CHAPTER VI. JOHN THE GOOD AND CHARLES THE WISE

[Sidenote: [1350-1380 A.D.]]

The new king John was between thirty-one and thirty-two years of age. It

was long since a king of France had ascended the throne in such critical

circumstances. All the internal maladies which, ever since the days of

Philip the Fair, had been undermining the constitution of the state

had burst out at the first shock of external violence. The weakness

of this monarchy, arbitrary without order, fiscal without finances,

military without an army, which had failed to create for itself any other

instrument or any other support than a body of legists; the fragility of

this colossus with feet of clay was now revealed both to the foreigner

and to France herself. A country desolated by plague, impoverished by

a disastrous war and by a government more ruinous than plague and war,

where the lowest depths of society were stirred by those dull mutterings

which announce the distant tempest; a royalty despoiled, by deserved

misfortunes, of the prestige of birth and grandeur which had survived

its popularity; finally a war which set at stake not the position of

some frontier but the existence of the dynasty and the independence of

the nation: such was the inheritance which the first of the Valois had

bequeathed to his son.[b]

King John inaugurated his reign by debasing the coinage to meet the

expenses of the coronation which was celebrated at Rheims, on the 26th of

September, 1350, with all the accustomed splendour. The brilliant train

of princes who accompanied him drew upon themselves not only the glances

but the hopes of the entire population.

Treachery, however, was on all sides. Already Philip of Valois had

attempted to deal with it outside the regular forms of judicial

procedure; the newly made king followed in his footsteps. Raoul, count

of Eu and of Guines, constable of France, obtained of Edward III, whose

prisoner he was, liberty on parole, and returned to Paris to present

himself at court. John caused him to be arrested and confined in the

Louvre. A few days afterwards the constable was beheaded, and his

property given to John of Artois, who assumed the title of count of Eu.

[Sidenote: [1350-1352 A.D.]]

The office of constable was conferred upon a certain De la Cerda, Charles

of Spain, brother of that Louis of Spain who had upheld the party of

Blois in Brittany. The new constable, being the personal favourite of the

king, found many rivals at court, and thus arose contentions that were to

be the source of further troubles. For the purpose of anticipating acts

of treason and of strengthening the attachment and devotion to himself

of the most powerful nobles, John created a new order of chivalry; or,

as Froissart[g] says, “A fine company, high and noble, after the manner

of the Round Table which existed in the time of King Artus [Arthur].”

He also had another model, the order of the Garter, recently created

by Edward III. Thus was instituted the order of the Star, which had

for emblem a star in gold, silver, gilt, or pearls, and which the king

bestowed on the three hundred knights who had proved themselves “the most

valiant at arms and the most useful to the kingdom.” He imposed upon them

an oath that they would never flee before the enemy to a distance of over

four arpents. On the first occasion the king designated the recipients

of the order himself, but later the choice was decided by the majority

of the members. This was the first time that a court order of chivalry

had been created in France. The new institution was destined to be of

but short duration, however, as its dissolution immediately followed the

captivity of its founder.

Preparations were begun for a renewal of the war with England, and in

expectation of this event John displayed great activity. Financial

aid, which was to be a portion of the profits on the sale of beverages

and merchandise, was voted to him by the provinces of Vermandois and

Normandy, the city of Paris, and the bailiwick of Amiens, the assemblies

stipulating in exchange the confirmation of certain privileges and the

suppression of various abuses; among others the right of lodgment and of

_prise en vertu_ by which the king caused his expenses and those of his

household to be defrayed by anyone with whom he chose to lodge.

We can form some idea of the deplorable state of the finances from the

fact that during the course of the year 1351 John issued no less than

eighteen ordinances altering monetary values, although neither the help

of such expedients nor the subsidies voted by the provinces availed

to bring about an equilibrium between receipts and expenditures. The

treasury continued, as in the preceding reign, to pay annually only a

part of the officers’ wages and of the interest on the debt. There were

also ordinances regulating the order in which the public expenses were to

be met, just as to-day, in cases of bankruptcy, the succession in which

creditors are to be paid is determined by law. In the case of certain

outlays the government was extremely tardy in making payment, taking

for its model the nobility, to the members of which great latitude was

allowed. “Let no one,” said King John, “wonder or be ill-pleased, for we

take account of the respites and delays accorded to the nobles in the

payment of their debts, and it would not be seemly that we should be in a

worse condition than they.”

The truces, although renewed from year to year, were imperfectly kept;

hostilities continued to break out from time to time at different

points, and there was not a campaign during which special engagements

did not take place between parties of English or French knights. There

were frequent skirmishes during 1351 in the neighbourhood of St. Jean

d’Angély, and in 1352 between Guines and St. Omer. The war in Brittany

had been kept up in desultory fashion since the capture of Charles of

Blois in 1347, when his wife, Joan de Penthièvre, took up the cause.

The most celebrated of these minor combats was the _combat des trente_,

fought in Brittany, August 1352, on the moor of Mi-Voie, between Josselin

and Ploërmel.[c]

[Sidenote: [1352-1354 A.D.]]

Robert de Beaumanoir, governor of the castle of Josselin, challenged

the English captain Richard Bamborough who commanded at Ploërmel. They

met on the lands of Josselin each with twenty-nine companions. The

sixty champions fought on foot with short swords. “Such a combat,” says

Froissart, “had not been recorded for over a hundred years.” It did not

cease until all the combatants were either killed or badly wounded--four

French and nine English, Bamborough among them, lay dead on the field.

The rest of the English gave themselves up to the French. But such

contests did not help matters, and so the war dragged on.[a]

TROUBLE WITH CHARLES OF NAVARRE

[Illustration: JOHN THE GOOD

(From an old French print)]

To the exterior dangers with which France was menaced was now added the

calamity of civil war. The cause for this fresh trouble was to be found

in the pretensions held by the king of Navarre, and the jealousy which

he conceived against the new constable, Charles of Spain. This king of

Navarre was Charles the Bad, so named for the rigour with which he had

put down a sedition in Pamplona. A prince of the royal house of France

on the side of his father, Philip of Évreux, he succeeded in 1349 not

only to the kingdom of the Pyrenees, but to the county of Évreux, and

the possession of several fiefs in Normandy. He was young, ambitious,

enterprising, as were also his two younger brothers, Philip and Louis;

and to attach him more securely to his interests, John betrothed to him

one of his daughters, then a child, to whom he promised as marriage

portion an income raised from the counties of Angoulême and Mortain.

These counties having been ravaged by the English, Charles of Navarre

demanded another dowry, and at the same time claimed indemnity for

Champagne and Brie, former possessions of his mother which had been

ceded to the crown during the preceding reign, but by treaty of which

all the clauses had not been put regularly in execution. John refused to

acknowledge these claims, or at any rate was in no hurry to satisfy them,

and gave Angoulême and Mortain to Charles of Spain.

The king of Navarre laid all the blame for this real or pretended breach

of faith to the constable, and the two held a spirited altercation

together in the presence of King John. With the king of Navarre was his

brother Philip of Navarre, count of Longueville, who on being given the

lie by the constable swore to be revenged. On leaving the scene of the

quarrel he defied the constable and warned him to be on his guard against

the infantes of Navarre. Charles of Spain paid so little heed to these

menaces that he betook himself, insufficiently attended, to Laigle, the

latest evidence of the royal favour, which was situated not six leagues

from Évreux, where dwelt his enemies. As soon as the count of Longueville

learned of this move he left his home at night, accompanied by a troop of

men-at-arms, and entering the hôtel of the constable, murdered the latter

in his bed (1354).

[Sidenote: [1354-1355 A.D.]]

The infantes of Navarre wrote letters of self-justification to several

cities of France, and to the council of the king. At the same time they

stocked their castles with supplies, assembled all their nobles, and

opened up relations with the English, who were only too pleased to have a

foothold thus established for them in Normandy. John, determined not to

leave unpunished an act of personal vengeance that infringed seriously

upon his own authority, marched in person against Évreux, and sent orders

to the count d’Armagnac, his representative in Toulouse, to occupy

Navarre with the whole strength of the southern troops.

This civil war, breaking forth so unexpectedly, was certain to renew the

war with England, since it offered that country an unexampled opportunity

to re-enter the lists. In fear of this event, the princes and princesses

of the house of France, aided by the legate cardinal of Boulogne, offered

their mediation and succeeded in bringing about an arrangement at Nantes,

the 22nd of February, 1354. Payment of all that was due him, and the

satisfaction of his legitimate claims were assured the king of Navarre,

on condition that he should so far humiliate himself as to ask the king’s

pardon in open parliament. This he consented to do, but demanded that

certain hostages be sent him. “And in the presence of all he asked pardon

of the king for the deed wrought upon the said constable, for he had had

just and sufficient cause thereto, all of which he was ready to reveal

to the king then or at any time. Furthermore he declared and swore that

he had not committed the act out of contempt for the king nor for the

office of constable, and that nothing would afflict him so sorely as to

be in the evil graces of the king.” John accepted the excuse and took the

offender back into favour.

This understanding retarded further hostilities, but only for a little

time. John, who had been unaware of the secret relations entered into

with the English, soon learned of them; whereupon Charles the Bad,

fearing for his own safety, retired to Avignon, where he besought

protection of the pope. In the month of November John entered Normandy,

took possession of and sequestrated the estates of the king of Navarre,

and commanded the officers who were in charge of the various castles

to deliver them up to him. Six of the defenders refused to obey, among

others those in charge of the castles of Cherbourg and Évreux.

The court of Avignon had not ceased its efforts to negotiate a treaty

between England and France, and as it was necessary that this treaty

should be a final one the king of Navarre must be included in its terms;

hence the papal protection had not been refused him in his need. The

negotiations were carried on actively during the winter of 1354-1355, but

fell through like all preceding ones, and in the spring came definitely

to an end. Edward demanded that his full sovereignty should be recognised

over Guienne and Ponthieu, which provinces should be separated from the

French crown. He also refused to continue to pay homage to France, and

tried to stipulate for a semi-independence for Brittany. John refused

to consider propositions so injurious, and in a legitimate spirit of

national pride resolved to try once more the fortunes of war.

On all sides preparations for war were being carried on. The king of

Navarre, having passed through Pamplona and English Guienne, embarked

in July, 1355, at Cherbourg, which port it was his intention to open to

Edward III. The English sovereign manned a fleet for the purpose of

descending upon the north coast of France; but contrary winds held him

for a long time in the Channel, in sight of Jersey, and finally obliged

him to return to the harbour of Plymouth.

In spite of this mischance the English remained full of ardour, and built

great hopes upon the assistance of the Navarrese. John’s counsellors

represented to him that he could not with safety allow his enemies

to retain allies of such energy and power, and that at any cost the

interests of Charles the Bad must be separated from those of Edward III.

