V. THE OPENING OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR…

V. THE OPENING OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR

Great enterprises and deeds of arms were achieved in these wars; since the time of good Charlemagne, king of France, never were such feats performed.--FROISSART.[e]

[Sidenote: [1328-1350 A.D.]]

Although France was little prepared for a great national war, a king mounted its throne who was almost certain to provoke one. The princes of the family of Valois had always represented the ideas and the interests of the noblesse during the preceding reigns, when reasons of state, maxims of law, and necessities of finance had led the government to look to other councillors and undergo other influence. With the accession of Philip of Valois, the noblesse recovered that ascendency of which they had been so long deprived. And this influence they displayed with a petulance and a pride which could not but provoke what they most loved, a war.

“Charles the Fair having expired, the barons assembled to take into consideration the government of the kingdom. The queen was pregnant, and until the sex of her issue was known, the title of king could not be assumed. The only question was to whom, as nearest in blood, the government of the kingdom should be committed, especially as in France a female could not succeed to the crown. The English said that their king, the son of Philip the Fair’s daughter, and consequently nephew of the late monarch, was, as nearest of kin, more entitled to the regency and to the throne, if the queen did not bring forth a prince, than Philip of Valois, who was but the cousin of the deceased monarch. Many learned in the civil and canon law were of this opinion. Isabella, the daughter of Philip the Fair, might, they alleged, be set aside on account of her sex; but one of the right sex, and of the nearest affinity, ought to succeed. The men of France, incapable of suffering the idea of becoming subjects of an English prince, replied, that Edward could only succeed by the right of his mother; and when the mother had no right, the son could have none. This opinion being accepted as the most sensible, was approved by the barons, and the government delivered to Philip of Valois. He accordingly received the homage due to the crown of France, but not that due to the crown of Navarre, which the count of Évreux claimed by right of his wife, daughter of Louis Hutin.”

[Sidenote: [1328-1330 A.D.]]

This narrative, by the continuator of Nangis,[c] is sufficiently correct. Navarre was given to the count of Évreux, he consenting to receive pecuniary compensation for the counties of Champagne and Brie. In April the queen was confined of a daughter; Philip instantly assumed the title of king, and gave orders for his coronation at Rheims. At the same time, by a letter dated Northampton, the 16th day of May, 1328, Edward appointed two bishops as procurators to make good his claim to the kingdom of France. At the close of the same month Philip was solemnly crowned at Rheims.

The first act of the new king as regent seems to have been to order the treasurer of the late monarch, Peter Remi, to be tortured--thus compelled to confess treason, and finally hanged. He also summoned his barons to support him in a military expedition into Flanders. Count Louis was obstructed in his government, and especially in his levy of taxes, by the people of Bruges, Ypres, and other cities; those of Ghent alone remaining true to him and to France. Louis demanded aid of Philip. The greater part of the barons were of opinion that the season was too far advanced to admit of an expedition that year; but Philip, anxious to signalise his reign, turned to the constable, Walter de Châtillon, and asked his advice. “The brave heart finds all times opportune for fighting,” replied the constable. The king accordingly summoned his lieges to meet him at the feast of the Madeleine in July, at Arras. “But the good towns,” says the chronicle of St. Denis,[h] “did not attend, giving their money instead, and staying at home to mind their cities.”

The king’s army was most numerous, divided into ten divisions or battles, the nobles from every quarter hastening to evince their loyalty by attending the first summons of a new and chivalrous king. The citizens of West Flanders alone mustered to oppose the French, and not more than twelve thousand of them, according to Froissart, took post under Colas Zannequin on the hill of Cassel. They were confident, however, and hung out a flag with a cock painted on it, and an inscription saying, that this cock would crow, ere the upstart king, the roi trouvé, would find his way into Cassel.

The Flemings remained tranquil for several days, with the French encamped before them. At last at the hour of vespers when the latter were preparing supper, the Flemings marched out in three bodies, fell upon them, and penetrated into their camp. Philip, like his namesake at Mons-en-Pévêlle, was obliged to withdraw, and it was his chaplains who helped him to put on his armour. When the king showed himself with the oriflamme, the knights rallied round him from all quarters, the foot, who were more numerous, continuing their flight. The Flemings had failed in mastering as well as surprising Philip’s camp, and now assailed by the French cavalry (having none of their own), they stood firm and fought for a long time a defensive battle. At last a charge made a breach in their solid phalanx, the French knights poured in, and the Flemings were routed and slaughtered. One of the divisions regained the hill of Cassel, but all alike perished. The king estimated the loss of his enemies at twenty thousand.

He entered the several towns one after the other in triumph, took a thousand citizens of Bruges as hostages, tore down the bells, levelled the walls, and proscribed municipal liberties. When Philip delivered the county of Flanders, thus humbled and mutilated, to its lord, he addressed him, as the continuator of Nangis[c] records, in the following words: “Count, I come hither at your request, and in all probability because you were too negligent in executing justice. I could not have come, as you know, without great expense; yet, out of my liberality, I restore you your land quiet and pacified, and I forgive you the expense. But another time take care. Let me not be obliged to return by your over-clemency, for if I do, it shall be for my own profit.”

Thus exhorted, adds the chronicler, Count Louis so exerted himself that, within three months, he had put ten thousand persons to various kinds of death. In this manner was signalised the triumph of the French noblesse over the citizens of West Flanders.

[Sidenote: [1328-1335 A.D.]]

Meantime, in England, affairs were somewhat unsettled. Edward III cannot be considered to have undertaken the government of that country until the death of Mortimer and the imprisonment of the queen-mother in October, 1330. In the first year after Philip’s accession, Isabella seemed inclined to dispute his title, and steps were taken to conclude alliances against France. But the success of Philip in the Flemish war, and the hostile attitude of the English barons, as well as the discontent of the English people with the concessions made to Scotland, precluded the idea of prosecuting the quarrel with France.

Edward, therefore, at his mother’s bidding, proceeded to Amiens in the spring of 1329, and did homage to Philip, maintaining his rights to those portions of his possessions in the south of France which the French king still retained. But this act of submission led to disputes, one monarch pretending that it was homage simple, the other that it was homage liège. Philip thought the opportunity favourable for invading Guienne, the power of Isabella and Mortimer being paralysed by their many enemies. The king levied an aide upon his barons for the expedition. So far had these hostile intentions proceeded, that the count of Alençon, Philip’s brother, attacked the English in Saintonge, and took and burned the castle of Saintes. On the death of Mortimer, however, and the assumption of full power by Edward, Philip returned to more amicable sentiments, and promised to make amends for the affair of Saintes, as well as for several other grievances. The monarchs seemed to be on the most friendly terms; they spoke of proceeding to the Holy Land together, and even of contracting a marriage between their children.

The subsequent coolness and enmity between them is universally, and apparently with justice, attributed to the malice of Robert of Artois, who for some years had been a pretender to the lordship of that county. Robert had undoubtedly been wronged in the judgment which took Artois from him, the direct heir, and gave it to a female and a collateral, merely because she was more closely allied to the reigning king of France. When Robert asserted his rights in arms, Philip the Tall was unable to reduce him; and if Robert submitted, and even constituted himself a prisoner, it was on the understanding that the unjust sentence against him should be revoked, and the county restored to him. On this understanding, Robert married the daughter of Charles of Valois.

Nevertheless Philip the Tall and Charles the Fair evaded the demands and expectations of Robert, who reckoned on having his rights at last from his brother-in-law, Philip of Valois. Robert accordingly served the crown with zeal, and was one of the principal supporters of this prince’s claims to the throne. “Thus, on Philip’s accession, Robert became everything in France,” says Froissart.[e] There having been two sentences of the court of parliament against Robert’s claim, it was difficult to rescind them, at least without some new plea, some yet unproduced documents in his favour. Such, probably, was the remark with which Philip and his law officers met the demands of Robert.

If a document existed likely to prove favourable for his claim, it must have fallen into the hands of those who had robbed him of the county. The countess Mahaut, to whom Philip the Fair had adjudged Artois, died soon after the accession of Philip of Valois. Her chief counsellor and confidant had been the bishop of Arras. He also dying, left voluminous papers, some of which had been secreted and carried off from Arras by a woman named Divion, mistress of the prelate. The countess lived long enough to endeavour, by law or vengeance, to get back the papers from Divion.

