comtes d’Alençon
and d’Etampes, and other young nobles. The King and Queen left Reims on
Monday evening and journeyed by Laon, Soissons, and Senlis to Paris,
which they entered in state on Sunday, the 17th October, after vespers.
The town was _encourtinée_, or hung with costly stuffs, the artisans
were dressed each in the costume of their own trade, the citizens of
the town in costumes like each other, the Lombards who lived in the
city all wore long parti-coloured silk robes, and on their heads tall,
pointed hats, parti-coloured like their dresses. “And they followed
after each other as was ordered, some on horseback and some on foot,
and before them went those playing music, to meet the King, who entered
Paris with great joy.”[8]
{1352}
The court remained at Paris till the feast of St. Martin in the winter,
the time being spent partly in festivities and partly in business
connected with parliament. On the accession of a new King all the
judicial officers had to be re-invested[9] or they were _désappointés_;
a word which became obsolete in French, was adopted by the English,
and from them has been re-adopted by the French, but with a different
signification.
“In 1352, on Monday the vigil of the Conception,” says the Monk of
Saint Denis, “the King gave the duchy of Normandy to Monseigneur
Charles, his eldest son, Dauphin de Vienne et Comte de Poitiers, and
on the next day, Tuesday, the day of the feast of the Conception
beforesaid, Monseigneur Charles did him homage for it, at the hostel
of Maistre Martin de Mello, canon of Paris, of the cloister of Notre
Dame.”
After which the Prince always called himself Duc de Normandie, greatly
preferring the title to that of Dauphin.
The Dauphin and Dauphine lived chiefly at Vivier-en-Brie, a castle
in the midst of the woods not far from Vincennes. This château had
been given to the father of the Dauphin, now King, when he married
his mother, Bonne de Luxembourg, by his grandfather, Philippe VI.
Here the Dauphin afterwards founded a chantry or chapel with fourteen
ecclesiastics to chant the offices and give opportunity to the officers
who followed the court to perform their devotions.
Jean, who had been at war with the Spaniards, considering the constant
strife which, with short intervals of imperfectly observed truce, was
always going on between France and England, was naturally anxious to
conclude a peace with the King of Spain, whose subjects were extremely
desirous that he should marry a French princess. In 1352 a treaty
was arranged between the two countries, in which this was one of the
clauses; and it was decided that one of the daughters of the Duc de
Bourbon should be selected. Nieces of the late King of France and
sisters of the future Queen of that country, one of them would be a
suitable wife for their young King. With some difficulty they induced
him to consent, and a Spanish embassy was despatched to France to
conclude the alliance.
The character of Pedro the Cruel was notorious, even for the lawless
times in which he lived. His early friend the King of Navarre, though
by no means scrupulous, afterwards abandoned his alliance in disgust;
and although at this time he was not more than twenty years old, his
crimes had already given him a reputation of which the Duc de Bourbon
must have known quite well. But the King of France had set his heart
upon this alliance, and had promised to give a dowry of three hundred
thousand florins. Pedro was to settle various castles, towns, and
estates upon the Princess, and the Duke, whose eldest daughter was
to be Queen of France, was well contented to see the second Queen
of Spain. For it was upon the Princess Blanche that the choice had
fallen. As long as one of his girls wore the crown of Spain, the Duke
did not care which it might be. He introduced the ambassador into the
room where they all were, so that he might choose.[10] And as Blanche,
the eldest next to the Dauphine of France, seemed to him the most
beautiful, he fixed upon her; and the marriage took place during the
summer of that year.
Various entries appear among the accounts of the royal expenses for
splendid presents and rich dresses purchased “for the marriage of her
Majesty the Queen of Spain.” Blanche, then about fourteen or fifteen
years old, went to Valladolid to meet her husband. She is said by
contemporary historians to have been beautiful, gentle, and attractive,
notwithstanding which her fate was one of the most tragic that ever
befel a woman sacrificed to political expediency. The destinies of
the French princesses who have married Kings of Spain have always
seemed tinged with melancholy and gloom. The intolerable rigour of that
etiquette which reduced the lives of the Spanish queens to a dignified
slavery, the cruelty of the national amusements, the jealous tyranny
and bigotry of many of the kings, must surely have made these young
girls look back with regret and longing to the gay court and “_plaisant
pays de France_.” Even when, as in other cases, the King, however
bigoted, morose, or relentless in general, was really fond of his wife,
the life of a Queen of Spain can scarcely have been a very cheerful one.
But Blanche de Bourbon was more than usually unfortunate. Pedro, who
came to the throne before he was sixteen, began by putting to death
various Spanish nobles and gentlemen, and also Eleanor de Guzman, his
late father’s mistress, by whom that King had had several sons, and for
whom the Queen and her son, the present King, had been slighted and
neglected. He also murdered two or three of his natural brothers, and
it was by the hand of one of those who escaped from his power that he
met the due reward of his crimes.
The Queen-mother had urged Pedro to revenge her wrongs and his own
upon Eleanor de Guzman; but when he began not only to imitate but far
to surpass the faults of his father, by taking a Jewess named Maria de
Padilla for his mistress, deserting his young wife three days after
their marriage and keeping her a prisoner, his mother offered the most
strenuous opposition to his conduct and warmly espoused the cause of
the young Queen, her daughter-in-law. It was of no avail, however.
Blanche was doomed to wear out her youth in captivity, in one Spanish
castle after another, while Pedro carried on intrigues with various
women, but remained chiefly under the influence of Maria de Padilla.
{1355}
The cause of this iniquity has never been certainly known. Whether
Pedro, having allowed himself to be persuaded into this marriage
against his will, afterwards regretted it and took this way of
revenging himself; whether he was, as it has been said actuated by an
insane and perfectly groundless jealousy of his younger brother Don
Federico, one of the sons of Eleanor de Guzman, whom he had sent to
meet Blanche, and whom in a furious rage he stabbed to the heart; or
whether it was simply owing to the baneful influence of his Jewish
mistress, must remain doubtful. But the story of Blanche de Bourbon
will always be considered one of the most pathetic tragedies which
history records.
Her sisters were more fortunate. Bonne, the third daughter of the Duc
de Bourbon, who had been married when almost a baby to the younger son
of the Duc de Brabant and had shortly afterwards become a widow, was
married in 1355 to Amadeo VI., Comte de Savoie, then about twenty-two
years old. He had been betrothed to Jeanne de Bourgogne sister of
the last Capétien Duke, Philippe de Navarre and then to Jeanne de
Bourbon, now Dauphine elder sister of Bonne. At ten years old he had
succeeded his father, Aimon,[11] brother of that Comte de Savoie who
married Blanche de Bourgogne and left no heirs male. Amadeo VI. was
one of the greatest princes of his day, both as warrior and statesman.
Bonne de Bourbon, Comtesse de Savoie, was, says an ancient writer, “an
ornament to her century, and her goodness caused her to be admired on
all occasions.” The wedding was celebrated at Paris in August, and the
young Countess set off for Savoy, where she reigned for many years in
prosperity and honour. Her life was chequered with many sorrows and
also beset by many difficulties, which she surmounted with courage and
capacity. As Regent of Savoy during the latter part of her life, she
was held in high esteem. She died in the Château de Mâcon in 1402.
{1356}
In September, 1356, came the disastrous battle of Poitiers. To Jeanne,
as to everybody else in France, that must have been a time of fearful
anxiety and suspense. Those nearest and dearest to her were with the
army; and although the sight of the gallant host that followed the King
in such splendid array to meet the enemy might well have filled the
hearts of those they left behind with pride and confidence, there was
still the remembrance of the time when Paris had waited in breathless
expectation for news of Philippe de Valois and his chivalrous army
while those who were not prisoners or scattered over the land lay dead
on the field of Crécy.
And when tidings came of a defeat more terrible than the former--of the
fall of the oriflamme, of the capture of the King and his youngest son
by an enemy so inferior in numbers, Jeanne also heard of her father’s
death on the field of battle.
Pierre, Duc de Bourbon, had died like a brave soldier by the side of
the King, whom he shielded from the blows aimed at him. But he had
disregarded the commands of the Church, issued at the persuasion of his
creditors, that he should pay his debts, and was therefore considered
as an excommunicated person, to whom no one dared give Christian burial
without permission.
His son and successor, Louis II., undertook to satisfy all claims, and
his body was then removed from the convent of the Jacobins at Poitiers,
where it had been carried after the battle, to that of the same
religious order at Paris.
There the Duc de Bourbon was buried near his father, and his lands and
honours passed to his son, known to history as “the good Duke, Louis de
Bourbon.”
CHAPTER II
1356-1358
France after the battle of Poitiers--The Jacquerie--The Marché de
Meaux--The Comte de Foix and the Captal de Buch--Rescue of the
Dauphine--Vengeance of the nobles.
The captivity of the King and the flight of the Queen, who took
refuge with her two children in her son’s duchy of Burgundy, placed
Charles and Jeanne at the head of the court and kingdom. The Dauphin,
or, as he preferred to call himself, the Duc de Normandie, assumed
the government, and, in consideration of his youth, a council was
appointed to assist him. Confusion and dismay had taken possession
of the country. The three estates were convoked to deliberate on the
means to be adopted to provide the ransom of the King. They sat for
a fortnight in the hôtel of the _Frères Mineurs_,[12] but Etienne
Marcel, at the head of a strong party, demanded the redress of various
grievances, and amongst others the immediate release of the King of
Navarre, then imprisoned at Arleux. No conclusion, however, was arrived
at; the estates were dissolved and Charles summoned the three estates
of the Languedoc, or southern part of France, but without much more
success.[13] In December he went to Metz to see his uncle, the son of
the King of Bohemia, now the Emperor Charles IV., to take counsel with
him; leaving his brother Louis lieutenant at Paris in his place.
{1357}
Charles IV. had been brought up in the court of Philippe de Valois;
his sister, Bonne, had been the first wife of Jean, and he regarded
the Valois family with strong affection. But he was too much like them
to be of any use as an adviser, although he is said to have reproached
his nephew with having, at this time of general distress, ordered for
himself a new and splendid crown of gold. He, and probably the Duchesse
de Normandie, spent Christmas with their uncle amidst a succession of
_fêtes_, and returned to Paris towards the end of January to find the
discontent of the people increased; which was not surprising, for there
had been a still further depreciation of the coin of the realm; the
seigneurs and knights who had been taken prisoners at Poitiers were
returning in crowds to collect their ransoms, which were enormously
heavy, and as the Jews and Lombards had been banished they could not
borrow money on usury from them, as they might otherwise have done,
so that there was no way of getting it but to wring it out of the
peasants. As there was scarcely a family that had not at least one
member a prisoner, a system of universal extortion was going on. They
seized the property of their vassals and in many cases endeavoured, by
imprisonment and other cruelty, to force them to give up any money they
supposed them to have concealed,[14] in order that it might be sent to
the English to buy back those, many of whom they did not at all wish to
see.
And they were profoundly irritated by this new misfortune. At Crécy,
at any rate, they grumbled, every one had fought bravely and done
their best; no shadow of dishonour had rested on the lilies of France.
The nobles might have been proud and extortionate, but in the hour of
danger they did not flinch. They lay in heaps on the field of battle,
and a life of extravagance and dissipation was redeemed by a hero’s
death.
But now there were suspicions of panic; there had been confusion and
mismanagement, and there appeared to be an extraordinary number of
prisoners. The early flight of four out of the five young princes
also displeased the people, who now began to despise the nobles whom
hitherto they had only feared and hated. And whereas it had formerly
been the custom for them to serve the King in time of war at their own
cost and without pay, they had, in the reign of Philippe de Valois,
begun to demand money while in the field, and the sums granted by
Philippe had to be increased by Jean just at the time when they seemed
to be least deserved.
The Hundred Years’ War between France and England in the fourteenth
century was destructive to the prosperity and civilisation which, in
spite of many drawbacks, had characterised the thirteenth. There could
be no liberty while the country was full of armed bands led by powerful
barons; agriculture was not likely to flourish in such a state of
things as has been described; the nobles had no leisure to encourage
or interest themselves in literary pursuits while their whole lives
were spent in warfare. It was in the monasteries that learning was
chiefly cultivated and protected, but many of those great religious
establishments in the country, though always possessing some sort of
fortification, had been sacked and burned by brigands, and others
deserted by their inhabitants, who no longer found that security which
the cloister had formerly afforded. The towns had become less free,
and many of them had lost the liberties and privileges accorded them
by the Capétiens Kings. For the Valois and their followers held the
traders and unwarlike citizens in the deepest contempt, and so, as time
went on, grew and strengthened a bitter hatred of the lower classes
for those of gentle blood, making men the deadly enemies of their
own countrymen and causing national calamities far more dreadful and
disgraceful than any brought about by foreign invaders.
In other countries nobles and people, united in their sentiments and
aspirations, developed in peaceful and harmonious progress to the
accomplishment of their destinies;[15] whilst in France the deplorable
separation that began in the fourteenth century caused the frightful
excesses of the Jacquerie, and having produced the Reign of Terror in
the days of our great-grandfathers and the Commune in our own, is
still so fatal an injury to the power, stability, and prestige of the
French nation.
{1358}
The first child of the Duke and Duchess of Normandy was born in
September of this year (1357), a daughter, named Jeanne.
It was on the 28th of May, 1358,[16] that the Jacquerie, or rising
of the peasants, broke out at the little town of Saint-Leu, where a
number of labourers, joined by small tradesmen, artisans, and other
persons of the lower classes, assembled in revolt; and having murdered
nine gentlemen who happened to be in the town, spread themselves over
the surrounding country, putting to death every man, woman, and child
of good blood who came in their way, and plundering and burning the
châteaux. They attacked the villages at each end of the forest of
Ermenonville, and went to the castle of Beaumont-sur-Oise, where the
Duchesse d’Orléans then was. Warned just in time of the approach of the
murderers, she fled for her life, was out of the castle before they
arrived and set it on fire, and escaped to Meaux, a town on the Marne,
where the Duchess of Normandy, the Princess Isabelle de France and more
than three hundred ladies had taken refuge, some having escaped in
their nightdresses without having had time to dress themselves.
The rebellion spread rapidly over Picardy, Champagne, and the
Ile-de-France, and the horrors of it have never been equalled in
any Christian country. It was like a revolt of savages. Hordes of
bloodthirsty miscreants went about burning castles, murdering and
torturing men, women, and children. None who fell into their power
might escape dishonour and death; any village refusing to join them was
exposed to their vengeance.
A band of three thousand Jacques having just destroyed the Château
de Poix, were marching on Aumale when they met a hundred and twenty
Norman and Picards men-at-arms, led by Guillaume de Picquigny. The
latter came forward to parley with them but was treacherously slain by
one Jean Petit Cardaine. His followers fell upon the Jacques, killed
two thousand of them, and put the remainder to flight. The Jacques
had cause to repent of this murder, for Guillaume de Picquigny was a
relation of that Jean de Picquigny who delivered the King of Navarre
from Arleux. And Charles of Navarre, who was always ready to protect
his friends and punish his enemies, took ample vengeance for his death.
The Château d’Ermenonville belonged to Robert de Lorris, who had risen
from humble life in the village from which he took his name. It is a
mistaken notion that in the middle ages people could not and did not
rise from the ranks to the highest social position. It was, of course,
less frequent than in our own days, but in the fourteenth century there
were hundreds of cases of the kind, both ecclesiastic and secular.[17]
Robert de Lorris was one of them. He was a great authority on French
law, and a favourite both of Philippe de Valois and Jean, by whom
he had been ennobled, made Chamberlain, Vicomte de Montreuil, and
Seigneur d’Ermenonville. The Jacques besieged, took, and plundered the
Château d’Ermenonville, and the chamberlain only saved his own life and
those of his wife and children by renouncing his nobility and declaring
himself one of the people.
The atrocities of the Jacquerie did not, fortunately, extend over the
whole of France. An attempt was made to produce an insurrection at Caen
by one Pierre de Montfort, who paraded the streets with the model of
a plough in his hat, proclaiming himself a Jacque, and calling on the
people to follow him. This, luckily for themselves, they had too much
sense to do, and Pierre de Montfort was soon afterwards slain by three
burghers whom he had insulted.[18]
The rebellion was worst about Amiens, Compiègne, Senlis, Beauvais, and
Soissons. The Jacques made an attack upon Compiègne, but were repulsed
by the inhabitants and some nobles who had taken refuge in the town.
The atrocities committed all over that part of the country which
was the scene of the revolt were too frightful to relate. Hundreds
of castles were burnt, an immense amount of property destroyed, and
numbers of men, women, and children tortured, dishonoured, and slain.
