 CHAPTER XXI THE STATES GENERAL OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY PART III For a month after this triple murder, committed with such official parade, Marcel reigned dictator in Paris. He removed from the council of thirty-six deputies such members as he could not rely upon, and introduced his own confidence. He cited the council, thus modified, to express approval of the blow just struck, and the deputies, some from conviction and others from doubt, that is, fear, answered that they believed that for what had been done there had been a good and just cause. The King of Navarre was recalled from Nantes to Paris, and the Dauphin was obliged to assign to him, in the King's name, as a makeup for his losses, ten thousand leavers a year on landed property in Languedoc. Such was the young Prince's condition that almost every day he was reduced to the necessity of dining with his most dangerous and most hypocritical enemy. A man of family, devoted to the Dauphin, who was now called regent, Philippe de Repente by name, lost his head on the nineteenth of March, 1358, on the marketplace, for having attempted, with a few bold comrades, to place the regent beyond the power and the reach of the people of Paris. Six days afterwards, however, on the twenty-fifth of March, the Dauphin succeeded in escaping, and repaired first of all to Sennlis, and then to Provence, where he found the estates of Champagne, eager to welcome him. Marcel at once sent to Provence two deputies with instructions to bind over the three orders of Champagne, to be at one with them of Paris, and not to be astounded at what had been done. Before answering, the members of the estates withdrew into a garden to parlay together, and sent to pray the regent to come and meet them. "'My Lord,' said the Count de Brayne to him, in the name of the nobility, "'did you ever suffer any harm or villainy at the hands of the conflans, Marshal of Champagne, for which he deserved to be put to death, as he hath been by them of Paris?' The Prince replied that he firmly held and believed that the said Marshal and Robert de Clermont had well and loyally served and advised him. "'My Lord,' replied the Count de Brayne, "'with Champagne's, who are here, do thank you for that which you have just said, and do desire you to do full justice on those who have put our friend to death without cause, and they bound themselves to support him with their persons and their property, for the chastisement of them who had been the authors of the outrage.' The Dauphin, with full trust in this manifestation and this promise, convoked at Campagne, for the fourth of May, 1358, no longer the estates of Champagne only, but the estates general in their entirety, who, on separating at the close of their last session, had adjourned to the first of May following. The story of this fresh session, and of the events determined by it, is here reproduced textually, just as it has come down to us from the last continueer of the Chronicle of William of Nungus, the most favourable amongst all the chroniclers of the time to Stephen Marcel and the popular party in Paris. All the deputies, and especially the friends of the noble slain, did with one heart and one mind counsel the Lord Charles, Duke of Normandy, to have the homicide stricken to death. And if he could not do so by reason of the number of their defenders, they urged him to lay vigorous siege to the city of Paris, either with an armed force or by forbidding the entry of victuals thereunto, in such sort that it should understand and perceive for a certainty that the death of the provost of tradesmen and of his accomplices was intended. The said provost and those who, after the regents' departure, had taken the government of the city, clearly understood this intention, and they then implored the university of studies at Paris to send deputies to the said Lord Regent, to humbly adjure him, in their name and in the name of the whole city, to banish from his heart the wrath he had conceived against their fellow-citizens, offering and promising, moreover, a suitable reparation for the offence, provided that the lives of the persons were spared. The university, concerned for the welfare of the city, sent several deputies of weight to treat about the matter. They were received by the Lord Duke Charles and the other lords with great kindness, and they brought backward to Paris that the demand made at Compagnie was that ten or a dozen, or even only five or six, of the men suspected of the crime lately committed at Paris, should be sent to Compagnie, where there was no design of putting them to death, and if this were done the Duke Regent would return to his old and intimate friendship with the Parisians. The provost Marcel and his accomplices, who were feared for themselves, did not believe that if they fell into the hands of the Lord Duke they could escape a terrible death, and they had no mind to run such a risk. Taking therefore a bold resolution, they desired to be treated as all the rest of the citizens, and to that end sent several deputations to the Lord Regent, either to Compagnie or to Moe, whether he sometimes removed, but they got no gracious reply and rather words of bitterness and threatening. Thereupon, being seized with alarm for their city, into the which the Lord Regent and his noble comrades were so ardently desirous of re-entering, and being minded to pull it out of reach from the peril which threatened it, they began to fortify themselves therein, to repair the walls, to deepen the ditches, to build new ramparts on the eastern side, and to throw up barriers at all the gates. As they lacked a captain they sent to Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, who was at that time in Normandy, and whom they knew to be freshly embroiled with the Regent, and they requested him to come to Paris with the strong body of men at arms, and to be their captain there and their defender against all their foes, save the Lord John, King of France, a prisoner in England. The King of Navarre, with all his men, was received in state, on the fifteenth of June, by the Parisians, to the great indignation of the Prince Regent, his friends, and many others. The nobles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to write about in the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a sortee from Paris to attack them. On a certain day the besiegers came right up to the bridge of Charenton, as if to draw out the King of Navarre and the Parisians to battle. The King of Navarre issued forth, armed with his men, and drawing near to the besiegers, had long conversations with them without fighting, and afterwards went back into Paris. The sight hereof the Parisians suspected that this King, who was himself a noble, was conspiring with the besiegers, and was preparing to deal some secret blow to the detriment of Paris, so they conceived mistrust of him and his, and stripped him of his office of captain. He went forth sorely vexed from Paris, he and his, and the English especially, whom he had brought with him, insulted certain Parisians, whence it happened that, before they were out of the city, several of them were massacred by the folks of Paris, who afterwards confined themselves within their walls, carefully guarding the gates by day and by night keeping up strong patrols on the ramparts. Whilst Marcel inside Paris, where he reigned supreme, was a prey on his own account and that of his besieged city, to these anxieties and perils, an event occurred outside which seemed to open to him a prospect of powerful aid, perhaps of decisive victory. Throughout several provinces the peasants, whose condition, sad and hard as it already was under the feudal system, had been still further aggravated by the outrages and irregularities of war, not finding any protection in their lords, and often being oppressed by them as if they had been foes, had recourse to insurrection in order to escape from the evils which came down upon them every day and from every quarter. They bore and would bear anything it was said, and they got the name of Jacques Bonhomme, Jack Goodfellow, but this taunt they belied in a terrible manner. We will quote from the last Continuer of William of Nongus, the least declamatory and the least confused of all the chroniclers of that period. In this same year, 1358, he says, in the summer, the first rising took place on the twenty-eighth of May, the peasants in the neighbourhood of Saint-Loup, de Serrant and Clermont, in the Dicies of Beauvais, took up arms against the nobles of France. They assembled in great numbers, set at their head a certain peasant named William Karl, or Cal, or Calais, of more intelligence than the rest, and marching by companies under their own flag, roamed over the country, slaying and massacring all the nobles they met, even their own lords. Not content with that, they demolished the houses and castles of the nobles, and what is still more deplorable, they villainously put to death the noble dames and little children who fell into their hands, and afterwards they strutted about, they and their wives, bedisoned with the garments they had stripped from their victims. The number of men who had thus risen amounted to five thousand, and the rising extended to the outskirts of Paris. They had begun it from sheer necessity and love of justice, for their lords oppressed instead of defending them, but before long they proceeded to the most hateful and criminal deeds. They took and destroyed from top to bottom the strong castle of Hermaine-en-Ville, where they put to death the multitude of men and dames of noble family who had taken refuge there. For some time the nobles no longer went about as before, none of them durst set afoot outside the fortified places. Jockery had taken the form of a fit of demagogic fury, and the jacks, or goodfellows, swarming out of their little hovels, or the terror of the castle. Had Marcel provoked this bloody insurrection, there is strong presumption against him. Many of his contemporaries say he had, and the Dauphin himself wrote on the 30th of August, 1359, to the count of Savoy, that one of the most heinous acts of Marcel and his partisans was exciting the folks of the open country in France, of Bovesis and Champagne and other districts against the nobles of the said kingdom, when so many evils have proceeded as no man should or could conceive. It is quite certain, however, that the insurrection, having once broken out, Marcel hastened to profit by it, and encouraged and even supported it at several points. Amongst other things he sent from Paris a body of three hundred men to the assistance of the peasants who were besieging the castle of Remennanville. It is the due penalty paid by reformers who allow themselves to drift into revolution that they become before long accomplices in mischief or crime which their original design and their own personal interest made it incumbent on them to prevent or repress. The reaction against Jockery was speedy and shockingly bloody. The nobles, the Dauphin and the King of Navarre, a prince and a noble at the same time that he was a scoundrel, made common cause against the good fellows, who were the more disorderly in proportion as they had become more numerous and believed themselves more invincible. The ascendancy of the masters over the rebels was soon too strong for resistance. At Moe, of which the good fellows had obtained possession, they were surprised and massacred to the number it has said of seven thousand with the town burning about their ears. In Boeveses, the King of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their chieftain, William Carl, or Calais, got possession of him, and had him beheaded, wearing a trivet of red hot iron, says one of the chroniclers, by way of crown. He then moved upon a camp of good fellows assembled near Mont-de-Dier, slew three thousand of them, and dispersed the remainder. These figures are probably very much exaggerated, as nearly always happens in such accounts. But the continuer of William of Nangas, so justly severe on the outrageous and barbarities of the insurgent peasants, is not less so on those of their conquerors. The nobles of France, he says, committed at that time such ravages in the district of Moe, that there was no need for the English to come and destroy our country, those mortal enemies of the Kingdom could not have done what was done by the nobles at home. Marcel from that moment perceived that his cause was lost, and no longer dreamed of anything but saving himself and his at any price, for he thought, says Froy Sartre, that it paid better to slay than to be slain. Although he had more than once experienced the disloyalty of the King of Navarre, he entered into fresh negotiations with him, hoping to use him as an intermediary between himself and the Dauphin, in order to obtain either an acceptable peace or guarantees for his own security in case of extreme danger. The King of Navarre lent a ready ear to these overtures. He had no scruple about negotiating with this or that individual, this or that party, flattering himself that he would make one or the other useful for his own purposes. Marcel had no difficulty in discovering that the real design of the King of Navarre was to set aside the house of Alois and the Plantagenets together, and to become King of France himself, as a descendant in his own person of Saint-Louis, though one degree more remote. An understanding was renewed between the two, such as it is possible to have between two personal interests fundamentally different, but capable of being, for the moment, mutually helpful. Marcel, under pretext of defense against the besiegers, admitted into Paris