Aware of these circumstances, Joan, the countess of Artois, set to work and procured from this woman, or caused to be forged by her, certain documents. One was a letter from the bishop of Arras to Robert of Artois, craving pardon for having purloined the documents. Another was a charter of Robert, count of Artois, the grandfather, settling Artois upon his son, the father of Robert. Michelet[f] declares the documents, which still exist, to be forgeries. Robert of Artois boldly produced them, claimed by virtue of them to be restored to the possession of his county; and, as a proof of what value was men’s testimony in those days, he brought upwards of fifty witnesses in support of his false documents. Had the king been prosecutor, these, no doubt, would have been found authentic enough for the parliament. But Robert of Artois was no friend of the legists, and parliament remained firm to its first decision. The king’s procureur objected to the documents, and Robert, summoned to say whether he would stand by them, hesitated. The woman, Divion, was seized, put to the torture, and acknowledged her forgery. The parliament ordered her to be burned. Robert of Artois being proved so far culpable as to have plotted with her, was accused, moreover, of aiding her to poison the countess Mahaut of Artois. Robert fled to Brabant. The king caused him to be condemned for forgery, and deprived of his estates and honours. His wife, his sons, and relatives were imprisoned, and, the legists accusing him of attempting to murder and to kill the king by sorcery, drove Robert altogether from the continent, and compelled him to take refuge in England. The fugitive was well received by Edward, appointed of his council, and endowed with ample domains.

Philip of Valois knew not what use to make of that absolute power, which the efforts of so many kings had built up. Policy, he evidently had none. He liked the splendour, magnificence, and pride of a court; and, consequently, preferred his noblesse to any other class of society. Still he showed, in the case of Robert of Artois, his determination not to allow any of them to dictate or impose upon him. He consulted his lawyers as in the case of church encroachments, but shrunk from ordinance or legislation in their favour. Abroad, Philip was generally uncertain in purpose.

[Sidenote: [1335-1337 A.D.]]

The monarch’s incertitude was, however, soon relieved. Edward III became more and more irritated at the support which the French and Flemings gave to the Scots: in June, 1335, he issued an order from Newcastle to the Cinque Ports to arm, and intercept a naval expedition fitting out at Calais for Scotland. In February, 1336, an edict appeared ordering all Englishmen, from sixteen to sixty, to be prepared to repel invasion. Still negotiations continued; and it was not till August of the same year that Edward announced to his subjects the refusal of the French king to cease rendering active assistance to the Scottish foe. At the same time the count of Flanders threw off the mask by arresting all the English traders in his dominions, and Edward was obliged to respond to it by a similar act.

The following year was spent by both monarchs in preparing alliances, and by Edward in making the most active and unusual preparations for war. Philip hired large bodies of Germans, both men-at-arms and light troops. By marrying the heiress of the duke of Brittany to one of his relatives, he hoped to have secured the allegiance of that prince and family; but Philip’s attention was chiefly turned towards the south and the conquest of Guienne, for which enterprise he had the succour of the nobles of the Pyrenees as well as of Languedoc. He seemed not to expect to be seriously attacked on the side of Flanders.

Yet it was in that direction that Edward principally turned his efforts, spending the year 1337 in negotiations with the princes whose territories extended from Antwerp to Cologne. The English king had married the daughter of the count of Hainault, who was the first that he gained, or hoped to have gained; the duke of Brabant, the duke of Gelderland, and the archbishop of Cologne also listened to Edward’s proposals, and willingly received his subsidies. They might bring into the field a thousand knights. But Edward pushed his quest for allies still further: he engaged the duke of Austria to invade Burgundy, he concluded an agreement with the count palatine for a subsidiary force, and even obtained a promise from the emperor Ludwig of Bavaria that he would aid in the war against France with an army of two thousand knights; for this his imperial majesty was to be paid 300,000 florins.

These counts and knights observed to the envoy of Edward that, notwithstanding their own prowess, the Flemish artisans would prove far more potent auxiliaries against France than any number of lordly chivalry. Edward approved of the idea; and the bishop of Lincoln and other envoys proceeded to Ghent, “not sparing their money by the way.” The subjection of Flanders had been caused by the rich citizens of Ghent proving false to the national cause, supported solely by the men of Bruges and West Flanders. This enabled the democracy of Ghent to triumph over them, and to become organised under the lead of a brewer of that city, named Artevelde. The envoys of Edward addressed themselves to this new king or popular sovereign, and were well received by him. He summoned consuls or deputies from the other towns, and these soon came to an accord that trade should be carried on as usual, and wool imported from England, notwithstanding the prohibitions of France and the count of Flanders.

To Edward wool was at once money and alliance. Whilst the working and manufacturing class of Flemings thus profited by the English, the chiefs and Artevelde himself received money for the occasion. Still, however easy to win over the Flemings to neutrality, it was difficult to induce them to enter upon active war with France. The French, however, and the Flemish aristocracy did all in their power to provoke the civic democracy; they enticed from Ghent almost the only personage of birth who favoured the popular party, and had entertained the envoys of Edward. This was a knight of Courtrai, father-in-law of Artevelde; when he fell into their hands, they decapitated him, to the great irritation of the men of Ghent. The Flemish knights, in order to intercept the frequent communication and envoys passing between England and the Low Countries, took possession of the isle of Cadsand, close to Walcheren, and lying in wait there for the English, obliged them in going or in returning home, to take the route of Dordrecht, instead of sailing direct from Antwerp. Edward no sooner learned this, than he fitted out an expedition in the Thames under Lord Derby and Sir Walter Manny, of six hundred knights and two thousand archers. These assailed Cadsand, defeated the Flemish knights, and captured Guy of Flanders, who, after some delay, joined the English party.

EDWARD III CLAIMS THE THRONE OF FRANCE

[Sidenote: [1337-1339 A.D.]]

In October, 1337, Edward took the important step of laying claim to the throne of France by right of his mother, sister of Philip the Fair, and of declaring Philip of Valois, descended from a brother of that monarch, a wrongful usurper. This he announced in letters from Edward, king of France and England, to his allies in the Low Countries; and he at the same time appointed the duke of Brabant his vicar-general in the kingdom of France. The king’s allies received this solemn announcement, but do not seem to have acted upon it; the duke of Brabant, far from assuming the office of vicar-general, on the contrary assured Philip of Valois of his friendship.

In the spring of 1338, Edward embarked for Antwerp with what forces he could muster, hoping to make a brilliant campaign with the princes of the Low Countries. They showed very little alacrity, and though willing to receive large sums, prepared to prove themselves as little hostile to the French king as was consistent with their receiving the money from the English. The emperor, though he had promised to be ready by St. Andrew’s day was too anxious for a reconciliation with the pope to defeat his purpose by aiding in an invasion of France; and Edward was reduced to recommence the task of negotiation.

It was late in 1339 before Edward was joined by his German allies. Some time was passed in solemnly declaring war, and then the English advanced to Cambray, which was garrisoned by French troops. But as it did not belong to the king of France, there was no profit in capturing it; Edward, therefore, pursued his march, against the advice of many of his allies, into France, upon which his relative, the count of Hainault, formally quitted his banner for that of Philip. Edward nevertheless advanced towards St. Quentin, at the head of about forty thousand men. Philip of Valois had mustered an army nearly double in number that of his enemy, there being forty thousand infantry raised by the money of the towns, and twenty thousand more Genoese and Italian foot; three divisions of men-at-arms were each fifteen thousand strong. When the armies were in presence, Edward sent to request the king of France to appoint a day for the battle. Philip eagerly fixed a day, but with all his chivalry, the monarch hesitated. King Robert of Sicily, skilled in the science of astrology, had written to warn the king of France not to engage in combat with the English whilst Edward was with them in person. The French monarch in consequence showed reluctance to engage, and the auxiliaries of both armies took the pretext to separate. Edward’s German allies withdrew, and Philip distributed his men-at-arms amongst the garrisons of the frontier.

[Sidenote: [1339-1340 A.D.]]

It was subsequent to this bootless campaign that Froissart fixes the time of Edward’s assuming habitually the title, and quartering the arms, of king of France with his own. This assumption of the crown of France, which seemed not only drawing the sword, but flinging away the scabbard, was a promise to the Flemings that he would wage the “great war” and chiefly through their means and in behalf of their interests. For this purpose he prepared a great expedition, whilst his Queen Philippa spent the winter at Ghent among the good citizens, in order to encourage and attach them to England. But while Edward won the Flemings, his German allies grew lukewarm. He had learned in the last campaign to mistrust their sincerity: they now offered to make peace with France; but Philip rejected their offer, and sent troops to ravage Hainault.