With great repugnance, therefore, the king consented to grant certain

concessions to the king of Navarre, who joyfully accepted them. A second

treaty was signed at Valognes, by the terms of which Charles the Bad was

reinstated in his French domains on consideration that he should make

formal apology for having allied himself with the enemies of the kingdom

(September 10th, 1355). He hastened to fulfil his promise, and for the

second time came to the Louvre to ask public pardon of the king. His

brother Philip, count of Longueville, could not be induced to follow his

example, but remained true to the English side.

By depriving the English of the Navarrese alliance King John robbed

them of their chief support, and obliged them to change their plan of

campaign. Edward III landed at Calais, and in October made several

incursions into Artois; but John marched against him in person, and

prevented him from crossing the French frontier, thus paralysing all his

efforts.

The English were more successful in the south, where they had sent a

large army headed by the prince of Wales and the celebrated John Chandos.

This army made a rapid and fruitful passage through Languedoc--pillaging

Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, and a number of towns and castles--as far as

the very gates of Montpellier without meeting with the least resistance.

The cities were all entered, and the whole district, one of the richest

in France, laid waste as Normandy had been in 1346. The English returned

with five thousand prisoners and a thousand wagons laden with silver,

objects of worth and merchandise, particularly cloths and velvets taken

from Narbonne and Limoux. In order to transport safely all this booty to

Guienne it was necessary to cross the Garonne at a distance of only three

leagues from Toulouse. The count d’Armagnac, commander of Languedoc, was

shut up in this town with forces more considerable than those of the

English; he refused, however, to sally forth and arrest them as they

passed by, in spite of the orders which had been brought to him by the

new constable James de Bourbon, successor to Charles of Spain.

To meet the needs of the war, and to provide himself with a still greater

force for the coming campaign, John resorted to all sorts of financial

expedients. He ordered his treasurers to adjourn all payments out of the

public funds, be they for what purpose they might; he made treaties for

subsidies with several provinces, Auvergne, Normandy, Maine, and Anjou,

and lastly convened the states-general at Paris.[c]

THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1355 A.D.

The estates of the north, or of the Languedoïl, convoked on the 30th of

November, showed no tractable temper. It was necessary to promise them

the abolition of that direct robbery called the right of seizure, and

of the indirect one which was practised through the coinage. The king

declared that the new impost should extend to all persons, and that it

should be paid by himself, the queen, and the princes. These fair words

did not reassure the estates. They put no trust in the royal word, or in

the royal tax-gatherers. They required that the money should be received

by themselves, through collectors chosen by them; that accounts should be

laid before them, and that they should meet again on the 1st of March,

and again, after the lapse of a year, on St. Andrew’s day.

[Sidenote: [1355-1356 A.D.]]

To vote and receive taxes is to reign. No one in those days was aware of

the full import of this bold demand of the estates, probably not even

Étienne Marcel, the famous provost of the merchants, whom we see at the

head of the deputies of the towns. The assembly purchased this royalty by

the enormous concession of 6,000,000 livres parisis for the pay of thirty

thousand men-at-arms. This money was to be raised by two imposts, on salt

and on sales--bad imposts, no doubt, and bearing heavily on the poor; but

what other could be devised in so pressing an emergency, when the whole

south was at the enemy’s mercy?

Normandy, Artois, and Picardy sent no deputies to these estates. The

Normans were encouraged by the king of Navarre, the count d’Harcourt,

and others, who declared that the gabelle should not be levied on their

lands: that there should not be found a man so bold on the part of the

king of France, who should enforce it, nor sergeant who should levy a

fine, but should pay for it with his body. The estates gave way. They

suppressed the two imposts, and substituted for them a tax on income:

five per cent. on the poorest classes, four per cent. on middling

fortunes, and two per cent. on the rich. The more one had the less he

paid. The king, bitterly offended by the resistance of the king of

Navarre and his friends, said that he should never have perfect joy so

long as they were alive. He set out from Orleans with some cavaliers,

rode for thirty hours, and surprised them in the castle of Rouen, where

they were at table, having been invited by the dauphin. He had D’Harcourt

and three others beheaded; the king of Navarre was thrown into prison,

and threatened with death (April 16th, 1356). A rumour was set afloat

that they had urged the dauphin to escape to the emperor, and make war on

the king, his father.[e]

A third session of the states-general was held in Paris on the 8th of

May, under the shadow of these tragic events, and new subsidies from the

revenues were granted the king. John was particular to mislead the public

as to the causes of the recent affair at Rouen, and it was everywhere

given out that he had seized letters that furnished evidence of a

conspiracy between the Navarrese and the king of England. Nevertheless

the people suspected that the “real treason” of Charles of Navarre lay

in his resistance to taxation, and this opinion joined to the current

rumours as to the harsh treatment the captive had received, won him the

compassion and the interest of the masses.

The people as a whole regarded in the same manner the captivity of the

Navarrese, the execution of D’Harcourt, and the vengeance which King

John took upon the authors of a revolt at Arras, which occurred almost

simultaneously with the arrest of Charles the Bad. On the 27th of April

the marshal D’Audeneham had entered Arras without resistance and had

seized those guilty of rebellion. Twenty of these were decapitated in the

market-place.[b]

King John, who had begun the campaign by seizing those strongholds of

the king of Navarre in Normandy into which he might have introduced

the English, at last advanced with a great army, as numerous as France

ever lost. The whole country was covered with his runners; the English

could no longer find means of subsistence. Neither of the two hostile

forces knew its own position. John thought the English were before him,

and was hastening to overtake them, whilst they were really behind him.

The prince of Wales, no better informed, thought the French were in his

rear. This was the second and not the last time the English entangled

themselves blindly in the enemy’s country. Only a miracle could have

saved them, and John’s blundering rashness was no less.

THE BATTLE OF POITIERS (SEPTEMBER 18TH, 1356)

[Sidenote: [1356 A.D.]]

The army of the prince of Wales, partly English, partly Gascon, numbered

2,000 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers, and 2,000 light troops, brigands hired

in the south. John was at the head of the great feudal gathering of the

ban and arrière-ban, making fully 50,000 men. There were John’s four

sons, 26 dukes or counts, and 140 knights-banneret, with their banners

displayed; a magnificent spectacle, but the army was none the better for

all that.

Two cardinal legates, one of whom was a Talleyrand, interfered to prevent

the effusion of Christian blood. The prince of Wales offered to give up

all he had taken, and to swear he would not serve for seven years to come

against France. John refused the offer, as was natural; it would have

been shameful to let those plunderers escape. He insisted that, at least,

the prince of Wales should yield himself prisoner, with one hundred

knights.

The English had fortified themselves on the Coteau de Maupertuis, a

steep hill near Poitiers, planted with vines, and flanked with hedges

and thorny thickets. Their archers covered all the summit. There was no

need of attacking them. No more was requisite than to keep them there;

hunger and thirst would have quelled them in two days. But John thought

it more chivalric to subdue his enemy by force of arms. There was but one

narrow path by which access could be obtained to the English position.

The king of France sent horsemen forward to the charge. The archers shot

down clouds of arrows, wounded and scared the horses, and threw them in

confusion one on the other. The English seized this moment to charge down

from the hill, and presently all that great army was in disorder. Three

sons of the king of France retired from the field, by their father’s

command,[24] taking away with them an escort of eight hundred lances.

[Illustration: A FRENCH KNIGHT OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

Meanwhile, the king stood fast. He had employed horsemen to charge up the

hill; and with equal good sense, he ordered those about him to dismount,

and fight on foot against the English, who were coming upon them on

horseback. John’s resistance was as injurious to his realm as the flight

of his sons. His brethren of the order of the Star were, like himself,

true to their vow, and did not retreat. “And they fought by troops and

by companies, as they chanced to meet and fall in together.” But the

multitude fled to Poitiers, which closed its gates. “So there was on the

road and before the gate such a horrible spectacle of men slaughtered and

trampled down as is wonderful to think of; and the French surrendered the

moment they caught sight of an Englishman ever so far off.”

Meanwhile, the field was still contested. “King John himself did wonders;

he was armed with a battle-axe, with which he fought and defended

himself. By his side was his youngest son, who well deserved the surname

of the Bold, who guided his blind valour, crying out to him every moment:

‘Look to your right, father! to your left!’ But the throng of assailants

continually increased, all being eager to make so rich a capture. The

English and Gascons poured in so fast on the king’s division that they

broke through the ranks by force; and the French were so intermixed

with their enemies that at times there were five men attacking one

gentleman. There was much pressing at this time, through eagerness of

taking the king; and those that were nearest to him, and knew him, cried

out: ‘Surrender yourself, or you are a dead man.’ In that part of the

field was a young knight from St. Omer, who was engaged by a salary in

the service of the king of England; his name was Denys de Morbeyne,

who for five years had attached himself to the English, on occasion of

his having been banished in his younger days from France, for a murder

committed in an affray at St. Omer. It fortunately happened for this

knight that he was at the time near to the king of France, when the

latter was so much pulled about; he, by dint of force--for he was very

strong and robust--pushed through the crowd, and said to the king in good

French: ‘Sir, sir, surrender yourself.’ The king, who found himself very

disagreeably situated, turning to him, asked: ‘To whom shall I surrender

myself--to whom? Where is my cousin, the prince of Wales? If I could see

him, I would speak to him.’ ‘Sir,’ replied Sir Denys, ‘he is not here;

but surrender yourself to me, and I will lead you to him.’ ‘Who are you?’

said the king. ‘Sir, I am Denys de Morbeyne, a knight from Artois; but

I serve the king of England, because I cannot belong to France, having

forfeited all I possessed there.’ The king then gave him his right hand

glove, and said: ‘I surrender myself to you.’ There was much crowding and

pushing about, for everyone was eager to cry out: ‘I have taken him.’

Neither the king nor his youngest son, Philip, was able to get forward

and free himself from the throng.”

The prince of Wales did honour to the unparalleled good fortune that had

placed such a pledge in his hands. He took good care not to treat his

captive otherwise than as a king; in his eyes that captive was the true

king of France, and not John of Valois, as the English had been used to

call him. It was of the last importance to the prince that John should

be king in reality, so that the kingdom might seem itself taken captive

in the person of its sovereign, and should ruin itself to ransom him. He

waited on John at table, after the battle; and when he made his entry

into London, he set him on a tall white horse (an emblem of suzerainty),

whilst he himself followed on a little black hackney.

The English were not less courteous to the other prisoners. They had

twice as many of them as there were men to guard them, and dismissed

the greater part of them on parole, pledging them to come at Christmas,

and pay the enormous ransoms they set upon them. The prisoners were

too good knights to fail. In this war between gentlemen, the worst that

could happen to the beaten party was to go and take their part in the

festivities of the victors, to hunt and joust in England, and enjoy the

courtesy of the English; a noble war, doubtless, which crushed none but

the villein.

Great was the dismay in Paris when the fugitives from Poitiers, with the

dauphin at their head, brought news that there was no longer a king or

barons in France, but all were killed or taken.[25] The English, who had

withdrawn for a moment to secure the captives, would, doubtless, speedily

return. This time it might be expected that they would take, not Calais,

but Paris and the realm.[e]

THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1356-1357 A.D.

