The Lily and the Lion

And then a king must also be wise, the wisest man among his people. Philippe began to adopt a sententious tone and, in that fine voice of his, to utter weighty aphorisms in which could be distinguished something of the manner of his old tutor, Archbishop Guillaume de Trye.

‘Action should always be based on reason,’ he would say whenever he was at a loss.

And when he made a mistake, which was often enough, and found himself in the unhappy position of having to countermand what he had ordered the day before, he would declare superbly: ‘Reason lies in developing one’s ideas.’ Or again: ‘It is better to be forearmed than forestalled,’ he would announce pompously, though throughout the twenty-two years of his reign he was to be constantly at the disadvantage of having to face one disagreeable surprise after another.

No monarch ever uttered so many platitudes with so grand an air. When people supposed he was thinking, he was in fact merely pondering a sentence that would seem like thought; his head was as empty as a nut in a bad season.

Nor was it to be forgotten that a king, a true king, must be valiant, chivalrous and gallant. And, indeed, Philippe had no aptitude for anything but arms – not for war, it must be admitted, but for jousts and tournaments. He would have excelled in training young knights at the Court of a minor baron. But, being a sovereign, his house began to look like a castle in the romances of the Round Table, which were much read at the time and had taken firm hold of his imagination. Life was a round of tournaments, festivals, banquets, hunts and entertainments, followed by more tournaments amid a flurry of plumed helms and horses more richly caparisoned than were the women.

Philippe applied himself with great devotion to affairs of State for an hour a day, either on his return, drenched with sweat, from jousting or on emerging from a banquet with a full stomach and a cloudy mind. His chancellor, his treasurer and his innumerable officers made his decisions for him or went to take orders from Robert of Artois. Indeed, Robert governed far more than the Sovereign.

No difficulty arose without Philippe appealing to Robert for advice, and the Count of Artois’ orders were obeyed with confidence, for it was known that any decree of his would be approved by the King.

This was how things stood, when the crowds began to gather towards the end of May for the coronation, at which Archbishop Guillaume de Trye was to place the crown on his former pupil’s head, and the festivities were to last for five days.

The whole kingdom seemed to have come to Reims; and not only the kingdom but a great part of Europe, for there were present the superb, if impecunious, King John of Bohemia, Count Guillaume of Hainaut, the Marquess of Namur, and the Duke of Lorraine. During the five days of feasting and rejoicing, there were a lavishness and an expenditure such as the burgesses of Reims had never seen before, and it was they who had to foot the bill for the festivities. Though they had grumbled at the cost of the previous coronation, they now gladly supplied two or three times as much. It was a hundred years since there had been such drinking in the Kingdom of France. There were even horsemen serving drinks in the courts and squares.

On the eve of the coronation, the King dubbed Louis of Nevers, Count of Flanders, knight with great pomp and ceremony. It had been decided that the Count of Flanders was to carry Charlemagne’s sword at the coronation and hand it to the King. The Constable, whose traditional privilege it was, had oddly enough consented to surrender it. But it was necessary that the Count of Flanders should be a knight; and Philippe VI could hardly have found a more signal means of showing his gratitude for the Count’s support.

Nevertheless, at the ceremony in the cathedral next day, when Louis of Bourbon, the Great Chamberlain of France, had shod the King with the lily-embroidered boots, and then proceeded to summon the Count of Flanders to present the sword, the Count made no move.

‘Monseigneur, the Count of Flanders!’ called Louis of Bourbon once again.

But Louis of Nevers stood still in his place with his arms crossed.

‘Monseigneur, the Count of Flanders,’ repeated the Duke of Bourbon, ‘if you be present, either in person or by representative, I call on you to come forward to fulfil your duty. You are hereby summoned to appear under pain of forfeiture.’

There was an astonished silence beneath the great vault and there was fear, too, reflected on the faces of the prelates, barons and dignitaries; but the King seemed quite unconcerned and Robert of Artois, his head thrown back, appeared to be deeply engaged in watching the play of sunlight through the windows.

At last the Count of Flanders moved from his place, came to a halt in front of the King, bowed and said: ‘Sire, if Louis of Nevers had been called, I would have come forward sooner.’