In 1340, Edward had collected a formidable army on board a navy equally numerous. Philip directed his efforts to intercept this expedition, and to muster a fleet capable of performing so important a service. He took into pay great numbers of Genoese officers and seamen; granted the Normans several boons and privileges to induce them to fit out ships, and with these they surprised and burned Southampton, whilst the English visited Eu with equal severity. But on the other hand, the French captured two of their largest vessels, called the Christopher and Edouarda, in a naval engagement that lasted all day, and cost the lives of a thousand men. In June, Edward sailed from the Thames with his army for the Schelde, not expecting, indeed, to fight a naval combat, for there was a number of the ladies of his court on board.[b]

THE BATTLE OF SLUYS OR L’ÉCLUSE

King Edward embarked on the 22nd of June with the élite of the English knights and archers, and went down the Thames towards Sluys. The French fleet, 140 strong in large ships, “without counting the smaller ones,” and carrying more than forty thousand men, awaited them between Blankenberghe and Sluys. This naval army, under the command of Admiral Hugh Quiéret, the treasurer Nicholas Béhuchet, and the Ligurian corsair Barbavara, had for two years wrought much damage to English commerce, taking ships, massacring crews, and making descents on Plymouth, Dover, Southampton, Sandwich, and Rye. England breathed out vengeance, but would not have obtained it if the French fleet had been well commanded. This fleet, thanks to the Genoese auxiliaries, had a great numerical superiority, but the three commanders were at variance.

Béhuchet was a rough bourgeois who had served his naval apprenticeship in the king’s exchequer, and whom Philip had been foolish enough to associate with the admirals; this man actually tried to teach an old sea-dog like “Barbevaire.” Hugh Quiéret, the titular admiral, was hardly more skilful than Béhuchet. They massed the fleet in a narrow creek off the coast of Flanders, as if the great thing for a navy was to choose a “sure and easily defensible” position.

King Edward and his men, who came along with a fair wind, looked and beheld before Sluys so large a number of vessels that the masts seemed like a wood. The king was very much astonished and asked whose they could be. “Sire,” they said, “it is the Norman army kept by the king of France at sea, and which has done you so much damage and burned the good town of Hantonne (Southampton), and conquered the Christopher, your large ship, and slain those who manned her.” “Oh,” said the king, “I have wanted to fight them for a long time, and please God and St. George, we will; for of a truth they have caused me so much vexation that I would avenge myself.” After so saying, he wisely and skilfully set out his ships, putting the strongest in front, and giving the best places to his soldiers and archers. And he manœuvred and wheeled about so as to get the wind and sun on the poop. The Normans thought he was tacking about so as to flee, but the leader of the Genoese auxiliaries was not so deceived.

“When ‘Barbevaire’ (Barbavara) saw the English ships approaching, he said to the admiral and Nicholas Béhuchet: ‘My lords, here is the king of England and all his navy coming upon us; if you take my advice you will steer for the open sea, for, if you stay here, while they have sun, wind, and wave in their favour, they will hem you in so closely that you will be helpless and unable to manœuvre.’ To this Nicholas Béhuchet, who understood accounts better than naval warfare, answered, ‘Let him be hanged who goes away, for here we will stay, and take our chance.’ ‘My lord,’ replied Barbevaire, ‘since you will not believe me, I will not stay to be destroyed and I shall get myself and my ships out of this hole’” [St. Denis.[h]] And he went off out of the creek with all his Italian galleys and gave all his care to his own fleet.

Edward immediately attacked and began by boarding the great Christopher, the ship taken from him a year ago by the Normans. The crew were seized, killed, or thrown into the sea, while the fight became general all along the haven. “The battle was hard and fierce on both sides, archers and crossbow-men shot stubbornly at one another, while soldiers closed and fought hand to hand. That they might fight at better advantage they had large hooks with iron chains which they threw from one ship to another and attached them together.”

Right bitterly from six in the morning till three in the afternoon did they fight, Béhuchet himself behaving as a true knight, but all the courage in the world could not repair his error. “The French ships were so entangled in their moorings that they were helpless.” Their numbers availed not at all; one after the other they were boarded by the English. Nevertheless the resistance was so fierce that the fate of the day could yet have been changed by the aid of Barbavara, who was manœuvring on the enemy’s flanks, but a considerable reinforcement of Flemings arriving from Bruges and neighbouring districts by the port of Sluys, decided the fate of the French fleet.

“In short, King Edward and his men gained all along the line; the Normans and all the other French were discomfited, dead, or drowned, none escaping, for if they tried to take refuge on land, the Flemings awaited them on the sands.”

The English gave almost no quarter. Hugh Quiéret was, they say, slaughtered in cold blood after he had given himself up. Béhuchet was hanged from the mast of his own ship, “to spite the king of France.” Barbavara managed to make good his retreat and regained the open with his forty Genoese galleys, but the French were exterminated. It has been made out that their loss amounted to thirty thousand men. The English bought their victory dearly, but it was complete. The French navy was annihilated. That 24th of June, 1340, marks the naval début of the Valois dynasty.[d]

This first naval battle between the two nations very much raised the confidence of the English and the alacrity of the Flemings. Edward had not only a larger army of his own than in the previous campaign, together with the troops of the German allies, but, in addition, forty thousand Flemings under Artevelde, besides those of West Flanders, who proceeded in the direction of St. Omer. This immense host, instead of marching to meet and overwhelm the French king, sat down before Tournay.

Edward sent from thence a challenge to Philip of Valois, as he styled him, to decide their quarrel by single combat, or by an encounter of a hundred knights on either side. Philip replied, on the last day of July, that such a title could not be addressed to him; that the writer was his liege, and had no right to enter his dominions. He promised to cast the intruder out of the kingdom without loss of time; and that, as to the Flemings, he was confident they would rally to their own lord. Philip marched to the neighbourhood of Tournay with an army as formidable as that which he brought in the preceding year; but neither party were prepared to engage in a general action. The French hesitated to attack, and eleven weeks’ siege made no impression upon Tournay. Robert of Artois, who commanded the armed citizens of West Flanders, led them against St. Omer, not with the hope of capturing that important town, but for purposes of pillage and devastation. The Flemings were thus engaged in plundering one of the suburbs, when the French within, issuing by another gate, came round and surprised them in the rear, routing and slaying them as they fled, to the number of four thousand. This disaster made such an impression on the army of West Flanders, that a panic seized it on the following morning, and all fled and dispersed to their homes.

If the campaign of the preceding year had taught Edward how little was to be expected from the Walloon or the German, he learned this year that even the redoubtable Flemings would not enable him either to conquer France or to reduce Philip to just and reasonable terms. He therefore consented that Joan de Valois, sister of Philip and countess of Hainault, should seek to bring about an accommodation. Her efforts led to a six months’ truce, consented to in order that plenipotentiaries from both monarchs might treat for the conclusion of a more definite peace.[b]

Thus ended the campaign of 1340, “a year of misery and calamity,” says the continuator of Nangis; “although for two or three years past, the common people had been oppressed with very hard exactions, our misfortunes were much greater this time.”[c]

THE WAR IN BRITTANY

[Sidenote: [1340-1342 A.D.]]

The belligerents had scarcely suspended hostilities on the northern frontier of France, when a quarrel arose in another quarter, giving equal facilities for English interference, and offering to Edward more sincere, zealous, and martial allies than the Flemings had proved, whether knights or artisans.[b] It also brought the English king much hope.

In 1341 hostilities were revived in Brittany where the two kings each sustained a different claimant for the ducal throne. The duke John III had just died, leaving no children. Should the duchy fall to the daughter of his eldest brother--whose death had preceded his own--Joan de Penthièvre, who had married Charles of Blois, or to his own younger brother, John de Montfort? The two pretendants set forth the Mosaic law, the edicts of the Roman empire, the Salic law, and tradition; the lawyers piled up innumerable authorities: but politics decided the question.

Charles of Blois was nephew to Philip VI; with him Brittany would be in closer dependence upon the crown. A parliamentary act pronounced at the château of Conflans decided the matter in his favour. John de Montfort hastened to England, and agreed to recognise Edward III as king of France. In view of his promise as vassal loyally to aid and defend the English king, he was to possess Brittany in fief.

Thus began one of those wars--marked by “engagements, sallies, gallant rescues, surprising feats of arms, and brave adventures”--so delightfully depicted by Froissart[e] so grindingly oppressive to the people. Charles of Blois, supported by a numerous French army, among whom was the son of the king, besieged his adversary in the city of Nantes. Thirty Breton knights had been taken in a neighbouring castle. Charles, despite the piety which gained for him the name of “saint,” and Duke John, who was later to glory in the title “the good,” had these thirty knights decapitated and their heads thrown into the market-place by the ballistas. The terrified citizens capitulated; John de Montfort was imprisoned at Paris in the tower of the Louvre.[g]

The countess Joan de Montfort was at Rennes when she heard that her husband had been taken. With a heart full of grief she yet bravely consoled her friends and supporters; and showed them her little son, named also John like his father, saying, “Ah, my friends, be not bowed down for my lord whom we have lost; he is but one man. Behold my son who shall be, if God so wills it, his avenger and your benefactor. I will give you of my wealth and will provide for you a captain who shall bring you consolation.”[e]

She then journeyed from Rennes to all the fortresses and towns, taking her son with her; she encouraged her men, reinforced her garrisons with troops and supplies; and came at length to Hennebon, where she wintered. She had chosen this place, situated as it was on the Blavet, not far from the sea, to have facile communication with England. With the advent of spring, officers and troops swarmed to Nantes to join Charles of Blois; and the siege of Rennes was begun. The city was taken after a valiant defence; and the French marched on Hennebon, which they bombarded with showers of stones and enormous rocks.[16][g]

Joan de Montfort defends Hennebon

[Sidenote: [1342 A.D.]]