The leader of the Jacques, Guillaume Cale, is said to have disapproved
of the most horrible of the excesses of his followers, but to have been
unable to restrain them. And Etienne Marcel, with many of the bourgeois
of his party, encouraged and gave assistance to these miscreants,
though forbidding the murder of women and children, which of course he
was powerless to prevent. But a letter of remission given subsequently
to one Jaquin de Chennevières expressly declares that he had orders
from the Prévôt to burn and destroy the châteaux of Beaumont-sur-Oise,
Bethemont, Javerny, Montmorency, Enghien, Chaton, and all the houses
and fortresses of the nobles between the Seine and the Oise, from
Chaton to Beaumont.[19]
And whatever may be our opinion of the policy of the celebrated Prévôt
des Marchands, the murder of the Marshals of Normandy and Champagne
(which had already taken place in the presence of the Dauphin) and the
assistance he rendered to these wretches are stains which neither good
intentions nor expediency can excuse.
Jeanne meanwhile, and her companions, were in the most awful peril. The
smaller bourgeoisie, as a rule, hated the gentlemen and sympathised
with the Jacques. The Mayor of Meaux, Jean Soulas, was on their side.
The gentlemen with them were few in number, the Jacques were coming,
and the Duc de Normandie had, a short time before, taken sudden
possession of the Marché de Meaux, to the great discontent of the
inhabitants of that town. The Mayor had even had the insolence to say
to the Comte de Joigny, whom the Duke had sent to perform this duty,
that if he had known what he came for he should never have set foot in
the place. Informed of this insubordination the Regent had reprimanded
and fined the Mayor, which only increased his hostility. However,
he and the principal officials and burghers had sworn to be faithful
to the Regent, and not to allow anything to be done to injure him,
and Charles had left Meaux some time in May, leaving his wife and
the rest of the ladies in the Marché with a much smaller garrison to
protect them than he would have done had he realised the treachery and
disloyalty of Soulas and his friends. The Duc d’Orléans was there, the
Bègue de Vilaine, the Sires de Trocy and Revel, Héron de Mail, Philippe
d’Aulnoy, Regnaud d’Arcy, and Louis de Chambly called Le Borgne.
Scarcely had the Regent quitted Meaux when discord and strife broke out
between the inhabitants, led by the Mayor, and the nobles shut up in
the Marché. The exasperated bourgeois laid siege to the fortress and
sent to Paris to ask for assistance, at the same time summoning all the
peasants in the neighbourhood to join them in attacking the Marché.[20]
They were not slow in answering to the invitation. From all parts of
the country round they came swarming to Meaux. The Prévôt des Marchands
had responded to their appeal by sending Pierre Gilles, a grocer of
Paris and one of the leaders of the insurrection, with a body of armed
men from Paris to Meaux. He knew the Regent was absent and the garrison
weak, and thought the Marché would fall into their hands by assault.
Pierre Gilles and his troop burned all the châteaux on their way, and
forced the inhabitants of the villages through which they passed to
join them.
[Illustration: MEAUX.]
The Mayor and burghers threw open the gates, and about nine thousand
furious ruffians, armed with scythes, pitchforks, and knives, rushed
into the town.
The towns people received them with open arms, supplied them with
abundance of food and wine, which excited them to still greater
ferocity, and joined in the tumult of fearful shouts and cries as
the bloodthirsty savages swarmed through the streets looking up with
murderous eyes to the towers and walls of the Marché.
Now the Marché de Meaux was on an island formed by the Marne, which
flowed on one side of it, and a canal that went round it, coming out
of the river on one side of the Marché and going back into it on the
other. On the side of Meaux there was a bridge over the Marne from the
Marché to the town, and on the opposite side of the Marché another
bridge, across the canal to the other shore. Most fortunately, the
Dauphin had recently caused the island to be strongly fortified, and
his having done so now saved his wife and sister from a horrible
death. All round the Marché were high strong walls and towers. Trees
could be seen above the parapet inside, and the ground rose high in
the middle. It was a strong place, but they were so few to defend it
against the furious hordes outside. In it were the young Dauphine, the
Princess Isabelle de France, daughter of the King, then about ten or
eleven years old; Blanche de France, Duchesse d’Orléans, who had just
escaped from Beaumont-sur-Oise; and, as was before said, at least three
hundred women, girls, and children of the noblest families in France.
The gates were closed, the walls guarded as well as could be done with
their few defenders, but the position grew every moment more alarming.
The streets were crowded to overflowing with these bloodthirsty
wretches, and all down them were spread tables with bread, meat and
wine for their refreshment. All over the town they were thronging
and feasting, while their horrible cries and brutal threats rose to
the ears of the besieged women and children who waited in terror and
despair, all hope of deliverance seeming to be at an end.
The fortress was always attacked from the town side, and from this
direction, when the Jacques had finished feasting, the assault would
certainly come.
But the Marché was fortunately not surrounded by the town. On the other
side, across the canal, lay the open country of Brie. And suddenly
a troop of men in armour was seen approaching at full speed. It was
Gaston, Comte de Foix, and Jean de Grailly, Captal de Buch, two of
the most famous soldiers in France, with about sixty lances, who rode
under the gateway into the beleaguered fortress, and were received with
acclamations by those within its walls. The troop was a small one, but
a few tried soldiers under such leaders counted for more than hundreds
of the rabble outside, and the Dauphine and her companions must have
felt that they were saved.
Having no particular fighting to do just then, the two knights had
employed their leisure in an expedition against some heathen tribes
still to be found in Prussia; and on their way back, passing through
Châlons, had heard of what was going on at Meaux and of the perilous
position of the ladies shut up in the Marché. The Comte de Foix was
brother-in-law of the King of Navarre; and the Captal de Buch, a Gascon
gentleman, was a subject and follower of King Edward of England.
Etienne Marcel, on the other hand, was a strong partisan of Charles of
Navarre. But the project of the bourgeois prévôt to throw the wives
and children of French gentlemen into the power of a mob of brutal
savages was not likely to recommend itself to the two knights, who
at once turned their horses’ heads towards Meaux, and pushed on with
desperate haste to save the Marché before it fell. The white banner
still floated from its walls,[21] but they were only just in time.
The Jacques, having done feasting, now ranged themselves in order of
battle, and in immense numbers, with frightful yells, pressed towards
the Marché and began the attack. The shrieks of the terrified women and
children mingled with the tumult outside,[22] but Jean de Grailly and
Gaston de Foix ordered the gate on the side of the town to be thrown
open. Then, raising the pennon of the Captal and the banners of Orléans
and Foix, they rushed out and fell upon the enemy. Down to the bridge
they rode, over which was thronging a multitude like ferocious wild
beasts. But before the charge of the knights the Jacques went down in
heaps; those behind them hesitated, then drew back and fled before the
cavaliers, who pursued them with levelled lances and drawn swords
through the streets of the town. Several of the nobles were killed,
amongst others Louis de Chambly, called Le Borgne, but thousands of the
Jacques were slain. Many of the citizens of Meaux were killed in the
battle that raged all over the city; the rest were carried prisoners
to the citadel. Jean Soulas, the traitorous mayor, was taken during
the fighting and hanged when it was over. The nobles then set fire
to the town, which was burning for a fortnight. The royal château,
with many houses and churches, perished in the flames. Froissart says
that seven thousand Jacques were killed. The inhabitants of Meaux,
“for their detestable deed,” were declared guilty of high treason,
and the town condemned to be and for ever remain uninhabited. The
Regent, in consideration of the Dean and Chapter of Meaux, and at the
petition of some other towns who interceded with him on behalf of the
place, afterwards remitted this sentence. But the commune of Meaux was
suppressed and united to the prévôté de Paris.[23]
Jeanne and her companions watched from the Marché the victory of their
friends and the destruction of their enemies, and it must soon have
been evident to them that their danger was at an end. The destruction
of the Jacques on that day, June 9, 1358, arrested the course of the
rebellion. The nobles scoured the country, putting to death all the
Jacques they could find. Learning that some of them had taken refuge
at Sens, they resolved to inflict on that city the same punishment as
on Meaux, and for that purpose a party of them, on the 13th of June,
presented themselves at the Paris gate of the town, demanding the keys
in the name of the Regent. But the inhabitants had received notice
beforehand of what was intended, and had taken measures accordingly.
Therefore, when the nobles, having been admitted, and thinking
themselves masters of the place, advanced with drawn swords and cries
of “_Ville gagnée! ville prise!_” the citizens, and even those nobles
who belonged to Sens, pushed down from the top of the street, which was
very steep, carts with scythes fastened to the wheels which they had
prepared for the purpose, while armed men issued from the houses, and
women threw stones, lime, and boiling water from the windows, by which
means some were killed and the rest escaped out of the city.
But the defeat at Meaux broke the head of the insurrection. From the
terror, the slaughter, and the discouragement of that day the Jacques
never recovered, and the finishing stroke was given by the King of
Navarre, on whose support some of them had been foolish enough to
reckon, because of his hostility to the King and Dauphin.
The gentlemen of Normandy and Picardy sent an invitation to Charles de
Navarre, who was then at his castle at Longueville, to be their leader
in this contest; he “who was the first gentleman in the world.”[24]
The King of Navarre was ready enough. He placed himself at the head of
four hundred lances, and by the time he came up with the Jacques, near
Clermont, his troop had increased to a thousand men, many of whom were
English. The Jacques were put to flight with great slaughter, and their
leader, Guillaume Cale, put to death. Some say that he was arrested by
treachery; at any rate Charles of Navarre declared that the Jacques
were furious wild beasts, with whom it was not possible to treat or
make any terms. The Regent had been in arms ever since the insurrection
had broken out, and the attack upon his wife rendered it more hateful
to him.
The Jacquerie was soon at an end; it only lasted about a month, and
when once the nobles had recovered from the surprise and shock of its
outbreak, it was put down and punished with tremendous severity. Pierre
Gilles was beheaded at the Halles on the 4th of August. He appears to
have been a man of considerable wealth, and in the inventory of his
merchandise was a large quantity of sugar in loaves and in powder from
Cairo, or, as it was called, Babylon. It came chiefly from Egypt at
that time.
That part of Champagne, Ile-de-France, and other districts which had
been the scene of these atrocities of the Jacques, was so devastated
with fire and sword that for some time it remained almost without
inhabitants.[25] The towns and villages which had taken part in the
Jacquerie were heavily fined, as may be seen by the records in the
“Trésor des Chartes.” Chavanges, for instance, was fined a thousand
gold florins.[26]
A note, tome vi. p. 117, of the “Grandes Chroniques de France,” M.
Paulin Paris, makes the following remarks and gives the following
quotation respecting the complicity of Etienne Marcel in the Jacquerie,
and the fallacious hopes in which the rebels indulged with regard to
the King of Navarre:--
“C’est que ces Marseillais du XIVme siécle avoient été bien
réellement soulevés par les anarchistes de Paris. Je demande la
permission de citer à l’appui de cette opinion la précieuse chronique
manuscrite conservée sous le No. 530, Supplément françois. A
l’occasion de l’expédition du roi de Navarre contre les Jacques, on
y lit: En ce temps assembla le roy de Navarre grans gens et ala vers
Clermont-en-Beauvoisie, et en tuêrent plus de huit cens et fist copper
la teste à leur cappitaine qui se vouloit tenir pour roy; et dient
aucuns que les Jacques s’attendoient que le roy de Navarre leur deust
aidier, pour l’alliance, qu’il avoit au prévost des marchans, par
lequel prévost la Jacquerie s’esmeut, si comme on dit.”
CHAPTER III
1358-1361
Return of Charles and Jeanne to Paris--Marriage of Catherine de
Bourbon to the Comte de Harcourt--The Céléstins--The Treaty
of Bretigny--Marriage of Isabelle de France to Giovanni
Visconti--Return of the King--Death of the children of the
Dauphine--The plague--The Duchy of Burgundy.
The Duchess of Normandy and her friends were now free, after the
horrible experience of the last few days. The enemy was destroyed,
the revolt quelled, and the town, at which they could hardly have
looked without shuddering, was half burnt down and deserted; for the
inhabitants, who had so lately been raging and clamouring for their
blood, were either slain or carried away prisoners. The Duchesse
d’Orléans, after this second narrow escape within a few days, set off
on her journey towards Paris, which was still in a disturbed state, and
in the neighbourhood of which her mother, Queen Jeanne d’Evreux, was
busy trying, as she repeatedly did, to patch up a peace between the
Duke of Normandy and the King of Navarre, who, although he hated and
put down the Jacquerie, was a friend and ally of Etienne Marcel and
had a powerful party at Paris.
The Duchess of Normandy stayed on for a short time in the fortress of
Meaux, waiting for her husband to join her.
On the 19th of July peace was concluded by the efforts of Queen Jeanne
d’Evreux, assisted by the young Queen of Navarre, sister of the Duke
of Normandy, the Archbishop of Beauvais, and two or three others. The
interview took place at Charenton on the Seine, where the Dauphin
caused a bridge of boats to be constructed for the occasion.
He then joined the Dauphine at Meaux. The danger in which Jeanne had
been and the insult involved in the attack upon her had naturally
enraged him against every one in any way connected with the revolt;
but various letters of remission to those concerned in it, on several
occasions granted to persons forced against their will to take part
in it, were signed by him about this time. Meanwhile, reports of the
diminishing strength of Etienne Marcel and his party kept arriving from
Paris; with invitations to Charles to return and take possession of the
capital.
At last came tidings of the death of the prévôt, struck down at night
as he was in the act of changing the guard and placing the keys
of Paris in the hands of the King of Navarre. His adherents were
immediately scattered, imprisoned, or slain, and the royalists sent
urgent entreaties to the Duke of Normandy, who lost no time in setting
off for Paris, which he entered on the evening of Thursday, August
2nd, amidst the acclamations of the people and the illuminations and
rejoicings prepared to welcome him.
The next day he sent a messenger to Jeanne with the news of this
successful state of affairs, directing her to join him at Paris with
the ladies of her court. When she arrived there she found the Duc de
Normandie waiting for her at the Louvre, where they took up their
abode and where for some time they lived in peace. The King was still
a prisoner, and the Regent, freed from the constant enmity of Etienne
Marcel, endeavoured to repair the misfortunes that had happened and
to get the affairs of the State somewhat into order. The truce with
England was soon to expire, but he made another treaty of peace with
the King of Navarre, and contrived to win to his side the young Comte
de Harcourt, Jean III., who, since the execution of his father by the
King of France in the affair of Rouen, had been fighting against that
country in the ranks of England and Navarre.
The Dauphin, however, succeeded in making friends with him, and
although the precedent of Charles of Navarre was not very encouraging,
he tried to attach the Comte de Harcourt to his interests by marrying
him to Catherine, one of the Dauphine’s sisters. The wedding took place
in October, at the Louvre.[27]
The favourite monastic order of Charles and Jeanne appears to have been
that of the Céléstins. It will be remembered that Saint Louis brought
from the Holy Land some Carmelites, sometimes called _Barrés_ because
of the striped robes or mantles they used at first to wear; and that in
the reign of Philippe-le-Long they sold their monastery, or rather the
ground on which it stood, to one Jacques Marcel, a citizen of Paris,
reserving to themselves all building materials, carved stones, columns,
woodwork, and tombs, with the bones of those buried therein; all to be
transported by midsummer day to the new place which had been chosen for
the larger and more convenient monastery which they now required.
But before they left their old home, the Carmelites, assisted by an
agent of the Bishop, carefully pointed out to the new owner those parts
which were consecrated ground, and Jacques Marcel, “who was a good man,
and feared God,” built two chapels upon them, just at the entrance to
the garden, and appointed and endowed two chaplains to serve them.
Jacques Marcel was buried in a tomb of black marble in one of these
chapels, and the place went to his son, Garnier Marcel, in 1320.
Now there was a young man named Robert de Jussi, who had been a novice
in the Céléstin monastery of St. Pierre, in the forest of Cuisse, not
far from Compiègne. But after he had been there a year, his parents
by their entreaties and importunity persuaded him to renounce the
monastic life and return to the world. Philippe de Valois, who was
then king, took a fancy to him, attracted by his talents, good sense,
and piety. He chose him, while still very young, to be one of his
secretaries; and so well did he serve the King and so great was the
reputation he acquired at court for his judgment and conduct, that he
remained Secretary of State and one of the most distinguished members
of Council under Philippe de Valois, Jean, and Charles V., Dauphin. But
his worldly success and prosperity did not make him forget the convent
in the forest, the holy lessons and examples of the good fathers, and
the peaceful days he had spent with them. He spoke of them to the
Dauphin, who sent for some of them to come from their monastery to
Paris in 1352, when Garnier Marcel presented them with the site of the
old Carmelite monastery which had been bought by his father; where
they established themselves. Charles both as Dauphin and King showed
unvarying kindness and affection to this brotherhood, visiting the
convent frequently, and conversing familiarly with the brethren. In
this year (1358), seeing that they were in need of help, he granted
them a purse of money from the Chancery of France, to be given yearly,
and as a proof of his friendship carried the first to them himself, and
distributed its contents with his own hands. He afterwards built them a
church, and conferred upon them many other benefits.