‘What do you mean, Monseigneur?’ replied Philippe VI. ‘Are you not Count of Flanders?’

‘Sire, I bear the name but do not enjoy its benefit.’

Philippe VI, looking as kingly as possible, drew himself up, turned his long nose towards the Count, and said calmly with a blank stare: ‘What is this you’re telling me, Cousin?’

‘Sire,’ replied Louis of Nevers, ‘the people of Bruges, Ypres, Poperinghe and Cassel have turned me out of my fief and no longer consider me to be their count and suzerain; indeed, the country is in such a state of rebellion that I can scarcely go to Ghent even in secret.’

Philippe of Valois slapped the arm of the throne with his wide palm in a gesture he had unconsciously adopted from having seen his uncle, Philip the Fair, the incarnation of majesty, make use of it so often.

‘Louis, my dear cousin,’ he said – and his stentorian voice seemed to roll out of the choir and over the congregation – ‘we look on you as Count of Flanders and, by the holy anointing and sacrament we receive today, promise that we shall know neither peace nor rest till you are restored to the possession of your county.’

Louis of Nevers fell on his knees and said: ‘Sire, I thank you.’

The ceremony then proceeded.

Meanwhile Robert of Artois was winking at his neighbours, and they at once realized that the scene had been previously arranged. Philippe VI was keeping the promises Robert had made on his behalf to assure his election. And, indeed, Philippe of Evreux was that very day wearing the crown of King of Navarre.

As soon as the ceremony was over, the King summoned the peers and the great barons, the princes of his family, and the lords who had come from beyond the boundaries of his realm to attend his coronation and, as if the matter could not suffer an hour’s delay, consulted with them as to the timing of an attack on the Flanders rebels. A valiant king was in duty bound to defend the rights of his vassals. A few of the more prudent spirits, in view of the fact that the season was already far advanced and that there was a risk of not being ready till the winter – they still remembered Louis the Hutin’s ‘Muddy Host’ – counselled him to postpone the expedition for a year. But the old Constable Gaucher cried shame on them: ‘For him who has the heart to fight the time is always ripe!’

He was now seventy-eight and eager to command his last campaign; and it was not for shuffling of this sort that he had agreed to surrender Charlemagne’s sword.

‘And the English, who are at the back of the rebellion, will be taught a lesson,’ he muttered.

After all, in the romances of chivalry you could read of the exploits of eighty-year-old heroes still capable of unhorsing an enemy in battle and cleaving his helm to the skull. Were the barons to show less valour than this aged veteran who was so impatient to set off to war with his sixth king?

Philippe of Valois rose to his feet and cried: ‘Whoever loves me well will follow me!’

It was decided to mobilize the army at the end of July and, as if by chance, at Arras. It would give Robert an opportunity to sow a little discord in his Aunt Mahaut’s county.

They moved into Flanders at the beginning of August.

The fifteen thousand citizen soldiers of Furnes, Dixmude, Poperinghe and Cassel were commanded by a burgess named Zannequin. Wishing to show that he knew the proper usages, Zannequin sent the King of France a challenge praying him to fix the day of battle. But Philippe felt nothing but contempt for this clodhopper who assumed the manners of a prince and made answer that since the Flemish had no true leader, they would have to defend themselves as best they could. Then he sent his two marshals, Mathieu de Trye and Robert Bertrand, who was known as ‘the Knight of the Green Lion’, to burn the country round Bruges.

The marshals were highly congratulated when they returned; everyone was delighted to see flames rising from poor people’s houses in the distance. The knights discarded their armour and wearing sumptuous robes visited each other’s tents, dined in pavilions of embroidered silk, and played chess with their friends. The French camp looked just like King Arthur’s in the picture books, and the barons thought of themselves as Lancelot, Hector or Galahad.

And so it happened that the valiant King, who preferred to be forearmed rather than forestalled, was at dinner when the fifteen thousand Flemish attacked his camp, carrying banners on which they had painted a cock and written:

Le jour que ce coq chantera

Le roi trouvé ci entrera.fn1

In a very short time they had ravaged half the camp, cut the ropes supporting the pavilions, upset the chessboards, overset the banqueting tables and killed a good number of lords.