The countess, who had clothed herself in armour, was mounted on a war-horse, and galloped up and down the streets of the town, entreating and encouraging the inhabitants to defend themselves honourably. She ordered the ladies and other women to unpave the streets,[17] carry the stones to the ramparts, and throw them on their enemies. She had pots of quicklime brought to her for the same purpose. That same day, the countess performed a very gallant deed; she ascended a high tower to see how her people behaved; and, having observed that all the lords and others of the army had quitted their tents, and were come to the assault, she immediately descended, mounted her horse, armed as she was, collected three hundred horsemen, sallied out at their head by another gate that was not attacked, and, galloping up to the tents of her enemies, cut them down, and set them on fire, without any loss, for there were only servants and boys, who fled upon her approach. As soon as the French saw their camp on fire, and heard the cries, they immediately hastened thither, bawling out, “Treason! Treason!” so that none remained at the assault. The countess, seeing this, got her men together, and, finding that she could not re-enter Hennebon without great risk, took another road, leading to the castle of Brest, which is situated near. The lord Louis of Spain, who was marshal of the army, had gone to his tents, which were on fire; and, seeing the countess and her company galloping off as fast as they could, he immediately pursued them with a large body of men-at-arms. He gained so fast upon them, that he came up with them, and wounded or slew all that were not well mounted; but the countess, and part of her company, made such speed that they arrived at the castle of Brest, where they were received with great joy.

On the morrow, the lords of France, who had lost their tents and provisions, took counsel, if they should not make huts of the branches and leaves of trees near to the town, and were thunder-struck when they heard that the countess had herself planned and executed this enterprise; whilst those of the town, not knowing what was become of her, were very uneasy; for they were full five days without gaining any intelligence of her. The countess, in the meanwhile, was so active that she assembled from five to six hundred men, well armed and mounted, and with them set out about midnight from Brest, and came straight to Hennebon about sunrise, riding along one of the sides of the enemy’s host, until she came to the gates of the castle, which were opened to her; she entered with great triumph and sounds of trumpets and other warlike instruments, to the astonishment of the French, who began arming themselves, to make another assault upon the town, while those within mounted the walls to defend it. This attack was very severe, and lasted till past noon. The French lost more than their opponents; and then the lords of France put a stop to it, for their men were killed and wounded to no purpose. They next retreated, and held a council whether the lord Charles should not go to besiege the castle of Auray, which King Arthur had built and enclosed. It was determined he should march thither, accompanied by the duke de Bourbon, the earl of Blois, Sir Robert Bertrand, marshal of France; and that Sir Hervé de Léon was to remain before Hennebon with a part of the Genoese under his command, and the lord Louis of Spain, the viscount de Rohan, with the rest of the Genoese and Spaniards. They sent for twelve large machines which they had left at Rennes, to cast stones and annoy the castle of Hennebon; for they perceived that they did not gain any ground by their assaults. The French divided their army into two parts; one remained before Hennebon, and the other went to besiege the castle of Auray. The lord Charles of Blois went to this last place, and quartered all his division in the neighbourhood: and of him we will now speak, and leave the others. The lord Charles ordered an attack and skirmish to be made upon the castle, which was well garrisoned; there were in it full two hundred men-at-arms, under the command of Sir Henry de Spinefort and Oliver his brother.

The town of Vannes, which held for the countess de Montfort, was four leagues distant from this castle; the captain whereof was Sir Geoffry de Malestroit. On the other side was situated the good town of Guingamp, of which the captain of Dinant was governor, who was at that time with the countess in the town of Hennebon; but he had left in his hôtel at Dinant his wife and daughters, and had appointed his son Sir Reginald as governor during his absence. Between these two places there was a castle which belonged to the lord Charles, who had well filled it with men-at-arms and Burgundian soldiers. Girard de Maulin was master of it; and with him was another gallant knight, called Sir Peter Portebœuf, who harassed all the country round about, and pressed these two towns so closely that no provisions or merchandise could enter them without great risk of being taken; for these Burgundians made constant excursions, one day towards Vannes, and another day to Guingamp. They continued their excursions so regularly, that Sir Reginald de Dinant took prisoner, by means of an ambuscade, this Sir Girard de Maulin and thirty-five of his men, and at the same time rescued fifteen merchants and all their goods, which the Burgundians had taken, and were driving them to their garrison, called La Roche Perion; but Sir Reginald conquered them and carried them prisoners to Dinant, for which he was much praised.

We will now return to the countess de Montfort, who was besieged by Sir Louis of Spain in Hennebon. He had made such progress by battering and destroying the walls with his machines, that the courage of those within began to falter. At that moment the bishop of Léon held a conference with his nephew Sir Hervé de Léon, by whose means, it has been said, the earl of Montfort was made prisoner. They conversed on different things, in mutual confidence, and at last agreed that the bishop should endeavour to gain over those within the town, so that it might be given up to the lord Charles; and Sir Hervé, on his side, was to obtain their pardon from the lord Charles, and an assurance that they should keep their goods, etc., unhurt. They then separated, and the bishop re-entered the town. The countess had strong suspicions of what was going forward, and begged of the lords of Brittany, for the love of God, that they would not doubt that she should receive succours before three days were over. But the bishop spoke so eloquently, and made use of such good arguments, that these lords were in much suspense all that night. On the morrow he continued the subject, and succeeded so far as to gain them over, or very nearly so, to his opinion; insomuch that Sir Hervé de Léon had advanced close to the town to take possession of it, with their free consent, when the countess, looking out from a window of the castle towards the sea, cried out, most joyfully, “I see the succours I have so long expected and wished for coming.” She repeated this expression twice; and the townspeople ran to the ramparts, and to the windows of the castle, and saw a numerous fleet of great and small vessels, well trimmed, making all the sail they could towards Hennebon. They rightly imagined it must be the fleet from England, so long detained at sea by tempests and contrary winds.[e] The besiegers were forced to retire. About this time the traitor Robert of Artois fell in an engagement near Vannes.

[Sidenote: [1342-1345 A.D.]]

Little by little, the two kings found themselves drawn personally into the contest. In 1342 Edward went himself to Brittany and appeared at the siege of Vannes, of Rennes, and of Nantes. The duke of Normandy drew up on his side an army comprising an infinity of barons and over forty thousand soldiers. The two forces met near Malestroit. The English, in numbers less than a fourth of their enemy, were careful to obtain a strong position. It was in the depth of winter; provision was lacking; cold rains flooded the two camps and multiplied disease. The papal legates proposed a truce, which was accepted on January 19th, 1343, to continue till the feast of St. Michael, 1346.[g]

It was also agreed that each monarch was to take the pope for arbiter, and plead his cause at Rome. Edward empowered certain commissioners to fulfil this office, and negotiate concerning “the right which he had, or might have, to the kingdom and crown of France.” That he was prepared to insist upon this right, is proved by his order to the authorities in Guienne to have all appeals from that province to the king of France addressed to him, in that capacity, at his court in London.

PHILIP’S FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES

These repeated truces were not the result of any diminution of inveteracy or of pretensions on either side, but of the impossibility to continue the payment and employ of such large armies. Of Philip’s financial or political acts we have not ample records; but sufficient exist to show the immense difficulty he found in supporting the military expenses of such campaigns. If to find proper soldiers was no easy task, to raise wherewith to pay them was a difficulty still greater. In 1342, Philip VI issued an ordinance, establishing store-houses and gabelles of salt, a government monopoly, in fact, of this necessary of life. Taxes on trade, wholesale or retail, had for some time existed. The Italian merchants paid so much in the pound on imports and exports. The city of Paris, in order to pay for the men-at-arms which were furnished to the royal army, had been allowed to levy a duty on all sales and purchases in the markets. The fairs of Champagne had always paid a similar tax. The king now levied this generally at the rate of five deniers the livre; but the chief resource was alternately debasing the coin, and raising its standard, until there was no ascertaining or being certain of its value for a month together. This incertitude put a stop to trade, and a scarcity coinciding with it, produced such universal distress, that partial insurrection and a general feeling of discontent were the consequence.

RENEWAL OF THE WAR WITH ENGLAND (1344 A.D.)