A curious law made at this time, which in our own days many of us would
gladly see re-established, was, that if a tailor or dressmaker spoilt
a dress, either by cutting the material badly or by ignorance, so that
by their fault it did not fit, they should pay to the owner of the said
garment whatever was the value of it, and besides that should pay a
fine of five _solz_, of which three should go to the King and two to
the confraternity.[28]
{1359}
Also that if any one made a doublet to sell, and made it of bad or
common thread or stuff, the doublet should be burnt, and the maker
should pay six _solz_ to the King and four to the confraternity.[29]
“On Sunday, the nineteenth day of May,” says the chronicler, “was made
a convocation at Paris of the church, the nobles, and the fortified
towns,[30] by letters of monseigneur the regent, to hear a certain
treaty of peace which had been proposed in England between the Kings
of France and of England. Which treaty had been brought to the regent
by Monseigneur Guillaume de Meleun, Archbishop of Sens, by the Comte
de Tanquarville, brother of the said Archbishop, by the Comte de
Dampmartin, and by Messire Arnoul d’Odenham, Marshal of France, all
prisoners of the English. On which day came few people, partly because
they had not been told soon enough of the said convocation, and also
because the roads were infested by the English and Navarrais, who
held fortresses on every road by which one could go to Paris; and also
because of the robbers who held French fortresses and were not much
better than the English. And the whole kingdom was covered (_semé_)
with them, so that one could not go about the country. The said English
and Navarrais held the castle of Meleun, the island and all the town on
the side towards Bièvre; and the part towards Brie was French. _Item_,
they held la Ferté-Soubs-Juerre, Oysseri, Nogent-l’Artaut, and at least
five or six fortresses on the river Marne; in Brie they held Becoisel
and La Houssoie. In Mucien they held Juilly, Creil, and several other
places on the river Oyse; on and about the Seine, Poissy, Meullent,
Mante, Rais; and more than a hundred others in different parts, as well
in Picardie as elsewhere. Which day of the nineteenth was continually
put off in the expectation of more people until the following Saturday,
the twenty-fifth day of the said month.
“On the which Saturday the said regent was at the palace on the marble
staircase in the court; and there, in presence of all the people,
he caused the treaty to be read by Maistre Guillaume des Dormares,
advocate of the King in parliament, by the which treaty it appeared
that the King of England asked for the duchy of Normandy, the duchy
of Guienne, the city and castle of Saintes, with all the diocese and
country; the cities of Agen, Tarbes, Pierregort, Limoges, Caours,
with all the diocese and country; the counties of Bigorre, Poitiers,
Anjou, and Maine; the city and castle of Tours, and all the diocese and
country of Touraine; the counties of Boulogne, Guines, and Pontieu;
the town of Monstrueil-sur-Mer and all the _chastellenies_; the town
of Calais and all the land of Merq, without the King of England being,
on account of the said lands, in any way subject either to the present
King of France or to his successors, but only a neighbour. And besides,
the said King of England desired to have the homage and sovereignty
of the duchy of Brittany for ever, the same as the other lands before
mentioned.
“Besides this he asked for four millions of _escus de Philippe_,
with all the lands that he held in the kingdom of France, upon such
condition that the King of France should make recompense of other lands
to all those who had anything on the said lands, by alienation made by
the Kings of France, or by those who claimed any rights transmitted
by them, since the said lands and countries belonged to the Kings of
France.
“And also required the said English to be put into possession of
the towns and castles of Rouen, Caen, Vernon, Pont-de-l’Arche,
Goulet, Gisors, Moliniaux, Arques, Gaillart, Vire, Boulogne,
Monstrueil-sur-Mer, and la Rochelle; a hundred thousand pounds sterling
and ten seigneurs for hostages on the first of August following. And
this done, he would return the King of France to his kingdom and power,
but in all manner a loyal prisoner until the above-named things were
accomplished.
“Which treaty was very displeasing to the people of France (_fu moult
deplaisant_). And after they had deliberated, they replied to the
said regent that the said treaty was neither bearable nor possible
(_n’estoit passable né faisable_); and therefore they ordered good war
to be made upon the English.
{1360}
“_Item._ Sunday, the second day of June following, it was granted to
the regent that the nobles should serve him for a month at their own
expense, each according to his estate, without counting coming nor
going. And that the impositions ordered should be paid by the fortified
towns. The clergy offered to pay the said impositions; the town of
Paris offered six hundred swords, three hundred archers, and a thousand
brigands. And it was ordered that all those who were there should
return to their towns, because they could not grant anything without
speaking to their towns, and that they should send their answers on
the Monday after Trinity. And afterwards several towns sent their
answer: but because the flat country was all spoiled by the English and
Navarrais enemies, and also by the garrisons of the French fortresses,
the said fortified towns (_bonnes villes_) could not fulfil the number
of twelve thousand swords (_glaives_) which had been granted him by the
Langue d’oc.”[31]
The Duke and Duchess of Normandy had still no son, but another
daughter, the Princess Bonne, had been born to them.
The war with England had gone on all the winter, but in the spring of
1360 new proposals of peace were made, and this time accepted. By the
treaty signed at Bretigny, May 8, 1360, King Edward renounced his claim
to the crown of France, and also to the duchy of Normandy and all the
inheritance of the Plantagenets north of the Loire. But the King of
France ceded to him, no longer as fiefs, but in absolute sovereignty,
Poitou, Aquitaine, with all the _arrière-fiefs_ appertaining to it from
the Loire to the Pyrenees, and a ransom of three millions of _écus
d’or_, to be paid in sums of four hundred thousand _écus_ annually.
Six English knights were sent to Paris by King Edward, in presence of
whom the Dauphin was to swear to the treaty in the most solemn manner.
Therefore, when Mass was sung, after the _Agnus Dei_, Charles, who was
then in the Hôtel de Sens, came out of his oratory and took the oath
before the altar. Then, from a window of the Hôtel de Sens, peace was
proclaimed by a sergeant-at-arms, “the regent went to Notre-Dame de
Paris to return thanks for the said peace, and then they chanted the
_Te Deum_, and rang the bells very solemnly.”[32]
King Edward is said to have been induced to make peace by a frightful
storm which overtook his army near Chartres, killing six thousand
horses and a thousand cavaliers, amongst whom were the heirs of Warwick
and Morley. Thinking that the anger of God was roused against him
because of the misery and devastation he was causing, he vowed to put
an end to the war.
All over the country the news spread that peace was signed, and in
spite of the hard conditions there was a general burst of rejoicing. In
the villages and towns church bells rang, thanksgivings were offered,
and festivities of all kinds went on everywhere; except in some of the
towns and provinces transferred to England, who declared that they
might yield homage to the English with their lips, but in their hearts
never.
To the Princess Isabelle de France the return of the King can have been
no subject of congratulation. She was his third daughter, her sisters
being the Queen of Navarre and Marie, afterwards Duchesse de Bar. The
fourth sister had taken the veil at Poissy, and died the year after in
early childhood (1352).
In the deplorable state of the country, it was most difficult to obtain
the money required to pay the first instalment of the King’s ransom.
Galeazzo Visconti, _Vicomte et Prince de Milan_,[33] offered to give
600,000 florins in exchange for the Princess Isabelle, whom he was
anxious to marry to his son, Giovanni. The Visconti were amongst the
richest and most powerful of the princes of Italy. They ruled over
Milan and the greater part of Lombardy. The two brothers, Galeazzo and
Bernabo, chiefs of the family, were stained with countless crimes and
cruelties. Of Giovanni nothing could be said, as he was only ten years
old. The Princess Isabelle was not quite twelve, but she seems to have
had her own ideas, and she hated this Italian marriage. It was no use.
The Visconti were eager for the alliance of the King of France, and
willing to pay for the honour. King Jean wanted the money, and had
been ready to sign the utterly ruinous treaty at first proposed and
sacrifice France to gain his own liberty; so that he was not likely to
hesitate. The French people did not like the marriage, and there was a
murmuring all over the country against the King for selling his own
blood. But the preparations were hurried on, and the Princess was sent
to Italy before the end of that summer, with a splendid _cortège_.
Villani gives an account of the magnificence of the entertainments
given in her honour at the palaces of Galeazzo and Bernabo in Milan.
He says she arrived in regal state, splendidly dressed, and received
the homage of all before her marriage, but after that, notwithstanding
her royal blood, she did reverence to Galeazzo and Bernabo and their
wives,[34] the former of whom was a Princess of Savoy.[35]
The splendid _fêtes_ went on for three days and nights in the stately
beautiful Italian palaces, which so far surpass those of other lands.
Every day there were banquets, where at the chief table dined a
thousand guests, princes, ambassadors, nobles and representatives
of the citizens. There were jousts in the _cortile_ or courtyard
of the palace of Galeazzo, ladies looking on from the windows and
_loggie_.[36] The last _fête_ was given by Bernabo.
Meanwhile the King of France, whose freedom had been bought in exchange
for his daughter, had been conducted by the Black Prince to Calais, in
the castle of which a great supper was given in his honour by King
Edward, whose sons, with the Duke of Lancaster and the chief barons of
England, served bareheaded at the table, and after two days spent at
Boulogne in religious ceremonies and festivities King Edward embarked
for England, and Jean prepared to return to Paris.
Besides the public misfortunes of this time, a great sorrow befel
the Duke and Duchess of Normandy in the death of their two little
daughters, Jeanne and Bonne, whom their mother had dedicated to God
if the King returned. The historian says God apparently accepted the
gift.[37] The eldest was about three years old. The former died October
21st at the abbey of St. Antoine des Champs, at Paris, where she had
been placed in order to be dedicated to religion, and her little sister
rather less than three weeks after her. They were both buried in the
church of that abbey, where their effigies in white marble were placed,
lying upon their black marble tomb. This grief was all the more bitter
to Charles and Jeanne as these were their only children. The chronicler
remarks of this event: “Item, on Thursday, the 11th November, were
buried the two daughters of the Duke of Normandy, at St. Antoine, near
Paris, and was present the said Duke at the funeral, very troubled,
for he had no more children.”[38] Among those chosen to go to England
with King Edward were Louis Duc d’Anjou and Jean Duc de Berry, second
and third sons of the King, to whom their father had given these two
duchies by way of compensation; Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, the King’s
brother; Louis, Duc de Bourbon; Pierre d’Alençon and Jean, brother to
the Comte d’Etampes, “_tous des fleurs-de-lis_,” says the monk of St.
Denis.
{1361}
And in December, Jean made his entry into Paris with a pomp and parade
rather unsuitable to the occasion and the manner of his return, and
again began the usual succession of court festivities and amusements
that formed the occupation of the Valois princes and those who
surrounded them. As to the peasants, as soon as the peace of Bretigny
was signed, they began to take courage and to work in the fields again.
After a long cold winter the weather seemed to have cleared up, and
they hoped for a good harvest, though the destruction of most of the
barns and farm buildings had made it difficult to find places to store
it in. The plague, too, was again increasing, not spreading regularly
from south to north as it had done in 1348, but appearing irregularly
here and there in places which had escaped before, especially in hilly
and mountainous districts where the inhabitants had hoped they were
safe from it. It attacked first the people who were already weakened
from bad food and other hardships; next those who had been suffering,
as so many were, from agitation, anxiety or sorrow; and then it began
to attack those who were free from any such disadvantages. It spread
all about, with the same symptoms as before and attended with the
same disastrous consequences. Every one was, of course, dreadfully
afraid of catching it, so that people shut themselves up, refusing
to have communication with each other; there was no one to keep order
or to do any work, and the great companies of brigands and disbanded
soldiers were all over the country. There were fifteen thousand of them
near Lyon alone. The King of England sent orders to those under his
allegiance to desist from their depredations, but they would not obey
him. The plague was very bad all the spring; seventeen thousand people
died of it at Avignon, it was raging in London and was also at Paris,
although not quite so violent there.
The Queen and her daughter, the Princess of Burgundy, had died of it in
1360, and now her son Philippe, the last Capétien Duke, fell a victim
to the same scourge.
On hearing of the death of his stepson, Jean at once claimed the
duchy. As has been already shown, the heirs male of Duke Robert II.
were now extinct; the Comtesse de Savoie, his eldest daughter, had no
heirs either; of the Duchess de Bar there could be no question, as
she had not only renounced her claims on her marriage, but was the
youngest daughter. It rested between the King of France, son of the
third daughter, Jeanne, and the King of Navarre, grandson of the second
daughter, Marguérite. To most people the claim of Charles of Navarre
must appear incontestably the right one; but it is true that instances
in favour of Jean’s pretensions were not uncommon in these days. At any
rate he seized the duchy, and on the 23rd of December entered Dijon;
took the oath, before the high altar of Saint Bénigne in presence
of the chief officials of Burgundy, to observe the constitution and
privileges of that state; and was careful to rest his claim to the
succession, not on its having lapsed to the crown, but on the right of
his mother, Jeanne de Bourgogne, speaking much of his grandfather, Duke
Robert, whose heir he declared himself to be and whose laws and system
of government he promised to follow.
The great inheritance of Burgundy was now broken up, for Artois and
the County Palatine went to Marguérite, Countess dowager of Flanders,
second daughter of Philippe-le-Long, Boulogne and Auvergne to the next
heir of Guillaume XIII., while Flanders and Hainault remained the
inheritance of the child Marguérite, widow of Philippe de Rouvre.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV
1364-1367
King Jean returns to England--His death--Coronation of Charles
V. and Jeanne de Bourbon--Murder of Blanche, Queen of
Spain--The Céléstine Church--The Abbey of Chelles--The King’s
library--Magnificence of the Court--Birth and death of the
second Princess Jeanne.
Four years had passed away: years a little less unfortunate for France,
as although Jean was still upon the throne and passed his time in
travelling about his kingdom in search of amusement instead of giving
serious attention to the affairs of the State, he allowed himself to
be much influenced by the Dauphin. He ceased to meddle with the value
of the coinage, he recalled the Jews and forbade private wars among
the nobles. There was still peace between France and England, although
English subjects were frequently to be found in the ranks of the
Navarrais who were continually at war with the French.
The country was still in a disturbed state, and infested by troops
of brigands who were always attacking the villages and châteaux. The
Seigneur de Murs, a little castle near Corbeil, was outside his gates
one day, when a party of drovers came up and complained that his
servants had taken some pigs of theirs. The seigneur invited them to
come inside the gates to see if they could identify any, but no sooner
were they over the drawbridge than they threw off their disguise, blew
a horn, drew their swords, and being joined by their companions who
rushed out of a wood close by, they seized the seigneur, his wife and
children, and taking possession of the castle, they made it for some
time a centre from which they pillaged the whole countryside.
{1364}
By the death of the Queen, Jeanne, Duchesse de Normandie, was the head
of the court and of society. She was extremely popular, and her beauty
the admiration of every one. Froissart in his chronicles always speaks
of her as “_la belle Duchesse_,” or “_la bonne Duchesse_.” And now the
time was drawing near for her to ascend the throne.
The Duc d’Anjou, second son of the King, had broken his parole and
returned to France. Jean, horrified at such a breach of honour and of
the laws of chivalry, declared his resolution to return to England. Of
the true reasons for this journey, which was strongly opposed by his
ministers and friends, many different explanations have been given.
Modern historians have in many cases adopted the well-known story of
his reply that if truth and honour were banished from the earth, they
ought still to find refuge on the lips and in the hearts of kings.
M. Dulaure,[39] however, observes that this speech, which was that
of Marcus Aurelius, does not belong to the fourteenth century, and
has been ascribed by Paradin to François I., and by some other writer
to the Emperor Charles V. And neither the writers of the “Grandes
Chroniques de France,” De Nangis, nor Froissart, who were the most
voluminous chroniclers of that time, make any mention of it. De Nangis
says that he went to arrange for the ransom of his third son, the Duc
de Berry, and his brother, the Duc d’Orléans. Froissart declares that
he wished to see the King and Queen of England and to make excuses for
the conduct of his second son. Others have attributed his persisting in
this project to his love for some English lady, probably the Countess
of Salisbury. M. Paulin Paris, in a note to his edition of the “Grandes
Chroniques de France,” agrees with the explanation of De Nangis, and
treats the idea of the English love affair as ridiculous and unlikely
at the age of the King of France, who was forty-five. But this does not
seem an unanswerable objection, considering the character and habits of
Jean; especially if we look at the history of certain other kings at a
much more advanced age--Henry IV. for instance.
But whatever might be his reasons, Jean left France according to the
“Grandes Chroniques,” on Tuesday evening, January 3, 1364, embarking
at Boulogne; and arrived at Dover on Thursday, whence after two or
three days he pursued his way to London, was met by a great company
of illustrious persons and lavishly entertained by King Edward and the
English royal family, who assigned the Savoy Palace for his dwelling,
where, after about three months passed in festivities and diversions of
various kinds, he was taken ill and died.
The Dauphin was at Vernon, besieging his step-grandmother, Blanche
de Navarre, when the news came of his father’s death. Towards her as
well as his eldest sister Jeanne, Queen of Navarre, and his aunt,
Jeanne d’Evreux, Charles was often placed in an attitude of hostility
in which there was no personal animosity, but which arose from their
relationship to and affection for his arch-enemy, the King of Navarre.