[Sidenote: [1356-1357 A.D.]]

The king a captive, the nobles prisoners or destroyed--the people alone

remained to save France. This younger member, disinherited in the

political family of the Middle Ages, took in hand the government of

the realm, now falling to pieces through the incapacity of its elder

brothers. It was not this one that had been vanquished at Crécy and

Poitiers. These defeats, on the contrary, brought it forward, for it was

evident that, scorned as it was by the nobility, at least it had not

conducted itself worse, and perhaps even may have made a better show

against the English archers than the knights. The people ruling--that

was a novel and extraordinary thing. Nevertheless they were not, at

least in their leaders, totally inexperienced in the conduct of affairs.

Former progress had prepared them somewhat; the common people were in

parliament, the church, and the universities; they had control of all

commerce and had formed vast industrial corporations. The clergy and

commerce (which was soon to become the aristocracy of the third estate)

both furnished a leader to the new movement started after the battle of

Poitiers--Robert Lecoq, bishop of Laon and president of the parliament,

and Étienne Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris.

Marcel’s first care at the news of the disaster was to finish the

fortifications of the capital, to place cannon on them, and to barricade

the streets. The dauphin Charles arrived ten days after the battle,

but the people did not make much of this young prince. His conduct at

Poitiers had been decidedly equivocal; he had been one of the first to

flee. He took the title of lieutenant of the king of France and convoked

the states-general at Paris for the Languedoïl, at Toulouse for the

Languedoc (October 17th, 1356). The assembly at Paris had eight hundred

members, of which four hundred came from the cities and towns; Marcel

presided over the third estate and Robert Lecoq over the clergy. The

nobles were few in number; their principal leader was John de Pecquigny,

lord of Vermandois, and a friend of the king of Navarre. The three orders

deliberated separately, but to bring unity into their actions nominated

a mixed commission of eighty members. It formulated the wishes of the

states-general and demanded for the reform of the kingdom the summons and

trial, before judges nominated by the states-general, of the king’s chief

officers of finance and justice, accused of having perverted and sold

judgments; the deliverance of the king of Navarre; the establishment of a

council of four prelates, twelve lords, and twelve bourgeois elected by

the states-general, without which the dauphin could give no orders and

which would control the entire government. On these terms they granted

the dauphin one and a half tenths for one year of the revenues of the

three orders. In truth, by their revolutionary changes the people placed

themselves on the throne and undertook the burden of public affairs and

the public welfare. The states-general of the Languedoc, less radical,

voted a levy of fifteen thousand men with the necessary money to maintain

them.

The dauphin would not listen to an agreement with these conditions. He

played skilfully with the deputies of the third estate, in persuading

them to consult their constituents once more, while he himself would go

to ask help of his uncle the emperor of Germany. Charles IV was then

putting forward his famous “golden bull” in the Diet of Nuremberg.

The dauphin appeared there. He had strong hopes that on his return

he would find the deputies dispersed and discouraged. Far from that,

the provincial councils had reassembled, approved the measures of the

states-general, and the whole country declared itself in the same

fashion (1357). On the 3rd of March the dauphin was obliged to call a

general assembly at the palace. The bishop of Laon acted as spokesman.

He demanded that the prince dismiss twenty-two of his councillors or

servitors and authorise the formation of a council of thirty-six members

elected by the states-general “to provide for the needs of the kingdom,

and which everyone would be compelled to obey.” Commissioners at first

had to be sent into all the provinces, but the states finally acquired

the faculty of handling the government of its own creation by endowing

itself with the power to meet twice a year without convocation. As to

reforms, relating for the most part to finances and justice, the dauphin

provided for them in the “grand ordinance of reformation.” By this

memorable charter he promised to impose no taxes without the vote of

the states-general, to divert no money from the treasury, and to leave

the levy and expenditure of taxes to the states-general’s delegates, to

make justice impartial and prompt, to sell judiciary offices no longer,

and not to alter the coinage from a model which the provost of the

merchants was to furnish. The right of seizure, forced loans, judgments

by commissioners, and alienation of the crown domains were some of the

abuses corrected by the ordinance which at the end declared the members

of the states-general inviolable and authorised armed resistance to all

illegal procedure.

[Sidenote: [1357-1358 A.D.]]

The popular government of 1357 unfortunately did not have in its bosom

sufficient harmony, strength, and experience to maintain the important

conquest the people had just made. Moreover its situation was one of

the most difficult; its credit was shaken by King John, who from his

prison forbade the states-general to assemble and the people to pay

the taxes they themselves had voted. The rural committees were in the

most deplorable state. Overburdened by taxes, by the heavy ransoms

which their captive lords extracted by torture, the peasants could no

longer cultivate a land that had moreover been ravaged in the war. They

developed into vagabonds and preferred to become the accomplices rather

than victims of the bands of discharged soldiers from every country,

which the war had left upon French soil.[f]

In the fourteenth century the name brigand was given to this licensed

soldiery, nearly all of whom, as we are aware, fought on foot, and were,

as a general rule, but slenderly equipped; they carried, as a part of

their equipment, a small fine coat of mail, which took its name of

brigantine from them. The pay of the mercenaries being stopped in time

of truce or between the different expeditions, they turned to the daily

practice of rapine and plunder for their means of subsistence, which

brought them in more than their pay. A crowd of adventurers and loafers

joined forces with them, among the number being many noblemen. As to the

rest, the following passage from Froissart[g] sets forth vividly the

methods by which the brigands carried on their terrible profession:

[Illustration: A FRENCH NOBLEMAN OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

“And the poor brigands always succeeded in sacking and pillaging towns

and castles, and got thence such wealth as was marvellous, and some of

them became rich, especially those who had made themselves leaders and

captains of other brigands; there were among them some who even had as

much as forty thousand crowns. Indeed and in truth right marvellous were

the things they did. When--and this happened very frequently--they espied

a large town or a fine castle, distant a day’s journey or two, twenty or

thirty brigands would band themselves together and travel night or day by

secret ways, and just as day broke they would enter the town or castle

they had descried and set fire to a house. The townspeople, fearing that

an army of a thousand warriors had come to burn their town, escaped each

as best he might, and the brigands sacked houses, coffers, and libraries,

seizing whatsoever they could find and departing laden with booty.”

In spite of such horrors no profession was more lucrative or held in

greater honour in the fourteenth century than that of the brigand. Even

royalty, whose duty it was to protect the peasants, showed itself eager

to make advances to the brigands and to reward their strange exploits.

Philip of Valois proposed to Croquart, the famous chief of the brigands

settled in Brittany, to knight him, marry him well, and pay him an

annual income of two thousand pounds, if he would place himself at his

disposal. This same king, hearing of the extraordinary cleverness by

which one Bacon, a brigand who harassed Languedoc, had surprised the

castle of Chambon in the Limousin, wished to keep by his side so daring

and crafty a captain; so he made him his sergeant-at-arms and loaded him

with honours. Too often the kings did not even attempt to protect the

unhappy victims of the brigands. On the contrary they helped to complete

the ruin of the peasants by authorising the abuse of _le droit de prise_

(the right of seizure), and above all by arbitrarily raising or lowering

the money standard, according to whether the question was one of levying

taxes or of paying debts.[h]

THE DAUPHIN REPUDIATES THE _GRANDE ORDONNANCE_ (1358 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1358-1360 A.D.]]

Under such existing conditions the dauphin believed himself powerful

enough to declare that he would no longer tolerate trustees. February

8th, 1358, he revoked the _grande ordonnance_, and thus destroyed the

popular government. This was a complete rupture with the states-general

and the resumption of absolute power by the crown.

Against the dauphin the people called Charles of Navarre, who was dragged

from his prison. This ambitious prince, skilful and eloquent, became the

orator of the market-places, promising to defend the country and letting

it be understood that he was not without some claim to the throne of

France. The dauphin hoped to balance this new kind of influence with the

same means. He went to the Pré-aux-Clercs; and Paris, as if by a magical

transformation, suddenly beheld herself in the midst of the Middle Ages

adorned with two forums. But the dauphin lost again, by his unfortunate

alteration in the coinage, the sole means indeed of raising money without

calling the states-general together. Marcel had armed the bourgeoisie at

once and given them, as a rallying sign, caps part red and part blue. At

the head of a company of this militia he made his way into the dauphin’s

palace, and had the marshals of Champagne and Normandy, the two principal

officials, put to death; with his own hand he placed the red and blue

cap upon the prince’s head as a pledge of security and said to him, as

the two bodies were thrown to the crowd, “I demand that you sanction the

deaths of these traitors, for it is by the will of the people that this

has been done”--of a small portion of the people, it might be added--the

Parisian bourgeoisie (1358).

Indeed, the further they went the more the revolution they undertook

lost its general character. The provincial deputies separated from their

constituents lost their enthusiasm, while the commune of Paris, never

away from their own hearths, remained numerous, ardent, and popular. The

states-general, jealous of the commune’s influence, permitted itself in

part to be removed to Compiègne by the dauphin. The nobles gathered about

the prince. He had seven thousand lances with whom he lived freely on the

country between the Seine and the Marne, ravaging the whole land as far

as Paris, which was suffering from famine. This maddened the peasantry of

the Beauvoisis, of Brie, of Valois, Laon, and Soissons.[f]

THE _JACQUERIE_ (1358 A.D.)

It is quite unnecessary to lay stress upon the sufferings of the

villeins here. The days were no more, as we have seen, when the lords of

the manor, although they considered themselves of different clay from

their serfs, defended them at the peril of their lives. Of the feudal

institutions, nothing remained but the oppression. Ruined by the love of

luxury, by gambling, by debauchery, by the necessity of paying a heavy

ransom--preferring to run into debt rather than to impose privations

upon themselves, and to wrest from those around them by means of blows,

imprisonment, or the pillory the miserable savings they had laid by for

bad times rather than to pay their debts, which would have prevented

their contracting new ones--they used and abused the right to command so

far as to make all testaments, all marrying, on their estates, dependent

on their express permission. They even scoffed at their victims, giving

them the name of “Jacques Bonhomme” in derision, on account of their

awkwardness in carrying weapons, and of their patience in enduring all

things. “Save a villain from hanging, he’ll cut your throat; show a

villain the steel, and he kneels,” says a proverb of these times (_Oignez

vilain, il vous poindra: poignez vilain, il vous oindra_).

To these permanent, and in some respects regular evils, aggravated still

more by the caprices, the exactions of the kings, or at least, of their

officers, were added, to render them more intolerable, the accidental

evils of life and war. A series of bad years had brought famine and the

plague. The Navarrese of Philip of Longueville, the brigands of James

Pipes, and other generals devastated all that the English had spared, and

that a few only too uncommon inhabitants had not allowed to lie fallow.

The Navarrese, the brigands, and the English inspired them with such

terror that the unhappy villeins would leave their dwellings and fields,

spend the nights on the islands or in boats moored in the middle of the

river, and place one of their number in the church belfry in order that

he might ring the tocsin, while they hid themselves in the bowels of the

earth, in those subterranean places which were still to be found in the

eighteenth century, along the Somme, from Péronne to its mouth.