In the meantime, the pope made no progress in reconciling the two monarchs, or passing judgment upon their differences; and a cruel act of Philip’s so aroused Edward’s resentment, that although the term of the truce had not expired, he gave orders for recommencing war. Olivier de Clisson, a Breton noble, had been the prisoner of the English. Edward, it seems, released him instead of the bishop of Léon, also his captive. This sufficed to inspire Philip with doubts of his fidelity, and of a sudden, De Clisson, De Laval, and some twelve or thirteen Breton nobles, were seized, conveyed to Paris, and, without form of trial, or even public accusation, decapitated. Several barons of Normandy were soon after seized, and as summarily slain, one of them, of the family of Harcourt, alone escaping. These acts were not more cruel and unjust than the tortures, trials, and condemnations of Philip the Fair; but they were worse precedents, evincing a contempt for even the forms of justice, and making barefaced murder and assassination one of the regular proceedings of government.

Many of the decapitated nobles were at least friends of Edward. Without being guilty of treason, they might well have considered the rights of De Montfort in Brittany as superior to those of Charles of Blois. Edward denounced the assassinations committed by King Philip in issuing an order to his lieutenants to recommence the war. The French were by no means gladdened at this renewal of hostilities. They feared not so much the enemy as the tax-gatherer, and began to think that their intolerable burdens would be made permanent. In February, 1345, therefore, Philip found it necessary to issue a proclamation, stating that it was not his intention to unite the gabelle of salt or the tax of four deniers the livre to his domain: in other words, he promised that they were not to be permanent.

Edward had hitherto neglected Guienne, against which his enemies directed their principal efforts. The chief men of Bordeaux and Bayonne and the noblesse, true to the English crown, came to the festivity which Edward gave on the occasion of his instituting the order of the Garter, and their representations made so great an impression on him, that he despatched Lord Derby soon after, with three hundred knights, six hundred men-at-arms, and a greater number of infantry, to Bayonne. The French, not in force to defend the country south of the Dordogne, endeavoured to prevent Lord Derby from passing that river at Bergerac, and marching to the recovery of Périgord and the districts north of Bordeaux. The English accomplished this, the Genoese alone withstanding their arrows, and the troops which the French had raised in the county flying before them.

Derby marched into Périgord, and so well provided was he with what Froissart calls artillery, his engines throwing immense stones, that all the fortresses in upper Gascony submitted to him. The strongest of these was Auberoche, which fortress, as soon as Derby retired for the winter to Bordeaux, the nobles of the county in the French interest came to besiege. There were ten or twelve hundred of them, and Auberoche was hard pressed. Lord Derby and Sir Walter Manny instantly left Bordeaux, with three hundred lances and six hundred archers, and, with this small force, surprised and fell upon the army besieging Auberoche at the time of supper. The French were routed, and all the chief nobles of the district taken: every English soldier had two or three. The consequence of this victory was not only the fall of Réole and the places held by Philip north of the Garonne, but the capture of the important town of Angoulême by Lord Derby. The general submission to the English commander was not only due to his prowess, but to his gentillesse, in preventing his soldiers from pillaging and burning the towns and massacring the prisoners, as was then generally the custom in war.

[Sidenote: [1345-1346 A.D.]]

Whilst Lord Derby was reconquering Angoulême, Edward was endeavouring, by means of Artevelde, to turn the Flemish alliance to profit. Notwithstanding the English king’s assumption of the arms and title of king of France, the Flemings seemed not disposed to go much further than neutrality. Artevelde himself ruling by the democracy, with the rich citizens opposed to him, felt himself neither secure at home nor able to direct the forces of the Flemings abroad. In order to strengthen his position, he proposed making the son of Edward (the Black Prince) count of Flanders. The English king came with his fleet to Sluys, and had an interview there with the town magistrates of the Flemings; they could not entertain his proposal without first consulting their townsmen. The people of Bruges and Ypres were not averse to having the prince of Wales for their count; but with Ghent it was otherwise: there the enemies of Artevelde accused him of wishing to sell his country to the foreigner. They asked what had been done with all the money proceeding from the revenues that had been sequestered. The “great treasure,” they said, had been despatched to England. Artevelde hastened to Ghent to face his enemies, and refute them; but he had no sooner entered the streets than he perceived the efforts of his enemies to have prevailed, and the minds of his fellow-townsmen turned against him. He shut himself up in his hôtel; harangued and tried to move the crowd from one of the windows. Their reply was, “Give us an account of the great treasure of Flanders.” Artevelde promised that he would do this fully on the morrow. “No,” replied the crowd; “we must have an account of it immediately, lest you escape to England, whither you have already sent your treasure.” Artevelde then wept, and reproached them with “having made him what he was, and now wanting to kill him. Recollect that your trade was lost when I took the government, and that I recovered all for you--procured you abundance, and work, and peace; and for all the great good I did you, God knows I obtained little profit.” Such reproaches were not calculated to move the mob, which clamoured but the more. Artevelde tried to escape to a neighbouring church; but his enemies seized him in the street, and slew him without mercy. Edward’s first movement was to take vengeance on the Flemings for the death of their leader; but the towns of West Flanders convinced him that they regretted the act of the people of Ghent as much as he did.

EDWARD RETURNS TO FRANCE (1346 A.D.)

The reverses which the French monarch suffered in Guienne had been thus compensated by Edward’s loss of his Flemish ally, and, at the same time, by the death of John de Montfort. That prince, after his escape from the Louvre, had led succours from England to Brittany, but was able to do little towards changing the aspect of affairs or the relative position of parties, when he died at Hennebon. All the efforts of Philip were directed towards repelling Lord Derby. The French king assembled his estates in the north and in the south, but more to appease discontent than to command succour or adhesion: he merely proposed continuing his present levies of money, on the understanding that they were to cease at the peace. An army was collected and sent, under the duke of Normandy, to the south. He recovered Angoulême, and laid siege to Aiguillon, an important fortress not far from Agen; but Sir Walter Manny and Lord Pembroke were within the walls, and infused such spirit into the garrison that during four months it defied the duke of Normandy and his army, said to number one hundred thousand men.

The obstinacy of the siege as well as the defence induced the English king to march to the succour of his general, for Lord Derby at Bordeaux had no force sufficient to encounter the duke of Normandy. An expedition was fitted out, at Southampton, consisting of four thousand men-at-arms and ten thousand archers, besides the Irish and Welsh.[b]

The English fleet set sail for the mouth of the Gironde, where a tempest hurled it back into the Channel. A new traitor, Godfrey d’Harcourt, advised landing in Normandy, and promised the aid of his vassals and the use of his entire province. The king landed (July 22nd, 1346), with thirty-two thousand men, at La Hogue St. Waast, in the Cotentin. He easily possessed himself of Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, and St. Lô. The 26th, he was at the walls of Caen--a city larger than any in England excepting London.

The inhabitants sallied forth bravely to the encounter. “But as soon as they beheld the approach of the English,” says Froissart,[e] “in three divisions, close and compact, a multitude of banners flying, and saw the archers, to whom they had not been accustomed, they were so frightened that they betook themselves to flight, and not all the world could have stopped them.”

The English entered the city with the fugitives, slaying as they went, showing mercy to none. But the inhabitants recovered their courage and defended themselves in their homes; more than five hundred English were dead or wounded when Edward put an end to the fighting, promising the inhabitants to spare their lives.[18] Louviers, which was already great, wealthy, and commercial, was next taken. An attempt on Rouen had miscarried. He returned along the left bank of the Seine, burning Pont-de-l’Arche, Vernon, Poissy, and St. Germain. His couriers came within sight of Paris, and burned Bourg-la-Reine and St. Cloud.

Hereupon Philip assembled a large force and marched on the English. Edward rebuilt the bridge at Poissy and by it passed over the Seine and retreated to his fief at Ponthieu, to establish himself beyond the Somme. Philip fortified and sentinelled all the fords of that river. At that of Blanquetaque he posted one thousand men-at-arms and five thousand Genoese archers. Edward forced a passage; but realising that he could retreat no further he halted, and on the 27th of August disposed his army for battle on the slope of a hill near Crécy, his men being in good order and condition.[g] His knights and nobles were to fight on foot, there being but four thousand of them.

The total English army must have numbered from twenty-five to thirty thousand combatants. Froissart evidently underestimates its size as he increases the total of the French force, doubtless in order to make the issue of the battle all the more marvellous.

But all exaggeration aside, the disproportion was enormous. Philip marched at the head of at least seventy thousand men among whom were about ten thousand men-at-arms, and a large body of Genoese archers whose numbers have been placed at from six to fifteen thousand.[d] But the French were a disorderly and undisciplined host while the English were professional soldiers and old campaigners, obedient to their chiefs and their sovereign.[b]

Philip had left Abbeville in the morning to go in quest of the enemy, then five miles distant. Heavy rains impeded the march. Four scouts sent to reconnoitre returned with the report that they had found the English waiting in the position they had chosen; and they counselled the king to allow his soldiers a night’s repose.