Charles had no wish at all to injure or frighten his sister, of whom he
was very fond, or his aunt, for whom he had the greatest respect, or
his step-grandmother, who was also his cousin, and with whom he seems
to have been on friendly terms when there was no particular quarrel
going on about Charles of Navarre. Nevertheless this was not the first
time he had been at open war with these ladies, or engaged in besieging
one of their castles. He hastened to come to an arrangement with Queen
Blanche, and leaving Bertrand du Guesclin in command of the troops
that were actively opposing the Navarrais, he hastened to Paris, where
the body of the late King was sent from England. “After the funeral
at Saint-Denis,” says the chronicler, “Charles went out into a meadow
of the cloister of the said church, and there, leaning against a fig
tree in the said meadow, he received the homage of several peers and
barons; after which he went to dinner, and spent that day and the next
at Saint-Denis. And the following Thursday, the 9th May, departed the
said King Charles to go to his coronation at Reims, which was to be on
the day of the Trinity following.”
Nothing could be more solemn, stately, and imposing than the ceremonial
used at the coronation of the Kings and Queens of France; and it must
have made a strong impression upon the religious and cultivated minds
of Charles and Jeanne. By the regulations made to a great extent by
Louis le Jeune in 1179, and afterwards added to and confirmed by
St. Louis, the King and Queen, on their arrival at Reims, the city
consecrated by the baptism of the first Christian King of France and
the coronation of so many generations of his successors, were met by
a procession of the canons and other ecclesiastics of the cathedral,
churches, and convents of the town. On Saturday, the day before the
coronation, after complines, the church was committed to the care of
guards appointed by the King, with those belonging there. Then the
King, in the silence of the night, came to the church and remained
alone in prayer and watching.
When matins rang, at the dawning of the day, the King’s guards were
marshalled to keep the great entrance, the other doors being closed.
Then matins were chanted, and after them prime. And then the King
arrived and the coronation began.
On the spot where Clovis was baptised stands the church of St. Remy,
second only to the cathedral in beauty and grandeur. In it was always
kept the ampoulle of holy oil with which the Kings of France were
anointed, and to which was attached the ancient legend of its having
miraculously appeared, being brought down from heaven by a white dove
at the baptism of Clovis. This tradition was then firmly believed, and
the ampoulle was brought in solemn procession by the monks of St. Remy
with cross and candles, carried with great reverence by the Abbot of
that monastery under a silk canopy borne by four of the brotherhood.
The Archbishop of Reims, with the bishops and canons, came to the door,
when the Archbishop received it from the hand of the Abbot with a
promise to restore it, and carried it to the altar accompanied by the
Abbot and four monks. It was afterwards taken back to St. Remy.
Two thrones were placed in the middle of the cathedral, joining the
choir. Around the highest, which was that of the King, were ranged the
peers of France, and all those whose rank and office entitled them to
such places.
The Archbishop girded on his sword, charging him to keep the army of
God, and defend the Church and kingdom committed to him, with the
blessing of God, by the virtue of the Holy Spirit and the help of Jesus
Christ the invincible Conqueror. Then with prayers and benediction he
was anointed with oil from the ampoulle, the ring placed on his finger,
the sceptre and hand or rod of justice in his hands, and finally
the Archbishop took the crown from the altar and placed it on his
head, supported by the peers of France during the prayers and solemn
benediction. When the King was crowned and seated on his throne, the
Queen arrived at the cathedral. She prostrated herself before the altar
and was raised from her knees by the bishops. After some prayers she
was anointed, but with a different oil; a smaller sceptre, and a rod
of justice like the King’s were given to her, and the ring placed on
her finger with these words, “Take the ring of faith, the sign of the
Holy Trinity by which thou mayest escape all heresy and malice, and by
the virtue given to thee call heathen nations to the knowledge of the
truth.”
And never could the benediction of the Archbishop have been more fully
re-echoed in the hearts of all around him than when he placed the crown
on the head of Jeanne de Bourbon, saying, “Take the crown of glory,
honour, and felicity, that thou mayest shine with splendour and be
crowned with joy immortal.”
The Queen was conducted to her throne by the barons who supported the
crown, and surrounded by the ladies of highest rank; after which the
King and Queen kneeling at the altar, received the Communion from the
hands of the Archbishop, who at the conclusion of Mass took off their
crowns and put smaller ones on their heads, and they proceeded to the
palace with a drawn sword carried before them.[40]
They left Reims after their coronation, and on the 28th of May,
Tuesday, entered Paris. The King made his entry at one o’clock, went to
the church of Notre Dame and then to the palace, and “about the hour of
nine” the Queen’s procession arrived at the gate. Her beauty and grace
were the admiration of the multitudes that thronged to see her as she
rode into Paris, the crown on her head, her dress covered with jewels
and the trappings of her horse embroidered with gold. Philippe, Duc
de Touraine, the King’s favourite brother, walked by her side holding
the bridle of her horse. With her were the Princess Marie de France,
afterwards Duchesse de Bar, the Duchesse d’Anjou and the Duchesse
d’Orléans, by whose horses walked princes of the blood royal, the
ladies of her court with a brilliant _cortège_ of nobles, chevaliers,
and guards, winding through the crowded, decorated streets to the
Palais de la Cité.
Just after the King and Queen had entered Paris there arrived in
triumph from the battlefield Bertrand du Guesclin. He had won a victory
at Cocherel, and had brought not only the news of his success but the
famous Captal de Buch, whom he had taken prisoner, to greet the King on
the opening of his reign.
[Illustration: FRENCH NOBLE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY.]
There was a great banquet next day at the palace, at which the Captal,
who was placed on parole, dined with the King.[41] And much honour was
shown to Sir Bertrand du Guesclin. After dinner there were jousts in
the courtyard of the palace, at which the King of Cyprus and many of
the greatest nobles jousted.
On Friday, the last day of May, the King invested his youngest
brother, the Duc de Touraine, with the duchy of Burgundy. It had been
promised to him by his father in remembrance of the day when, as a
mere child, he stood alone by his side in the battle of Poitiers. He
afterwards married the heiress of Flanders and Hainault.
The Duchess-dowager, mother of Jeanne, lived a good deal at court,
and her brother Louis, Duc de Bourbon, was a great favourite with the
King, who extended his affection for Jeanne to every one belonging to
her. Louis de Bourbon was one of the best and noblest characters of his
century. When a hostage in England, he made himself so beloved that he
was allowed to go about wherever he chose, and even to return to France
on parole. His estates were managed during his absence by his mother.
The youngest sister of the Queen, Marie de Bourbon, was a nun at
Poissy, and for her also both Jeanne and Charles had much affection.
But a constant source of anxiety and grief to them all had been the
unfortunate marriage of their sister Blanche, Queen of Spain, who
lingered in captivity in one castle after another in spite of the
indignation and remonstrances of the Spanish people, the French King,
and the royal family her relations. At last came the news that she had
been poisoned by Pedro el Cruel, and her death excited the horror and
execration of France and Spain against her murderer. Blanche seems to
have passed these years in saintly resignation to the will of God. Her
brother the Duc de Bourbon and her brother-in-law the King of France
did not suffer her death to remain unavenged.
Charles V. declared war upon Pedro, and sent French troops to Spain
commanded by Bertrand du Guesclin, the Bègue de Vilaine, and other
officers, and after a short time he paid for his crimes with the loss
of his throne and his life.
One cannot help being struck by the extraordinary discrepancy in the
accounts given of the Kings of France by ancient and modern writers.
According to the former, they all appear to have been models of every
virtue and talent under the sun; while if one reads the descriptions
of some of the latter, especially of those who are republican in
principles, one finds that, with the exception perhaps of Saint Louis,
no King of France ever had any good qualities at all but courage, and
that, while all the misfortunes that happened were entirely his fault,
any success he might have in the management of his affairs and the
government of his kingdom was either the result of accident or was due
to somebody else.
Charles V., however, may be said to have done considerably more to
deserve his name “le Sage” than Jean did to earn that of “le Bon.”
In all respects different from his father and grandfather, he set
himself to try to repair the ruin and distress in which the kingdom
was plunged. He was, as Sismondi remarks, the first modern King of
France. His effigy on the seals is seated in a chair, not mounted on
horseback. It is characteristic of his life and habits. His government
was the personal government of an intelligent, prudent, and honest
King, occupied with the internal and external affairs of the State.[42]
He found himself surrounded with dangers and difficulties. The
country was so depopulated by plague and famine that in many parts
the inhabitants were reduced to two-thirds and even one-third of
their numbers in the beginning of the reign of his grandfather. The
neighbouring countries were involved in civil wars and disturbances,
into which it was difficult for France to escape being drawn. Italy was
full of discord. Spain was divided between the factions of _Pedro el
Cruel_ and his brother, _Enrique de Trastamare_, who had risen against
that tyrant to avenge the murders of his mother and brothers.
{1366}
Charles found no help in his own family. His eldest sister was married
to his enemy the King of Navarre, to whom she was devoted. The Duc de
Bar, who had just married Marie, the second sister, was likely to be
more trouble than assistance; the Visconti had paid his father a large
sum of money for the marriage of Isabelle, but were too far off to have
anything to do with affairs in France. Of his brothers, the two elder
ones had all the faults and scarcely any of the good qualities of the
Valois. They were arrogant, rapacious, violent and cruel. The Duke of
Burgundy was the best of them.
Charles had always been delicate, and people said he had been poisoned
when he was young by the King of Navarre. It was one of those absurd
accusations heaped upon Charles of Navarre by his enemies. He could
have had no object in poisoning the Dauphin, for if he had died the
crown would have passed, not to him, but to the Duc d’Anjou, and there
were plenty of other princes of the house of Valois whose claims would
have come before his. The Dukes of Berry and Orléans, the Alençon
princes, and even the Duc de Bourbon, all stood before him in the line
of succession.[43] But it is probable that the King firmly believed
that he had been poisoned by his brother-in-law, and therefore was not
likely to regard him with very friendly feelings.
{1367}
Jeanne nursed and consoled Charles in his frequent illnesses, and
shared and sympathised with all his tastes.[44] Both were devoted to
art and literature; Charles V. was the best educated and most learned
prince of the fourteenth century. Almost the only existing letter
written entirely by the hand of a Valois King of the direct line is by
him. It is preserved at the Dépôt Central.[45] Jeanne’s love of books
caused her to interest herself in the writings and translations of the
time; she was also fond of poetry. Many Greek and Latin authors were
now translated into French, and by the desire of the King and Queen,
Nicolas d’Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux, made a translation of the whole of
the Bible, which Charles took with him wherever he went, being in the
habit of reading it all through every year. It was in two volumes.
On the 24th March, 1367, Charles laid the foundation stone of the
new church of the Céléstins. Besides the church he gave them costly
presents, amongst others a great cross of silver gilt. The Queen
presented an image of the Virgin, also of silver gilt. The church was
finished in 1370, and consecrated by the Archbishop of Sens. Charles
lavished upon this church the most precious objects of art; chalices,
missals, and ornaments of all descriptions; and especially magnificent
were two chapels entirely hung with cloth of gold, one being covered
with _fleurs-de-lis_, the other with suns and stars. The benefits and
favours conferred by the King and Queen upon this convent were so
great as to cause them to be considered as founders of it, and their
statues were accordingly placed on the portal of the church. They spent
5,000 francs in building a dormitory, refectory, chapter-house and
cloister.[46]
The hôtel St. Paul, where Charles and Jeanne afterwards lived, was most
conveniently near the Céléstine convent. The courtiers, following their
example, were always giving presents to this brotherhood. The King’s
secretaries founded a confraternity in their church, and all belonged
to it. The King exempted this order from all public contributions, even
such as were generally paid by the clergy. They continued for several
generations to enjoy such great favour and protection from the royal
family that they appear to have rather presumed upon their privileges,
for in time it grew into a byword, and in speaking of a conceited,
arrogant person the exclamation “Voilà un fier Céléstin” became a
common figure of speech.
The Céléstins, as time went on, became celebrated for the excellence of
their cookery; there were especially certain omelettes for which they
were much distinguished. But this was long after the time we are now
considering.
One of the most fashionable convents for women was that of Chelles,
near Paris. It had been founded by Clotilde, wife of Clovis I., and
much enlarged by Ste. Bathilde, who dreamed that she saw a ladder
raised before the altar of Our Lady, which touched Heaven, and by which
she mounted in a _cortège_ of angels. In consequence of this, the Abbey
of Chelles bore as arms, a ladder between two _fleurs-de-lis_, those
orders founded by Kings and Queens of France having the right to bear
the lilies in their arms. The Abbesses of Chelles bore the greatest
names in France, among them were Giselle, sister of Charlemagne, one of
his daughters and numbers of widows, sisters, and daughters of kings.
But after a time this rich and distinguished establishment became
also very worldly. Some monks built a monastery close to it, and the
King had a palace on the other side of its walls. Scandals arose.
The nuns got up late, went out hunting and conducted themselves much
more after the fashion of the court than the cloister. They were on
excellent terms with the brotherhood of the neighbouring monastery, who
were mostly poor cadets of noble families. They gave parties and made
_confitures_ for these monks; and when Louis le Bègue carried off a nun
of sixteen years old over the wall of his palace, his example was so
much followed by his courtiers that nearly fifty nuns had eloped in a
few months. The Bishop of Paris and Abbot of St. Victor went to preach
and try to carry out reforms; but on their way back were attacked in
the forest and the Abbot killed.[47] After Robert II. (996) the palace
fell into ruins; but the evil reputation of the sisterhood went on long
after. In 1358 they fled to Paris, but returned to their convent, which
was besieged by the English. They escaped again with their Abbess, Alix
le Passy, and were afterwards collected and reorganised by Jehanne la
Forêt.
King Jean, who was not by any means a literary character, had only
possessed twenty books, but Charles delighted in collecting them and
arranged his library in a tower in the Louvre, which was called La
Tour de la Librairie.[48] He collected nine hundred volumes, which in
those days, before printing was used, made a considerable library. The
catalogue of this library was made in 1378 by order of the King, and
still exists.[49] It was in three rooms, occupying three floors of the
tower, the windows of which had iron bars and a trellis of ironwork;
with glass painted. The ceilings were of cypress wood and the walls
panelled with richly carved oak. Thirty candles and a silver lamp
burned all night in each room so that they might be available for study
night and day.
In a manuscript, “Bibliothèque du Roy,” No. 7609, are found the names
of the different instruments of music of the fourteenth century, among
which can be recognised several that are still in use. Here are the
names of some of the books contained in the library:--
“Dit de la Rose.”
“Le Livre de la Mutation de Fortune.”
“Le chemin de long estude” (translated from the Romance into French).
“La Cité des Dames.”
“Le Livre des trois vertus.”
“Le Livre des faits d’Armes et de Chevalrie divisé en quatres parties.”
“Le Traité de la Paix.”
“Le Corps de Policie.”
Charles V. and Jeanne possessed many beautiful books on parchment with
exquisite miniatures and illustrations of the fourteenth century, books
of hours and books of psalms, one of which had belonged to Saint Louis.
They commissioned Raôul de Presle to translate the “City of God,” by
St. Augustine, and gave him 4,000 francs a year for doing it.[50]
Besides books and manuscripts, they had an immense collection of
magnificent objects of art. Since the days of Louis, the taste for
splendour and costly decoration had spread in all classes. Every now
and then laws were made to check them, but as the nobles would not obey
them and could not be forced to do so, they only acted as restraints on
the bourgeoisie. And so the most important of all industrial arts had
come to be that of the goldsmith.
It seems extraordinary, considering the impoverished condition of
the finances and the dreadful state of affairs in general when they
came to the throne, that the King and Queen should have been able to
spend the sums they did upon buildings, books, treasures of art, and
all cultivated and intellectual pursuits. But their wise and good
management was so successful in altering the disastrous state of things
caused by the follies and misfortunes of their predecessors, that they
were able to spend money with royal magnificence upon the aims and
objects they preferred.
Jeanne was clear-headed and sensible, and the economy and order she
introduced into the royal household was considered an excellent
example. She sold a quantity of costly plate to help pay the troops of
Du Guesclin in 1369, and so contributed to the successful result of the
war with England; after which they began to collect again.
[Illustration: LADY OF THE COURT.]