a pretty large number of English in the Pay of the King of Navarre. Before long quarrels arose between the Parisians and these unpopular foreigners. On the 21st of July, 1358, during one of these quarrels, twenty-four English were massacred by the people, and four hundred others, as said, were in danger of undergoing the same fate, when Marcel came up and succeeded in saving their lives by having them imprisoned in the Louvre. The quarrel grew hotter and spread farther. The people of Paris went and attacked other mercenaries of the King of Navarre, chiefly English, who were occupying Saint-Denis and Saint-Cloud. The Parisians were beaten, and the King of Navarre withdrew to Saint-Denis. On the 27th of July, Marcel boldly resolved to set at liberty and to send over to him the four hundred English imprisoned in the Louvre. He had let them out accordingly, and himself escorted them as far as the gates and on air, in the midst of a throng that made no movement for all its irritation. Some of Marcel's satellites, who formed the escort, cried out as they went, Has anybody ought to say against the setting of these prisoners at liberty? The Parisians remembered their late reverse, and not a voice was raised. Strongly moved as the people of Paris were in their hearts against the provost of tradesmen, says a contemporary chronicler, who was not a man who durst commenced a riot. Marcel's position became day by day more critical. The Dauphin, encamped with his army around Paris, was keeping up secret but very active communications with it, and a party, numerous and already growing in popularity, was being formed there in his favour. Men of note, who were lately Marcel's comrades, were now pronouncing against him, and John Bayard, one of the four chosen captains of the municipal forces, was the most vigilant. Marcel, at his wit's end, made an offer to the King of Navarre to deliver up Paris to him on the night between the 31st of July and the 1st of August. All was ready for carrying out this design. During the day of the 31st of July, Marcel would have changed the keepers of the Sondanie gate, but my art opposed him, rushed to the Hotel de Villa, seized the banner of France, jumped on horseback, and rode through the city shouting, Montjoy Sondanie, for the King and the Duke. This was the rallying cry of the Dauphin's partisans. The day ended with a great riot amongst the people. Towards eleven o'clock at night Marcel, followed by his people armed from head to foot, made his way to the St. Anthony gate, holding in his hands it is said the keys of the city. Whilst he was there, waiting for the arrival of the King of Navarre's men, my art came up with torches and lanterns and a numerous assemblage. He went straight to the provost and said to him, Stephen, Stephen, what do you hear at this hour? John, what business have you to meddle? I am here to take the guard of the city of which I have the government. By God rejoined my art, that will not do. You are not here at this hour for any good, and I'll prove it to you," said he, addressing his comrades. See, he holds in his hands the keys of the gates to betray the city. You lie, John, said Marcel. By God you traitor, tis you who lie, replied my art. Death, death, to all on his side. And he raised his battle-axe against Marcel. Philippe Giffard, one of the provost's friends, threw himself before Marcel and covered him for a moment with his own body, but the struggle had begun in earnest. My art plied his battle-axe upon Marcel, who fell pierced with many wounds. Six of his comrades shared the same fate, and Robert Lecoque, Bishop of Laune, saved himself by putting on a Cordelier's habit. My art's company divided themselves into several bands and spreading themselves all over the city, carrying the news everywhere, and dispatching or arresting the partisans of Marcel. The next morning, the first of August, 1358, John My art brought together in the marketplace the greater part of the community of Paris, explained for what reason he had slain the provost of tradesmen and in what offense he had detected him, and pointed out quietly and discreetly how, that on this very night the city of Paris must have been overrun and destroyed, if God of His grace had not applied a remedy. When the people who were present heard these news, they were much astounded at the peril in which they had been, and the greater part thanked God with folded hands for the grace he had done them. The corpse of Stephen Marcel was stripped and exposed quite naked to the public gaze, in front of St. Catherine du Val de Bouillet, on the very spot where, by his orders, the corpses of the two marshals, Robert de Clermont and John de Conflin had been exposed five months before. He was afterwards cast into the river in the presence of a great concourse. Then were sentenced to death by the Council of Prudhams of Paris, and executed by diverse forms of deadly torture, several who had been of the sect of the provost, the regent having declared that he would not re-enter Paris until these traders had ceased to live. Thus perished, after scarcely three years political life, and by the hands of his former friends, a man of rare capacity and energy, who at the outset had formed none but patriotic designs, and had no doubt promised himself a better fate. When, in December 1355, at the summons of a deplorably incapable and feeble king, Marcel, a simple burger of Paris and quite a new man, entered the assembly of the State's General of France, itself quite a new power, he was justly struck with the vices and abuses of the kingly government. With the evils and the dangers being entailed thereby upon France, and with the necessity for applying some remedy. But notwithstanding this perfectly honest and sound conviction, he fell into a capital error. He tried to abolish, for a time at least, the government he desired to reform, and to substitute for the kingship and its agents, the people and their elect. For more than three centuries the kingship had been the form of power which had naturally assumed shape and development in France, whilst seconding the natural labour attending the formation and development of the French nation. But this labour had as yet advanced but a little way, and the nascent nation was not in a condition to take up position at the head of its government. Stephen Marcel attempted by means of the State's General of the Fourteenth Century to bring to pass what we in the nineteenth, and after all the advances of the French nation have not yet succeeded in getting accomplished, to wit, the government of the country by the country itself. Marcel, going from excess to excess and from reverse to reverse in the pursuit of his impracticable enterprise, found himself before long engaged in a fierce struggle with the feudal aristocracy, still so powerful at that time as well as with the kingship. Being reduced to depend entirely during this struggle upon such strength as could be supplied by a municipal democracy incoherent, inexperienced and full of divisions in its own ranks, and by a mad insurrection in the country districts, he rapidly fell into the selfish and criminal condition of the man whose special concern is his own personal safety. This he sought to secure by an unworthy alliance with the most scoundrel amongst his ambitious contemporaries, and he would have given up his own city as well as France to the king of Navarre and the English had not another burger of Paris, John Maillard, stopped him and put him to death at the very moment when the Patriot of the State's General of Thirteen Fifty-Five was about to become a traitor to his country. Only thirteen years before, when Stephen Marcel was already a full grown man, the great Flemish burger James Van Arteveld had in the cause of his country's liberties attempted a similar enterprise, and after a series of great deeds at the outset and then of faults also similar to those of Marcel had fallen into the same abyss and had perished by the hand of his fellow citizens at the very moment when he was laboring to put Flanders, his native country, into the hands of a foreign master, the Prince of Wales, son of Edward III, King of England. Of all political snares the democratic is the most tempting, but it is also the most demoralizing and the most deceptive when, instead of consulting the interests of the democracy by securing public liberties, a man aspires to put it in direct possession of the supreme power and with its sole support to take upon himself the direction of the helm. One single result of importance was one for France by the State's General of the Fourteenth Century, namely the principle of the nation's right to intervene in their own affairs and to set their governments straight when it had gone wrong or was incapable of performing that duty itself. Up to that time in the Thirteenth Century and at the opening of the Fourteenth the State's General had been hardly anything more than a temporary expedient employed by the kingship itself to solve some special question or to escape from some grave embarrassment. Starting from King John the State's General became one of the principles of national right, a principle which did not disappear even when it remained without application and the prestige of which survived even its reverses. Faith and hope fill a prominent place in the lives of peoples as well as of individuals. Having sprung into real existence in 1355 the State's General of France found themselves alive again in 1789 and we may hope that, after so long a trial, their rebuffs and their mistakes will not be more fatal to them in our day. The news, at once spread abroad through the city, was receded with noisy joy there and the red cabs which had been worn so proudly the night before were everywhere taken off and hidden. The next morning a proclamation ordered that whosoever knew any of the faction of Marcel should arrest them and take them to the Châtelet but without laying hands on their goods and without maltreating their wives or children. Several were taken, put to the question, brought out into the public square and beheaded by virtue of a decree. They were the men who but lately had the government of the city and decided all matters. Some were burgesses of renown, eloquent and learned, and one of them, on arriving at the square, cried out, Woe is me! Would to heaven, O King of Navarre, that I had never seen thee or heard thee! On the 2nd of August 1358, in the evening, the Dauphin, Charles, re-entered Paris and was accompanied by John Mayart, who was mightily in his grace and love. On his way a man cried out, By God, sir, if I had been listened to, you would have never entered in here, but after all you will get but little by it. The Count of Tancarville, who was in the Prince's train, drew his sword and spurred his horse upon this rascal, but the Dauphin restrained him and contented himself with saying, Smilingly to the man, you will not be listened to, fair sir. Charles had the spirit of coolness and discretion, and, he thought, says his contemporary, Christine de Piesson, that if this fellow had been slain, the city which had been so rebellious might probably have been excited thereby. Charles, on being resettled in Paris, showed neither clemency nor cruelty. He let the reaction against Stephen Marcel run its course and turned it to account without further exciting it or prolonging it beyond measure. The property of some of the condemned was confiscated, some attempts at a conspiracy for the purpose of avenging the provost of tradesmen were repressed with severity, and John Mayart and his family were loaded with gifts and favours. On becoming king, Charles determined himself to hold his son at the baptismal font, but Robert LeCocque, Bishop of Léon, the most intimate of Marcel's accomplices, returned quietly to his diocese. Two of Marcel's brothers, William and John, owing their protection it is said to certain youthful reminiscences on the Prince's part, were exempted from all prosecution. Marcel's widow even recovered a portion of his property, and as early as the 10th of August, 1358, Charles published an amnesty, from which he accepted only those who had been in the secret council of the provost of tradesmen in respect of the great treason, and on the same day another amnesty quashed all proceedings for deeds done during the jackery, whether by nobles or ignobles. Charles knew that in acts of rigor or of grace impartiality conduces to the strength and the reputation of authority. The death of Stephen Marcel and the ruin of his party were fatal to the plots and ambitious hopes of the King of Navarre. At the first moment he hastened to renew his alliance with the King of England, and to recommend war in Normandy, Picardy, and Champagne against the regent of France. But several of his local expeditions were unsuccessful. The temperate and patient policy of the regent rallied around him the populations a weary of war and anarchy. Negotiations were opened between the two princes, and their regents were laboriously discussing conditions of peace when Charles of Navarre suddenly interfered in person, saying, I would fain talk over matters with the Lord Duke regent, my brother. We know that his wife was Joan of France, the Dauphin's sister. Hereat there was great joy, says the chronicler, amongst their counsellors. The two princes met, and the King of Navarre with modesty and gentleness addressed the regent in these terms. My Lord Duke and brother, know that I do hold you to be my proper and a special Lord, though I have for a long while made war against you and against France, our country. I wish not to continue or to foment it. I wish henceforth to be a good Frenchman, your faithful