Philip gave the order to halt. But the great lords of France, instigated by vanity, moved one ahead of another, to get nearer the enemy. Neither the king nor his marshals could exercise any control over the troops, on account of the multitude of nobles each striving to assert his own authority. These rode about, without orders and without discretion, until they stumbled suddenly upon the camp of the enemy.[g]

FROISSART’S DESCRIPTION OF CRÉCY (1346 A.D.)

The English, who were drawn up in three divisions, and seated on the ground, on seeing their enemies advance, rose undauntedly up, and fell into their ranks. That of the prince[19] was the first to do so, whose archers were formed in the manner of a portcullis, or harrow, and the men-at-arms in the rear. The earls of Northampton and Arundel, who commanded the second division, had posted themselves in good order on his wing, to assist and succour the prince, if necessary.

You must know that these kings, earls, barons, and lords of France did not advance in any regular order, but one after the other, or any way most pleasing to themselves. As soon as the king of France came in sight of the English, his blood began to boil, and he cried out to his marshals, “Order the Genoese forward, and begin the battle, in the name of God and St. Denis.” There were about fifteen thousand Genoese crossbow-men; but they were quite fatigued, having marched on foot that day six leagues, completely armed, and with their crossbows. They told the constable, they were not in a fit condition to do any great things that day in battle. The earl of Alençon, hearing this, said, “This is what one gets by employing such scoundrels, who fall off when there is any need for them.” During this time a heavy rain fell, accompanied by thunder and a very terrible eclipse of the sun; and before this rain a great flight of crows hovered in the air over all those battalions, making a loud noise. Shortly afterwards it cleared up, and the sun shone very bright; but the Frenchmen had it in their faces, and the English in their backs. When the Genoese were somewhat in order, and approached the English, they set up a loud shout, in order to frighten them; but they remained quite still, and did not seem to attend to it. They then set up a second shout, and advanced a little forward; but the English never moved. They hooted a third time, advancing with their crossbows presented, and began to shoot. The English archers then advanced one step forward, and shot their arrows with such force and quickness, that it seemed as if it snowed. When the Genoese felt these arrows, which pierced their arms, heads, and through their armour, some of them cut the strings of their crossbows, others flung them on the ground, and all turned about and retreated quite discomfited. The French had a large body of men-at-arms on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese. The king of France, seeing them thus fall back, cried out, “Kill me those scoundrels; for they stop up our road without any reason.” You would then have seen the above-mentioned men-at-arms lay about them, killing all they could of these runaways.

The English continued shooting as vigorously and quickly as before; some of their arrows fell among the horsemen, who were sumptuously equipped, and, killing and wounding many, made them caper and fall among the Genoese, so that they were in such confusion they could never rally again. In the English army there were some Cornish and Welshmen on foot, who had armed themselves with large knives; these, advancing through the ranks of the men-at-arms and archers, who made way for them, came upon the French when they were in this danger, and, falling upon earls, barons, knights, and squires, slew many, at which the king of England was afterwards much exasperated. The valiant king of Bohemia was slain there. He was called John of Luxemburg; for he was the son of the gallant king and emperor, Henry of Luxemburg; having heard the order of the battle, he inquired where his son the lord Charles was; his attendants answered that they did not know, but believed he was fighting. The king said to them: “Gentlemen, you are all my people, my friends, and brethren-at-arms this day; therefore, as I am blind,[20] I request of you to lead me so far into the engagement that I may strike one stroke with my sword.” The knights replied, they would directly lead him forward; and in order that they might not lose him in the crowd, they fastened all the reins of their horses together, and put the king at their head, that he might gratify his wish, and advanced towards the enemy. The lord Charles of Bohemia, who already signed his name as king of Germany, and bore the arms, had come in good order to the engagement; but when he perceived that it was likely to turn out against the French, he departed, and I do not well know what road he took. The king, his father, had ridden in among the enemy, and made good use of his sword; for he and his companions had fought most gallantly. They had advanced so far that they were all slain; and on the morrow they were found on the ground, with their horses all tied together.

The earl of Alençon advanced in regular order upon the English, to fight with them; as did the earl of Flanders, in another part. These two lords, with their detachments, coasting, as it were, the archers, came to the prince’s battalion, where they fought valiantly for a length of time. The king of France was eager to march to the place where he saw their banners displayed, but there was a hedge of archers before him. He had that day made a present of a handsome black horse to Sir John of Hainault, who had mounted on it a knight of his, called Sir John de Fusselles, that bore his banner; which horse ran off with him, and forced his way through the English army, and, when about to return, stumbled and fell into a ditch and severely wounded him; he would have been dead, if his page had not followed him round the battalions, and found him unable to rise; he had not, however, any other hindrance than from his horse; for the English did not quit the ranks that day to make prisoners. The page alighted, and raised him up; but he did not return the way he came, as he would have found it difficult from the crowd. This battle, which was fought on the Saturday between La Broyes and Crécy, was very murderous and cruel; and many gallant deeds of arms were performed that were never known. Towards evening, many knights and squires of the French had lost their masters; they wandered up and down the plain, attacking the English in small parties; they were soon destroyed; for the English had determined that day to give no quarter, or hear of ransom from anyone.

Early in the day, some French, Germans, and Savoyards had broken through the archers of the prince’s battalion, and had engaged with the men-at-arms; upon which the second battalion came to his aid, and it was time, for otherwise he would have been hard pressed. The first division, seeing the danger they were in, sent a knight in great haste to the king of England, who was posted upon an eminence, near a windmill. On the knight’s arrival, he said, “Sir, the earl of Warwick, the lord Stafford, the lord Reginald Cobham, and the others who are about your son, are vigorously attacked by the French; and they entreat that you would come to their assistance with your battalion, for, if their numbers should increase, they fear he will have too much to do.” The king replied, “Is my son dead, unhorsed, or so badly wounded that he cannot support himself?” “Nothing of the sort, thank God,” rejoined the knight; “but he is in so hot an engagement that he has great need of your help.” The king answered, “Now, Sir Thomas, return back to those that sent you, and tell them from me, not to send again for me this day, or expect that I shall come, let what will happen, as long as my son has life; and say, that I command them to let the boy win his spurs; for I am determined, if it please God, that all the glory and honour of this day shall be given to him, and to those into whose care I have intrusted him.” The knight returned to his lords, and related the king’s answer, which mightily encouraged them, and made them repent they had ever sent such a message.

It is a certain fact that Sir Godfrey d’Harcourt, who was in the prince’s battalion, having been told by some of the English that they had seen the banner of his brother engaged in the battle against him, was exceedingly anxious to save him; but he was too late, for he was left dead on the field, and so was the earl of Aumarle his nephew. On the other hand, the earls of Alençon and of Flanders were fighting lustily under their banners, and with their own people; but they could not resist the force of the English, and were there slain, as well as many other knights and squires that were attending on or accompanying them. The earl of Blois, nephew to the king of France, and the duke of Lorraine his brother-in-law, with their troops, made a gallant defence; but they were surrounded by a troop of English and Welsh, and slain in spite of their prowess. The earl of Saint-Pol and the earl of Auxerre were also killed, as well as many others. Late after vespers, the king of France had not more about him than sixty men, every one included. Sir John of Hainault, who was of the number, had once remounted the king; for his horse had been killed under him by an arrow; he said to the king, “Sir, retreat whilst you have an opportunity, and do not expose yourself so simply; if you have lost this battle, another time you will be the conqueror.” After he had said this, he took the bridle of the king’s horse, and led him off by force; for he had before entreated of him to retire. The king rode on until he came to the castle of La Broyes, where he found the gates shut, for it was very dark. The king ordered the governor of it to be summoned; he came upon the battlements, and asked who it was that called at such an hour? The king answered, “Open, open, governor; it is the fortune of France.” The governor, hearing the king’s voice, immediately descended, opened the gate, and let down the bridge. The king and his company entered the castle; but he had with him only five barons, Sir John of Hainault, the lord Charles of Montmorency, the lord of Beaujeu, the lord of Aubigny, and the lord of Montfort. The king would not bury himself in such a place as that, but, having taken some refreshments, set out again with his attendants about midnight, and rode on, under the direction of guides who were well acquainted with the country, until, about daybreak, he came to Amiens, where he halted. This Saturday the English never quitted their ranks in pursuit of anyone, but remained on the field, guarding their position, and defending themselves against all who attacked them.