Thus the hardships which nature and warfare imposed upon those living in

country places made them more sensitive to those which their masters, if

better advised or more humane, might have spared them. Their original

devotedness had disappeared, as had their protection, of which they were

no longer the object, and given place to muttered imprecations, to a

vague and far-away desire to shake off the yoke. The hatred increased

every day, but it still resembled a fire smouldering beneath the ashes.

In order that it should burst forth, change into violence and activity,

it was only necessary that a new exigency, a lesser one perhaps than many

others to which they were subject, but more startling to their simple

good sense, should arise in some wise to place the weapons in their

hands. The occasion for movement was the fifth article of the ordinance,

issued at Compiègne, which enjoined all those whom it might concern to

put the strongholds in a state of defence at their own cost and expense.

They whom it concerned were the unfortunate peasants, who were thus

forced to pay for out of their savings, and to rebuild with their own

hands, those citadels which when restored would make the oppression more

intolerable than ever. This it is that caused a contemporary to say that

the rebellion began with a protest against injustice.[i]

About a hundred of the peasants met at Clermont first, and raised the

cry of “Death to gentlemen!” They elected a leader, called William Karl,

or Callet, and rushed to the attack and destruction of the houses of the

nobles. These hundreds soon swelled to thousands, and there was no excess

of which they were not guilty: they slew the nobles themselves, with

their wives and children, first treating the women with every indignity,

their avowed purpose being to extinguish the race. They roasted a noble

before the eyes of his family, and sought to make its members eat the

flesh of the victim. Saracen or Christian, says Froissart,[g] never

committed such iniquities.

There remains a doubt as to how far the townsfolk may have excited their

rustic brethren to this revolt; but it does not appear that any great

town made common cause with them. They were repulsed from Compiègne,

though they entered Senlis. Marcel endeavoured to make use of the Jacques

in humbling the noblesse and destroying their strongholds, without the

infamy of outraging women and slaying children. But whilst Marcel was

politic enough to make this attempt, the king of Navarre could not

but sympathise with the noblesse, and fly to their aid. The Jacques,

knowing his liberal reputation, were inclined to negotiate with him,

which enabled the king of Navarre to entice the chief and some of his

officers to parley. While thus engaged, they were surprised, bound, and

decapitated. This is not the last instance of a magnate betraying those

who trusted, and massacring those who could have best supported him.

Charles afterwards attacked the army of Jacques, and slew three thousand

of them.

The regent, after holding the estates of Champagne and Vermandois, and

procuring their adhesion, took his principal military post at Meaux in

order to straiten Paris. To this place not only did his troops repair,

but the ladies of the court--the duchesses of Normandy and Orleans, as

well as the wives of the noblesse--betook themselves to Meaux as to a

place of safety. The market of this town, surrounded by walls and by

water, had been rendered a fortress by the regent. The Jacques attacked

the town, in concert with a few Parisians, and easily made themselves

masters of all save the market. The count of Foix, and the captal De

Buch, Gascon nobles, were returning from a campaign with the Teutonic

knights of Prussia against the pagans, when they heard of the peril

of the noble ladies at Meaux. Though the captal was a subject of King

Edward, he nevertheless flew with De Foix to the rescue of the three

hundred ladies menaced by the Jacques; and these were routed and driven

into the Maine with great slaughter. The victors of Meaux then attacked

Senlis; there the citizens and Jacques fought together, and made a most

obstinate resistance. But the nobles, reinforced by knights and nobles

from Brabant, Hainault, and the Gascon hordes, annihilated the peasantry,

notwithstanding their numbers; and the insurrection of the Jacques was

drowned in blood.[j]

DEATH OF MARCEL

The effects of the _Jacquerie_ reached Marcel; discord appeared in the

commune. Obliged to seek outside help, the provost of the merchants

called upon the king of Navarre and agreed to prepare the way for him

to the throne of France. On the night of July 31st, 1358, as Marcel

was changing the guard at the Porte St. Denis through which Charles of

Navarre was to enter, he was massacred, together with those who were with

him, by the alderman, John Maillart, who had discovered the plot.[26] The

dauphin returned to Paris with an army and had Marcel’s chief companions

decapitated or exiled.[f]

It is necessary to dwell upon the memorable part played by Étienne

Marcel and the municipality of Paris in the political and social crisis

which followed the disaster of Poitiers and the captivity of King John.

In the middle of this fourteenth century, so uncivilised and sombre, a

man appeared who, by wonderful instinct, laid down and nearly succeeded

in obtaining the adoption of the essential principles on which modern

society is founded; that is, the government of the country by elected

representatives, taxes voted by the representatives of the taxpayers, the

abolition of privileges founded upon right of birth, the extension of

political rights to all citizens, and the subordination of traditional

sovereignty to that external sovereign known as the nation. Marcel was

that man.

Doubtless there are blots in Marcel’s life. His siding with the Jacques

is to be reproached against him as well as his friendship with the king

of Navarre, “the third aspirant in the midst of the rival ambitions of

France and England.” But it was a question of putting down an absolute,

unlimited power. If the aim is the entire remodelling of the organisation

of society, when the end in view is the high ambition of snatching the

direction of public affairs from the hands of an entire class, history

shows that such objects have never been reached without bloodshed. When,

four centuries later, the substitution of a representative government

for a monarchy founded upon divine right caused so many heads to fall

and entailed so much agony, is it to be wondered at that the revolution

undertaken by Marcel should follow the same course and suffer the same

fate? After all, if the bold provost shed the blood of his adversaries,

he was playing a losing game, and staking his own life against the

dominion of the nobility. Which is the more illustrious victim, the

marshal or himself? Which executioner should be blamed? Marcel failed

apparently, because the time was not yet ripe; he had, by a great bound

into the future, put himself ahead of his epoch. But he threw an external

lustre over the provosts of Paris, and as an eminent historian said, when

he demanded that statues should be raised in memory of Marcel, “he is the

greatest personage of the fourteenth century.”[k]

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS; EDWARD IN FRANCE (1359 A.D.)

The dauphin had returned to Paris, but the state of the kingdom seemed

desperate. People, however, spoke of peace. Weary of the sumptuous

hospitality he had received at Windsor, John had treated with the king

of England. He had abandoned to him the shores of the Channel, that is

to say Calais, Montreuil, Boulogne, Ponthieu, and Normandy; the whole of

Aquitaine, which included Gascony, Bordelais, Agénois, Quercy, Périgord,

the Limousin, Poitou, Saintonge, and Aunis; also Touraine and Anjou; and

besides this four million gold crowns for the king’s personal ransom. It

was the greatest and best part of France, including the entrances to all

the rivers. When the treaty was brought to Paris the dauphin refused to

execute it, and to strengthen himself for the contest with his father

called, at Paris on the 19th of May, 1359, the semblance of an assembly

of the three orders, which rejected the shameful terms and added that

King John must stay in England until it pleased God to show him the way

out.

Five months after, October 28th, 1359, Edward landed at Calais with his

four sons, the most powerful lords of his kingdom, six thousand coats of

iron armour, six thousand carts loaded with ammunition, ovens, mills,

forges, tents--everything necessary to live comfortably, even to falcons

and hunting-packs, and skiffs of rough hides for fishing. “There was

such a multitude of armed men that all the country was covered, and so

richly armed and bedecked that it was a marvel and great joy to see

their shining armour, waving banners, and arranged contests. And again

there were five hundred pages with shovels and picks who went before the

wagons and opened the way and cut the thorns and the bushes to make the

transport easier.”

The weather did not favour the expedition, for it rained incessantly. On

the 30th of November, the English arrived before Rheims. John de Craon

the archbishop shut the gates upon them and valiantly repulsed all their

attacks. Edward had announced a long time before that he wished to be

crowned there. He passed some weeks before its walls, unable to take

it by storm, but hoping each day that he would be attacked and win a

great battle as Crécy and Poitiers. Finally, nobody appearing, he turned

back, going leisurely across country to Châlons, Bar-le-Duc, Troyes, and

Tonnerre; the duke of Burgundy obtained from the pillage some two hundred

thousand gold crowns. Then Edward marched straight towards Paris, and

established himself about two leagues from the town at Bourg-la-Reine.

The English heralds approached to offer battle to the dauphin, who

refused it. A knight of the enemy, Sir Walter Manny, advanced to the very

ramparts, seeking for single combat, but Charles expressly forbade his

warriors to go outside the barriers. He wanted none of this war as the

nobles were conducting it at present.

And so the citizens shut up in their towns and the nobles in their

castles let pass the storm which could not reach them behind their walls.

Everything fell upon the peasants, who dared not even defend themselves.

But misery finally gave them courage and despair brought them strength.

They came to dare to look in the face the iron-sheathed men before whom

they used to tremble, and at several points the foreign aggressor began

to meet with local popular resistance, more dangerous for him than the

great battles of the feudal princes. Edward himself wearied of this inert

but invincible resistance. It was said that the English king and his

followers making their way, weary and discouraged across the plains of

Beauce, encountered a terrific storm which seemed a warning from heaven,

and that the king made a vow before Notre Dame de Chartres, to do all he

could to re-establish peace between the two nations. The king’s heart had

not been turned suddenly by the storm; it was the fatigues of a war that

was bringing no glory, for there were no battles and no booty, because

everything had been captured or hidden in the fortresses.

_The Story of Le Grand Ferré_

One of the most curious incidents of this popular resistance is thus

described by a chronicler of the age, the continuator of Nangis, in

language not without charm in spite of many Latin barbarisms.[l]

[Illustration: A FRENCH PAGE, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

There was one strong enough place, in a little Longueil village, close to

Compiègne. The inhabitants, seeing they would be in great peril if the

enemy should take possession of it, demanded of their ruling lord, and of

the abbé of St. Corneille whose serfs they were, permission to fortify

their village. After having obtained this, they collected provisions and

arms, chose for captain a fine strong man named Guillaume des Alouettes

from among themselves, and swore to defend their town with their

last breath. When this was done and became known, many hastened from

neighbouring villages for protection. The captain had for servant a man

as brave as he was tall and strong, known as “Le Grand Ferré” (_Magnus

Ferratus_). In spite of his huge size and strength Le Grand Ferré had a

very poor opinion of himself, and the captain could do with him what he

liked.

There were about two hundred of them, all labourers and accustomed to

gain a scanty livelihood with their hands. The English, who occupied

a strong position near Creil, on learning of these preparations for

defence, were filled with scorn for such wretched people. “Let us drive

the villagers out,” they said, “the place is good and strong and we

will occupy it.” And they prepared to do as they said. Two hundred

English marched thither. Watch was not well kept; even the gates were

open, and the enemy entered boisterously. At the noise they made those

in the houses rushed to the windows, and seeing so many armed men were

overcome by fright. The captain finally appeared with some of his men,

and began to strike the English bravely, but was soon surrounded and

mortally wounded. At this misfortune the others including Le Grand Ferré

said among themselves, “Let us go down and sell our lives dearly, for we

may expect no mercy.” So they collected together and suddenly appearing

from different directions threw themselves with redoubled blows upon the

English; they struck as if threshing wheat on the barn floor. Arms were

raised and lowered and at each blow an Englishman fell.