friend and close ally, your defender against the English and whoever it may be. I pray you to pardon me thoroughly, me and mine, for all that I have done to you up to this present. I wish for neither the lands nor the towns which are offered to me or promised to me. If I order myself well, and you find me faithful in all matters, you shall give me all that my deserts shall seem to you to justify. At these words the regent arose and thanked the King with much sweetness. They, one and the other, proffered and accepted wine and spices, and all present rejoiced greatly, rendering thanks to God, who doth blow where he listeth, and doth accomplish in a moment that which men with their sole intelligence have not wit nor power to do in a long while. The town of Mellon was restored to the Lord Duke. The navigation of the river once more became free upstream and down. Great was the satisfaction in Paris and throughout the whole country, and peace being thus made, the two princes returned both of them home. The King of Nuvar knew how to give an appearance of free will and sincerity to changes of posture and behavior which seemed to be pressed upon him by necessity, and we may suppose that the dauphin, all the while that he was interchanging graceful acts, was too well acquainted by this time with the other to become his dupe, but by their apparent reconciliation they put an end for a few brief moments between themselves to a position which was burdensome to both. Whilst these events, from the Battle of Pottier to the Death of Stephen Marcel, from the nineteenth of September 1356 to the first of August 1358, were going on in France, King John was living as a prisoner in the hands of the English, first at Bordeaux and afterwards in London, and was much more concerned about the reception he met with and the gallows he was present at than about the affairs of his kingdom. When, after his defeat, he was conducted to Bordeaux by the Prince of Wales, who was Governor of English Aquitaine, he became the object of the most courteous attentions, not only on the part of his princely conqueror, but of all Gascon society, dames and damsels, old and young, and their fair attendants, who took pleasure in consoling him by providing him with diversion. Thus he passed the winter of 1356, and in the spring the Prince of Wales received from his father, King Edward III, the instructions and the vessels he had requested for the conveyance of his prisoner to England. In the month of May 1357 he summoned, says Froyce Art, all the highest barons of Gascony, and told them that he had made up his mind to go to England, whether he would take some of them, leaving the rest in the country of Bordeaux and Gascony, to keep the land and the frontiers against the French. When the Gasteus heard that the Prince of Wales would carry away out of their power the King of France, whom they had helped to take, they were by no means of accord therewith, and said to the Prince, in all that is in our power, all honor, obedience, and loyal service, but it is not our desire that you should thus remove from us the King of France, in respect of whom we have had great trouble to put him in the place where he is, for thank God he is in a good strong city, and we are strong and men enough to keep him against the French, if they by force would take him from you. The Prince answered, Dear Serres, I grant it heartily, but my Lord, my Father wishes to hold and behold him, and with the good service that you have done my Father, and me also, we are well pleased, and it shall be handsomely requited. Nevertheless these words did not suffice to appease the Gascones, until a means thereto was found by Sir Reginald de Cobham and Sir John Chandos, for they knew the Gascones to be very covetous. So they said to the Prince, Sir offer them a sum of Florence, and you will see them come down to your demands. The Prince offered them sixty thousand Florence, but they would have nothing to do with them. At last there was so much haggling that an agreement was made for a hundred thousand francs, which the Prince was to hand over to the barons of Gascony to share between them. He borrowed the money, and the said sum was paid and handed over to them before the Prince started. When these matters were done the Prince put out to see with a fine fleet, crammed with men-at-arms and archers, and put the King of France in a vessel quite apart, that he might be more at his ease. They were at sea eleven days and eleven nights, continues Foyce-art, and on the twelfth they arrived at Sandwich Harbor, where they landed and halted two days to refresh themselves and their horses. On the third day they set out and came to St. Thomas of Canterbury. When the news reached the King and Queen of England that the Prince their son had arrived and had brought with him the King of France, they were greatly rejoiced there at, and gave orders to the Burgesses of London to get themselves ready in as splendid fashion as was beceaming to receive the King of France. They of the City of London obeyed the King's commandment and arrayed themselves by companies most richly, all the trades in cloth of different kinds. According to the poet Harold and arms of John Chandos, King Edward III went in person, with his barons and more than twenty counts, to meet King John, who entered London, mounted on a tall white steed, right well harnessed and accoutreate at all points, and the Prince of Wales on a little black hackney at his side. King John was first of all lodged in London at the Savoy Hotel, and shortly afterwards removed with all his people to Windsor. There, says Foyce-art, to hawk, hunt, to sport himself, and take his past time according to his pleasure, and Sir Philip, his son also, and all the rest of the other lords, counts, and barons, remained in London, but they went to see the King when it pleased them, and they were put upon their honour only. Chandos' poet adds, many a dame and many a damsel, right amiable, gay and lovely, came to dance there, to sing and to cause great gallows and jowths, as in the days of King Arthur. In the midst of his pleasures in England, King John sometimes also occupied himself at Windsor with his business in France, but with no more wisdom or success than had been his want during his actual reign. Towards the end of April 1359 the Dauphin Regent received at Paris the text of a treaty which the King his father had concluded in London with the King of England. The session of the western half of France, from Calais to Ballon, and the immediate payment of four million golden crowns, such was, according to the terms of this treaty, the price of King John's ransom, says Monsieur Pico, in his work concerning the history of the State's general, which was crowned in 1869 by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and the Regent resolved to leave to the judgment of France the acceptance or refusal of such exorbitant demands. He summoned a meeting to be held at Paris on the 19th of May, of churchmen, nobles and deputies from the good towns, but there came but few deputies, as well because full notice had not by that time been given of the said summons, as because roads were blocked by the English and the Navaris, who occupied fortresses in all parts whereby it was possible to get to Paris. The assembly had to be postponed from day to day. At last, on the 25th of May, the Regent repaired to the palace. He halted on the marble staircase, around him were ranged the three estates, and a numerous multitude filled the courtyard. In presence of all the people, William de Dormand, the king's advocate in Parliament, read the Treaty of Peace, which was to divide the kingdom into two parts, so as to hand over one to the foes of France. The reading of it roused the indignation of the people. The estates replied that the treaty was not tolerable or feasible, and in their patriotic enthusiasm decreed to make fair war on the English. But it was not enough to spare the kingdom the shame of such a treaty. It was necessary to give the Regent the means of concluding a better. On the 2nd of June, the nobles announced to the Dauphin that they would serve for a month at their own expense, and that they would pay besides such imposts as should be decreed by the good towns. The Churchmen also offered to pay them. The city of Paris undertook to maintain six hundred swords, three hundred archers, and a thousand brigands. The good towns offered twelve thousand men, but they could not keep their promise, the country being utterly ruined. When King John heard at Windsor that the treaty, whereby he had hoped to be set at liberty, had been rejected at Paris, he showed his displeasure by a single outburst of personal animosity, saying, Ah, Charles, fair son, you were counseled by the King of Navarre who deceives you, and would deceive sixty such as you. Edward III, on his side, at once took measures for recommending the war, but before engaging in it he had King John removed from Windsor to Hartford Castle, and thence to Summerton, where he set a strong guard. Having thus made certain that his prisoner would not escape from him, he put to sea, and on the 28th of October, 1359, landed at Calais with a numerous and well supplied army. Then, rapidly traversing northern France, he did not halt till he arrived before Rem, which he was in hopes of surprising, and where it is said he purported to have himself without delay crowned King of France. But he found the place so well provided, and the population so determined to make a good defence, that he raised the siege and moved on to Chalon, where the same disappointment awaited him. Passing from Champagne to Burgundy, he then commenced the same course of scouring and ravaging, but the Burgundians entered into negotiations with him, and by a treaty concluded on the 10th of March, 1360, and signed by Joan of Avernia, Queen of France, second wife of King John, and guardian of the young Duke of Burgundy, Philippe de Rue, they obtained at the cost of two hundred thousand golden sheep, moutons, an agreement that for three years Edward and his army would not go scouring and burning in Burgundy, as they were doing in other parts of France. Such was the powerlessness or rather absence of all national government, that a province made a treaty all alone and on its own account, without causing the regent to show any surprise or to dream of making any complaint. As a make-wait at this same time, another province, Picardy, aided by many Normans and Flemmings, its neighbours, nobles, burgesses, and common folk, was sending to see an expedition which was going to try, with God's help, to deliver King John from his prison in England, and bring him back in triumph to his kingdom. Thus, says the chronicler, they who, God-forsaken or through their own faults, could not defend themselves on the soil of their fathers, were going abroad to seek their fortune and their renown, to return home covered with honour and boasting of divine succour. The Picard expedition landed in England on the fourteenth of March, 1360. It did not deliver King John, but it took and gave over to flames and pillage for two days the town of One-Chelsea, after which it put to see again and return to its hearths. END OF CHAPTER XXII THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR Edward III, weary of thus roaming with his army over France without obtaining any decisive result, and without even managing to get into his hands any one of the good towns which he had promised himself, says Froycarte, that he would tan and hide in such sort that they would be glad to come and accord with him, resolved to direct his efforts against the capital of the kingdom, where the Dauphin kept himself close. On the 7th of April, 1360, he arrived hard by Montreux, and his troops spread themselves over the outskirts of Paris in the form of an investing or besieging force. But he had to do with the city protected by good ramparts, and well supplied with provisions, and with a prince cool, patient, determined, free from any illusion as to his danger or his strength, and resolved not to risk any of those great battles of which he had experienced the sad issue. For seeing the advance of the English, he had burned the villages in the neighborhood of Paris, where they might have fixed their quarters. He did the same with the suburbs of Saint-Germain, Saint-Marcelle, Notre-Dame-des-Chants. He turned a deaf ear to all King Edward's warlike challenges, and some attempts at an assault on the part of the English knights, and some sorties on the part of the French knights, impatient of their inactivity, came to nothing. At the end of a week Edward, whose army no longer found ought to eat, withdrew from Paris by the Chartres-Rôde, declaring his purpose of entering the good country of Buse, where he would recruit himself all summer, and once he would return after vintage to resume the siege of Paris, whilst his lieutenants would ravage all the neighboring provinces. When he was approaching Chartres there burst upon his army, says Foyce-art, a tempest, a storm, an eclipse, a wind, a hail, an upheaval so mighty, so wondrous, so horrible, that it seemed as if the heaven were all a tumble, and the earth were opening to swallow up everything. The stones fell so thick and so big that they slew men and horses, and there was none so bold but that they were all dismayed. There were at that time in the army certain wise men who said that it was a scourge of God sent as a warning, and that God was showing by signs that he would, that peace should be made. Edward had by him certain discreet friends who added their admonitions to those of the tempest. His cousin, the Duke of Lancaster, said to him, My