The battle was ended at the hour of vespers. When, on this Saturday night, the English heard no more hooting or shouting, nor crying out to particular lords or their banners, they looked upon the field as their own, and their enemies as beaten. They made great fires, and lighted torches because of the obscurity of the night. King Edward then came down from his post, who all that day had not put on his helmet, and, with his whole battalion, advanced to the prince of Wales, whom he embraced in his arms and kissed, and said, “Sweet son, God give you good perseverance: you are my son, for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day: you are worthy to be a sovereign.” The prince bowed down very low, and humbled himself, giving all honour to the king his father. The English, during the night, made frequent thanksgivings to the Lord, for the happy issue of the day, and without rioting; for the king had forbidden all riot or noise. On the Sunday morning, there was so great a fog that one could scarcely see the distance of half an acre. The king ordered a detachment from the army, under the command of the two marshals, consisting of about five hundred lances and two thousand archers, to make an excursion, and see if there were any bodies of French collected together. The quota of troops, from Rouen and Beauvais, had, this Sunday morning, left Abbeville and St. Ricquier in Ponthieu, to join the French army, and were ignorant of the defeat of the preceding evening: they met this detachment, and, thinking they must be French, hastened to join them.

As soon as the English found who they were, they fell upon them; and there was a sharp engagement; but the French soon turned their backs, and fled in great disorder. There were slain in this flight in the open fields, under hedges and bushes, upwards of seven thousand; and had it been clear weather, not one soul would have escaped.

A little time afterwards, this same party fell in with the archbishop of Rouen and the great prior of France, who were also ignorant of the discomfiture of the French; for they had been informed that the king was not to fight before Sunday. Here began a fresh battle, for those two lords were well attended by good men-at-arms; however, they could not withstand the English, but were almost all slain, with the two chiefs who commanded them, very few escaping. In the course of the morning, the English found many Frenchmen who had lost their road on the Saturday, and had lain in the open fields, not knowing what was become of the king, or their own leaders. The English put to the sword all they met[21]: and it has been assured to me for fact, that of foot-soldiers sent from the cities, towns, and municipalities, there were slain, this Sunday morning, four times as many as in the battle of the Saturday.[e]

MICHELET ON THE RESULTS OF CRÉCY

The battle of Crécy was not merely a battle; the event involved a great social revolution. The whole chivalry of the most chivalrous nation was exterminated by a small band of foot-soldiers. A new system of tactics came forth from a new state of society; it was not a work of genius or reflection. Edward III employed foot-soldiers for want of horse. The issue revealed a fact of which no one dreamed till then; namely, the military inefficiency of that feudal world which had thought itself the only military world. The private wars of the barons, and of canton against canton, in the primitive isolation of the Middle Ages, had not disclosed this truth; for then gentlemen were defeated only by gentlemen. Two centuries of defeats, during the Crusades, had not damaged their reputation. All Christendom was interested in disguising the successes of the misbelievers. Besides, these wars were waged so far away, that there was always some means of excusing every disaster: the heroism of a Godefroy and a Richard redeemed all the rest. In the thirteenth century, when the feudal banners were habituated to follow the king’s, when out of so many seigniorial courts was formed a single one, brilliant beyond all the fictions of the romances, the nobles, diminished in power, increased in pride; humbled in their own person, they felt themselves exalted in their king. They valued themselves more or less in proportion as they shared in the galas of royalty.

In excuse for the disaster of Courtrai, the nobles pleaded their own hare-brained heroism, and the Flemish ditch. Two easy massacres at Mons-en-Pévêlle and Cassel retrieved their reputation. For several years they railed at the king, who forbade them to vanquish. An opportunity was afforded them at Crécy; the whole chivalry of the kingdom was there assembled; every banner flaunted in the wind, with all those haughty blazons, lions, eagles, castles, besants of the Crusades, and all the arrogant symbolism of heraldry. Opposed to this gallant array, excepting four thousand men-at-arms, all the rest were the barefooted English commons, the rude mountaineers of Wales, and the swineherds of Ireland, blind and savage races, that knew neither French, nor English, nor chivalry. They aimed none the worse for this at noble banners; they killed but so much the more: there was no common tongue in which to parley. The Welshman or Irishman did not understand the noble baron prostrate beneath him, who offered to make him rich, and he made answer only with the knife.

From that day forth there was many an unbeliever in the religion of nobility. Armorial symbolism lost all its effect. Man began to doubt that those lions could bite, or those silken dragons vomit forth fire and flames. The cow of Switzerland and of Wales seemed good armorial bearings too.

THE SIEGE OF CALAIS

This huge disaster only led the way to a greater one. Edward laid siege to Calais, and set himself down before it in fixed quarters for life or death. After the sacrifices he had made for this expedition he could not show his face to the commons until he should have accomplished his enterprise. Round the town he built a second town with streets, and wooden houses solidly and snugly constructed, to serve for residence through summer and winter.

The Englishman, established in good quarters, and with abundant supplies, let those within and without the town do what they had a mind. He did not even grant them battle, but preferred starving them out. Five hundred persons, men, women, and children, expelled from the town by the governor, died of cold and hunger between the town and the camp. Such, at least, is the statement of the English historian Knighton.[i] Froissart[e] says, on the contrary, that he not only let them pass through his army, but also gave them an abundant repast.

Edward had taken root before Calais, nor was the pope’s mediation capable of forcing him from thence. News was brought him that the Scotch were about to invade England. He never stirred. His perseverance was rewarded, for he soon learned that his troops, encouraged by his queen, had taken the king of Scotland prisoner. The next year Charles of Blois was likewise taken in besieging La Roche de Rien. Edward had but to fold his arms and leave fortune to work for him.

It was matter of most urgent necessity for the king of France to succour Calais; but so great was his penury, so inert and embarrassed was that feudal monarchy, that it was not until the siege had lasted ten months that he was able to put himself in motion, when the English were fortified and intrenched behind palisades and deep ditches. Having scraped together some money by a debasement of the coinage, the gabelle, the ecclesiastical tithes, and the confiscation of the property of the Lombards, he at last began his march with a huge army like that which had been beaten at Crécy. He had no way of reaching Calais except through marshes or over sand-hills. To take the former course would have been certain destruction, for all the passes were intersected and guarded. The men of Tournay, however, gallantly carried a castle by assault, without machines and by strength of hand alone.

[Sidenote: [1346-1347 A.D.]]

The downs on the coast of Boulogne were under the fire of the English fleet. Those about Gravelines were kept by the Flemings whom the king could not suborn. He offered them heaps of gold, and the surrender of Lille, Béthune, and Douai; he would enrich their burgomasters, and make knights and lords of their young men. Nothing could tempt them; they were too much afraid of the return of their count, who, after a false reconciliation, had again escaped out of their hands. Philip could do nothing. He negotiated, he challenged; Edward remained unmoved.[22]

Horrible was the despair in the famished town when they saw all those banners of France, all that great army marching away and leaving them to their fate. Nothing remained for the people of Calais but to give themselves up to the enemy if he would condescend to accept their surrender. It was probable enough that the king of England, who had passed such a tedious time before Calais, who had sat down a whole year there, and spent in one campaign the enormous sum for those days of nearly £400,000 sterling, would give himself the satisfaction of putting the inhabitants to the sword, whereby he would certainly have gratified the English merchants. But Edward’s knights told him flatly that if he treated the besieged in that manner his own men would never again venture to shut themselves up in fortresses for fear of reprisal. He gave way, and condescended to admit the town to mercy, provided some of the principal townspeople came, according to custom, bareheaded and barefoot, with ropes round their necks, and presented the keys to him.

There was danger for those who should first appear in the king’s presence. There were instantly found in that little town, depopulated as it was by famine, six volunteers to save the rest. Nevertheless, the queen and the knights had to intercede with Edward, to prevent his hanging those gallant fellows.[f]

Thus did Calais fall into the hands of England a year after the battle of Crécy. Edward, according to Walsingham,[j] spent a month in the town, ordering and fortifying it. He sent all the knights captive to England, and expelled a certain number of the other French townsmen, replacing them by English. He induced thirty-six rich citizens of London, with their families, to settle there, with three hundred of lesser condition, bestowing upon them several privileges and advantages. He fixed at Calais the staple of tin, lead, and woollen cloth, and prohibited all persons from exporting or shipping these commodities to England, unless they took oath to unship them at Calais. Eustace of St. Pierre was amongst the French citizens who remained and recovered their property, on transferring their allegiance to the English king. His heirs afterwards forfeited the property by refusing this allegiance.

SUSPENSION OF THE WAR (1347 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1347-1348 A.D.]]