The French infantry fled; in their panic they never stopped to draw breath till they had reached Saint-Omer forty leagues to the rear.

The King had barely time to don a surcoat bearing the arms of France, cover his head with a basinet of white leather and jump on his charger to try and rally his heroes.

Both sides in this battle committed grave errors through vanity. The French knights had despised the commonalty of Flanders; but the Flemish, to show they were as much warriors as the French lords, had equipped themselves with armour to attack on foot.

The Count of Hainaut and his brother, Jean, whose lines stood a little apart, were the first to get to horse and disorganize the Flemish attack by taking the enemy in the rear. Then the French knights, rallied by the King, hurled themselves on the foot-soldiers, who were so heavily overburdened by their arrogant equipment, overset them, trampled them down and massacred them. The Lancelots and Galahads were content to club and slash, leaving it to their men-at-arms to finish off the wounded with daggers. Those who tried to flee were tumbled over by the charging horses; and those who offered to surrender immediately had their throats cut. The Flemish left thirteen thousand dead on the field, a fabulous heap of flesh and steel; grass, armour, man and beast were all sticky with blood.

The Battle of Mont Cassel, which had begun in so disastrous a way, ended in total victory for France. People talked of it as another Bouvines.

But the real victor was not the King, nor even the old Constable Gaucher, though he had shouted the names of his banners loudly enough, nor Robert of Artois, though he had fallen on the enemy ranks like an avalanche. The man who had saved the day was Count Guillaume of Hainaut. But it was Philippe VI, his brother-in-law, who reaped the glory.

So powerful a king as Philippe could not tolerate any omission on the part of his vassals. He therefore sent a summons to the King of England, Duke of Guyenne, to come to render homage to him without delay.

There are no advantageous defeats, but there can be disastrous victories. Few days in France’s history have cost her so dear as Cassel, for it gave currency to a number of false ideas, such as that the new King was invincible, and that foot-soldiers were worthless in war. The defeat of Crécy, twenty years later, was the consequence of this illusion.

In the meantime, the commanders of banners and the bearers of lances, even to the youngest squire, looked down from their saddles in contempt at the inferior species who fought on foot.

That autumn, towards the middle of October, Madame Clémence of Hungary, the unlucky Queen who had been Louis the Hutin’s second wife, died at the age of thirty-five in the Temple, where she lived. She left so many debts that, a week after her death, everything she possessed, rings, crowns, jewels, furniture, linen and plate, even her kitchen utensils, were auctioned on behalf of her Italian creditors, the Bardi and the Tolomei.

Old Spinello Tolomei, now very fat and lame, one eye open and the other shut, attended the sale. Six goldsmith-valuers, commissioned by the King, had fixed the reserves. Everything Queen Clémence had been given during her one year of illusory happiness was dispersed.

For four successive days the auctioneers, Simon de Clokettes, Jean Pascon, Pierre de Besançon and Jean de Lille, were to be heard crying: ‘A fine gold hat,5 containing four balas rubies, four large emeralds, sixteen small balas rubies, sixteen small emeralds and eight Alexandraian rubies, six hundred livres! Sold to the King!’

‘A ring, with four cut sapphires and one cabochon, forty livres! Sold to the King!’

‘A ring, with six oriental rubies, three cut emeralds and three emerald brilliants, two hundred livres! Sold to the King!’

‘A silver gilt bowl, twenty-five goblets, two platters and a dish, two hundred livres! Sold to Monseigneur of Artois, Count of Beaumont!’

‘A dozen silver-gilt goblets, enamelled with the arms of France and Hungary, a great silver-gilt salt supported by four monkeys, four hundred and fifty livres! Sold to Monseigneur of Artois, Count of Beaumont!’

‘A gold-embroidered purse, sewn with pearls, containing an oriental sapphire, sixteen livres! Sold to the King!’

The Bardi company bought the most expensive lot: a ring containing Clémence’s largest ruby, which was estimated to be worth one thousand livres. They did not, however, have to pay for it, since it would be placed against her account with them, and they were sure of being able to resell it to the Pope who, having long been in their debt in the past, was now fabulously rich.