When Le Grand Ferré reached the side of his dying captain, his grief

overcame him and he threw himself furiously upon the enemy. As he was

head and shoulders above his companions they could see him wielding his

axe, striking and redoubling his blows, none of which missed a victim.

Helmets were broken, skulls split, and arms cut off. In a short time

there was a clear space around him, for he had killed eighteen and

wounded many more. His encouraged comrades did marvels, and the English

quit the affair and took to flight. Some jumped into the moat and were

drowned, others flung themselves against the gates; but blows rained upon

them thick and fast. Le Grand Ferré, reaching the middle of the street

where the enemy had planted its standard, killed the bearer, and seizing

the flag told one of his own men to go and throw it into the moat. The

man however pointed with terror to the still thick mass of English.

“Follow me,” called out Le Grand Ferré, and seizing his great axe in both

hands he struck right and left, till he made a path to the moat where the

others threw the enemy’s ensign into the mud. Le Grand Ferré stopped a

moment for breath, but returned at once to what remained of the English.

Only a very few of those who came to perform this deed escaped, thanks to

God and Le Grand Ferré, who killed that day more than forty of them.

The English were very angry and disturbed to see so many of their brave

soldiers perish at the hands of these peasants. The next day they

returned in greater numbers, but the people of Longueil no longer feared

them. They went forth to meet the enemy, Le Grand Ferré at their head.

And when the enemy saw him and felt the weight of his arm and his iron

axe, they wished they had never come that way. They could not get back so

fast that many were not mortally wounded, killed, or taken prisoners, and

among these were some men of high lineage. If the folk of Longueil had

consented to ransom them as the nobles do among themselves, they would

have been very rich. But they would not hear of this and killed their

captives, saying that in this way the enemy would do no more harm.

In this last struggle the fighting was very hard and Le Grand Ferré

became much exhausted. He drank quantities of cold water and was almost

immediately seized with a fever. He managed to get back to the village

to his cottage and went to bed, but keeping close to him his good axe,

an iron axe so heavy that a man of ordinary strength could scarcely lift

it from the ground with both hands. The English learned with joy that Le

Grand Ferré was ill, and without giving him time to recover despatched

twelve soldiers with orders to kill him. His wife saw them from afar and

cried to him, “Oh, my poor Ferré, here come the English, what will you

do?” He forgot his illness, and got up quietly. Taking his heavy axe he

strode into his yard. When they entered, “Ah, brigands,” he cried, “you

come to take me in my bed, but you don’t know me.” He placed his back to

the wall so as not to be surrounded, and swinging his axe brought his

assailants face to face with death. Of the twelve he killed five and

put the rest to flight. Le Grand Ferré returned to his bed, but he had

again overheated himself in dealing so many blows and drank more cold

water. The violence of the fever redoubled, and a few days later, having

received the sacraments, he passed away. Le Grand Ferré was buried in

the village cemetery. All his companions, the whole countryside in fact,

mourned his loss; for with him alive the English would never have dared

approach.[d]

One feels, in the wealth of detail into which the chronicler enters, the

sympathy of the old monk for the poor peasants. In the depths of the

monasteries were narrated their valiant deeds against the pillagers of

churches; these are told much more frequently in village companies. The

tales spread slowly but went far. Little by little the foundations of

hatred for the foreigner were laid in the hearts of the people, and a

love of country whose fiercest outburst is found in Joan of Arc.

THE TREATY OF BRETIGNY (1360 A.D.)

The dauphin was still more anxious to send the English home because

“France was in its last throes, and for so little as its woes might last

it might perish.” A conference was opened at Bretigny, near Chartres, the

1st of May, 1360. The English negotiators demanded in the first place the

whole crown of France; then they limited themselves to what had belonged

to the Plantagenets; finally Edward III contented himself with the duchy

of Aquitaine and all its dependencies (Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, Aunis,

Agénois, Périgord, the Limousin, Quercy, Rouergue, and Angoumois), ceded

in independent sovereignty, and Calais with the counties of Ponthieu and

Guines, also the viscounty of Montreuil. Thus ended the first period of

the Hundred Years’ War. The king’s ransom was fixed at three million gold

crowns;[27] in guarantee for which sum John had to leave in Edward’s

hands a certain number of hostages taken from the highest nobles and

richest bourgeoisie of the land. Edward carried them with him across

Normandy, which he harassed once more, in order to embark at Honfleur,

the Havre of that day. The provinces promised to the king of England were

given up, despite the protests against this pretended restitution by the

great majority who said, with the inhabitants of La Rochelle, “We will

acknowledge the English with our lips, but never with our hearts.” For a

whole year they refused to open their gates to the English.

At Abbeville things went still better. When the patriotic citizens saw

in their streets the soldiers who for fifteen years had trampled France

under foot, they were unable to restrain themselves; secret meetings

were held; then a riot broke out which was quickly suppressed, but not

before a rich citizen, Ringois, was captured. The English commandant

used, however, moderation and offered Ringois his liberty on sole

condition that he would take the oath of allegiance to Edward III.

Ringois refused. They took him to Dover, threatening him this time with

death if he were obstinate, but he persisted. They brought him even to

the platform of the fortress and showed him the furthermost parapet with

the sea beating furiously at its feet; if he said one word he would be

saved. He still refused and the guard threw him off.

There still remained to find the money for the first payment of the

ransom, and it was obtained by a shameful expedient. “The king of

France,” says Matteo Villani[q] the historian, “sold his flesh and

blood.” For 600,000 florins he bestowed his daughter Isabella, then only

eleven years of age, on Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the son of the fiercest

tyrant in Italy, who hunted men in the streets of his capital and threw

them living into the flames. Thanks to this money the king left Calais on

the 25th of October, 1360.

THE LAST YEARS OF KING JOHN (1360-1364 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1360-1364 A.D.]]

The 5th of December following we find an ordinance by which John

announces, in spite of the great compassion he has for his people, the

levy of a new tax on all merchandise sold or exported, on salt and on

wine, in return for which he promises henceforth good and loyal justice

to all, to put nothing but undebased coin into circulation, and to

abolish the right of seizure and other abuses that fell so heavily upon

the poor people. These promises did not deceive any more than the taxes

profited them. What could be produced in a country ceaselessly ravaged by

large forces and desolated by frequent appearances of the black death? It

became necessary to fall back on other resources--loans, the revocation

of all donations made by kings since Philip the Fair, and giving the

Jews considerable privileges in matters of finance. With the money thus

procured what did the king do? Did he use it to break up those bands of

brigands, marauders, and _tard venues_ that had just (1362) captured and

killed the constable James de Bourbon at Brignais near Lyons? He made

little journeys at great expense, travelling from town to town to take

possession of the rich heritage of the Capetian house of Burgundy, which

the death of Philip de Rouvre had recently placed in his hands. From

there he journeyed down to Avignon where he spent six months in feasting,

and planning a marriage with the famous queen Joanna of Naples. The pope,

who had already been twice ransomed from the great companies, made John

a proposition capable of appealing to his adventurous imagination--to

form all these warrior bands into a crusade, which would rid France of

them, and at the same time win glory for himself. It is not impossible

that John would have embarked on this rash enterprise had he not learned

that one of his sons, the duke of Anjou, had escaped from the English,

by whom he was held in hostage. John felt for his son to do a thing

like this was a slight on royal honour, and resolved to go himself to

replace the fugitive. He thus escaped in a chivalrous manner from his

embarrassing position and the sight of France’s misery. A part of the

winter was spent in London, “in great rejoicings and recreations,” says

Froissart,[g] “in dinners, suppers, and other fashions.” These fêtes and

great repasts killed him; he died in London, April 8th, 1364, at the age

of forty-four.[l]

Towards the end of 1361 the young duke Philip de Rouvre of Burgundy

expired, leaving no issue; his marriage with the young heiress of

Flanders not having been consummated. The duke possessed not only

Burgundy, but Franche-Comté, Champagne, Artois, and Boulogne. An

ancestor of Duke Philip had three daughters, to whom the succession now

reverted. The eldest had been Marguerite, the unfortunate queen of Louis

Hutin, whose daughter, married to the king of Navarre, had conveyed

to the representative of that family the best right to the Burgundian

succession. King John, descended from the second sister, would admit no

right to the king of Navarre, nor yet to the count of Bar, descended from

the third sister. He pleaded that he was nearer of kin than Charles of

Navarre to the duke just deceased; and thus made use of the same claim

to Burgundy that Edward III had done to France. John hastened to Dijon

and installed himself there as duke, taking a solemn oath to respect

all the privileges and rights of the duchy. Artois and Franche-Comté

returned to the duchess-dowager of Flanders. John had no intention of

uniting Burgundy to the crown, which he well knew would displease the

Burgundians, accustomed from time immemorial to their native dukes

and provincial independence. He therefore, in 1363, gave the duchy of

Burgundy to his youngest son, Philip, who had been constantly by his side

during the battle of Poitiers and his subsequent captivity. King John,

indeed, assigned this reason for the gift. It was fully acquiesced in

by John’s successor; and thus was founded that brilliant house of the

dukes of Burgundy of the second race, which reigned from the Schelde

to the Alps, and overshadowed and endangered the monarchy of France

itself.[28][j]

CHARLES THE WISE (1364-1380 A.D.)

Charles V was seven-and-twenty when he began to reign, and if he had

followed the example of his father, he would have played the part of

feudal king and fighting cavalier, as that for which he was ordained. But

the young monarch saw that France had need of other defenders than feudal

kings and fighting cavaliers. It needed a clear eye and a steady hand--a

man at the helm, not a gilt figure at the prow; for never was there a

time when the vessel of the state seemed in such danger. There was a

whole people to feed and satisfy--rebellious vassals to reclaim--an open

foe to guard against--riotous bands in the very heart of the kingdom to

be discomfited; and for all this he had an empty treasury, a discontented

parliament, ambitious communes, and a disunited nobility. But the French

heart of courage and chivalrous spirit of loyalty was still entire.