But their daily life was surrounded by magnificence, as may be seen by
a list made later on by order of the King, in which appear all sorts of
precious and costly things. Statuettes of gold and silver, exquisite
carvings in ivory, quantities of gold dishes, plates, candlesticks,
basins, salt-cellars, drinking cups, knives and spoons; very few
forks--there were only three at Vincennes, of which one belonged to the
Queen. Jewels and precious stones in profusion, sets of hangings for
rooms--that is to say portières; carpets, hangings, canopies, curtains
for windows and beds, some of silk, others cloth of gold or velvet;
one is mentioned as being entirely of cloth of gold, with a cross of
red velvet embroidered with several coats of arms; another of green
with stripes of gold. Spanish leather, richly embroidered cushions,
costly tents to put over the Queen’s bath, called _espreniers_. One of
these is described as being made of white satin, embroidered with roses
and _fleurs-de-lis_; others were blazoned with the arms of France and
Navarre.[51] Every now and then some curious little incident seems to
give a touch of life and interest to this old list, such as a little
gold barrel and chain with the arms of Burgundy, which the King always
had with him and which had belonged to his grandmother, Jeanne de
Bourgogne; the gold serpents on the salt-cellars with their tongues in
the salt, which were supposed to reveal the presence of any poison that
might have been put in; a crown _à bassinet_ set with jewels, probably
belonging to King Jean, who was in the habit of wearing a crown on his
helmet in battle, regardless of the additional danger of proclaiming
his rank; and in the midst of this catalogue of splendour “item, an
old mattress all torn and the pillow the same, which had belonged to
King Jean.” Two banners of France covered with _fleurs-de-lis_ and
bordered with pearls, to drive away the flies when the King was at
table; dog-collars of velvet and silver, green game bags embroidered
with pearls, inkstands, purses, whips, leather lanterns. The contents
are given of some coffers or boxes the King always took about with him
and of which he kept the keys. Amongst the rare cameos, jewels, gold
chaplets, &c., was the holy stone to make women have children, and
another stone which cured the gout.
Different things are mentioned as having belonged to Charlemagne and
St. Louis. There were also gold basins to wash in, and gold vases to
put the remains of repasts to give to the poor. _Bas-reliefs_ of
gold, generally of sacred subjects, and all the things belonging to
the chapels, such as chalices, crucifixes, missals, crosses, statues,
hangings, reliquaries, paternosters, &c., most costly and beautiful.
An immense number of crowns and coronets seem to have belonged to the
King, Queen, and Princesses, and jewelled girdles, clasps, and rings
are also enumerated among their possessions.
Charles and Jeanne at the beginning of their reign lived chiefly at the
Louvre and at Vincennes, where he ordered four of the inhabitants of
the village of Montreuil to watch against poachers every night in the
forest. At Vincennes had been born on June 7, 1366, “_entre tierce et
midi_,” another daughter to the King and Queen. She was christened four
days afterwards in the chapel there and named Jeanne, her god-parents
being the Duc de Berry, the two Queens dowager, Jeanne d’Evreux and
Blanche de Navarre, and Marguérite, Countess of Flanders and Artois.
But the same ill-luck seemed to pursue the children of Charles and
Jeanne as had followed those of Philippe de Valois and Jeanne de
Bourgogne; for this little princess also died the following December,
and was buried at St. Denis, leaving the King and Queen again childless.
CHAPTER V
1368-1373
Comet--Meeting of Parliament--Marriage of the Queen’s sister--The
Louvre and its gardens--Christine de Pisan--The Dauphin--His
christening--War--French victories--Prosperity of France--Hôtel
St. Paul--Birth of Marie de France--Capture and liberation of
the Queen’s mother--Bonne, Comtesse de Savoie--Birth of Louis
and Isabelle de France--Louis, Duc de Bourbon.
A French historian assures us that in this, the year before the war
began again, “the presage of it was seen in the heavens, that is to say
in the Holy Week a comet between north and west with a long hairy tail
stretching towards the east and red rays like a pyramid of fire.”[52]
The monks went preaching about in all the French provinces for the
rights of Charles V.; in the English ones for Edward III.
“In this year the King and Queen sat in parliament on the vigil of the
Ascension,” and Jeanne gave her advice and opinion, by special desire
of the King, upon the important affairs then discussed. Whenever he
was ill the secret despatches were all taken to her, and her seal
carried the same authority as his own.[53]
{1368}
He had detached Armand d’Albret from the English cause and married him
to Marguérite, one of the Queen’s sisters, to the indignation of the
Black Prince, who spoke “_moult rudement_” about it.[54] As Armand
d’Albret had before seized the castle of La Motte d’Epineul, it was
made part of the dowry of the young princess, who often appears in
descriptions of festivities at her sister’s court.
In 1371 she was godmother, with the Princess Jeanne, daughter of
Philippe VI., to her niece, Marie de France. Her husband and son were
killed at Azincourt, and, like her sister Bonne, Comtesse de Savoie,
she undertook the guardianship of her grandson, Charles d’Albret, for
whom in 1416 she obtained letters from Charles VI. admitting him to do
homage for his lands though under fifteen years old.
Hitherto every King of France had held his court either in the
palais de la Cité or the Louvre. Those who only know the Louvre as
the magnificent Renaissance palace of François I. and Henri II., can
perhaps hardly picture it as the most romantic royal castle that ever
existed. The buildings formed an oblong court, with round towers at the
angles and in the middle of the sides, while nearly in the centre of
the court stood a massive round keep, and to the south and east were
well defended gateways. All this was moated, and on the side towards
the river were other walls and towers.[55] It was outside Paris
until Charles included it within the walls. He altered the internal
arrangements, heightening the rooms and also the towers, so that it was
more beautiful than ever. It was he who built the long line of towers
all along the river. They were of all sizes and shapes, and each had
a captain of its own. The names of many of them are known from the
registers in the Chambre des Comptes. The Tour du Fer-de-cheval, Tour
de l’Orgueil, du Bois, de l’Ecluse, Jean de l’Etang, de l’Armoirie, de
la Taillerie, de la grande Chapelle, la petite Chapelle, Grosse Tour
du Louvre, Tour de la Librairie, and many others. The Grosse Tour,
built by Philippe Auguste, was enormously thick and strong, and had a
dungeon. The great portal was on the river, flanked with towers; the
second entrance was narrow, with two towers, on which were sculptured
the figures of Charles V. and Jeanne de Bourbon.
The rooms were large, low, with panels of wood; the windows narrow,
barred with iron and filled with glass, on which were painted the arms
of the person to whom the apartment belonged--King, Queen, _enfants de
France_, princes of the blood, &c.
The apartment of the Queen was below that of the King, and exactly the
same in size and disposition. Sauval remarks that the view of the river
from the windows was very beautiful. The apartments of the King, the
Queen, and each of their children had a chapel and gallery attached
to it. In the apartment afterwards given to the Dauphin there was a
clock, doubtless made by Jean de Vic, who about that time made one for
the King, which was placed in the Tour du Palais and has been supposed
to be the only one in Paris under Charles V.[56]
The great garden of the Louvre was very old: it had _treilles_ or
trellised walks from one end to the other, hedges, arbours, and grass.
It was planted with roses and other flowers, herbs and vegetables.
There were two smaller ones, called the King’s and Queen’s garden.[57]
The great garden went up to what is now the Rue St. Honoré, and was
bounded by the city walls. To any one who is fond of flowers and
gardening, it is most interesting to read the old bills and accounts
preserved in different registers, and to see something of what these
ancient gardens were like.
“Compte 1362, of Pierre Culdöë, lieutenant, and the noble Messire Jean
de Damille, chevalier, chastelain of the castle of the Louvre, of the
receipts, &c., for certain works which have been done in the gardens of
the said Louvre, _à la plaisance du Roy, nostre Seigneur_, beginning in
the month of May ‘362,’ and finishing in the month of March CCCLXIII.”
Then follow many interesting accounts, of which, however, it is
impossible to give more than a few specimens. For instance, sums of
money are paid to--
“Perin Durant, gardener, for having got many good herbs and planted
the same in the said gardens of the Louvre in the month of March, 1362.”
“To Pierre Hubert, trellis-maker, for having fastened up the hedges
round the said gardens in the month of February, and done up about half
the said hedges which the wind had blown down; for wood, osier, and
trouble.”[58]
“To Jean Baril, for having made a heap of earth (mound) with a
summer-house of trellised wood on the top, with the arms of the
King, Queen and _nos seigneurs_ de France upon it, and having made a
drawbridge to it in the month of March, 1362, for wood, osier, and
trouble.”
“To Jean Caillon and Geffroy de Febon, gardeners, for their trouble in
having planted sage, hyssop, lavender, strawberries, and several other
herbs in the gardens of the said Louvre, for having dug the garden all
round, put in herbs and seeds, renewed all the paths and grass plots
(_préaux_) and taken away the weeds and rubbish.”
“To Jean Dudoy, gardener, for having ... taken away all the weeds,
stones, and rubbish, and made several beds of sage, hyssop, lavender,
balsam, strawberries, and violets, and planted bulbs of lilies, double
red rose trees, and many other good herbs which he got.”
“To Sevestre Vallerin, the work of his arm (_la peine de bras_) for
his trouble in having weeded the paths which go among the _préaux_
(courts or grass plots), and the beds in which are the rose trees,
strawberries, violets, sage, hyssop, lavender, balsam, parsley, and
other good herbs: and also for having watered four summer-houses and
a great square room to make the plants grow (_pour faire venir les
herbes_).”
“To Etienne de la Groye, gardener, for having made in the said gardens
certain trellises, arbours, and hedges all along the walls, inside.”[59]
We hear of some one being paid also for planting a pear tree, and
lettuce is mentioned amongst the vegetables that mingled with the
flowers growing in the quaint old garden. It must have been a strange
place, with its stiff beds of roses, lavender, and sweet herbs, its
formal paths and summer-houses, its long trellised walks under the
huge, ancient walls, shadowed by a forest of frowning towers.
As the Queen’s apartments in the south wing of the château would not
contain all the rooms required, some more were allotted to her looking
west; and some to the King, who, out of consideration for the Queen,
had given her the first floor and taken the second for himself. One
of these was the bedroom of the King, and containing amongst other
furniture one of two great beds, “_pour le corps du Roy_,” furnished by
the _courtepointier_, Richard des Ourmes, at the price of twenty francs
of gold each.
The King’s cabinet or study (_estude_) was lighted by one large window
with painted glass, and four small ones, and hung with black _drap
de Caen_. It had a high chair, a bench, a form (_escabelle_) and
two bureaux. Green drapery was thrown over the furniture, and a high
chimney with mantelpiece of stone warmed the room, which was most
likely between his oratory and library. His chapel, or oratory, was
vaulted, and heated by a stove in the winter.[60]
The furniture in the Louvre consisted of enormous cupboards, buffets,
and heavy chairs or _faudesteuils_, all richly carved, illuminated,
and sometimes decorated with gold and gems; benches, forms, settles,
_dossiers_ or seats with backs, covered with velvet, satin, or cloth
of gold; an _estendait_, or kind of sofa is mentioned as being in one
or two of the rooms; the walls were hung with tapestry, and there were
plenty of carpets and cushions, some embroidered with pearls. Spanish
leather was thrown on the floor in summer.[61]
The house linen seems to have been kept in chests in the bedrooms: a
number of white silk sheets are described as being in a square box with
two covers in the large window in the King’s room; and later in his
palace called Beauté, in a gilded chest (_coffre_) in the room where
the King slept, there were towels, tablecloths, and sheets of _toile
de Reims_; also richly embroidered pillows, one of which had on it a
knight, a lady, two fountains and two lions. There were _couvertoers_,
or warm coverings for winter, and _couvertures_, or sheets of
ornamental stuffs thrown over the beds in the day. One of these is
mentioned as being of ermine, fastened to an old sheet of _marramas_,
of which the King had caused a breadth to be cut off to make a chasuble.
The chimneys were of course high and open, with great fires on dogs
(_chenets_) on the hearth. There exist bills for three _chenets de
fer_ for the Queen’s and other rooms, and for tongs, shovels, and
_tirtifeux_. Also for bellows, “five new bellows carved and ornamented
with gold.”
There are also bills from one Marie Lallemande, for blue and white
stuff for the window curtains of the King’s and Queen’s bedchambers,
and for eighteen feather beds with pillows; and from Jean de Verdelay
and Colin de la Baste for six tables of walnut wood and a pair of
trestles for the Queen’s rooms, and for the King’s large dining-room an
oak bench with columns (_un banc de chesne à coulombes_) twenty feet
long for the King’s larger table, with the daïs of the same length and
three feet wide, and a _dréçoir_ with a step round it in the same room
(_sale_),[62] “_et enfonsé le viez banc Sainct Louis, et une marche
autour_.”
The King was anxious to attract to his court any literary or talented
persons that could be found, and being himself, like every one else
of his day, a believer in astrology, he gladly welcomed a learned man
and celebrated astrologer named Thomas de Pisan, a native of Bologna,
who, delighted at his reception, sent for his wife and daughter and
presented them at the Louvre, 1368. Charles took the whole family under
his protection. He gave an income to the astrologer, and his daughter,
the celebrated Christine de Pisan, was brought up at court as a
_demoiselle de qualité_. Her father, seeing her talents, bestowed much
care on her education. She was taught Latin and French, and not allowed
to forget her native Italian; she also studied science and literature.
At fifteen she was married to Etienne du Chastel, a young man of good
birth and education, but small fortune, who was made one of the King’s
secretaries. She became a distinguished writer, and is best known for
her life of Charles V., written, after his death, at the command of
the Duke of Burgundy. Her style is exceedingly pompous and fulsome,
but some interesting details can be gained from her writings, and if
they were not crammed with tiresome, prosy moral sentiments, and absurd
flattery of the King, they might have been much more interesting and
valuable still. After the death of Charles V., the prosperity of the
family waned: her father lost most of his pay and died old and poor;
her husband died 1402, and one of her sons died young. Her daughter
became a nun at Poissy.
On the 16th of April, 1368, Lionel, Duke of Clarence second son of the
King of England, passed through Paris on his way to Italy to marry the
daughter of Galeazzo Visconti. The Dukes of Berry and Burgundy went
to meet him at St. Denis and conducted him to the Louvre, where his
room was “_moult bien parée et aournée_.” He dined and supped that day
with the King, and the next day dined with the Queen “_en l’ostel du
roy près de Saint-Pol, là où elle estoit lors logiée et y fist-en très
grant feste_.”[63] After dinner when they had played and danced, the
Princes returned to the Louvre, where Lionel stayed during the few days
he was at Paris, being entertained by the different members of the
French royal family. Lionel of England was a handsome and courageous
Flemish giant, mild-tempered and amiable, possessing no great vigour of
intellect.[64] Through his daughter married to Edmund Mortimer the line
of York derived their claim to the English crown.
The King had a painted barge like a floating house, richly decorated
inside and outside, in which he used to go up and down the Seine from
the Louvre to his new and favourite palace of St. Paul,[65] which he
had built chiefly while he was still regent.
Charles and Jeanne had now been married eighteen years, and had no
children. They had never had a son, and their three daughters had all
died, to their great grief. But on the 3rd of December, 1368, “on the
first day of the Advent of our Lord, at the third hour after midnight,
the Queen Jehanne, wife of King Charles, then King of France, had her
first son in the ostel near St. Pol; and the moon was in the sign of
the Virgin in the second phase of the said sign, and the moon was
twenty-three days old. For the which birth the King and all the people
in France had great joy, and not without cause, for until now the said
King had had no male child. And the King gave thanks to God and the
Virgin Mary. And that day he went to Notre Dame de Paris, and caused a
beautiful mass to Our Lady to be sung before her image at the entrance
of the choir; and the next day, Monday, he went to Saint Denis in
France on pilgrimage, and he caused to be given away at Paris a great
heap of florins, to the number of three thousand florins and more.”[66]
The child was christened on Wednesday, the 6th of December, and the
chronicler thus describes the proceedings:--
“The Wednesday following, sixth day of December, in the year one
thousand three hundred and sixty-eight aforesaid, the said son of the
King was christened in the church of Saint-Pol of Paris, about the
hour of prime, in the manner which follows. And the day before were
made enclosures of wood in the street before the said church, and also
inside the said church about the font, to take care that there should
not be too great press of people.
“First: before the said child went two hundred _varlés_ who carried
two hundred torches, who all remained in the said street,[67] holding
the said burning torches, except twenty-six who went inside. And after
was Messire Hue de Chasteillon, seigneur de Dampierre, master of
the crossbowmen, who carried a candle in his hand, and the Comte de
Tanquarville, who carried a cup in which was the salt, and had a towel
at his neck with which the said salt was covered. And after was the
Queen, Jehanne d’Evreux, who carried the said child in her arms, and
Monseigneur Charles, seigneur de Montmorenci, et Monseigneur Charles,
comte de Dampmartin, were beside her; and thus they issued from the
said hostel of the King of Saint-Pol, by the door which is the nearest
to the church. And immediately after the said child, were the Duc
d’Orléans, the King’s uncle, the Duc de Berry, the Duc de Bourbon,
the Queen’s brother, and many other great seigneurs and ladies; Queen
Blanche, the Duchesse d’Orléans, the Comtesse de Harcourt and the
Dame de Lebret,[68] sisters of the Queen, who were well adorned with
coronets and jewels.”[69]
The chronicler goes on to describe the christening, the cardinals,
bishops, and abbots with mitres and crosiers, how the crowd was so
great that the child had to be taken home by a back way and how the
King gave away money in the coulture Ste. Katherine, where there was
also such a crowd that several women were killed.