Robert of Artois, as if to prove that he was not solely concerned with goblets and drinking-vessels, acquired a Bible in French for thirty livres.

The chapel vestments, tunics and dalmatics were bought by the Bishop of Chartres.

A goldsmith named Guillaume le Flament acquired the dead Queen’s eating-utensils for a modest price; among them was a fork, the first ever to be made in the history of the world.

Her horses went for six hundred and ninety-two livres. And Madame Clémence’s coach together with that of her ladies-in-waiting were also auctioned.

And when at last everything was removed from the Temple, people had the feeling that an ill-omened house had been shut up.

Indeed, it seemed, that year, as if the past were wiping itself out of its own accord to make way for the new reign. The Bishop of Arras, Thierry d’Hirson, Countess Mahaut’s chancellor, died in the month of November. He had been the Countess’ adviser for thirty years, her lover too, for that matter, and had served her in all her intrigues. Mahaut was become very lonely now. Robert of Artois had a priest called Pierre Roger, who was a supporter of the Valois party, appointed to the diocese of Arras.6

Things were going against Mahaut, while Robert seemed to be prospering in every way; his influence was continually increasing, and he was rising to the highest honours.

In the month of January, 1329, Philippe VI made the County of Beaumont-le-Roger a peerage; at last Robert was a peer of France.

Since the King of England delayed coming to render homage, it was once again decided to seize the Duchy of Guyenne. But before the threat was put into execution, Robert of Artois was sent to Avignon to obtain the intervention of Pope John XXII.

Robert spent two delightful weeks on the banks of the Rhône. For Avignon, to which flowed all the gold of Christendom, had become, for anyone who enjoyed high living, gambling and beautiful courtesans, an enchanted city over which ruled an ascetic, octogenarian pope withdrawn into the problems of the Beatific Vision. The new peer of France had several audiences with the Holy Father; a banquet was given in the pontifical palace in his honour, and he enjoyed much learned conversation with a number of cardinals. Nevertheless, loyal to the avocations of his turbulent youth, he also frequented persons of more doubtful standing. Wherever Robert happened to be, he did not need to lift a finger to attract loose women, wicked men and fugitives from justice. If there was but one receiver of stolen goods in a town, in the first quarter of an hour Robert had found him out. The monk expelled from his order for causing scandal, the priest guilty of larceny or violating his oath, were inevitably to be found in his anteroom in search of his support. He was often saluted in the street by persons of sinister appearance and he would try vainly to recollect in what brothel of what town he had run across them. There was no doubt that he was trusted by the underworld, and the fact that he had become the second prince in the kingdom made no difference.

His old valet, Lormet le Dolois, was too old now to make long journeys and had not accompanied him to Avignon. But a younger man, Gillet de Nelle, who had been trained in the same school, was charged with Lormet’s duties. It was, indeed, Gillet who discovered for Monseigneur Robert a certain Maciot l’Allemant, a native of Arras and unemployed sergeant-at-arms, who would stick at nothing. Maciot had known Bishop Thierry d’Hirson well; and Bishop Thierry, during his last years, had had a mistress called Jeanne de Divion, who was at least twenty years younger than himself. She was complaining bitterly of the way Countess Mahaut had been treating her since the Bishop’s death. Would Monseigneur like to see this Dame de Divion?

Not for the first time, Robert of Artois concluded that there was much to be learned from people of bad reputation. No doubt there were safer hands than Sergeant Maciot’s into which to confide one’s purse, but the man clearly had much interesting information. Wearing a new suit of clothes and mounted on a good horse, he was sent north.

When he returned to Paris in March, Robert of Artois was in high good humour, prophesying that there would soon be interesting news in the kingdom. He mentioned that royal documents had been stolen by Bishop Thierry on Mahaut’s behalf. And a woman with veiled face came frequently to see him in his study where he held long and secret conferences with her. As the weeks went by, he seemed ever happier and more confident, and foretold the imminent confusion of his enemies with increasing assurance.