Lord, this war that you are waging in the kingdom of France is right wondrous and too costly for you. Your men gain by it, and you lose your time over to it to no purpose. You will spend your life on it, and it is very doubtful whether you will attain your desire. Take the offers made to you now, whilst you can come out with honour. For, my Lord, we may lose more in one day than we have won in twenty years. The Regent of France, on his side, indirectly made overtures for peace. The Abbot of Cluny and the General of the Dominicans, Luggets of Pope Innocent VI, warmly seconded them, and negotiations were opened at the hamlet of Bretagne, close to Chartres. The King of England was a hard nut to crack, says Royce Hart. He yielded a little, however, and on the eighth of May 1360 was concluded the Treaty of Bretagne, a peace disastrous indeed, but become necessary. Aquitaine ceased to be a French fife, and was exalted in the King of England's interest to an independent sovereignty, together with the provinces attached to Poitot, Saint-Hong, Anus, Aninoise, Périgorde, Le Mosa, Kersi, Bigore, Angamos, and Rourg. The King of England, on his side, gave up completely to the King of France, Normandy, Maine, and the portion of Turan and Anjou, situated to the north of the Loire. He engaged further to solemnly renounce all pretensions to the crown of France, so soon as King John had renounced all rights of suzerainty over Aquitaine. King John's ransom was fixed at three millions of gold crowns, payable in six years, and John Gallie's Visconti, Duke of Milan, paid the first installment of it, six hundred thousand florins, as the price of his marriage with Isabelle of France, daughter of King John. Hard as these conditions were, the peace was joyfully welcomed in Paris, and throughout northern France. The bells of the country churches, as well as of Notre-Dame in Paris, songs and dances amongst the people, and liberty of locomotion and of residence secured to the English in all places, so that none should disquiet them or insult them, bore witness to the general satisfaction. But some of the provinces seated to the King of England had great difficulty in resigning themselves to it. In Poitot, and in all the district of Saint-Tongue, says Froyce-Arte, great was the displeasure of barons, knights, and good towns when they had to be English. The town of La Rochelle was especially unwilling to agree there, too. It is wonderful what sweet and piteous words they wrote, again and again, to the King of France, begging him, for God's sake, to be pleased not to separate them from his own domains, or place them in foreign hands, and saying that they would rather be clipped every year of half their revenue than pass into the hands of the English. And when they saw that neither excuses nor reminsteries nor prayers were of any avail, they obeyed. But the men of most mark in the town said, We will recognize the English with the lips, but the heart shall beat to it never. Thus began to grow in substance and spirit, in the midst of war and out of disaster itself, Perdomne, Pursatus of Ipsos, Duxit, Opus, Animoque, Pharaoh, that national patriotism which had hitherto been such a stranger to feudal France, and which was so necessary for her progress towards unity, the sole condition for her of strength, security, and grandeur, in the state characteristic of the European world since the settlement of the Franks in Gaul. Having concluded the Treaty of Bretagne, the King of England returned on the 18th of May, 1360 to London, and on the eighth of July following King John, having been set at liberty, was brought over by the Prince of Wales to Calais, where Edward III came to meet him. The two kings treated one another there with great courtesy. The King of England, says Froisart, gave the King of France at Calais Castle a magnificent supper, at which his own children and the Duke of Lancaster and the greatest barons of England waited at table bare-headed. Meanwhile the Prince Regent of France was arriving at Amiens, and there, receiving from his brother-in-law, Galdas Visconti, Duke of Milan, the sum necessary to pay the first installment of his Royal Father's ransom. Payment having been made, the two kings solemnly ratified at Calais the Treaty of Bretagne. Two sons of King John, the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Barry, with several other personages of consideration, princes of the blood, barons and burgesses of the principal good towns, were given as hostages to the King of England for the due execution of the treaty, and Edward III negotiated between the King of France and Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, a reconciliation as precarious as ever. The work of pacification having been thus accomplished, King John departed on foot for Bologna, where he was awaited by the Dauphin, his son, and where the Prince of Wales and his two brothers, likewise on foot, came and joined him. All these princes passed two days together at Bologna in religious ceremonies and joyous gallows, after which the Prince of Wales returned to Calais, and King John set out for Paris, which he once more entered, December 13, 1360. He was welcomed there, says Froyce-art, by all manner of folks, for he had been much desired there. Rich presence were made him, the prelates and barons of his kingdom came to visit him, they feasted him and rejoiced with him, as it was seemly to do, and the king received them sweetly and handsomely, for well he knew how. And that was all King John did know. When he was once more seated on his throne, the councils of his eldest son, the late Regent, induced him to take some wise and wholesome administrative measures. All adulteration of the coinage was stopped, the Jews were recalled for twenty years, and some securities were accorded to their industry and interests, and an edict renewed the prohibition of private wars. But in his personal actions, in his bearing and practices as a king, the levity, frivolity, thoughtlessness and inconsistency of King John were the same as ever. He went about his kingdom, especially in southern France, seeking everywhere occasions for holiday-making and dispersing, rather than for observing and reforming the state of the country. During the visit he paid in 1362 to the new Pope, Urban V, at Avignon. He tried to get married to Queen Joan of Naples, the widow of two husbands already, and not being successful, he was on the point of involving himself in a new crusade against the Turks. It was on his return from this trip that he committed the gravest fault of his reign, a fault which was destined to bring upon France and the French kingship even more evils and disasters than those which had made the Treaty of Brittany a necessity. In 1362 the young Duke of Burgundy, Philippe de Louvre, the last of the first house of the Ducats of Burgundy, descendants of King Robert, died without issue, leaving several pretenders to his rich inheritance. King John was, according to the language of the genealogists, the nearest of blood, and at the same time the most powerful, and he immediately took possession of the Duchy, went on the twenty-third of December 1362 to Dijon, swore on the altar of Saint Benignus that he would maintain the privileges of the city and of the province, and nine months after on the sixth of September, 1363, disposed of the Duchy of Burgundy in the following terms. Recalling again to memory the excellent and praiseworthy services of our right dearly beloved Philip, the fourth of our sons, who freely exposed himself to death with us, and all wounded as he was, remained unwavering and fearless at the battle of Patier, we do concede to him and give him the Duchy and peerage of Burgundy, together with all that we may have therein of right possession and proprietorship, for the which gift our said son hath done us homage as Duke and Premier Pierre of France. Thus was founded that second house of the Ducats of Burgundy which was destined to play, for more than a century, so great and often so fatal a part in the fortunes of France. Whilst he was thus preparing a gloomy future for his country and his line, King John heard that his second son, the Duke of Anjou, one of the hostages left in the hands of the King of England as security for the execution of the Treaty of Bretonnie, had broken his word of honour and escaped from England, in order to go and join his wife at Guy's Castle. Nightly faith was the virtue of King John, and it was, they say, on this occasion that he cried, as he was severely upbraiding his son, that if good faith were banished from the world it ought to find an asylum in the hearts of kings. He announced to his counsellors, assembled at Amiens, his intention of going in person to England. An effort was made to dissuade him, and several prelates and barons of France told him that he was committing great folly when he was minded to again put himself in danger from the King of England. He answered that he had found in his brother the King of England, in the Queen, and in his nephews, their children, so much loyalty, honour, and courtesy that he had no doubt but that they would be courteous, loyal, and amiable to him, in any case. And so he was minded to go and make the excuses of his son, the Duke of Anjou, who had returned to France. According to the most intelligent of the chroniclers of the time, the Continuer of William of Nongus, some persons said that the King was minded to go to England in order to amuse himself, and they were probably right, for kingly and knightly amusements were the favourite subject of King John's meditations. This time he found in England something else besides Scalas. He before long fell seriously ill, which mightily discouraged the King and Queen of England, for the wisest in the country judged him to be in great peril. He died, in fact, on the 8th of April, 1364, at the Savoy Hotel, in London, whereat the King of England, the Queen, their children, and many English barons were much moved, says Froy Sartre, for the honour of the great love which the King of France, since peace was made, had shown them. France was at last about to have, in Charles the Fifth, a practical and an effective King. In spite of the discretion he had displayed during his four years of regency, from 1356 to 1360, his reign opened under the saddest auspices. In 1363 one of those contagious diseases, all at that time called the Plague, created cruel ravages in France. None, says the contemporary chronicler, could count the number of the dead in Paris, young or old, rich or poor. When death entered a house the little children died first, then the menials, then the parents. In the smallest villages, as well as in Paris, the mortality was such that at Argyntu, for example, where there were want to be numbered 700 hearths, there remained no more than forty or fifty. The ravages of the armed thieves, or bandits, who scoured the country added to those of the Plague, led it suffice to quote one instance, imbues, on the Orléans and Sartre side, some brigands and prowlers, with hostile intent, dressed as pig-dealers or cow-drivers, came to the little castle of Mure, close to Corbille, and finding outside the gate the master of the place, who was a knight, asked him to get them back their pigs, which his menials, they said, had the night before taken from them, which was false. The master gave them leave to go in, that they might discover their pigs and move them away. As soon as they had crossed the drawbridge they seized upon the master, threw off their false clothes, drew their weapons, and blew a blast upon the bagpipe, and forthwith appeared their comrades from their hiding-places in the neighboring woods. They took possession of the castle, its master and mistress, and all their folk, and settling themselves there, they scoured from thence the whole country, pillaging everywhere, and filling the castle with the provisions they carried off. At the rumour of this thievish capture, many men at arms in the neighborhood rushed up to expel the thieves and retake from them the castle. Not succeeding in their assault, they fell back on Corbille, and then themselves set to ravaging the country, taking away from the farmhouses provisions and wine without paying adult, and carrying them off to Corbille for their own use. They became before long as much feared and hated as the brigands, and all the inhabitants of the neighboring villages, leaving their homes and their labor, took refuge with their children and what they had been able to carry off in Paris, the only place where they could find a little security. Thus the population was without any kind of regular force, anything like effectual protection. The temporary defenders of order themselves went over, and with alacrity, too, to the side of disorder, when they did not succeed in repressing it, and the men at arms set readily about plundering in their turn the castles and country places whence they had been charged to drive off the plunderers. CHAPTER XXII of a popular history of France from the earliest times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume II of a popular history of France from the earliest times by Francois Guiseaux. Translated by Robert Black. CHAPTER XXII. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. CHARLES V. PART III Let us add a still more striking example of the absence of all publicly recognized power at this period, and of the necessity to which the population was nearly everywhere reduced of defending itself with its own hands, in order to escape ever so little from the evils of war and anarchy. It was a little while ago pointed out why and how, after the death of Marcel and the downfall of his faction, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, suddenly determined upon making his peace with the regent of France. This peace was very displeasing to the English, allies of the King of Navarre, and they continued to carry on war, ravaging the country here and there, at one time victorious and at another vanquished in a multiplication of disconnected encounters. I will relate, says the Continuer of William of Nangus, one of those incidents just as it occurred in my neighborhood and as I have been truthfully told about it. The struggle there was valiantly maintained by peasants, Jacques Bonhomme, good fellows, as they are called. There is a place pretty well fortified in a little town named Langue, not far from Campagne, in the diocese of Beauvais, and near to the banks of the oise. This place is close to the monastery of Saint Cornel de Campagne. The inhabitants perceived that there would be danger if the enemy occupied this point, and after having obtained authority from the Lord Regent of France and the Abbot of the Monastery, they settled themselves there, provided themselves with arms and provisions, and appointed a captain taken from among themselves, promising the regent that they would defend this place to the death. Many of the villagers came thither to place themselves in security, and they chose for captain a tall, fine man named William Alarc, oh, alote. He had for servant, and held as with bit and bridle, a certain peasant of lofty stature, marvellous body-strength, and equal boldness, who had joined to these advantages and extreme modesty. He was called Big Fair. These folks settled themselves at this point to the number of about two hundred men, all tillers of the soil, and getting a poor livelihood by the labour of their hands. The English, hearing it said that these folks were there and were determined to resist, held them in contempt, and went to them saying, Drive we hence these peasants, and take we possession of this point so well fortified and well supplied. They went thither to the number of two hundred. The folks inside had no suspicion thereof, and had left their gates opened. The English entered boldly into the place, whilst the peasants were in the inner courts or at the windows, a gape at seeing men so well armed making their way in. The captain, William Alarc's, came down at once with some of his people, and bravely began the fight, but he had the worst of it, was surrounded by the English and himself stricken with the mortal wound. At the sight thereof, those of his folk who were still in the courts, with Big Fair at their head, said to one another, Let us go down and sell our lives clearly, else they will slay us without mercy. Gathering themselves discreetly together, they went down by different gates, and struck out with mighty blows at the English, as if they had been beating out their corn on the threshing floor. Their arms went up and down again, and every blow dealt out a deadly wound. Big Fair, seeing his captain laid low and almost dead already, uttered a bitter cry, and advancing upon the English he topped them all, as he did his own fellows, by a head and shoulders. Raising his acts, he dealt about him deadly blows, in so much that in front of him the place was soon a void. He fell to the earth all those whom he could reach. Of one he broke the head, of another he lopped off the arms. He bore himself so valiantly that in an hour he had with his own hands slain eighteen of them, without counting the wounded, and at this site his comrades were filled with ardor. What more shall I say? All that band of English were forced to turn their backs and fly. Some jumped into the ditches full of water, others tried with tottering steps to regain the gates. Big Fair, advancing to the spot where the English had planted their flag, took it, killed the bearer, and told one of his own fellows to gole and hurl it into a ditch where the wall was not as yet finished. I cannot, said the other, there are still so many English yonder. Follow me with the flag, said Big Fair, and marching in front and laying about him right and left with his acts, he opened and cleared the way to the point indicated so that his comrade could freely hurl the flag into the ditch. After he had rested a moment he returned to the fight and fell so roughly on the English who remained that all those who could fly hastened to profit thereby. It is said that on that day with the help of God and Big Fair, who with his own hand it is certified laid low more than forty, the greater part of the English who had come to this business never went back from it. But the captain on our side, William Alarx, was there stricken mortally. He was not yet dead when the fight ended, he was carried away to his bed, he recognized all his comrades who were there, and soon afterwards sank under his wounds. They buried him in the midst of weeping for he was wise and good. At the news at what had thus happened at Longgill the English were very disconsolate, saying that it was a shame that so many and such brave warriors should had been slain by such rustics. Next day they came together again from all their camps in the neighborhood, and went and made a vigorous attack at Longgill on our folks, who no longer feared them hardly at all, and went out of their walls to fight them. In the first rank was Big Fair, of whom the English had heard so much talk. When they saw him, and when they felt the weight of his acts in his arm, many of those who had come to this fight would have been right glad not to be there. Many fledder were grievously wounded or slain. Some of the English nobles were taken. If our folks had been willing to give them up for money as the nobles do, they might have made a great deal, but they would not. When the fight was over, Big Fair, overcome with heat and fatigue, drank a large quantity of cold water, and was forthwith seized of a fever. He put himself to bed without parting from his acts, which was so heavy that a man of the usual strength could scarcely lift it from the ground with both hands. The English, hearing that Big Fair was sick, rejoiced greatly, and for fear he should get well they sent privily round about the place where he was lodged, twelve of their men bidden to try and rid them of him. On aspiring them from afar his wife hurried up to his bed where he was laid, saying to him, My dear Fair, the English are coming, and I verily believe it is for thee they are looking, what wilt thou do? Big Fair, forgetting his sickness, armed himself in all haste, took his acts which had already stricken to death so many foes, went out of his house, and entering into his little yard, shouted to the English as soon as he saw them, Ah, scoundrels, you are coming to take me in my bed, but you shall not get me. He set himself against a wall to be in surety from behind, and defended himself manfully with his good acts and his great heart. The English assailed him, burning to slay or to take him, but he resisted them so wondrously that he brought down five much wounded to the ground, and the other seven took to flight. Big Fair, returning in triumph to his bed, and heeded again by the blows he had dealt, again drank cold water in abundance, and fell sick of a more violent fever. A few days afterwards, sinking under his sickness and after having received the holy sacraments, Big Fair went out of this world, and was buried in the burial-place of his own village. All his comrades and his country wept for him bitterly, for so long as he lived, the English would not have come nigh this place. There was probably some exaggeration about the exploits of Big Fair and the number of his victims. The story quoted is not, however, a legend. Authentic and simple, it has all the characteristics of a real and true fact, just as it was picked up, partly from eyewitnesses and partly from hearsay, by the contemporary narrator. It is a faithful picture of the internal state of the French nation in the fourteenth century, a nation in labor of formation, a nation whose elements, as yet scattered and incohesive, though under one and the same name, were fermenting each in its own quarter and independently of the rest, with a tendency to mutual coalescence in a powerful unity, but as yet far from succeeding in it. Externally, King Charles V had scarcely easier work before him. Between himself and his great rival, Edward the Third King of England, there was only such peace as was fatal and hateful to France. To escape some day from the Treaty of Bretagne and recover some of the provinces which had been lost by it, this was what king and country secretly desired and labored for. Pending a favorable opportunity for promoting this higher interest, War went on in Brittany between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, who continued to be encouraged and patronized, covertly, one by the King of England, the other by the King of France. Almost immediately, after the accession of Charles V, it broke out again between him and his brother-in-law, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, the former being profoundly mistrustful, and the latter brazen, facedly perfidious, and both detesting one another, and watching to seize the moment for taking advantage one of the other. Amongst others, Spain and Italy were a prey to discord and even civil wars, which could not fail to be a source of trouble or serious embarrassment to France. In Spain, two brothers, Peter the Cruel and Henry of Trans-Tamar, were disputing the throne of Castile. Shortly after the accession of Charles V, and in spite of his lively remonstrances, in 1267 Pope Urban V quitted Avignon for Rome, whence he was not to return to Avignon till three years afterwards, and then only to die. The Emperor of Germany was, at this period, almost the only one of the great sovereigns of Europe who showed for France and her kings a sincere goodwill. When in 1378 he went to Paris to pay a visit to Charles V, he was pleased to go to Saint Denis to see the tombs of Charles the Handsome and Philip of Valois. In my young days, he said to the Abbot, I was nurtured at the homes of those good kings, who showed me much kindness. I do request you affectionately to make good prayer to God for them. Charles V, who had given him a very friendly reception, was no doubt included in this pious request. In order to maintain the struggle against these difficulties, within and without, the means which Charles V had at his disposal were a but moderate worth. He had three brothers and three sisters calculated rather to embarrass and sometimes even injure him than to be of any service to him. Of his brothers, the eldest, Louis Duke of Anjou, was restless, harsh, and bellicose. He upheld authority with no little energy in Languedoc, of which Charles had made him governor, but at the same time made it detested, and he was more taken up with his own ambitious views upon the kingdom of Naples, which Queen Joan of Hungary had transmitted to him by adoption, than with the interests of France and her king. The second, John, Duke of Berry, was an insignificant prince who has left no strong mark on history. The third, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, after having been the favorite of his father, King John, was likewise of his brother Charles V, who did not hesitate to still farther aggrandize this vessel, already so great, by obtaining for him in marriage the hand of Princess Marguerite, heiress to the Countship of Flanders, and this marriage, which was destined at a later period to render the dukes of Burgundy such formidable neighbors for the kings of France, was even in the lifetime of Charles V a cause of unpleasant complications, both for France and Burgundy. Of King Charles's three sisters, the eldest, Joan, was married to the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, and much more devoted to her husband than to her brother. The second, Mary, espoused Robert to Gavar, who caused more annoyance than he rendered service to his brother-in-law the king of France, and the third, Isabelle, wife of Gallus Visconti, Duke of Milan, was of no use to her brother beyond the fact of contributing, as we have seen, by her marriage, to pay a part of King John's ransom. Charles V, by kindly and judicious behavior in the bosom of his family, was able to keep serious quarrels or embarrassments from arising thence, but he found therein neither real strength nor sure support. His civil councillors, his Chancellor, William de Dormans, Cardinal Bishop of Beauvais, his Minister of Finance, John de la Grange, Cardinal Bishop of Amiens, his Treasurer, Philippe de Savoie, and his Chamberlain and private secretary, Vierreau de la Rivière, were undoubtedly men full of ambition and zeal for his service, for he had picked them out and maintained them unchangeably in their offices. There is reason to believe that they conducted themselves discreetly, for we do not observe that after their master's death there was any outburst against them, on the part either of court or people, of that violent and deadly hatred which is so often caused bloodshed in the history of France. Bureau de la Rivière was attacked and prosecuted, without, however, becoming one of the victims of judicial authority at the command of political passions. None of Charles V's councillors exercised over his master that preponderating and confirming influence, which makes a man a premier minister. Charles V himself assumed the direction of his own government, exhibiting unwearyed vigilance, but without hastiness and without noise. There is a work, as yet unpublished, of M. Leopold de Lille, which is to contain a complete explanatory catalogue of all the mandements et act divers de Charles