The Queen seems to have been ill a long time, for the chronicler says
that there was a great fête when she recovered (_releva de sa gésine_)
from her confinement, on the 4th February, and after the dinner a dance
and other amusements, and the King gave his son the title of Dauphin du
Viennois.
Charles had succeeded in getting rid of the Grande Compagnie led by
the Archiprêtre, mentioned in the life of Jeanne de Boulogne, Bertrand
du Guesclin having persuaded them to go with him to Spain, to fight
against Pedro el Cruel, at the request of the King, who said: “If some
one would lead _ces gens-là_ against the miscreant and tyrant Pedro,
who has killed our sister, let him do so whatever it costs me.”[70]
{1369}
[Illustration: THE BASTILLE.]
The news of the defeat and death of Pedro was brought to Paris in the
early summer, and the chronicler remarks, “and certainly many people
thought that this had happened to the said Pierre because he was a
very bad man and had wickedly and traitorously murdered his good,
wedded wife, daughter of the Duc de Bourbon and sister of the Queen
of France.” The inhabitants of Guyenne had revolted against the Black
Prince, who had been taxing them too heavily; and the war with England
had begun again, but this time it seemed to be going in favour of
France. Fortress after fortress fell into French hands and on the 29th
April, Abbeville surrendered to Hue de Châtillon.
{1370}
This and the next year passed prosperously for the kingdom. Bertrand
du Guesclin, created Constable of France, was everywhere winning
back towns, castles, and fortresses; the gallant Sir John Chandos
was killed in Poitou, and by the end of 1370, Ponthieu, Périgord,
Rouergue, Saintonge, Poitou, part of Limousin, and nearly all Guyenne
had been won back. The rapid restoration of the kingdom was a marvel
to every one. The hero du Guesclin was the idol of the nation; the
Duc de Bourbon especially loved him because he had avenged his sister
the Queen of Spain. The wise and firm government of the King brought
prosperity and order into everything. His Court was magnificent, not
with the wild and warlike revelry of Philippe and Jean de Valois, but
with the refined and artistic luxury of a prince more cultivated than
his time.
All round about Paris he restored and rebuilt the royal châteaux that
had been destroyed by the English and Navarrais, taking care to fortify
them at the same time. Melun, Creil, Montargis, amongst others, and
St. Germain, which had been burnt by the soldiers of King Edward. He
gave Paris a new bridge, walls, gates, and the Bastille, of which the
first stone was laid by Aubriot, provost of Paris, in April, 1370. He
had built two new royal residences, Beauté, a most delightful château
at the end of the forest of Vincennes, and the hôtel de St. Paul at
Paris, having taken a dislike to the Palais de la Cité, from the
scenes of blood and terror that he had witnessed there. The Louvre
was not large enough for the immense number of suites of apartments he
wanted. Gradually it was used in his reign chiefly to entertain and
lodge foreign princes. He bought several hôtels, gardens, and meadows
and turned the whole into one huge palace, which, with its pleasure
grounds, covered nearly all the space between the river, the rue St.
Antoine, the rue St. Paul, and the Bastille. The hôtels de Sens, de
Saint Maur, d’Etampes, hôtel de la Reine, and others.
The whole were surrounded with a high wall, enclosing, besides all
these great hôtels which formed the palace, and were connected by
twelve galleries, six meadows, eight gardens, and a number of courts.
All the princes of the blood, great nobles and officers of the court
had their apartments in this wonderful palace, which the King declared
should for ever belong to the Crown, adding that he had there enjoyed
many pleasures, endured and recovered from many illnesses, and
therefore he regarded it with singular affection.
It was a curious mixture of luxury and simplicity, arm, feudal castle,
and palace all in one.[71] The King delighted in the gardens and
orchards and used to work in them with his own hands. Both he and
Jeanne were also very fond of animals, and seem to have had an immense
number of pets, for which there were enclosures and aviaries in all
their palaces, but especially at their two favourite abodes, St. Paul
and Beauté. They had lions and wild boars amongst other creatures,
and numbers of birds. Besides the great aviaries at the Palais, the
Louvre, St. Paul, and the other palaces, there were in every apartment
in St. Paul bird-cages of wire painted green, and there is an account
of a large octagon cage made at that palace[72] for the King’s parrot,
which is called “_la cage au pape-gaut du Roy_.” There were numbers of
fowls, pigeons, and peacocks, the wild boars were kept in a garden, the
lions, of course, in dens, and there were rooms for the turtle doves
and for the Queen’s dogs.
The description of the interior of this palace, or group of palaces,
reads like a page out of the “Arabian Nights.” One large hôtel (one
of three houses the King gave the Queen) was used for her horses,
_coches_, and the grooms and people belonging to her stables. The
_conciergerie_, _lingerie_, _tapisserie_, _pâtisserie_, _pelleterie_,
_fruiterie_, _lavandrie_, _saucisserie_, _panneterie_, _épicerie_,
_taillerie_, _maison du four_, _jeux de paumes_, _garde-manger_,
_celliers_, _caves_, _cuisines charbonnerie fauconnerie_, &c., must
have formed a little town in themselves. Silk, velvet, tapestry,
Spanish leather, and cloth of gold covered the walls, floors, and
seats. The furniture, massive and picturesque in form, was ornamented
with rich carving, illumination, gold or gems. The beams of the ceiling
were decorated with gold _fleurs-de-lis_. The rooms were heated with
stoves (_étuves_) and huge fires on open hearths, with magnificent
chimney pieces of stone sculptured often with colossal statues and
figures of animals. The washing basins and all the dinner services,
&c., used by the royal family were of gold or silver. All the numerous
apartments of the different princes, princesses, and great personages
had chapels, galleries, bath-rooms, &c., attached to them. The room of
the King’s jewels was brilliant with gold, silver, and precious stones.
To say nothing of the art treasures of gold, jewels, and illuminations,
what would not a lover of art and antiquity in our own day give for one
of the long oak benches, for instance, ending in handles like those of
baskets, carved all over with birds and animals, and mounted on many
carved columns--especially for the one called “the old bench of St.
Louis,” which stood in the King’s dining room at the Louvre.
It was in their favourite hôtel de St. Paul, or as it is called in old
writings, St. Pol, that Charles and Jeanne principally lived, and here
were born the Dauphin and all their younger children.
The birth of the Princess Marie took place on the 27th of February,
1370, and her godmothers were Jeanne, daughter of Philippe VI. and
Queen Blanche, and the Dame d’Albret, sister of the Queen.
With the exception of Blanche, whom she never met again after her
disastrous marriage with the King of Spain, Jeanne saw a great deal of
her family, especially of her three youngest sisters, the Comtesse de
Harcourt, the Dame d’Albret, and the Prieure de Poissy. Bonne, Comtesse
de Savoie, was farther away in her beautiful southern home, and being
the wife of a greater prince, had more of the occupations and cares of
a government upon her hands. Bonne was brave, clever, sensible, and
universally admired. Things went prosperously enough with her until,
after she had been married about thirty years, in 1385 her husband,
the Green Count, died of plague in Italy, where he had gone on some
warlike expedition. She governed Savoy for her son Amadeo VII., the
Red Count, whom she married to a daughter of the Duc de Berry. But the
Red Count was killed out hunting in 1391. He left the guardianship
of his son and the regency of Savoy to his mother, in whom he might
well have the greatest reliance, instead of to his young widow who had
neither the talents nor experience to fit her for such a trust, and
who, he was quite sure would marry again, as she did. In spite of her
opposition the Countess Bonne assumed the guardianship of her grandson
Amadeo VIII. and the State. After he came of age she could not get
her dowry properly paid, so she sent for her brother Louis, Duc de
Bourbon, who came at once with a troop of soldiers and threatened to
make war upon the Savoyards. Thereupon the dowry was paid without any
further trouble. Bonne died at the Château de Mâcon, 1402. In 1372 the
Duchess-dowager de Bourbon, mother of the Queen, was at the castle of
Belle Perche, in the Bourbonnais, when one night it was surprised by
three captains of brigands or free companies, who got in by scaling
the walls. Louis de Bourbon assembled his vassals and friends and laid
siege to the place where his mother was a prisoner. The Duchess managed
to let him know that she was afraid of the things the engines threw in
and the damage they caused, and that she wished him to blockade the
castle. He did so accordingly, but the Earls of Cambridge and Pembroke
arrived with a large force and carried off the Duchess and her ladies
to a château in Limousin. She was soon afterwards exchanged for Simon
Burke, a favourite of the Black Prince. She went to Clermont, a hunting
château of her son, and in the forest close by she met her daughters
coming to see her.[73] In a miniature representing their meeting
the Queen advances wearing a dress covered with _fleurs-de-lis_ and
emblazoned with the arms of France and Bourbon, holding a bird, the
sign of high rank and led by Jean de Bourbon, Comte de la Marche. Her
little daughter Marie, bearing the same arms accompanies her, then come
the young Duchess, wife of Louis, and the Queen’s sisters, Comtesses
de Savoie and Harcourt, and Dame d’Albret. Each leads a dog with a
long leash, two ladies follow, one carrying the train of the Duchesse
de Bourbon. All the princesses have the arms of their husbands and of
Bourbon emblazoned on their dresses, including the Duchess-dowager,
Isabelle de Valois, who also wears a long widow’s veil.[74]
[Illustration: MEETING OF THE QUEEN AND HER MOTHER.]
{1373}
Parti-coloured dresses were much worn then. The Queen’s second son,
Louis, was born March, 1371. Bertrand du Guesclin was his godfather,
and put a sword into his hand, praying God and Our Lady to make him a
good knight. In July, 1373, was born her daughter Isabelle. The little
Dauphin was her godfather and held her at the font; her grandmother,
the Duchess Isabelle, was her godmother.
Louis de Bourbon had married in 1371 Anne, daughter of the Comte de
Clermont et d’Auvergne. He was a good soldier, just, generous, and
religious; his court was as magnificent as those of the Dukes of
Burgundy and Orléans. When he returned from being a hostage in England
he instituted an order of chivalry called the Ecu d’or. During the
fête, after the ceremony, his Procureur-Général, Chavreau, presented
to him a register of depredations committed on his lands during his
captivity by divers lords, his vassals, most of whom were present,
and were seized with consternation; but the Duke replied, “Chavreau,
have you also the register of the services they have rendered me?” and
without looking at it, threw it into the fire. It is said that when,
after the capture of his mother, Anne, Duchesse de Bretagne, fell
into his hands and exclaimed, “_Ah, beau cousin!_ am I a prisoner?”
he replied, “No, madame, we do not make war on ladies.” His subjects
adored him, and when, many years afterwards, he died and his body
was brought to Moulins to be buried, clergy and people thronged to
accompany it wherever the funeral passed, with tears and lamentations.
CHAPTER VI
1373-1380
Illness of the Queen--Her recovery--Floods in Paris--Death
of several princesses of the Royal Family--Bertrand du
Guesclin--The Court of Charles V. and Jeanne de Bourbon--The
peers of France--The King’s will--Betrothal of his
daughters--Visit of the Emperor Charles IV.--The Emperor
and the Duchess-dowager de Bourbon--Birth of the Princess
Catherine--Death of the Queen--Of the Princess Isabelle--Grief
of the King--His death.
The beds used at this time were enormous. If only six feet square they
were considered very small and called _couchettes_, but when they
were from eight feet and a half by seven and a half to twelve feet
by eleven, they were supposed to be of a sufficient size and called
_couches_. These beds were mounted on very wide steps covered with
rich carpets, and were hung with exquisite and costly stuffs; alcoves,
supposed to be so much later an invention, were then in use. The
chronicler of the quatre premiers Valois relates that in 1373 the Queen
was seized with a dangerous illness. She seems to have been delirious,
as he goes on to say that she lost her _bonne mémoire_, that the
King, _qui moult l’aimoit_, made many pilgrimages about it, and that
by the mercy of God and Our Lady she recovered her good health and
good senses. In spite of his delicate health Charles often made these
pilgrimages to holy places, walking barefoot with the monks.
{1373}
In the early part of 1373 there were great floods, especially of the
Seine, Marne, Yonne, Oise, and Loire. They lasted two months and were
said to be the worst that had happened within living memory. The
streets of Paris were full of water so that people had to go about
in boats. From one gate to another the water flowed; it rose to the
bridges and filled the lower rooms in the houses.
Several princesses of the French royal family had died within a short
time--the Queen-dowager, Jeanne d’Evreux, of whose will and funeral
an account was given in a former volume; Jeanne, Queen of Navarre,
eldest sister of the King; the Princess Jeanne, daughter of Philippe
VI. and Queen Blanche, who died on her way to Spain to marry the son
of the King of Aragon. Also the old Prioress of Poissy, great aunt
of the Queen, who was the Princess Marie de Clermont, daughter of
Robert, Comte de Clermont, son of St. Louis. In early youth she had
been betrothed to the Marquis de Montferrat. But she had set her heart
on a monastic life, and she took the veil with the approval of her
cousin Philippe le Bel, in the convent he had just founded at Poissy.
She became Prioress, but having lost her sight she resigned that
dignity, and died in May, 1372, at seventy-three years of age. It was,
of course, afterwards that Marie de Bourbon, youngest sister of the
Queen, was made Prioress of Poissy.
These were years of success and happiness for Charles and Jeanne. They
had now four children, two of whom were sons. Prosperity was restored
to their kingdom. The people trusted them, so that heavier taxes than
those which caused riots under Jean and Charles VI. were paid without
opposition by the subjects of Charles V., who knew that the affairs
of the State were administered by able hands, and that the money so
collected would be used for the defence and welfare of the country, not
squandered on court pageants or unworthy favourites.
A truce was made with England, who had lost all the territories won
from the late King, and restored to France by the wisdom of Charles le
Sage and the valour of Bertrand du Guesclin.
Romance and poetry gather, as well they may, around the career
of this heroic leader, the despised, neglected child of a poor
Breton gentleman; who swept the English from his country, and died
Constable of France, surrounded by his victorious troops, the keys of
Châteauneuf-Randon, his last conquest, being laid upon his coffin. His
father, a Breton noble, and his mother, who was proud and beautiful,
considered their eldest son a disgrace to their family--for Bertrand
was ugly, rough, and continually fighting and getting into mischief.
Disliked and ill-treated at home he made his escape from his father’s
château, and took refuge with an uncle and aunt, who received him with
kindness, and with whom he remained. When he was sixteen or seventeen
there was one day a wrestling match at Rennes, and being resolved to
attend it he ran away from church, fought at the match and won the
prize, but was so dreadfully hurt that he had to be carried back to
the château of his uncle, where he was laid up for some time, during
which his aunt, divided between her sorrow and uneasiness about his
wounds and her anger at his disobedience, kept coming into his room,
alternately reproaching and consoling him. Sometime afterwards there
was a tourney at Rennes. Bertrand borrowed a horse and arms of his
cousin and presented himself in the lists, challenging the first
esquire who would break a lance with him. One of the bravest of the
troop came forward, and was overthrown by him at the first shock. The
next adversary who advanced was his own father. Recognising the arms
of his house upon his father’s shield, Bertrand threw down his own, to
the astonishment of all present, who attributed his doing so to fear.
But he overthrew the next adversary and then raised his casque. His
father embraced him, and his mother and aunt were filled with joy. His
father then gave him everything he wanted for the outfit of a cavalier,
and by his gallant deeds he soon rose to the height of fame. The story
of his death in 1380, when besieging the castle of Châteauneuf-Randon
in Gévaudan, as told by ancient chroniclers, is as follows: The Castle
was to surrender the day after Du Guesclin died; Marshal de Sancerre
summoned the Governor to give up the keys, but he answered that he had
sworn to yield them only to Du Guesclin. Being told that he was dead,
he replied, “Then I will lay them on his tomb.” The Marshal consented,
the Governor, at the head of the garrison, issued from the castle, and
passing through the ranks of the besieging army knelt before[75] the
body of Du Guesclin and laid the keys on his coffin.
Before he died Du Guesclin charged his captains to remember that in
whatever country they made war, women, children, the poor and _les gens
de l’église_ were not their enemies. He had all his life been good to
the weak and the poor.
The King and Queen showed all honour and affection to Du Guesclin.
Louis de Harcourt had been one of the foremost captains in the English
war, and now came to Paris with the King’s brothers. Charles had
suspected him sometime before of being in love with the Queen, and had
regarded him with jealousy and anger in consequence, but having become
convinced that he had been mistaken and unreasonable, _que sans raison
il avoit eu cette folle suspicion_, he received him _moult agréablement
et joyeusement_.[76]
While there can be no doubt that the court of Charles V. and Jeanne
de Bourbon was much more orderly and more intellectual than those of
the two first Valois kings, it does not seem so certain that it was
equally amusing. It was stately and magnificent; comfort, luxury, and
civilisation had greatly increased; there were splendid banquets,
balls, and other entertainments, but the accounts of the daily life
there, which have come down to us from that time, especially those of
Christine de Pisan, who lived among the scenes she describes, show a
very different state of things from the brilliant, reckless lives of
pleasure and gaiety led by all who belonged to the Court of France in
the days of Philippe de Valois and his son Jean.