In the month of April the English Court, yielding to pressure from the Pope, sent Bishop Orleton to Paris once again, with a train of seventy-two persons, lords, prelates, lawyers, clerks and servants, to negotiate the form the homage was to take. Indeed, it was nothing less than a treaty which had to be agreed.

The affairs of England were not going too well. Lord Mortimer had not increased his prestige by compelling Parliament to sit under the menace of his troops. He had been forced to suppress an armed rebellion of the barons under the leadership of Henry Wryneck, Earl of Lancaster, and he was finding great difficulty in governing the country.

At the beginning of May, gallant old Gaucher de Châtillon died in his eightieth year. He had been born in the reign of Saint Louis, and had been Constable for twenty-seven years. His determined voice had often affected the results of battles and had frequently prevailed in the King’s Council.

On May 26th young King Edward III, having borrowed, as his father had done before him, five thousand livres from the Lombard bankers to cover the cost of the journey, took ship at Dover to come and render homage to his cousin of France.

Neither his mother Isabella nor Lord Mortimer accompanied him, for they were afraid the power might pass into other hands in their absence. The sixteen-year-old King, under the tutelage merely of two bishops, set out to confront the most imposing Court in the world.

For England was weak and divided, while France was a whole. There was no more puissant nation in Christendom; prosperous, populous, rich in industry and agriculture, governed by a powerful civil service and an active nobility, her lot seemed enviable indeed. While her makeshift king, who had now been reigning for a year during which he had achieved success after success, was the most envied of all the kings in the world.

5.

The Giant and the Mirrors

HE WANTED NOT ONLY to show himself off but to see himself too. He wanted his beautiful wife, the Countess, his three sons, Jean, Jacques and Robert, of whom the eldest, who was now eight, already gave promise of growing into a tall, strong man, to admire him; and he wanted his equerries and his servants, all the staff he had brought from Paris with him, to see him in his splendour. But he wanted also to be able to admire himself with his own eyes.

For this purpose, he had sent for all the mirrors that happened to be in the baggage of his suite, mirrors of polished silver, circular as plates, hand-mirrors, mirrors of glass backed by tin-foil and set in octagonal frames of silver-gilt, and he had had them hung side by side on the tapestry in his room.7 The Bishop of Amiens would no doubt be delighted to find his fine figured tapestry torn by nails. But what did that matter? A peer of France could permit himself that much. Monseigneur Robert of Artois, Lord of Conches and Count of Beaumont-le-Roger, wanted to see himself wearing his peer’s robes for the first time.

He turned first one way and then the other, advanced and retreated a couple of steps, but could see his reflection only in fragments, split up into pieces like a figure in a church window: on the left, the gold hilt of his long sword and, a little higher to the right, part of his chest where his silk surcoat showed his embroidered arms; here the shoulder to which the great peer’s mantle was fastened with a glittering clasp, and there, near the ground, the fringe of the long mantle falling on the gold spurs; and then, crowning it all, the great peer’s coronet with eight identical fleurons, set with the rubies he had bought at the late Queen Clémence’s sale.

‘Well, I’m worthily apparelled,’ he said. ‘It would be a great pity if I were not a peer, for the mantle suits me well.’

The Countess of Beaumont, also wearing state robes, did not altogether seem to share her husband’s satisfaction.

‘Are you quite sure, Robert,’ she asked anxiously, ‘that this woman will arrive in time?’

‘Of course, of course,’ he replied. ‘Even if she doesn’t come this morning, I shall make my claim, and present the papers tomorrow.’

The only drawback to Robert’s costume was the heat of early summer. He was sweating under the cloth-of-gold, the velvet and the thick silk, and though he had taken a hot bath that morning he was beginning to give off a smell like a wild beast.

Through the window, which was open on to a bright and sunny sky, the cathedral bells could be heard ringing a full peal, drowning the clatter in the town of the trains of the five kings and their Courts.

For, indeed, on this June 6th, 1329, there were five kings in Amiens. No chancellor could remember such a gathering. To receive the homage of his young cousin of England, Philippe VI had invited his relations and allies, the Kings of Navarre, Bohemia and Majorca, as well as the Count of Hainaut, the Duke of Athens and all the peers, dukes, counts, bishops, barons and marshals.