The papal legates seized this opportunity of renewing their efforts to bring about an accommodation between the monarchs. The capture of Calais, indeed, rendered terms of peace more difficult to arrange; but that event, with the campaign which preceded it, rendered a peace desirable on both sides. Edward consented, although Rymer contains many proofs of his intention to sail again to the continent and renew the war. The truce was at first concluded for ten months, but was extended from time to time, the monarchs being occupied with other cares. It was a cessation but from great expeditions and large armies, for partisans on both sides did not relax in their schemes to surprise and their efforts to hurt. Although Scotland was included in the truce, Douglas would not keep the peace; neither would French or English in Gascony. The brigands, as foot-soldiers were called, associated in bands of thirty or forty to pillage towns, surprise castles, and then sell them for large sums. King Philip did not disdain to purchase the castle of Combourne from the brigand Bacon, for 24,000 livres. This brigand, says Froissart, “was as well armed and mounted as any knight in the army, and in as great honour with the king.”

The truce was not even observed between the now hostile towns of Calais and St. Omer. Geoffrey of Charny, who commanded for Philip in the latter place, hearing that Edward had intrusted the command in Calais to an Italian, Aimery di Pavia, made offers of many thousand florins, if he would betray the town. Pavia pretended to consent, but warned Edward, who came with his son, the Black Prince, and a body of archers and men-at-arms. Pavia, by the king’s order, allowed a division of the French to pass the bridge and enter the fortifications, where they were instantly surrounded and taken prisoners. And then Edward and his son attacked the French under Charny, routing, slaying, and capturing the greater number. The king himself in the fray had a personal encounter with Eustace de Ribeaumont, whom he compelled to surrender, and to whom he afterwards presented a chaplet adorned with pearls, as a token of friendship and admiration.

In Brittany the lieutenants of King Philip were not more successful than at Calais. Charles of Blois himself had set the truce at naught by an attack upon the castle La Roche de Rien. Whilst thus engaged, he was come upon unawares by the forces of the De Montfort party, his army routed, himself severely wounded, and taken prisoner (1347). From Brittany he was sent to England.

A more general renewal of the war was rendered impossible by the eruption of the plague, which in the summer of 1348 carried off large numbers, first in the south of France,[23] from whence it extended to Paris and the towns of the north. Tumours under the arms and in the groin were the peculiarities of the disease, which almost always proved fatal. Out of twenty persons in a village, says a chronicler, not two remained. The towns of the south were especially depopulated, such as Marbonne, Montpellier, and Avignon. The Laura of Petrarch was amongst the victims. Eight hundred died each day in Paris, where the loss could not have been less than one hundred thousand. Amongst the consequences of the epidemic are mentioned a great scarcity of provisions and a complete suspense of education from the lack of teachers.

TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION

[Sidenote: [1343-1348 A.D.]]

Whilst France was thus ravaged by pestilence and humiliated by defeat, Philip succeeded in annexing to the monarchy the important province of Dauphiné, which lay between its possessions of Burgundy and Provence, and gave France the entire region westward of the Alps. The two contiguous principalities and dynasties of Savoy and of Dauphiné had started up and grown together in continued rivalry. Although the Savoy princes were defeated in one great battle they were still more than a match for the dauphins, as the princes who kept their court at Vienne were called from the arms they had assumed. The dauphin had recourse to the aid of the king of France; and, by degrees, the protection which these afforded grew into suzerainty. Humbert, the last dauphin, was a strange and capricious character; he had the misfortune to have let fall from a window of his castle his only son, the child being dashed to pieces as he fell. This misfortune disturbed the reason of the prince, who determined to proceed to the Holy Land and sell or mortgage his possessions in order to raise funds for the purpose. He began by selling lands, which he possessed in Normandy, to John, duke of this province. At last the dauphin consented to sell the reversion of the principality. He agreed to appoint the second son of Philip of Valois, Philip of Orleans, as his future heir, in the event of his having no children.

This treaty, so advantageous to France, was concluded in 1343, and Humbert took his departure for Palestine. None ever expected to see the return of so witless a prince. The dauphin, however, did return, not only to resume the government of his paternal dominion, but to regret the reckless manner in which he had alienated the independence of Dauphiné. He began to seek to extricate himself from his engagements. Edward III tried to induce the emperor of Germany to confer upon Humbert the title of king; but, surrounded by the power and the emissaries of France, the dauphin was not able to shake off his dependency. He was finally (1349) induced to transfer his adoption to Charles, son of John, duke of Normandy, heir to the French throne. This was the future Charles V. Having accomplished this act, Humbert withdrew to a convent, whilst young Charles assumed the title of dauphin, which was afterwards borne by the heir to the throne, and the possession of that rich province.[b]

The money spent in the purchase of Dauphiné was at least well spent for France. A few days after the definite treaty with Humbert, Philip made another useful acquisition: he bought the lordship of Montpellier from the last king of Majorca, James II. This prince, despoiled of the Balearic Isles, Roussillon, and Cerdagne, by his cousin, the king of Aragon, sold Montpellier in order to raise an army with which to recover his realm. Don James was beaten and killed; Montpellier remained to France.[d]

The plague of this year had been peculiarly fatal to princesses. The queen of France, Joan of Burgundy, the duchess of Normandy, wife of Prince John and daughter of the king of Bohemia, the queen of Navarre, daughter of Louis Hutin, perished under its influence. But no sooner had the pestilence disappeared, than marriage and its accompanying festivities became the order of the day. “The world,” says the chronicler, “was renewed, but, unfortunately, not bettered; the enemies of France and of the church were no fewer, nor less powerful.”

[Sidenote: [1348-1350 A.D.]]

King Philip espoused a young wife, daughter of the queen of Navarre, just deceased. This princess, Blanche by name, had been destined to the duke of Normandy; but the king, his father, found her beautiful, and married her himself. The duke of Normandy married a duchess of Burgundy, and the dauphin, Charles, espoused a daughter of the duke of Bourbon. Thus were celebrated the marriages of three generations of princes.

Philip of Valois did not long survive his marriage with Blanche. He fell ill, and expired at Nogent in August, 1350. The continuator of Nangis[c] relates that he called his sons, the duke of Normandy, and Philip of Orleans, afterwards of Valois, to his bedside, and pointed out to them the validity of his right to the crown, and the necessity of defending it strenuously, and without any concession, against Edward of England, with whom the truce was about to expire.

Philip of Valois was the first prince of truly chivalrous spirit that ascended the throne of France. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded at a period when chivalry was insufficient either to illustrate the warrior or achieve great results in war. Unfortunately, too, he derived from his predecessors those unscrupulous habits of wreaking vengeance and spilling blood, which they were taught to consider their sovereign right, as if royal power and descent cancelled every crime, and consecrated even the basest treachery and felony. French kings are lauded by their countrymen for having considered themselves above feudalism. Feudalism, however, had its laws of honour and its sense of right; with these, unfortunately, French kings too soon and too completely dispensed.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[16] [Charles intrusted the siege to Louis of Spain, a descendant of Ferdinand de la Cerda--eldest son of Alfonso the Learned. Ferdinand’s sons had been set aside in favour of their uncle. Some of this family took up their residence in France. This Louis de la Cerda was Ferdinand’s grandson. In 1341 he received the title of “Admiral of France.”]

[17] Lord Berners reads, “She caused damoselles and other women to cut shorte their kyrtels,” instead of “to unpave the streets,” as Mr. Johnes translates it. The words in D. Sauvage’s edition are “dépecer les chaussées,” to tear up the causeways, but when we consider that the streets of cities were very rarely paved at this period, Lord Berners’ version appears the more probable, and may be reconciled to the text if we read “chausses” for “chaussées,” which is not unlikely to be an error in transcribing.

[18] [Among the captures at Caen, was a document dated 1338, wherein the Normans offered Philip to reconquer England at their own cost, on condition he would reportion it among them after the fashion of William the Conqueror. It was used with good effect in rousing English spirit and continuing the wars. Some authorities regard it as a forgery.]

[19] [Prince Edward of Wales--the famous “Black Prince.” He was but thirteen years old and only nominally in command of the first line under the guardianship of the earl of Warwick and Godfrey d’Harcourt.]

[20] [His blindness was supposed to have been caused by poison, which was alleged to have been given to him when engaged in the wars of Italy.]

[21] [According to Froissart the English reconnoitring party slaughtered 7,000 in the fog. He declares that more perished on this Sunday than on the day of battle. The clerks sent by Edward to tally the dead reported 11 princes, 80 bannerets, 1,200 simple knights, and above 30,000 common men.]

[22] Edward announces in a letter to the archbishop of York that he had accepted the challenge, and that the fight did not take place, because Philip marched off precipitately before the day, after having set fire to his camp.

[23] [It had spread to France from Italy where its ravages were no less appalling. An extended notice of it is given in our history of Italy, Volume IX, where Boccaccio’s vivid description of its terrors may be found.]

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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

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.

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:

“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]

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.

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.

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.

[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]

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.]

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