[Illustration: CHARLES V]

Charles was weak in body, and over him hung the sentence of death passed

on him by the physicians in his youth. Charles the Bad, it was said, in

return for his arrest at Rouen, had poisoned the dauphin’s food.[29] The

prince escaped destruction by the opening of a perpetual wound in his

left arm. “Whenever the sore heals over,” the doctors said, “the dauphin

must die.” This issue was probably only a sign of a feeble constitution,

but it silenced the sneers of his enemies, who were not accustomed to see

a king except in armour; it doubled the respect of the few discerning

potentates of the time, who began to perceive that a cabinet might be

quite as great a scene of glory as a field of battle. Edward III said he

was never so resisted in open fight, as by the calm, sagacious councillor

who had never drawn a sword. Before the first year was over all men

perceived that things were greatly changed. There were no tournaments at

the Louvre--no feasts at the palace. The king lived like an anchorite,

except on state occasions, when he outshone the magnificence of oriental

princes; and paid his men-at-arms their wages, and granted privileges

to the trading towns, and did not increase a single tax! People must

have grown ashamed of sustaining the cause of Charles the Bad against so

true a Frenchman and gracious a king as Charles the Wise; yet the war

continued.[n]

Charles V at first made use of the help of his brothers, committing to

their hands the provinces most remote from the centre, Languedoc to the

duke of Anjou, and Burgundy to Philip the Bold. He himself attended only

to the centre; but he needed an arm--a sword. There was then hardly

any military spirit except among the Bretons and the Gascons. The king

attached to him a brave Breton of Dinan, the sieur Du Guesclin, whom he

had himself seen at the siege of Melun, and who had been fighting for

France for some years.[e]

_Early Exploits of Bertrand du Guesclin_

The childhood of Bertrand du Guesclin offers some striking peculiarities.

His ugliness, his deformity, and his rough, wild bearing had won for him

the dislike of his family; the harsh treatment he endured only served to

embitter his character. Armed with a stick, which he invariably carried,

young Bertrand was a great trouble to his mother, and the terror of all

the children in the neighbourhood. He could not be taught to read. “He

knew nothing of letters,” says a chronicle, “and no masters could ever be

found from whom he was willing to learn; but he always wanted to strike

and beat them.”

One fine day, being then about sixteen or seventeen years of age,

Bertrand escaped from his father’s house, which to his youthful ardour

felt like a prison, and went off in triumph to Rennes to wrestle with a

young Breton, already made proud by having overcome twelve adversaries;

and soon afterwards Rennes beheld him again victorious in a solemn

tournament, and from that time everyone who knew him, even his parents,

understood that Bertrand had a great future before him. The war between

Charles of Blois and John de Montfort, the two claimants of the duchy of

Brittany, afforded Bertrand a favourable opportunity for distinguishing

himself; he took the side of Charles of Blois, whose cause appeared

to him more French than that of his rival, and the walls of Vannes,

Fougeray, and Rennes were in turns witnesses of his extraordinary

valour. Charles of Blois, to show his gratitude, presented him with

the valuable domain of La Roche d’Airien or De Rien. In 1359 Bertrand

compelled the duke of Lancaster to raise the siege of Dinan. His

battle-cry was, “Notre Dame, Guesclin. Guesclin!” When in battle, this

name rang in the ears of the English; it had the effect of a clap of

thunder, and even the bravest trembled before such an enemy. The most

careful and complete investigations have not enabled the learned to state

the precise date when Bertrand entered the service of the king of France;

it is not certain whether it was to King John or to the dauphin that he

first offered the support of his valour. But at least we know that in

1361 he was already in the royal pay, and that he was in command of a

company of men-at-arms and archers; this fact is proved by a discharge

signed at Paris by Du Guesclin, and preserved amongst the registers of

the court of exchequer.

[Illustration: BERTRAND DU GEUSCLIN]

Some authors say that the governorship of Pontorson was given to Du

Guesclin as a mark of special favour. Whilst fighting for the glory

of the lilies of France, the Breton warrior by no means forgot the

interests of Charles of Blois, his natural sovereign; thus, after driving

the English out of Normandy, he marched to the siege of Bécherel and

routed De Montfort’s troops. It must have been about this time that his

marriage took place with Tiphaine or Thiéphaine Raguenel, a rich heiress

who, if we are to believe the traditions of the fourteenth century,

foretold future events. The date of this marriage is one of the points of

uncertainty in the history of Bertrand.[o]

The new king’s first care was to recover the mastery of the course of the

Seine. Mantes and Meulan belonged to the king of Navarre; Boucicault and

Du Guesclin got possession of them by an act of signal perfidy. The two

towns had paid the penalty of all the mischief the Navarrese had done to

the Parisians. The citizens had the satisfaction of seeing twenty-eight

of them hanged in Paris.

The Navarrese, reinforced by English and Gascons under the captal De

Buch, desired to avenge themselves, and do something to hinder the king

from going to Rheims. Du Guesclin soon advanced with a considerable

body, of French, Bretons, and also Gascons. The captal retreated towards

Évreux, and halted at Cocherel, on an eminence; but Du Guesclin had the

address to deprive him of the advantage of the ground. He sounded a

retreat and made a feint of running away. The captal could not hinder his

Englishmen from descending to pursue; they were too proud to hearken to

a Gascon general, though a great lord and of the house of Foix. He was,

therefore, constrained to obey his soldiers and accompany them into

the plain. Thereupon Du Guesclin wheeled round. The Gascons whom he had

with him appointed thirty of their number to carry off the captal from

the midst of his men. The other Navarrese leaders were killed and the

battle was won. Won on the 16th of May (1364), it was known at Rheims on

the 18th, the coronation day--a fine omen for the new royalty. Charles V

gave Du Guesclin such a reward as never king before him had bestowed: an

establishment on the footing of a prince, the county of Longueville, the

patrimony of the king of Navarre’s brother. At the same time he beheaded

the sire de Saquenville, one of the chief advisers of the Navarrese.

He dealt no better with the French who were found in the ranks of the

companies. Men began to bethink them that brigandage was a crime.

_End of the Breton War: Battle of Auray (1364 A.D.)_

The war in Brittany ended in the same year. The king of France lent

Charles of Blois Du Guesclin and one thousand lances. The prince of Wales

sent De Montfort John Chandos,--the only rival in Europe to the fame

of Du Guesclin as general and knight,--two hundred lances, and as many

archers; and with these were joined several English knights. Montfort

and the English were posted on a height, like the prince of Wales at

Poitiers. Charles of Blois did not care for that. That devout prince,

who believed in miracles, and who himself performed them, had refused at

the siege of Quimper to retreat before a flood. “If it is God’s will,”

he said, “the tide will do us no harm.” He made no more account of the

mountain at Auray than of the flood at Quimper. Charles of Blois had

the greater strength; many Bretons, even, of La Bretagne-Bretonnante

joined him, out of hatred doubtless to the English. Du Guesclin disposed

the army in an admirable manner. “Each man-at-arms,” says Froissart,[g]

“carried his lance straight before him, projecting five feet, and had a

small, hard, and well-sharpened axe, with a small handle. And thus they

advanced in most handsome array. They rode so close that you could not

have thrown a tennis ball among them, but it would have fallen on the

points of the lances.” John Chandos gazed long on the French order of

battle, “the which he praised mightily within himself.” He could not

conceal his sentiments, but said, “So help me God as it is true that

there is here flower of chivalry, great sense, and good arrangement.”

Chandos had set apart a reserve to support each corps that wavered. It

was not without difficulty he prevailed on one of his knights to remain

in the rear and command that reserve; prayers, and almost tears were

necessary to overcome the feudal prejudice that made the front rank be

regarded as the only post of honour. Du Guesclin could not have effected

the same thing in the other army.

[Sidenote: [1364-1366 A.D.]]

The two adverse claimants fought at the head of their respective forces.

The Bretons were weary of this war, and wished to see it ended by the

death of the one or the other. Chandos’ reserve gave him the advantage

over Du Guesclin, who was unhorsed and taken prisoner. The whole brunt

of the battle then fell on Charles of Blois; his banner was pulled down

and himself slain. The greatest lords of Brittany obstinately held out,

and were likewise slain (September 29th, 1364). When the English came,

with great exultation, and showed De Montfort his enemy whom they had

killed, the voice of French blood, or perhaps of kindred, awoke within

him, and tears started from his eyes. A haircloth was found under the

dead man’s cuirass. His piety and his good qualities recurred to memory.

He had recommenced the war only in deference to his wife, whose patrimony

Brittany was. This saint was also a man. He made verses and composed

_lais_ in the intervals between his battles. He had been a lover, too;

a bastard of his was killed by his side, endeavouring to avenge him. De

Montfort got possession of all the strongest places in the country in a

few days. The children of Charles of Blois were prisoners in England. The

king of France, who carried no passion into the trade of war, made terms

with the victor, and induced the widow of Charles of Blois to content

herself with the county of Penthièvre, the viscounty of Limoges, and an

income of 10,000 livres. The king did wisely. The essential thing was to

hinder Brittany from doing homage to the English sovereign. There was

every probability that, sooner or later, it would become weary of the

protégé of England.[e] Peace was concluded on these terms at Guérande in

1365, and Du Guesclin was restored to liberty.

Peace also was concluded with Charles of Navarre, who was glad to accept

the city of Montpellier in exchange for the places he had lost upon the

Seine, and a period of rest was promised to the distracted land.

_Du Guesclin Leads the Free Companies into Castile (1366 A.D.)_

But the rest was impossible with so many conflicting interests to

arrange, and such a spirit of unrule diffused by the recent struggles.

Charles the Wise looked back with fond regret to the time of the

Crusades, and meditated an exportation of the thousands of armed men of

all surrounding countries to the East. But the Brabanters, English, and

Saxons were very well satisfied with their present position, and had

no desire to distinguish themselves against the enemies of the faith,

when they could live so comfortably on the fat of abbey-lands, and

occasionally put a bishop to ransom at home. The example of Montferrat,

who had saved the pope at Avignon by leading the free lances of the south

against the wealth of Milan, occurred also to the anxious thoughts of

the king; and just at the moment when he was in greatest distress, a

circumstance occurred in Spain which gave him the wished-for opportunity.

Pedro, known in general history as the Cruel, but recognised in Spanish

annals as the Great Justiciar, had offended a great proportion of his

subjects by his relentless executions and harsh behaviour. He had

poisoned his wife, a princess of Bourbon, at the instigation of his

favourite Maria de Padilla, and threatened death to the surviving natural

children of his father. Of these, Don Henry of Trastamara was the most

popular and the best; he fled to France, and implored the aid of Charles

against the murderous husband and unpitying brother. Du Guesclin saw the

opening. “Sir,” he said, “the free lances are anxious for work, and will

gather from all parts if I hoist my banner. Better neighbours will they

be on the other side of the Pyrenees than on this.”

Charles adopted the party of the banished brother, and preparations

were instantly made. Du Guesclin himself had begun as a leader of free

lances, and knew their ways. Thirty thousand of them joined him in an

incredibly short space of time, and he marched southward down the Rhone.

The pope was as much alarmed as his predecessor had been, and sent out

to know the object of their approach to Avignon. Bertrand answered with

a grim smile, “We are thirty thousand poor Christian pilgrims bound on a

crusade against the Saracens of Granada, and we want the holy father’s

absolution, and also 200,000 livres.” “Touching the absolution, my son,”

replied the nuncio, “you shall have it without fail; but with regard to

the money, that is a different thing.” “Sir,” replied the knight, “there

be many here who reck not of absolution, but many who desire the money,

for we make them prudent men in spite of themselves.” Their prudence

was rewarded with both the absolution and coin to the amount of 200,000

livres. They made a detour and Avignon was saved. When they reached

Toulouse, the object of the expedition was for the first time declared to

them. Plunder and battle was all they required, and a deluge of cruelty,

courage, and destructiveness poured down on devoted Spain. Pedro was

expelled from the throne, and fled to Portugal. Henry was crowned at

Burgos with Du Guesclin at his side, and was joyously received in the

other cities of Castile.