The King got up at six or seven o’clock in the morning, and when
dressed his breviary was brought him and he went to his oratory to
hear mass; after which he gave audience to anybody who wished to ask
him anything. In these interviews he treated everybody who approached
him with the greatest courtesy and kindness. On certain days he then
went to the Council Chamber, and at ten o’clock he sat down to dinner,
music going on all the time of that repast. When it was over he devoted
two hours to interviews with foreign envoys, or with any one bringing
news from the seat of war,[77] or of any other matters of importance in
different parts of his kingdom. Then he went to lie down for an hour,
and after that, one reads with a feeling of relief, that he allowed
himself a little pleasure. Christine de Pisan takes care to explain
that this was only in order that he might work better afterwards, but
one may trust that this absurd suggestion was only an idea of her own,
and that the mind of Charles was not so saturated with duty and dulness
as she would imply. At any rate, he amused himself during this part
of the day by looking at his books, jewels, and different collections,
and talking with his friends. Perhaps the most intimate and the one he
loved best was Jean de la Rivière. There is a note of a ring he gave
him, with a ruby in it _qui tient au violet_.
Next, the King went to vespers and then out into his garden, where
generally the Queen was with him, and where curious and beautiful
things were often brought to them by the merchants. In winter he had
different books read to him; stories from the Scriptures, philosophy,
romances, &c., till supper, and during the rest of the evening he
amused himself. Jeanne also had some one to read aloud to her while she
was at dinner.
The King’s devotion to the Queen had never changed. From his boyish
days at the court of his grandfather she had been the only woman he had
ever loved. Without consulting her he would take no step of importance,
and he cared for no pleasure she could not share. They lived, as
Christine de Pisan says, _en paix et en amour_. Charles delighted in
finding and giving her beautiful presents of jewels, curiosities,
objects of art, or anything that he thought would please her.
Christine de Pisan describes with enthusiasm the way in which Jeanne
held her court, the order and magnificence with which everything was
arranged, whether in the daily life of her court and household, or in
the splendid entertainments and ceremonies of state. She speaks of the
beauty and dignity of Jeanne, as she appeared at these festivities,
wearing her crown, her royal mantle of cloth of gold, or of silk
covered with precious stones, and a girdle of jewels, accompanied by
two or three queens (the two Queens-dowager, Jeanne and Blanche, and
the Queen of Navarre), by her mother the Duchesse de Bourbon and by all
the members of the royal family and court.
The peers of France in the time of Charles V. were as follows: Original
peers ecclesiastical, called Clercs Ducs, _i.e._, the Archbishop of
Reims and the Bishops of Laon and Langres; Clercs Comtes, _i.e._, the
Bishops of Beauvais, Châlons, and Noyon.
Lay peers, _i.e._, Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine; Counts
of Toulouse, Flanders, and Champagne.
But the King held in his hands the Counties of Toulouse and Champagne,
and the following new ones had been created.
Comte d’Alençon, Duc de Bourbon, Comte d’Etampes, Comte d’Artois, Duc
de Bretagne, Comte de Clermont and Roi de Navarre (as Comte d’Evreux).
The lay peers sat on the right of the King, the ecclesiastical on the
left. New peers sat according to creation.[78]
That Charles should forbid private wars among the nobles was a
matter of course. He also made a law forbidding games of hazard. He
discouraged all books of licentious tendency and conversation of the
same kind, and gave out that those who led scandalous lives would lose
his favour and be dismissed from court. He was very angry with a young
chevalier who had, as Christine de Pisan expresses it, “instructed the
Dauphin in love and folly,” and forbade him to enter his presence, or
that of the Queen and their children; but he does not seem to have been
cruel or very severe. He would by no means allow either his nobles or
any one else to condemn their wives to perpetual imprisonment if they
were unfaithful to them, “considering the fragility of human nature,”
and was with great difficulty persuaded to allow of their being kept
under restraint if their conduct was too outrageous.
On one occasion his barber, who was shaving him, kept putting his hand
in the pouch or purse the King wore at his side and taking out money.
Charles saw what he was about and forgave him; but he repeated his
offence twice or thrice. The fourth time, the King dismissed him but
would not allow him to be put to death, as by the laws of that time he
was liable to be; because he had served him so long. Another time, “it
was in the time of the pestilence, before he was crowned,[79] as he was
entering Paris with a great company, after a great commotion in the
town which had been against him,” as he passed through a street one of
the rabble cried out, “By God, Sire! if I had been believed, you would
not have come in; but they will not do much for you.”
The Comte de Tanquarville, who rode before the King, wanted to go and
put the fellow to death, but Charles restrained him, only answering
with an indifferent smile. “They will not believe you, beau sire.” On
being told by some of the princes that he was too easy and too ready
to grant pardons, by which he encouraged crime, he replied that he
would much rather be too indulgent than too severe. He was exceedingly
charitable both to the convents and to the poor and unfortunate of all
classes, and gave away an immense amount of money.
The government of Languedoc had been entrusted by the King to the Duc
d’Anjou, the eldest and perhaps the worst of his brothers. But his rule
was so cruel and oppressive, and such commotions arose from it that
Charles interfered; forbade the executions and punishments ordered by
the Duke to be carried out, and took the government of the province
away from him. The two elder of the King’s brothers were a continual
source of uneasiness to him. Believing from his delicate health that
his own life would not be a long one, he felt a dread that was only
too well founded of what would happen if in the event of his death
the kingdom and the Dauphin should fall into their hands. He did what
he could to obviate this contingency. He fixed the majority of the
Dauphin at fourteen years of age. He gave the guardianship of him and
his brother and sisters to the Queen, her brother the Duc de Bourbon,
and his third brother the Duc de Bourgogne. The Duc d’Anjou, though
he was to be regent, was to swear on the gospels and holy relics to
govern loyally for the welfare of the kingdom and his nephew, and was
to have no jurisdiction over the town and _vicomté_ of Paris, the
towns and _baillages_ of Melun and Sens, and the whole of the duchy of
Normandy, which were to be administered for the King by his guardians
and a council; he also regulated the fortunes of his younger children.
The Princess Marie was betrothed to Guillaume de Bavière, Comte de
Hollande, et de Hainault, eldest son of the Duke of Bavaria, and the
Princess Isabelle to Jean, Duc d’Alençon. The crowns or coronets for
these little princesses and several other of their possessions appear
in a list made by order of their father.[80]
{1377}
In December, 1377, the Emperor Charles IV. came on a visit to the
King and Queen. Preparations for his reception were made on the
grandest scale. He arrived at Cambrai on Tuesday before Christmas
with his son, the King of the Romans, was met by a body of nobles
and cavaliers sent by the King to welcome him and entertained by the
Bishop. The next night he slept at the abbey of Mont St. Martin. The
Duc de Bourbon, the Comte d’Eu, cousin of the King, and the Bishops of
Beauvais and Paris came to meet him at Compiègne with three hundred
cavaliers in blue and white, the Duke’s colours. The Duc de Bourbon
entertained the whole company at supper and the next day, at Senlis,
the Emperor was met by another array of cavalry with the Dukes of
Burgundy and Berry. As he had been seized on the way with an attack of
gout, the King of France sent a litter drawn by mules and “_noblement
appareilliée_”[81] belonging to the Queen, which the Emperor received
with great satisfaction and in which he travelled to St. Denis. There
he was met by a train of prelates and dignitaries who accompanied him
to the famous church, into which, as he was not well enough to walk,
he caused himself to be carried and offered his prayers before the
altar of St. Louis. He was then carried to his room and his suite were
supplied by the Abbot with “great fish, beef, mutton, rabbits, fowls,
fodder for their horses, and abundance of wine.” Many presents were
brought by the people of the town, and the Emperor when he had rested
was carried to the treasury of the abbey, where priceless collections
of relics, crowns, and gems were displayed before him. The robes,
crowns, jewels, and everything of the kind used at the coronations were
kept by the Abbot and monks of St. Denis.
The Emperor spent that day in the Abbey, and rose very early the next
morning, January 4th, as on that day he was to go to Paris. But before
he set off he was carried again into the church, where he asked to
see the tombs of the kings, especially of Jean and of Philippe de
Valois and his wife, Jeanne de Bourgogne. For he was the son of the
gallant King of Bohemia, who died at Crécy; his sister, Bonne, was the
first wife of Jean, and he himself had been brought up in the court
of Philippe de Valois and Jeanne de Bourgogne. As he remarked, “his
youth had been nourished in their hostel and much good they had done
to him.”[82] And he called the Abbot and monks and begged them to pray
to God for the “_bons seigneurs et dames qui gisoient là_.” Then, with
much state and ceremony, he began his journey to Paris, to visit once
more the splendid scenes of those far-off days and the children of
those, who had been the friends and companions of his youth. And he
said that more than any creature on earth he desired to see the King
and Queen and their children, and then let God take him, for he would
willingly die.
The Emperor got out of his litter and entered Paris mounted on a black
horse richly caparisoned with the arms of France, sent him by the King
his nephew, who came out to meet him mounted on a tall white charger
wearing a scarlet robe, mantle and hat covered with pearls, with a
great train of nobles and chevaliers gorgeously dressed attended by
their followers wearing their liveries, the officers of the households
of the King and the Dauphin in immense numbers dressed according to
their grades. The King had sent a proclamation the day before that no
one should dare (_que nul ne fust tant hardi_) to take up the space in
the _grant rue_ by coming to the palace with carts or people, and no
one should move from the places where they had put themselves to see
the King and Emperor pass. None were allowed to come into the town,
and many of the inhabitants had to stay outside in the fields, while
sergeants-at-arms were posted in the streets, and thirty of them with
swords and maces rode before the King’s bodyguard. The King of France,
the Emperor and the King of the Romans rode into Paris side by side in
this magnificent procession, and it was three o’clock when they arrived
at the marble steps of the palace, when the Emperor, who could hardly
hold himself up from the gout, was placed in a chair covered with cloth
of gold and with much honour and ceremony conducted to the apartment
prepared for him.
It would be too long in a work like this to give the details so
minutely described and so interesting to the student of history, of the
proceedings of the next few days, during which the Emperor remained
the guest of the King of France, of the banquets with five dais one
above another in great halls where windows, ceiling, and columns were
hung with cloth of gold, of the profusion of the feasting, of the
_spectacle_ of the conquest of Jerusalem in the vast hall of the Palais
de la Cité, of the entertainments at the Louvre, Beauté and Vincennes,
offered by the King to the Emperor. It will be sufficient to relate
what is perhaps the most interesting event of his sojourn in Paris,
his visit to the Queen at the hôtel St. Paul on Sunday, January 10th.
The Emperor, accompanied by the King of France, went down to the quay
near the Louvre, where they embarked on the King’s barge and proceeded
by water to St. Pol, where they landed. They were met in the middle of
the court by the Dauphin and his brother Louis Comte de Valois, who
knelt before the King and then went to salute the Emperor. The latter
took off his hat, kissed the two boys, and was carried on in his chair
through such a throng of seigneurs, knights, and people of the Court
that the chair could hardly pass, to the _salon_ of the Queen, who was
in the midst of a great assemblage of princesses and ladies of the
court. As he sat by the Queen the Emperor kept asking for her mother,
the Duchesse de Bourbon, Isabelle de Valois, the sister of his first
wife and friend of his sister Bonne, Duchesse de Normandie, whom he had
known so well in the old days at Paris and Vincennes. She had withdrawn
to the end of the great room out of the crowd, but when she was told
that he was anxious to see her she came up to him.
Then for a moment they looked at each other in silence. The memories
of bygone days, of their own youth, of the forms and faces of the
dead came back to them and they both burst into tears, so that, as
the chronicler says, “it was a piteous thing to see.”[83] Finding it
impossible to carry on any conversation then, they deferred it till
after dinner. After the Emperor had rested in the apartment of the
Dauphin, which had been prepared for him, the Kings of France and of
the Romans dined, wine and dessert were served, and the banquet was
in the great Salle de Sens. Then Charles V. retired to his own rooms;
his brothers with the King of the Romans, who wanted to see the lions,
went to find Louis, Comte de Valois, who probably wished to go with
them, and the Duchesse de Bourbon came to the apartment of the Emperor,
her brother-in-law. For a long time they sat together, talking of old
times, as people will who were companions in childhood after being
separated for half a lifetime. Later on they were joined by the Queen
and her two little sons, and they all stayed with the Emperor till the
hour of vespers.
They brought him two beautiful dogs with the golden _fleur-de-lis_ on
their silken collars, and he gave the Queen a gold reliquary.
Towards evening the King came to fetch the Emperor as they were going
down to Vincennes and Beauté, whence the latter was to take his
departure.[84]
{1378}
It was the last fête of the court of Jeanne de Bourbon. For less than
a month afterwards, on the 4th of February, at the hôtel St. Paul,
she gave birth to a daughter, “_dont moult fut grevée de travail_.”
To allay the violence of the fever with which she was seized the
Queen insisted on being put into a cold bath, after which she became
alarmingly ill. The child was hastily baptized by the Bishop of Paris
and called after her mother’s favourite Saint Catherine. All her life
Jeanne had desired to die before her husband, and said she hoped she
would never live to be regent. She had her wish,[85] for she died in
the King’s arms February 6, 1378, about two hours before midnight.
The little Princess Isabelle died a few days after her mother, and was
buried by her side at St. Denis.
Jeanne de Bourbon was one of the most charming and spotless characters
in history. From her childish marriage to her death she does not seem
to have had an enemy or a word of blame ever attached to her. She was
always spoken of as “la belle duchesse” or “la bonne reine.” Charles
was inconsolable. He never had the frank, open nature nor the graceful
charm of manner that made some of the princes of his house adored by
their friends and subjects. Quiet and reserved, he was a man of few
but deep and lasting friendships and affections, and he was capable of
a deathless love. The loss of Jeanne broke his heart. From that day his
life was over. He never regained either health or spirits, but died
rather more than two years after at his château of Beauté at the edge
of his beloved forest.
Isabelle de Valois, Duchess-dowager de Bourbon, took charge of her
granddaughters and retired into the convent of the Cordelières at
Paris, where she ended her days.
[Illustration: Semé de France au bâton de gueules mis enbande.]
_THE REIGN OF CHARLES VI. AND ISABEAU DE BAVIÈRE_
CHAPTER I
1375-1385
The House of Wittelsbach--Stephan von Wittelsbach and Taddea
Visconti--Birth of Isabeau--Negotiations for her marriage--Her
journey to Brussels--The fair of Amiens--Her interview with the
King--Her wedding--Charles and Louis de France.
During several years after the death of Jeanne de Bourbon no Queen sat
on the throne of France, for her son succeeded as a child of twelve
years old. And it would have been difficult to find two kings and
queens more totally unlike each other in every respect than Charles le
Sage and Jeanne de Bourbon, “the sunshine of France,” were to their son
and daughter-in-law, Charles VI. and Isabeau de Bavière.
An intelligent woman of my acquaintance once remarked, on being asked
whether she considered women to be better than men, “Oh, certainly!
Much better. I know several good women, but I only know one good man.”
{1375}
It might appear as if some idea of the kind pervaded this and a
former volume, in which, with the exception perhaps of Charles V. and
Louis XII., none of the Kings of France treated of can be exactly so
described; whereas the talents, beauty, and goodness of the Queens
seem generally made evident. But all the researches into the history
of their times, from which these records are drawn, seem to prove that
during the eight reigns in question most of the Queens of France really
were distinguished for their excellent qualities, and that except the
unlucky Charlotte de Savoie they were all more or less good-looking;
Blanche de Navarre, Isabeau de Bavière, and Marie d’Anjou being
remarkably beautiful; and that at any rate Blanche de Navarre, the
three Jeannes, wives of Philippe de Valois, Jean and Charles V., and
Anne de Bretagne, were highly cultivated women, possessing superior
talents and strongly-marked characters. In Isabeau de Bavière we find
an entirely different personality.
Stephan I., Duke of Bavaria, of the ancient house of Wittelsbach, died
in 1375, leaving three sons, between whom he divided his dominions, and
from whom descend the three lines of Ingolstadt, Landshut, and Munich.
The strongest ties of affection and friendship united these three
brothers, who however, seem to have borne little resemblance to each
other.
{1383}
Stephan of Ingolstadt was short in stature, but good-looking,
high-spirited, and full of romance, his chief delight being in
love-making and warlike adventures. Friederich of Landshut, a brave,
wise, able prince, was by far the most capable member of the family,
while Johann, a rough and fearless sportsman, led a wild, jovial life
in his own court and castles, which he filled with huntsmen, hawks,
dogs, and horses.[86] From him descends the Munich line of Bavarian
princes.[87] Johann took a German wife, but Stephan and Friederich
married Taddea and Maddalena, daughters of Bernabo Visconti, one of the
chiefs of that family so renowned for splendour, power, and cruelty,
then ruling in Milan. After a few years Taddea died, and left Stephan
with a son and daughter named Ludwig and Isabeau, or Elizabeth. The
latter was born at Ingolstadt 1370 or 1371. By his second marriage he
had no children.