V. This catalogue, which forms a pendant to a similar work performed by M. de Lille for the reign of Philip Augustus, is not yet concluded, and, nevertheless, for the first seven years only of Charles V's reign, from 1364 to 1371, there are, to be found enumerated and described in it, eight hundred and fifty-four mandements, ordonnance et act divers de Charles V, relating to the different branches of administration and to daily incidents of government, acts all bearing the impress of an intellect active, farsighted, and bent upon becoming acquainted with everything, and regulating everything, not according to a general system, but from actual and exact knowledge. Charles always proved himself reflective, unhurried, and anxious, solely to comport himself in accordance with the public interests and with good sense. He was one day at table in his room with some of his intimates, when news was brought him that the English had laid siege in Guyane to a place where there was only a small garrison, not in a condition to hold out unless it were promptly suckered. The king, says Christine de Pison, showed no great outward emotion, and quite coolly, as if the topic of conversation were something else, turned and looked about him, and seeing one of his secretaries summoned him courteously and bade him in a whisper to write word to Louis de Saint-Saire, his marshal, to come to him directly. They who were there were amazed that, though the matter was so weighty, the king took no great account of it. Some young esquires who were waiting upon him at table were bold enough to say to him, Sir, give us the money to fit ourselves out, as many of us are of your household, for to go on this business. We will be new-made knights, and will go and raise the siege. The king began to smile and said, It is not new-made knights that are suitable. They must be all old. Seeing that he said no more about it, some of them added, What are your orders, Sir, touching the Fair, which is of haste? It is not well to give orders in haste. When we see those to whom it is meat to speak, we will give our orders. On another occasion the treasurer of Nîme had died, and the king appointed his successor. His brother, the Duke of Anjou, came and asked for the place on behalf of one of his own intimates, saying that he to whom the king had granted it was a man of straw and without credit. Charles caused inquiries to be made, and then said to the Duke, Truly, Fair-brother, he for whom you have spoken to me as a rich man, but one of little sense and bad behavior. Your lease, said the Duke of Anjou, he to whom you have given the office is a man of straw and incompetent to fill it. Why, prithee, asked the king, because he is a poor man, the son of small laboring folks who are still tillers of the ground in our country. Ah! said Charles, is there nothing more? Assuredly, Fair-brother, we should prize more highly the poor man of wisdom than the profligate ass, and he maintained in the office him whom he had put there. The government of Charles V. was the personal government of an intelligent, prudent and honorable king, anxious for the interests of the State, at home and abroad, as well as for his own, with little inclination for, and little confidence in, the free cooperation of the country in its own affairs, but with wit enough to cheerfully call upon it when there was any pressing necessity, and accepting it then without chicanery or cheating, but safe to go back as soon as possible to that sole dominion, a medley of patriotism and selfishness which is the very insufficient and very precarious resource of peoples as yet incapable of applying their liberty to the art of their own government. Charles V. had recourse three times, in July 1367 and in May and December 1369, to a convocation of the State's general, in order to be put in a position to meet the political and financial difficulties of France. At the second of these assemblies, when the Chancellor William de Dormand had explained the position of the kingdom, the king himself rose up, for to say to all, that if they considered that he had done anything he ought not to have done, they should tell him so, and he would amend what he had done, for there was still time to repair it, if he had done too much or not enough. The question at that time was as to entertaining the appeal of the barons of aquitaine to the king of France as Souseran of the Prince of Wales, whose government had become intolerable, and to thus make a first move to struggle out of the humiliating peace of Bretonnie. Such a step and such words do great honour to the memory of the Pacific Prince, who was at that time bearing the burden of the government of France. It was Charles V's good fortune to find amongst his servants a man who was destined to become the thunderbolt of war and the glory of knighthood of his reign. About 1314, fifty years before Charles's accession, there was born at the castle of Montbrune, near Rennes, in a family which could reckon two ancestors amongst Godfrey de Bouillon's comrades in the first crusade. Bertrand de Gousclin, the ugliest child from Rennes to Dinal, says a contemporary chronicle, flat-nosed and swarthy, thick-set, broad-shouldered, big-headed, a bad fellow, a regular wretch, according to his own mother's words, given to violence, always striking or being struck, whom his tutor abandoned without having been able to teach him to read. At sixteen years of age he escaped from the paternal mansion, went to Rennes, entered upon a course of adventures, quarrels, challenges, and turnies, in which he distinguished himself by his strength, his valor, and likewise his sense of honour. He joined the cause of Charles of Blois against John of Montfort, when the two were claimants for the Duchy of Brittany, but at the end of thirty years neither the good of him nor his prowess were as yet greatly renowned, says Freud-Sart, save amongst the knights who were about him in the country of Brittany. But Charles the Fifth, at that time regent, had taken notice of him in thirteen fifty-nine, at the Siege of Mellon, where Dugousclin had for the first time borne arms in the service of France. When in thirteen sixty-four Charles became king, he said to Boussissot, Marshal of France, Boussissot, get you hence with such men as you have and ride towards Normandy. You will find there, Sir Bertrand Dugousclin, hold yourselves in readiness, I pray you, you and he, to recover from the king of Navarre, the town of Montt, which would make us masters of the River Seine. Right willingly, Sir, answered Boussissot, and a few weeks afterwards, on the seventh of April, thirteen sixty-four, Boussissot by stratagem entered Montt with his own troop, and Dugousclin, coming up suddenly with his, dashed into the town of the Gallup, sounding, Gousclin, death, death to all Navarys. The two warriors did the same, next day at the gates of Moulin, three leagues from Montt. Thus were the two cities taken, where at Charles the Fifth was very joyous when he heard the news, and the king of Navarre was very wroth, for he set down as a great hurt the loss of Montt and of Moulin, which made a mighty fine entrance for him into France. The hundred years war, Charles the Fifth, part four. It was at Rem, during the ceremony of his coronation, that Charles the Fifth heard of his two officers' success. The war thus began against the king of Navarre was hotly prosecuted on both sides. Charles the bad hastily collected his forces, Gascons, Normans, and English, and put them under the command of a John de Greyie, called the Captal of Bouc, an officer of renown. Dugousclin recruited in Normandy, Picardie, and Brittany, and amongst the band of warriors which were now roaming all over France. The plan of the Captal of Bouc was to go and disturb the festivities at Rem, but at Cochral, on the banks of the Ure, two leagues from Evreau, he met the troops of Dugousclin, and the two armies, pretty nearly equal in number, halted in view of one another. Dugousclin held council, and said to his comrades-in-arms, Sirs, we know that in front of us we have in the capital as gallant and eyed as can be found to-day on all the earth. So long as he shall be on the spot, he will do us great hurt. Set we then a horseback thirty of hours, the most skillful and the boldest. They shall give heed to nothing but to make straight towards the Captal, break through the press, and get right up to him. Then they shall take him, pin him, carry him off amongst them, and lead him away some wither in safety, without waiting for the end of the battle. If he can be taken and kept in such way, the day will be ours, so astounded will his men be at his capture. Battle ensued at all points, May 16, 1364, and whilst it led to various encounters with various results, the picked thirty, well mounted on the flower of steeds, says Froy Sart, and with no thought but for their enterprise, came all compact together to where was the Captal, who was fighting right valiantly with his acts, and was dealing blows so mighty that none durst come nigh him. But the thirty broke through the press by dint of their horses, made right up to him, halted hard by him, took him, and shut him in amongst them by force. Then they voided the place, and bare him away in that state, whilst his men, who were liked to mad, shouted, A rescue for the Captal, a rescue! But not could avail them or help them, and the Captal was carried off and placed in safety. In this bustling turmoil, whilst the Navarese in English were trying to follow the track of the Captal, whom they saw being taken off before their eyes, some French agreed with hardy good will to bear down on the Captal's banner, which was in a thicket, and whereof the Navarese made their own standard. Thereupon there was a great tumult in fighting there, for the banner was well guarded and by good men, but at last it was seized, won, torn, and cast to the ground. The French were masters of the battlefield, Sir Bertrand and his Bretons acquitted themselves loyally, and ever kept themselves well together, giving aid one to another, but it cost them dear in men. Charles was highly delighted, and after the victory resolutely discharged on his kingly part, rewarding and also punishing. The goose-glam was made marshal of Normandy, and received as a gift the Countship of Longvea, confiscated from the King of Navarre. Certain Frenchmen who had become the confidants of the King of Navarre were executed, and Charles V ordered his generals to no longer show any mercy for the future to subjects of the kingdom who were found in the enemy's rank. The war against Charles the Bad continued. Charles V, encouraged by his successes, determined to take part likewise in that which was still going on between the two claimants, to the Duchy of Brittany, Charles of Blois and John of Montfort. Duguz-glam was sent to support Charles of Blois, whereat he was greatly rejoiced, says Froishard, for he had always held the said Lord Charles for his rightful lord. The Count and Countess of Blois received him right joyously and pleasantly, and the best part of the barons of Brittany likewise had Lord Charles of Blois in regard and affection. Duguz-glam entered at once on the campaign and marched upon R.A., which was being besieged by the Count of Montfort. But there he was destined to encounter the most formidable of his adversaries. John of Montfort had claimed the support of his patron, the King of England, and John Chandos, the most famous of the English commanders, had applied to the Prince of Wales to know what he was to do. You may go full well, the Prince had answered, since the French are going for the Count of Blois I give you good leave. Chandos, delighted, set hastily to work recruiting. Only a few Aquatanians decided to join him, for they were beginning to be disgusted with English rule, and the French national spirit was developing itself throughout Gascony, even in the Prince of Wales's immediate circle. Chandos recruited scarcely any but English or Bretons, and when to the great joy of the Count of Montfort he arrived before R.A., he brought, says Froishard, full sixteen hundred fighting men, knights, and squires, English and Breton, and about eight or nine hundred archers. Duguisclan's troops were pretty nearly equal in number, and not less brave, but less well disciplined, and probably also less ably commanded. The battle took place on the twenty-ninth of September, 1364, before R.A. The attendant circumstances and the result have already been recounted in the twentieth chapter of this history, Charles of Blois was killed, and Duguisclan was made prisoner. The cause of John of Montfort was clearly one, and he, on taking possession of the Duchy of Brittany, asked nothing better than to acknowledge himself vassal of the King of France, and swear fidelity to him. Charles V had too much judgment not to foresee that, even after a defeat, a peace which gave a lawful and definite solution to the question of Brittany rendered his relations and means of influence with this important province much more to be depended upon than any success which a prolonged war might promise him. Accordingly he made peace at Gourand, on the eleventh of April, 1365, after having disputed the conditions inch by inch, and some weeks previously, on the sixth of March, at the direct instance of the King of Navarre, who since the battle of Goucherelle had felt himself in peril, Charles V had likewise put an end to his open struggle against his perfidious neighbor, of whom he certainly did not cease to be mistrustful. Being thus delivered from every external war and declared enemy, the wise King of France was at liberty to devote himself to the re-establishment of internal