[Sidenote: [1366-1368 A.D.]]

Both nations now seemed ready for repose, and the triumph of having

restored an exile and created a king was added to the other glories of

the French monarch. But the Black Prince held his court at Bordeaux.

Shortly after his marriage, in 1361, he was created duke of Aquitaine

and had been living in his dominions since 1363. Feasts and tournaments

were celebrated according to the strictest rules of chivalry, and

noble ladies listened to the songs of troubadours, and the picturesque

narratives of Froissart, and the adventures of fabulous warriors, as

their predecessors were said to have done in the days of Charlemagne

and Arthur. Suddenly the dethroned and powerless Pedro threw himself at

the feet of the master of the lists; and half the stories of kingdoms

lost and won by the irresistible sword of a single champion immediately

rushed to their minds. All the blood of knighthood was on fire at the

insolence of a people who had rebelled against their anointed lord, and

Edward of Wales, as became a knight and man of honour, vowed to restore

his suppliant to the throne. Crécy was renewed over again in the great

field of Navarrete in 1367. Du Guesclin himself fell into the enemy’s

hands, and all the work of the free lances was utterly undone. Pedro was

king and justiciary in one, and let loose his royal vengeance on all

the land. Murders, executions, confiscations threw the whole kingdom

into despair, and the English bitterly repented of their interference in

behalf of so unchivalrous, unpitying a tyrant. The dreadful heats of the

south came to the support of Henry. The English died of fever and excess,

and discipline became relaxed. The reinstated king declined to pay the

stipulated rewards; mutiny broke out among the discontented conquerors;

and in the scorching summer, and amid these disturbances, the health of

the Black Prince began to fail.

Meantime, Charles the Wise endeared himself to his subjects by

diminishing their burdens, by encouraging agriculture, and giving greater

influence to the parliaments he convoked. The contrast was great and

striking. Conquest in the field was of no avail against the steady

advance of a popularity so justly founded and nobly sustained, as now

grew on the vanquished side. The free lances, who had joined the prince,

if not paid by the treasuries of Pedro, must be satisfied by the wealth

of their employer. Edward returned to Bordeaux with barren laurels, and

an empty exchequer. He laid fresh burdens on his unhappy subjects in

Aquitaine, to pay for the expenses incurred in Castile, and when the

population of that trampled province compared their position with that

of their neighbours under the crown, dissatisfaction took a wider range,

and they complained of their rulers, not only as oppressors, but as

foreigners. The English, indeed, even when the languages were the same,

never became acclimated in France, and now there was added the great

distinction of a different tongue; for the Norman portion of the English

people had now become so small that English at this time was declared to

be the language of law, as it had long been of religion and commerce.

Anglo-Saxon bowmen, who never spoke a word of French, served in the

ranks of the Black Prince, and, of course, offended the nations by their

brutal contempt for everything they did not understand. The prince,

therefore, in the midst of failing health and military disappointment,

perceived that his countrymen were not the masters of the land he

claimed, but were only forcibly encamped on it.

[Illustration: A FRENCH KNIGHT, END OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

[Sidenote: [1368-1369 A.D.]]

From England no help was to be had. The king was old, and had fallen into

the hands of a designing favourite, Alice Perrers, and her accomplices,

who ruled him at their will. And nothing was wanting to the French

monarch in these favourable circumstances, but warriors who could carry

his plans into effect. Du Guesclin was a prisoner at Bordeaux, and all

the wiser spirits in the court advised the prince on no account to let

so dangerous an enemy go. But Edward was made of penetrable stuff; and

on one occasion when they were in familiar conversation, he said, if

the captive could collect a hundred thousand francs, he should be set

at large--a vast sum in those days; but the sight of Du Guesclin, sword

in hand, and released from bondage, was worth forty times the amount to

the French king. The money was sent at once, and Du Guesclin lost no

time in showing his arm was as strong and his heart as brave as ever. A

rapid incursion into Spain and the battle of Montiel (March 14th, 1369)

established Henry of Trastamara once more upon the throne, and freed him

from the rivalry of Pedro, by the death of that ferocious tyrant. He was

stabbed to the heart by his infuriated brother, after a personal struggle

which lasted a long time. Henry was now undisturbed, and attributed his

prosperity to the favour of the French king. He put the Castilian navy at

the service of France.

_The Peace of Bretigny is Broken (1368-1369 A.D.)_

Charles was not slow in seeing the advantage of his position.

Strengthened by the gratitude of his new ally, and the general favour

of all his subjects, he spoke in a tone of defiance and majesty to the

English prince, which sounded strange in his ears within twelve years

of the battle of Poitiers. He summoned the prince of Wales to appear

before his court of peers, as one of the feudatories of the realm, to

answer for high crimes and misdemeanours. Edward answered, with much

submission, that he would not fail to obey the summons, but would bring

sixty thousand men along with him--helmet on head and spear in rest.

Charles knew too well that this was but a vain boast, for the warrior was

now too feeble to ride, and advanced in the exorbitance of his claims.

Edward of England took up the game of brag on behalf of his son, and

retorted from Windsor by reasserting his claim to the French throne, and

calling himself, in formal documents, king of England and France once

more. War was openly declared, and Charles summoned his states in Paris

(May 9th, 1369). Never was meeting so unanimous and so sedately firm.

Taxes were voted, forces were raised, and defiance was hurled against

the English both in their island fastness and the lands they usurped in

France. The court of peers, consulted in its turn, declared that King

Edward and his, not having appeared in answer to these summons, the duchy

of Aquitaine and other English holdings in France should be and were

confiscated. Every village, in imitation of the enemy they had learned

to fear, had butts for practice of the bow; games of manly exertion

were encouraged; freedom was extended to the serfs, and the municipal

towns were enriched with further privileges. Du Guesclin returned from

the Spanish triumph, and visited the king. The feeling in favour of

illustrious birth was then so strong that, though Charles had bestowed

the highest commands on the Breton soldier, they were offices which gave

him only a temporary superiority over the forces employed, and implied

no permanent pre-eminence when peace should be restored. But on this

occasion a stately assemblage was called. All the princes of the blood,

nobles of highest rank, chancellors, judges, warriors, were assembled

in the great hôtel St. Pol, and Charles gave his sword to Du Guesclin,

and said: “Du Guesclin, take my sword, and use it against my enemies.

Henceforth you are constable of France.” This was the highest dignity a

subject could hold, and Bertrand excused himself on account of his humble

extraction; but Charles persisted, and the Montmorencys, and De Coucys,

and Courtenays, and Bourbons, thought the sword could not be in better

wielding, and did obeisance to Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, who was now the

foremost man in all the land.[n]

_The English Invasion (1369-1370 A.D.)_

[Sidenote: [1369-1370 A.D.]]

The English immediately landed at Calais, while the Black Prince prepared

another attack upon the south. A French army marched to meet them, but

refused to engage them and retreated as they advanced. The towns were

well fortified, and none was taken; the expedition was confined to

useless devastation of the surrounding country.

In 1370 they returned and the same programme was repeated. The order to

refrain from combat was so rigorously observed that at Noyon, when one of

the enemy’s cavalry climbed the ramparts crying out: “My lords, I have

come to call on you; since you do not condescend to come out of your

shell, I will come in!” he was allowed to depart safe and sound. Before

Rheims, before Paris, the English encountered the same stolidity. From

his refuge at St. Pol, where he had shut himself up, the king could watch

the burning of the villages. But the brave Clisson himself exclaimed:

“Sire, you have no need to pit your own men against these furies; let

them wear themselves out. They will not deprive you of your heritage with

all these rubbish-heaps.”

“Never was a king of France less given to war,” said Edward III; “never

was one who kept me so busy!” Charles V, in fact, feeble and ailing,

never held a lance; he was vastly more fond of books. He had the most

valuable library of the day, 910 volumes carefully guarded behind iron

bars in a tower of the Louvre. He read the Bible through once every

year. He corresponded with the pope and sent him presents; and again, to

quote Froissart,[g] “my lord the king piously marched barefoot in the

procession, and madame the queen also.” So good a friend of the pope, so

pious a sovereign, merited the alliance of every bishop of the realm;

and in fact the majority opened to him the gates of their capitals; even

those upon whom the English most depended, as the bishop of Limoges,

comrade of the prince of Wales, turned French.

This last act of treachery exasperated the English. The Black Prince

swore by the soul of his father that he would enter into no other

undertaking until he had made Limoges and the other traitors pay dearly

for their treason. Having arrived before the city, he had part of the

wall torn down, and his soldiers plunged through the breach into the

streets. The prince had himself carried in in his litter.

“That was a sad scene,” writes Froissart,[g] “where men, women, and

children flung themselves at his feet, crying, ‘Mercy, gentle prince.’

But he was too inflamed with excitement to attend. Their pleading went

unheard, and all were put to the sword. Never a heart so hard but would

have wept to have stood in that city of Limoges and witnessed so great

slaughter; more than three thousand men, women, and children lost their

heads that day. And may God receive their souls, for martyrs they truly

were.”

[Sidenote: [1370-1380 A.D.]]

The English grew somewhat calmer at last through their interest in

a new spectacle: three French cavaliers, with backs to an old wall,

contended as if in the lists against the duke of Lancaster and the earls

of Cambridge and Pembroke. The prince of Wales stopped his chariot near

by, the better to look on; and he allowed the three cavaliers to be

recommended to mercy. The bishop, the principal author of the treason,

he also spared. This unfortunate exploit was the Black Prince’s last

adventure; he languished for a few years, and returned to die in England

(1376).

The English possessed an excellent infantry, archers whose darts pierced

the best-made cuirasses, and men-at-arms almost worth a regular cavalry

by their remarkable discipline and their habituation to concerted

movement. To these Charles could oppose only an immense throng of nobles

who, though they might be very brave, were also totally undisciplined.

The part of wisdom, therefore, was to avoid encounter with large bodies;

but in the intervals between expeditions he allowed his men to indulge in

skirmishes. Thus Du Guesclin fought at Pont-Valain with Robert Knolles,

a redoubtable English partisan (1370), and another corps near Chizey in

Poitou (1373). Chandos had been killed during the first campaign. Another

leader of great renown, the captal De Buch, was taken in 1372, near

Soubise. The French were not always beaten back.