In all Germany, and perhaps in all Europe, there is not a more
beautiful country than Bavaria, with its lakes, mountains, forests,
and ancient castles. Here Isabeau spent her short childhood, idolized
by her father and brother, flattered and spoiled by all around her,
for her extraordinary beauty was the admiration of the court. It was a
brief childhood, for she was only about twelve years old when the first
negotiations for her marriage with the King of France were begun. Her
uncle, Friederich of Landshut, was serving in Flanders with the French
against the English army in the year 1383, just at the time when the
uncles and guardians of the young Charles VI. were looking for a wife
for him, and as his father, the late King Charles V., had desired that
he should be married to a German, and thus secure an ally to France
against England, they were hesitating between the daughters of Austria,
Lorraine, and one or two others that had been suggested, and inquired
of Duke Friederich whether there were any marriageable princess of his
family who would be suitable.
Friederich was naturally anxious not to let slip the chance of the
crown of France for one of his house; so he explained that, although he
had no children of the right age, his brother, Stephan, had a daughter
in all respects suitable, being extremely beautiful and about two years
younger than the King, and he lost no time in writing to inform his
brother of the splendid prospect which seemed to be opening before
them. But Duke Stephan, less ambitious than his brother, was in no
way elated by this proposal. He replied that, in the first place, he
did not like unequal alliances, and between himself and the King of
France the difference was too great; neither did he wish his daughter
to go so far away, but would prefer to marry her to some noble of his
own country; besides which objections, there existed a custom that a
prospective Queen of France should, like candidates for the army in
our own days, pass a sort of medical examination which was conducted
by certain matrons chosen from among the ladies of highest rank at
the French court; and to this the Duke refused to consent. He declared
that he was not going to allow either himself or his daughter to be
made ridiculous by sending her to France on an uncertainty, or to risk
the affront of her being rejected. She should stay in her own country
and marry some one nearer home. So, for the time, the negotiations were
broken off.
It was indeed most unfortunate that the very sensible decision of
Stephan was not adhered to, and also that in the one and only case in
which the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy carried out the directions of the
late King, their brother, the result should have been so deplorable. In
all other respects they disobeyed his injunctions. They brought up his
sons in opposition to his wishes, they wasted the treasure he had taken
so much time and care to collect, they impoverished the people by their
extortions, and incensed them by their misgovernment, so that they were
fast bringing France back to that state of anarchy and misery from
which she had been rescued by the wise rule of Charles V.
If Isabeau had stayed, as her father wished, at his comparatively
simple court and married some German noble, it would probably have been
much better both for France and herself; but this was not to be, for
the rest of the family and connections of that young princess strongly
disapproved of the decision of Duke Stephan, and used all their
endeavours to prevail upon him to alter it. For many generations the
numerous members of the house of Wittelsbach had married into all the
royal and ruling families of France, Burgundy, and Flanders. Amongst
others, the Duchesse de Brabant was a relation of theirs and was most
anxious for the marriage.
{1385}
In 1385, the wedding of a Bavarian prince with one of the daughters of
Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, was to be celebrated with great pomp and
rejoicings at Cambrai, in the presence of the King and the whole of the
French court. During the festivities the Duchesse de Brabant took the
opportunity of reopening the subject with the King’s uncles to whom
she pointed out all the alliances and advantages it would bring. The
princes were willing to agree to it; for they had not yet decided on
a wife for their nephew. A daughter of Lancaster had been suggested,
but this was not approved of, and they were still hesitating between
an Austrian archduchess and a princess of Lorraine, having, as they
said, received[88] no further communications from Bavaria. The duchess
promised to see about it before the end of the summer. The Duke of
Burgundy, himself closely connected with the house of Bavaria, was the
chief supporter of this alliance and entered warmly into the plans of
the Duchesse de Brabant, who succeeded in overcoming the objections
of Stephan and persuaded him to allow his daughter to pay a visit to
her and to the Duchesse de Hainault, also a relation, and then to
go with them to the fair of Amiens, where she would meet the King.
Her uncle, Duke Friederich was to take her, and in order to avoid
anything compromising to her dignity, she was to go on the pretext of
a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Jean d’Amiens, where a famous
relic was exhibited during the time this fair was going on. A painter
was sent to paint the portraits of the three princesses, _i.e._, of
Lorraine, Austria, and Bavaria. The portraits were shown to the King,
who at once chose that of Isabeau. It still hangs in the gallery of the
Louvre. She wears a red robe trimmed with fur, a tight corsage partly
of blue velvet and a high headdress ornamented with gold and jewels.
It was early summer when Isabeau took leave of her father and her
country, and set off with her uncle upon her journey. They travelled
first to Brussels, where they were warmly received by the Duchesse de
Brabant with whom they stayed three days, and then went to Quesnoy
to stay three weeks with the Duchesse de Hainault; of whom Froissart
remarks, “_La duchesse qui fut moult sage, endoctrinait tous les jours,
en toutes manières et contenances, la jeune fille de Bavière, quoique,
de sa nature, celle-ci estoit propre et pourvue de sens et de doctrine;
mais point de françois elle ne sçavoit_.”
They also made considerable changes in Isabeau’s dress, which they
declared to be far too simple for the future Queen of France. The
Duchesse de Brabant ordered an entirely new trousseau for her so that
she might be dressed as magnificently as if she had been her own
daughter, and having arranged all this she went to Amiens, where she
was joined by Isabeau under the care of the Duchesse de Hainault and
her uncle, Friederich of Landshut.
The fair of Amiens, which took place every year was one of those
mixtures of amusement and devotion so characteristic of the Middle
Ages. The relic, which they declared to be the head of St. John the
Baptist, had been brought from the siege of Constantinople by the
Crusaders in 1204; and given by a gentleman of Picardy to the church
of St. Jean d’Amiens, of which one of his brothers was a canon. It was
always shown at the time of the fair, to which all classes came in
crowds. One can form no idea of the splendour and picturesqueness of
these mediæval fairs from the squalid spectacles that survive in our
own days.
For what do we see now? Uninteresting but harmless crowds, mostly clad
in cheap, tasteless imitations of the dress of a higher rank, pressing
into shows which one cannot imagine anybody wishing to see, surrounding
long rows of monotonous booths filled with ugly, commonplace goods
that one cannot imagine anybody wishing to buy, committing no crimes
and molesting nobody. But although very few modern fairs in civilised
Europe offer anything worth buying or seeing, they were widely
different in the Middle Ages. In many towns important fairs took place
every year to which people went properly attended and protected, and
where beautiful and valuable things of all kinds were to be sold. There
the merchants brought jewels, embroideries, and costly stuffs from
Italy and the East; pictures, illuminated missals, stamped leather,
rich carvings in wood and ivory; delicately wrought cups, flagons,
bowls, and other precious works of the gold and silver smiths; weapons
of war, objects of art, and curiosities of every description. All sorts
of shows and diversions were also going on all day and far into the
night, which was the time the King and court usually went. It was a
wonderful sight: the fitful glare of torches thrown here and there
on the booths loaded with costly wares, while mingling in the throng
around might be seen gleaming armour, magnificent dresses of silk
and velvet, leather jerkins, tall caps, and peasants’ coarse woollen
gowns and tunics; dark gabled houses forming a shadowy background. Now
and then a fierce quarrel would arise, and there would be a rush and
scuffle of armed men, the glitter of swords and daggers, shouts, cries,
the fall of some and the dash of others down the dark, narrow streets
which afforded their best chance of escape. The most famous of the old
French fairs were the _Foire de Lendit_, or _Landit_, held between
Paris and St. Denis, and perhaps the most ancient of all,[89] the fairs
of St. Denis and St. Germain, which belonged to the Abbot and monks of
St. Germain-des-Près, and was held in the celebrated _Pré-aux-clercs_,
a great meadow or open space going from the Abbey to the Seine. The
fair of Amiens was a great resort of all classes at that time, and when
Isabeau with her uncle, Duke Friederich, and the Duchesse de Brabant
arrived at its gates the town was thronged with people. The King was
there with his court and a great array of nobles and ladies, besides
numbers of ecclesiastics, merchants bringing their goods on long trains
of mules, bourgeois and peasants, wandering minstrels and soldiers, so
that the whole place was a scene of bustle, excitement, and festivity,
which may well have delighted a young girl scarcely out of childhood
longing for all the pleasure and magnificence so soon to be laid at her
feet. For the King, ever since his uncles had shown him the portrait
of Isabeau had not ceased to torment them to let him see the original,
and as soon as he heard that she was really close at hand he sent two
of his favourite chevaliers, the Seigneurs de la Rivière and de la
Tremoille, to receive and conduct her with her relations and suite to
the lodgings prepared for them, and assure them of his eagerness for
the interview which had been arranged to take place on the following
day.
The Duchesses and Isabeau were delighted at all they heard from the
two chevaliers of the King’s anxiety and impatience, which promised
well for the success of the plan; the beauty of Isabeau being far
too striking to leave much doubt of the effect it would produce on a
romantic, impressionable lad, who had already fallen in love with her
picture.
The next day, Friday, the young princess was magnificently dressed,
the Duchesses of Burgundy, Brabant, and Hainault, presiding at her
toilette, after which she went with them to the King’s reception.
Charles, who had lain awake all night thinking about her, turned
eagerly towards the door as Isabeau entered, and all eyes were fixed
on her with interest and curiosity as she passed through the throng of
courtiers. It must have been a trying moment for her, though if she
felt nervous she did not show it, but only stood in silence before the
King, who hastily prevented her, as she was about to bow or kneel
before him, and raised her up with passionate admiration. All the
evening he could not take his eyes from her, and after she had left and
the reception was over no one felt any doubt of the result. The Duke
of Burgundy told La Rivière, who was going with the King to his room,
to find out while he was undressing what he wished to be done. Charles
replied: “Tell my uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, to make haste and
conclude the affair.”[90]
[Illustration: Isabeau de Baviere]
The Duke of Burgundy therefore went to the lodgings of the Duchesse
de Brabant and Princess Isabeau, and the arrangements were concluded.
The Duke, at the council, wished the wedding to be at Arras, but the
King declared he would not have any more delay, as he could neither
sleep nor rest. He sent the Princess a splendid crown, and the wedding
was celebrated at the cathedral of Amiens a few days afterwards, in
presence of the whole court, and followed by banquets and various
festivities, which lasted for some days. The wedding was so hurried on
that there was no time to finish the trousseau ordered for the young
queen.[91] And thus were two spoilt, self-willed children of fourteen
and sixteen placed at the head of what, in those days, was the most
powerful kingdom in Christendom.
Many people who have a slight acquaintance with French history picture
to themselves Charles VI. as the miserable invalid he became in
later years, and know nothing about the tall, handsome young Prince,
high-spirited, passionate, generous, and as eager for glory, as fond
of pleasure, magnificence, and love-making, as his great-grandfather
and grandfather the Kings Philippe and Jean, and his great uncle,
Duke Philippe d’Orléans. To their own father, the sickly, studious
Charles V., who hated riding, war, and rough games, but in whose
reign, nevertheless, the English invaders were driven out of France
and the French navy re-established; neither Charles VI. nor his young
brother Louis bore the slightest resemblance, except that Louis had
inherited, with the beauty and gallant grace of the Valois, the love
of books, art, and study, which distinguished Charles V.[92] By far
the most brilliant of the two brothers, he had been, at the time of
his father’s death, too young to give much indication of what he would
turn out like; indeed about the only details mentioned respecting him
are his beauty and the admiration it excited at the last great pageant
of court,[93] where just before his mother’s death the Emperor was
so splendidly received and entertained; and the devout way in which
he used to say his prayers, kneeling before the image of the Virgin.
But the hasty, impetuous temper of Charles, his incapacity for any
serious study, his excitable, unstable temperament, his passion for
pleasure and display, had been an anxiety and grief to his father,
who recognised in the boy all the qualities, attractions, and faults
of his race, which had already been so fatal to France. In fact, as
it often happens, the lad was everything his father did not want him
to be, and Charles V., as long as he lived, used every means in his
power to counteract the tendencies which he considered so dangerous.
He forbade any love-stories to be told to the Dauphin, and when on one
occasion one of the gentlemen of his household disobeyed this order,
dismissed him.[94] He gave him the best tutors that could be found,
and tried to influence and educate him by constant supervision. At
the earliest age his tutor observed his delight in anything that had
to do with war, and his father, probably seeing that he would never
make a scholar or statesman, and thinking that he might perhaps become
a great leader and soldier, encouraged this taste. One day he showed
him the royal treasury of crowns, jewels, and objects of inestimable
value, telling him to choose whatever he liked for himself. The child
looked around and pointed to a sword which hung up in a corner of the
room, and which was given to him accordingly. Some days afterwards, at
a state banquet, the King caused to be placed before him a soldier’s
casque and a magnificent crown of gold and precious stones, asking
which he would like best--to be crowned King with the one, or to wear
the other amidst the dangers of war. Without hesitation the Dauphin
replied, “Monseigneur, I like the casque better than the crown.” This
answer delighted the nobles, who, amidst acclamations of loyalty, swore
to serve and defend the boy whenever he should become their King, after
which Charles V. ordered the casque and sword to be hung up by the
Dauphin’s bed, and a little suit of armour and weapons to be made for
him,[95] that so gallant a spirit might be encouraged. If Charles V.
and Jeanne de Bourbon had lived to look after their sons it seems most
likely that the ruin and misery which fell upon them and upon France
might have been averted.
For many years Charles V. had felt sure that his life would not be a
long one; but his hope was that the Queen, who had good health, would
survive him and would be guardian to the children, her brother, Louis
de Bourbon--called “the good Duke Louis”--being always at hand to help
her. After the irreparable calamity of her death, and finding his own
health rapidly breaking up, he did what he could for his children by
making the Duc de Bourbon guardian to the young King and his brother,
and by preventing the Duc d’Anjou, who, as the eldest of his brothers,
had to be regent, from having more power than he could help. The Ducs
de Berry and Bourgogne were also joined in the government of the
country and the young princes. With many misgivings he entreated them
to carry out his directions and to bring up the King properly; nearly
his last words to them on the subject having been, “_Soignez-le, mes
frères, et prenez grande attention de le bien former à la royauté, car
l’enfant est jeune et de l’esprit léger_.”[96]
Those princes did nothing of the kind. It is true that the Princess
Catherine was given into the sole charge of her grandmother, the old
Duchesse de Bourbon, who since the Queen’s death had lived a saintly
life at the convent of St. Marcel; but Charles and Louis were brought
up together at the hôtel St. Paul in an atmosphere of flattery, folly,
and corruption, which was eventually fatal to them both. The three
brothers of the late King were eager to secure for themselves all the
power and wealth they could seize, and would not listen to the Duc de
Bourbon, who, as personal guardian only, and not a brother of the late
King, had less power and could not oppose them. The lives led by the
two boys were what in our own days would be called fast for a man ten
years older, and eventually resulted in the madness of Charles and the
death of Louis. The aim of their uncles was to keep them ignorant,
so that the reins of government might remain as long as possible in
their own hands. In this they only partly succeeded, as Louis was very
clever and fond of study, but Charles hated books, application, or
restraint of any kind. They both rode well and were good at all sorts
of games and sports, and the people, who had respected Charles V. and
adored Jeanne de Bourbon, now bestowed all their affection on their
young King, who was called Charles le Bien-Aimé. To the end of his
unfortunate career he never lost either this name or the affection of
his people, for although he was hot-tempered and imperious, so that he
would never bear the slightest opposition, he was brave, open-handed,
kind-hearted, and had those free, pleasant, courteous manners that go
farther in gaining friends--everywhere, but most especially amongst
the lower classes--than a host of benefits and virtues. He was very
faithful and affectionate to his friends, never forgot the names of the
humblest people,[97] but was always polite and ready to talk to any
one about anything.[98] And amidst the roughness and cruelty of the
times it is interesting to come upon the note of a sum paid to _Colin
le serrurier_ for an iron _fleur-de-lis_ to hang upon a stag, which had
been hunted by the King, had taken refuge in a stable at Choisy, and
had been allowed by him to return to the forest--an example of mercy
which might well be placed before many people in the present day who
ought to be civilised enough not to require it.
The King’s marriage and the beauty of Isabeau delighted the people, and
if she had possessed the sense, talents, and good qualities of other
queens whose histories have been recorded in these volumes, a great
career would indeed have been open before her. Advised and supported
by the Duc de Bourbon and the old friends and counsellors of Charles
V., she could have retained her influence over the King and held the
reins of government when they dropped from his hands. The voice of the
nation would have been with her, for it was weary of the oppression
and cruelty of the princes; and most of the fierce feuds and bloodshed
that came from the incapacity and vices of all the chief members of the
royal family need never have happened.