peace, and of order throughout his kingdom, which was in the most pressing need thereof. We have no doubt, even in our own day, cruel experience of the disorders and evils of war, but we can form, one would say, but a very incomplete idea of what they were in the fourteenth century, without any of those humane administrative measures, still so ineffectual, provisionings, hospitals, ambulances, barracks, and encampments, which are taken in the present day to prevent or repair them. The recueil des ordonnants des lois de France is full of safeguards granted by Charles V to monasteries and hospices and communes, which implored his protection that they might have a little less to suffer than the country in general. We will borrow from the best informed and the most intelligent of the contemporary chroniclers, the Continuer of William of Nangus, a picture of those sufferings and causes of them. There was not, he says, in Anjou, in Torrain, and Buss, near Orleans, and up to the approaches of Paris, any corner of the country which was free from plunderers and robbers. They were so numerous everywhere, either in little forts occupied by them or in the villages in the country places, that peasants and tradesfolk could not travel but at great expense and great peril. The very guards told off to defend cultivators and travelers took part most shamefully in harassing and despoiling them. It was the same in Burgundy in the neighboring countries. Some knights who called themselves Friends of the King and of the King's Majesty, and whose names I am not minded to set down here, kept in their service brigands who were quite as bad. What is far more strange is that when those folks went into the cities, Paris or elsewhere, everybody knew them and pointed them out, but none durst lay a hand upon them. I saw one night at Paris, in the suburb of Saint-Germain-de-Pres, while the people were sleeping, some brigands who were abiding with their chieftains in the city, attempting to sack certain hospices. They were arrested and imprisoned in the Châtelet, but before long they were got off, declared innocent, and set at liberty without undergoing the least punishment, a great encouragement for them and their like, to go still farther. When the King gave Bertrand de Gousclin the Countship of Longvilla, in the Diocese of Rouen, which had belonged to Philip, brother of the King of Navarre, de Gousclin promised the King that he would drive out by force of arms all the plunderers and robbers, those enemies of the kingdom. But he did nothing of the sort. Nay, the Bretons, even of de Gousclin, on returning from Rouen, pillaged and stole in the villages they found there, knights, horses, sheep, oxen, and beasts of burden and of pillage. Charles V. was not, as Louis XII and Henry IV were, of a disposition full of affection and sympathetically inclined towards his people. But he was a practical man, who in his closet and in the library growing up about him took thought for the interests of his kingdom as well as for his own. He had at heart the public good, and lawlessness was an abomination to him. He had just purchased, at a ransom of a hundred thousand francs, the liberty of Bertrand de Gousclin, who had remained a prisoner in the hands of John Chendos after the Battle of Arès. An idea occurred to him that the valiant Breton might be of use to him in extricating France from the deplorable condition to which she had been reduced, by the bands of plunderers roaming everywhere over her soil. We find in the chronicle inverse of Bertrand de Gousclin, by Couvelier, a troubadour of the fourteenth century, a detailed account of the king's perplexities on this subject, and of the measures he took to apply a remedy. We cannot regard this account as strictly historical, but it is a picture, vivid and morally true, of events and men as they were understood and conceived to be by a contemporary, a mediocre poet but a spirited narrator. We will reproduce the principal features, modifying the language to make it more easily intelligible, but without altering the fundamental character. There were so many folk who went about pillaging the country of France that the king was sad and doleful at heart. He summoned his council and said to them, What shall we do with this multitude of thieves who go about destroying our people? If I send against them my valiant baronage I lose my noble barons, and then I shall never more have any joy of my life. If any could lead these folk into Spain against the miscreant and tyrant Pedro, who put our sister to death, I would like it well whatever it might cost me. Bertrand de Gousclan gave ear to the king, and Sir King said he, It is my heart's desire to cross over the seas and go fight the heathen with the edge of the sword. But if I could come nigh this folk which both anger you, I would deliver the kingdom from them. I should like it well, said the king. Say no more, said Bertrand to him. I will learn their pleasure. Give it no further thought. Bertrand de Gousclan summoned his herald and said to him, Go thou to the grand company and have all the captains assembled. Thou wilt go and demand for me a safe conduct, for I have a great desire to parley with them. The herald mounted his horse, and went a-seeking these folk towards Sherlock sur la Sain. They were seated together at dinner, and were drinking good wine from the casque they had pierced. Sirs, said the herald, the blessing of Jesus beyond you. Bertrand de Gousclan prayeth you to let him parley with all in company. By my faith, gentle herald, said Hugh de Cavalli, who was master of the English, I will readily see Bertrand here, and will give him good wine. I can well give it him in soothe. I do assure you, for it cost me nothing. Then the herald departed and returned to his lord, and told the news of this company. So away rode Bertrand, and halted not, and erode so far that he came to the grand company, and then did greet them. God keep, said he, the companions I see yonder. Then they bowed down, each abased himself. I vow to God, said Bertrand, whosoever will be pleased to believe me, I will make you all rich. And they answered, Right welcome here, sir. We will do all whatsoever is your pleasure. Sirs, said Bertrand, be pleased to listen to me. Before I am come, I will tell unto you. I come by order of the king in whose keeping is France, and who would be right glad to save his people, that should you come with me, whether I should be glad to go into good company, I feign would bring ye. If we would all of us look into our hearts, we might full truly consider that we have done enough to dam our souls. Think we but how we have dealt with life, outraged ladies and burned houses, slain men, children, and everybody set to ransom, how we have eaten up cows, oxen, and sheep, drunk good wines, and done worse than robbers do. Let us do honor to God and forsake the devils. Ask if it may please you, all the companions, all the knights, and all the barons, if you be of accord, we will go to the king, and I will have the gold got ready, which we do promise you, I would feign get together all my friends to make the journey we so strongly desire. Do goose-clan then explained in broad terms which left the choice to the grand company what his journey was which was so much desired. He spoke of the king of Cyprus, of the Saracens of Granada, of the Pope of Avignon, and especially of Spain and the king of Castile, Pedro the Cruel, scoundrel murderer of his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, on whom above all do goose-clan wish to draw down the wrath of his hearers. In Spain, he said to them, we might largely profit, for the country is a good one for leading a good life, and there are good wines which are needing clear. Nearly all present, whereof were twenty-five famous captains, confirmed what was said by Bertrand. Sirs, he said to them at last, listen to me, I will go my way and speak to the king of the Franks. I will get for you those two hundred thousand Franks. You shall come and dine with me at Paris according to my desire, when the time shall have come for it, and you shall see the king who will be rejoiced thereat. We will have no evil suspicion in anything, for I never was inclined to treason, and never shall be as long as I live. Then said the valiant knights and esquires to him, never was more valiant man seen on earth, and in you we have more belief and faith than in all the preludes and great clerics who dwell at Avignon or in France. When do goose-clan return to Paris? Sirs, said he to the king, I have accomplished your wish. I will put out of your kingdom all the worst folk of this grand company, and I will work it so that everything shall be saved. And said the king to him, May the holy trinity be pleased to have you in their keeping, and may I see you a long while in joy and health. Noble king, said Bertrand, the captains have a very great desire to come to Paris, your good city. I am heartily willing, said the king, if they come let them assemble at the temple, elsewhere there is too much people and too much abundance. There might be too much alarm. Since they have reconciled themselves to us I would have not but friendship with them. The poet concludes the negotiation thus. At the bidding of Bertrand, when he understood the pleasure of the noble king of France, all the captains came to Paris in perfect safety. They were conducted straight to the temple. There they were feasted and dined nobly, and received many a gift, and all was sealed. Matters went, at the outset at least, as do goose-clan had promised to the king on one side and on the other to the captains of the grand company. There was, in point of fact, a civil war raging in Spain between Don Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and his natural brother, Henry of Trans-Tamar, and that was the theatre on which do goose-clan had first proposed to launch the vagabond army, which he desired to get out of France. It does not appear, however, that at their departure from Burgundy at the end of November, 1365, this army and its chiefs had in this respect any well-considered resolution, or any well-defined aim in their movements. They made first for Avignon, and Pope Urban V, on hearing of their approach, was somewhat disquieted, and sent to them one of his cardinals to ask them what was their will. If we may believe the poet chronicler, Cuvelier, the mission was anything but pleasing to the cardinal, who said to one of his confidants, I am grieved to be said to this business, for I am sent to a pack of man-men who have not an hour's, nay, not even a half-hour's conscience. The captains replied that they were going to fight the heathen, either in Cyprus or in the kingdom of Granada, and that they demanded of the Pope absolution of their sins and two hundred thousand leavers, which Dugusclan had promised to them at his name. The Pope cried out against this. Here, said he, at Avignon, we have money given us for absolution, and we must give it gratis to yonder folks, and give them money also. It is quite against reason. Dugusclan insisted. No, you, said he to the cardinal, that there are in this army many folks who care not a whit for absolution, and who would much rather have money. We are making them proper men in spite of themselves, and are leading them abroad that they may do no mischief to Christians. Tell that to the Pope, for else we could not take them away. The Pope yielded and gave them the two hundred thousand leavers. He obtained the money by levies upon the population of Avignon. They no doubt complained loudly, for the chiefs of the grand company were informed thereof, and Dugusclan said, by the faith that I owe to the Holy Trinity, I will not take a denier of that which these poor folks have given. Let the Pope and the clerics give us of their own. We desire that all they who have paid the tax do recover their money without losing a doit. And according to contemporary chroniclers, the Vagabond army did not withdraw until they had obtained this satisfaction. The piety of the Middle Ages, though sincere, was often less disinterested and more rough than is commonly represented. Chapter 22 Part 5 of Volume 2 of a popular history of France from the earliest times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume 2 of a popular history of France from the earliest times by François Guiseau, translated by Robert Black. Chapter 22 The Hundred Years' War, Charles V. Part 5 On arriving at Toulouse from Avignon, Dugusclan and his bands, with the strength it is said of thirty thousand men, took the decided resolution of going into Spain to support the cause of Prince Henry of Trans-Tamar against the King of Castile, his brother, Don Pedro the Cruel. The Duke of Anjou, Governor of Langdoc, gave them encouragement by agreement, no doubt, with King Charles V, and from anxiety on his own part to rid his province of such inconvenient visitors. On the 1st of January, 1366, Dugusclan entered Barcelona, with their Henry of Trans-Tamar came to join him. There is no occasion to give a detailed account here of that expedition, which apportains much more to the history of Spain than to that of France. There was a brie for almost no struggle. Henry of Trans-Tamar was crowned King, first at Calahora and afterwards at Burgos. Don Pedro, as much despised before long as he was already detested, fled from Castile to Antelousia, and from Antelousia to Portugal, whose King would not grant him an asylum in his dominions, and he ended by embarking at Coruna for Bordeaux, to implore the assistance of the Prince of Wales, who gave him a warm and magnificent reception. Edward III, King of England, had been disquieted by the March of the Grand