Meanwhile the king had his own battles to fight, and his victories are

inscribed intact in the _Recueil des Ordonnances_. Under date of 1370 we

read: “February, 1370, letters according the inhabitants of Rodez the

right to trade with the entire kingdom free of duty on imports.--March,

1370, letters to the effect that the inhabitants of Figeac, now on land

declaring allegiance to Edward, son of the king of England, will not

have their goods confiscated if they return to French soil; ordinance

setting forth privileges accorded the city of Montauban.--April, 1370,

ordinance setting forth privileges accorded the city of Verfeil.--May,

1370, letters exempting the city of Milhaud from imposts during twenty

years, and ordinance of privileges accorded the city of Tulle.--June,

1370, ordinance containing privileges accorded the inhabitants of the

county of Tartas, the cities of Dorat and Puy-Mirol.--July, 1370,

ordinances containing privileges accorded the cities of Cahors, Castres,

Puy-la-Roque, Sarlat, Montégrier, and Salvetat.”

These were Charles V’s implements of war. Among those cities whose doors

the royal ordinances failed to open prowled his captains with their

stratagems of war, cajoling and negotiating. Du Guesclin treated in

secret with the inhabitants of Poitiers, who like those of many other

towns had remained French at heart, and they allowed him to enter with

three hundred lances within their walls (1372). Charles at once granted

titles to all those who afterwards exercised the functions of mayor or

alderman in that city.

Philip Mansel with one hundred English held La Rochelle. One day while

dining with the mayor, John Caudourier, he received a letter from the

king of England. The governor, recognising the royal seal, but being in

his quality of gentleman unable to read, requested his host to read it

for him. The mayor read out a message composed by himself to the effect

that on the following day, August 15th, 1372, the citizens and the

garrison should pass in review before the square. As soon as Mansel had

drawn his men from the château, a troop placed in ambush by the mayor

occupied the citadel. Du Guesclin was there with two hundred lances,

ready to take possession in the name of France. Some weeks previously the

Castilian fleet had destroyed an English fleet before La Rochelle.

Nevertheless the confident enemy tried again in 1373. Landing at Calais

with thirty thousand men, the duke of Lancaster set forth to conquer

France: he only crossed it. The journey was prosperous as long as it

lay through the rich provinces of the north; but in the poor and meagre

central districts deprivation and illness were encountered. At Auvergne

not a horse remained; at Bordeaux only six thousand men were left: the

cavaliers as well as foot soldiers had to beg their bread from door to

door.

The English, disgusted with such warfare, remained away the following

year; and the year after that they demanded a truce, which lasted up to

the death of Edward III in 1377. Charles then broke the truce and struck

a blow. He fitted out five armies and conquered all Guienne, while a

Castilian fleet manned by French troops ravaged the English counties of

Kent and Sussex. In 1380 there remained to the enemy only five French

towns--Bayonne, Bordeaux, Brest, Cherbourg, and Calais. At the same time

Charles the Bad was overwhelmed and saved his Pyrenean kingdom only by

the ceding of twenty places as a pledge of peace (1379).

LAST YEARS OF CHARLES V AND OF DU GUESCLIN

The king of France attempted in Brittany what had served him so well in

Guienne. June 20th, 1378, he summoned the duke John IV to appear before

the court of nobles; the duke not appearing, his fief was declared

forfeit to the crown. The Gascons gave themselves up to France. The

Bretons would not hear of the alliance. Barons, knights, and esquires

signed at Rennes, April 26th, 1379, an act of confederation that the

citizens themselves subscribed.

John IV, although expelled from the country, was recalled. All the

Bretons in the service of the king--and there was a great number of

them--abandoned him; even those who had previously promised to second his

projects turned against him. The old Du Guesclin sent him the constable’s

sword; and on March 1st, 1380, a treaty of alliance was signed at

Westminster between England and Brittany. Again an English army landed at

Calais under the earl of Buckingham, and again it journeyed with impunity

across the north of France. It had not reached Brittany when Charles V

died at Vincennes, September 16th, 1380.[l]

Many things had conduced to weaken the health of the too thoughtful

king. Dissensions among his brothers renewed in Paris the scenes of

falsehood and partisanship which were going on in London. The influence

he possessed over Europe as long as the pope resided in Avignon was taken

from him, first by the removal of Gregory XI to Rome; and, in a short

time after that, the usefulness of the papal chair in his schemes of

advancement was altogether destroyed by the schism which broke out at the

election of the next pope.

France accepted the Frenchman, Clement VII, who resided at Avignon as

his predecessor had done; and half the rest of Christendom, including

England, adhered to his Italian rival. This is the commencement of the

great schism which afforded such vantage-ground, not only to the enemies

of priestcraft but of Christianity itself. Charles felt the blow equally

as Christian and king. While mourning this unhappy event, his grief was

increased by the fall of the constable. Bertrand was besieging one of

the strong castles in Auvergne which was rebellious against the royal

authority and strengthened with an English garrison. The commander

had agreed to surrender if not relieved within a certain time. Fever,

pain, and anxiety laid Du Guesclin low; and when the appointed day came

he was lying on his bier, and preparations were making to carry him

to the grave. The governor, true to his word, hauled down the flag of

independence, and marched out with all his men, head bare and sword

drawn, and laid the keys of the fortress on the hero’s coffin. So died

the best soldier and truest gentleman of France. His last words to his

comrades who bent over his couch were these: “Remember that whenever you

are at war, the churchmen, the women, the children, and the poor are not

your enemies.”[n]

The modern editors of the works of the sieur Le Fevre give the following

exaggerated estimate of Du Guesclin’s merits:

“Bertrand was the man selected by providence as the instrument by which

France was to be saved. Such a man deserved to take his place beside the

kings among the tombs of St. Denis. He has been compared to Turenne;

both brave and generous, they were like fathers to the men fighting

under them; and when they were in want, Turenne sold his silver service

for the benefit of his troops, as Bertrand sold his lands; there is

some resemblance between these two characters, and the parallel might

truthfully be carried further. But in reviewing the history of the

Middle Ages, we find two heroes who much more strongly resemble Du

Guesclin--Tancred and Richard Cœur de Lion. Examine carefully these

three men, Tancred, Richard, and Du Guesclin, and you will find the

same courage, the same boldness, the same rashness, the same contempt

for danger, the same self-abnegation in victory; you will see three men

who, on the battle-field, kill men as easily as an autumn wind blows

down the leaves from the trees, and who, on their return to their tents,

are as mild and docile as children; for them there is no intoxication

in triumph, they show no pride in the hour of victory; their brows are

humble, and you would think them unconscious of their own greatness.

Bertrand du Guesclin swore ‘by God who suffered on the cross and rose

again the third day’; Tancred and Richard swore by the Holy Sepulchre,

and trusting in the justice of their cause, the three knights would rush

on the enemy with as much confidence as if God himself were speaking to

them and urging them on. Does not the disinterestedness of Du Guesclin

remind one of Tancred? How many knights were fed and paid by them--how

many times they took off their own cloaks to conceal the poverty of some

needy nobleman! Du Guesclin has all the characteristics of a hero of the

Crusades; he would figure worthily in the Christian _Iliad_ of the poet

of Sorrento.”[o]

The entire secret of Charles’ success was reliance on his people; and

perhaps the most valuable portion of this reliance was in the fact that

in the word “people” he included the whole population of France. This

great word was not limited, in his interpretation of it, to the taxpaying

inhabitants of the towns or free labourers on the farms. The very serfs

on the soil were fellow-countrymen of the great successor of St. Louis.

His laws had reference as often to the interests of the lowest of his

subjects as to the rights of the richest cities. He was the first and

the last to put arms into the hands of the whole nation. Each man had

his bow and quiver of arrows, his short sword or iron-pointed staff.

He was openly practised in the use of them, and was taught that it

was dishonourable for a Frenchman to be unable to defend his wife and

children with his own hands. The experiment was so successful against

even such generals as Chandos and the Black Prince, that it might be

expected to continue one of the standing institutions of the kingdom. But

these feelings of self-respect were only useful against a foreign enemy,

and might be dangerous against a domestic master. So, ere many years

elapsed, the system was abolished; the butts were destroyed, the bows

and swords withdrawn, for fear the “small people” should find themselves

too powerful; and the result was--as we shall see--Henry V of England

and the battle of Agincourt. It was not more in the formation of new

establishments that Charles showed his wisdom than in the purification

and improvement of the old. The legalism so strongly encouraged by

Philip the Fair, as a preservative against the power of the nobles, had

now become an oppression to the people. The civil servants of the crown

absorbed a vast portion of the taxes they were employed to raise, and

the paid offices about the provincial courts and local parliaments were

innumerable. He diminished them both in number and amount of salary, and

tried to save his subjects from the intricacies of technical pleadings,

as almost an equal evil with the violence of lawless force. The only

people, indeed, he could not bring within the rules of mercy and justice

were the lords and gentlemen, who were the ornaments of chivalry and the

strength of his armies. Feudalism, in fact, was dissolving, and chivalry,

which was its poetic ideal, could not stand the trial of actual war.

Knights were still mere gladiators--sometimes more for show than action;

and gentlemen, in our sense of the word, were not yet in existence.[n]

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES

[24] [The continuator of Nangis[d] is responsible for this statement.]

[25] [The French left 11,000 dead on the field of battle. The English

loss was but 2,500, and they made prisoners of 13 counts, 1 archbishop,

70 barons, and 2,000 armed men, not counting persons of less importance.]

[26] [Maillart entered into communication with two leaders of the

dauphin’s party, Pépin des Essarts and John de Charny. All three with

their men “came properly armed, a little before midnight, to the porte

St. Denis, where they found the provost of the merchants with the keys

of the gate in his hand. Upon this, John Maillart said to him, calling

him by his name, ‘Étienne, what do you do here at this time of night?’

The provost replied, ‘John, why do you ask it? I am here to take care

of, and to guard the city, of which I have the government.’ ‘By God,’

answered John, ‘things shall not go on so: you are not here at this hour

for any good, which I will now show you,’ addressing himself to those

near him; ‘for see how he has got the keys of the gate in his hand, to

betray the city.’ The provost said, ‘John, you lie.’ John replied, ‘It is

you, Étienne, who lie’; and rushing on him, cried to his people, ‘Kill

them, kill them: now strike home, for they are all traitors.’ There was

a very great bustle; and the provost would gladly have escaped, but John

struck him such a blow with his axe on the head, that he felled him to

the ground, although he was his comrade, and never left him until he had

killed him. Six others, who were present, were also killed; the remainder

were carried to prison. They then put themselves in motion, and awakened

everyone in the different streets of Paris.”[g]]

[27] [According to Leber,[m] the king’s ransom would equal 247,500,000

modern francs; and he adds: “This sum, enormous as it is, cannot equal

the total of the single ransoms that went out of the country during this

reign.”]

[28] [This famous house consisted of but four dukes: Philip the Bold,

1363; John the Fearless, 1404; Philip the Good, 1419; and Charles the

Bold (_le téméraire_), 1467-1477.]

[29] [This story is related by Froissart[g], but, as Martin[b] says, “the

fact is more than doubtful.” Charles’ biographer, Christine de Pisan,[p]

is unable to give the cause of the king’s constitutional weakness.]

[Illustration]