Company into Spain, and had given John Chandos and the rest of his chief commanders in Guillaume orders to be vigilant in preventing the English from taking part in the expedition against his cousin the King of Castile. But several of the English chieftains, serving in the bands and with Dugusclan, said it not this prohibition, and contributed materially to the fall of Don Pedro. Edward III did not consider that the matter was any infraction on the part of France of the Treaty of Bretonnie, and continued to live at peace with Charles V, testifying his displeasure, however, all the same. But when Don Pedro had reached Bordeaux, and had told the Prince of Wales that, if he had tamed the support of England, he would make the Prince's eldest son, Edward, King of Galicia, and share amongst the Prince's warriors the treasure he had left in Castile, so well concealed that he alone knew where, the knights of the Prince of Wales, says Froyçart, gave ready heed to his words, for English and Gascons are by nature covetists. The Prince of Wales immediately summoned the barons of Aquitaine, and on the advice they gave him sent four knights to London to ask for instructions from the King his father. Edward III assembled his chief councillors at Westminster, and finally it seemed to all course do and reasonable on the part of the Prince of Wales to restore and conduct the King of Spain to his kingdom. To which end they wrote official letters from the King and the Council of England to the Prince and the barons of Aquitaine. When the said barons heard the letters read they said to the Prince, My Lord, we will obey the command of the King, our master, and your father. It is but reason, and we will serve you on this journey in King Pedro also. But we would know who shall pay us and deliver us our wages, for one does not take men-at-arms away from their homes to go to a warfare in a foreign land, without they be paid and delivered. If it were a matter touching our dear Lord your father's affairs or your own, or your honour, or our countries, we would not speak thereof so much beforehand as we do. Then the Prince of Wales looked towards the Prince Don Pedro and said to him, Sir King, you hear what these gentlemen say, to answer is for you who have to employ them. Then the King Don Pedro answered the Prince, My dear cousin, so far is my gold, my silver, and all my treasure which I have brought with me hither, and which is not a thirtieth part so great as that which there is yonder, will go, I am ready to give it and share it amongst your gentry. You say well, said the Prince, and for the residue I will be debtor to them, and I will lend you all you shall have need of until we be in Castile. By my head, answered the King Don Pedro, you will do me great grace and courtesy. When the English and Gascón chieftains who had followed Dugu's clan into Spain heard of the resolutions of their King, Edward III, and the preparations made by the Prince of Wales for going and restoring Don Pedro to the throne of Castile, they withdrew from the cause which they had just brought to an issue to the advantage of Henry of Trance de Mer, separated from the French captain who had been their leader, and marched back into Aquitaine, quite ready to adopt the contrary cause and follow the Prince of Wales in the service of Don Pedro. The greater part of the adventurers, Burgundian, Picard, Canyes, Norman, and others who had enlisted in the bands which Dugu's clan had marched out of France likewise quitted him, after reaping the fruits of their raid, and recrossed the Pyrenees to go and resume in France their life of roving and pillage. There remained in Spain about fifteen hundred men-at-arms faithful to Dugu's clan, himself faithful to Henry of Trance de Mer, who had made him constable of Castile. Amidst all these vicissitudes, and at the bottom of all events as well as of all hearts, there still remained the greater fact of the period. The struggle between the two kings of France and England for dominion in that beautiful country which, in spite of its dismemberment, kept the name of France. Edward III in London and the Prince of Wales at Bordeaux could not see without serious disquietude the most famous warrior amongst the French crossing the Pyrenees with a following for the most part French, and setting upon the throne of Castile a prince necessarily allied to the King of France. The question of rivalry between the two kings and the two peoples had thus been transferred into Spain, and for the moment the victory remained with France. After several months' preparation the Prince of Wales, purchasing the complicity of the King of Navarre, marched into Spain in February 1367 with an army of twenty-seven thousand men and John Chandos, the most able of the English warriors. Henry of Trance de Mer had troops more numerous but less disciplined and experienced. The two armies joined battle on the third of April, 1367, at Nahara or Navarette, not far from the Ebro. Disorder and even sheer rout soon took place amongst that of Henry, who flung himself before the fugitives shouting, Why would you thus desert and betray me, ye who have made me King of Castile? Turn back and stand by me, and by the grace of God the day shall be ours. Duguisclan and his men at arms maintained the fight with stubborn courage, but at last they were beaten and either slain or taken. To the last moment Duguisclan, with his back against a wall, defended himself heroically against a host of assailants. The Prince of Wales, coming up, cried out, Gentle Marshals of France and you too, Bertrand, yield yourselves to me. Why, yonder men of my foes, cried the King Don Pedro, it is they who took from me my kingdom, and on them I mean to take vengeance. Duguisclan, darting forward, struck so rough a blow with his sword at Don Pedro, that he brought him fainting to the ground, and then turning to the Prince of Wales said, Knothless, I give up my sword to the most valiant Prince on earth. The Prince of Wales took the sword and charged the Captile of Bouc with the prisoner's keeping. Aha, Sir Bertrand, said the Captile to Duguisclan, you took me at the Battle of Cockrole, and today I've got you. Yes, replied Duguisclan, but at Cockrole I took you myself, and here you are only my keeper. The Battle of Nahara being over, and Don Pedro the Cruel restored to a throne which he was not to occupy for long, the Prince of Wales returned to Bordeaux with his army and his prisoner, Duguisclan, whom he treated courteously, at the same time that he kept him pretty strictly. One of the English chieftains who had been connected with Duguisclan at the time of his expedition into Spain, Sir Hugh Cavalry, tried one day to induce the Prince of Wales to set the French warrior at liberty. Sir, said he, Bertrand is a right loyal knight, but he is not a rich man or in a state to pay much money. He would have good need to end his captivity on easy terms. Let be, said the Prince, I have no care to take out of his. I will cause his lack to be prolonged in spite of himself. If he were released he would be in battle again and always a making war. After supper Hugh, without any beating about the bush, told Bertrand the Prince's answer. Sir, he said, I cannot bring about your release. Sir, said Bertrand, think no more of it. I will leave the matter to the decision of God, who is a good and just master. Some time after Duguisclan, having sent a request to the Prince of Wales to admit him to ransom, the Prince, one day when he was in a gay humour, had him brought up and told him that his advisers had urged him not to give him his liberty so long as the war between France and England lasted. Sir, said Duguisclan to him, then I am the most honoured knight in the world, for they say in the Kingdom of France and elsewhere that you are more afraid of me than of any other. Think you, then, it is for your knighthood that we do keep you, said the Prince. Nay, by St. George, fixue your own ransom and you shall be released. Duguisclan proudly fixed his ransom at a hundred thousand francs, which seemed a large sum even to the Prince of Wales. Sir, said Duguisclan to him, the king in whose keeping is France will lend me what I lack, and there is not a spinning wench in France who would not spin to gain for me what is necessary to put me out of your clutches. The advisers of the Prince of Wales would have him think better of it, and break his promise. But that which we have agreed to do with him we will hold, too, said the Prince. It would be a shame and confusion aface to us if we could be reproached with not setting him to ransom when he is ready to set himself down as so much as to pay a hundred thousand francs. Prince and knight were both as good as their word. Duguisclan found amongst his Breton friends a portion of the sum he wanted. Charles V lent him thirty thousand Spanish doubloons, which by a deed of December 27, 1367, Duguisclan undertook to repay, and at the beginning of 1368 the Prince of Wales set the French warrior at liberty. The first use Duguisclan made of it was to go and put his name and his sword at the service first of the Duke of Anjou, Governor of Langdok, who was making war in Provence against Queen Joan of Naples, and then of his Spanish patron, Henry of Transtamar, who had reccomenced the war in Spain against his brother, Pedro the Cruel, whom he was before long to dethrone for the second time and slay with his own hand. But whilst Duguisclan was taking part in the settlement of the Spanish question, important events called him back to the north of the Pyrenees, for the service of his own king, the defense of his own country, and the aggrandizement of his own fortunes. The English and Gascon bands which, in 1367, had recrossed the Pyrenees with the Prince of Wales after having restored Don Pedro the Cruel to the throne of Castile, had not disappeared. Having no more to do in their own Prince's service, they had spread abroad over France, which they called their apartment, and reccomenced in the countries between the Seine and the Loire their life of vagabondage and pillage. A general outcry was raised. It was the Prince of Wales men said who had let them loose, and the people called them the Host Army of England. A proceeding of the Prince of Wales himself had the effect of adding, to the rage of the people, that of the aristocratic classes. He was lavish of expenditure, and held at Bordeaux a magnificent court, for which the revenues from his domains and ordinary resources were insufficient. So he imposed a tax for five years of ten sews per hearth or family. In order to satisfy, he said, the large claims against him. In order to levy this tax legally, he convoked the Estates of Aquitaine, first at New York, and then, successively, at Angoulume, Patier, Bordeaux, and Bergerac. But nowhere could he obtain the vote he demanded. When we obeyed the King of France, said the Gascones, we were never so aggrieved with the subsidies, hearth taxes, or gables, and we will not be so long as we can defend ourselves. The Prince of Wales persisted in his demands. He was ill and irritable, and he was becoming truly the Black Prince. The Aquitanians, too, became irritated. The Prince's more temperate advisers, even those of English birth, tried in vain to move him from his stubborn course. Even John Chandos, the most notable as well as the wisest of them, failed, and withdrew to his domain of Saint Sauvure and Normandy, that he might have nothing to do with measures of which he disapproved. Being driven to extremity, the principal lords of Aquitaine, the Counts of Cominge, of Almrenyac, of Paragord, and many barons besides set out for France, and made complaint on the 30th of June, 1368, before Charles V and his peers, on account of the grievances which the Prince of Wales was purposed to put on them. They had recourse, they said, to the King of France as their sovereign Lord, who had no power to renounce his suzerainty or the jurisdiction of his court of peers and of his Parliament. Nothing could have corresponded better with the wishes of Charles V. For eight years past he had taken to heart the Treaty of Bretonnie, and he was as determined not to miss as he was patient in waiting for an opportunity for a breach of it. But he was too prudent to act with the precipitation which would have given his conduct an appearance of a premeditated and deep-laid purpose, for which there was no legitimate ground. He did not care to entertain it once and unreservedly the appeal of the Aquitanian lords. He gave them a gracious reception, and made them great cheer and rich gifts. But he announced his intention of thoroughly examining the stipulations of the Treaty of Bretonnie and the rites of his kingship. He sent for into his council chamber all the charters of the peace, and then he had them read on several days and at full leisure. He called into the consultation the schools of Bologna, of Montpellier, of Toulouse, and of Orléans, and the most learned clerks of the papal court. It was not until he had thus ascertained the legal means of maintaining that the stipulations of the Treaty of Bretonnie had not all of them been performed by the King of England, and that consequently the King of France had not lost all his rites of suzerainty over the ceded provinces, that on the 25th of January, 1369, just six months after the appeal of the Aquitanian lords had been submitted to him, he adopted it, in the following terms, which he addressed to the Prince of Wales at Bordeaux, and which are here curtailed in their legal expressions. Charles, by the grace of God King of France, to our nephew the Prince of Wales and of Aquitaine, greeting. Whereas many prelates, barons, knights, universities, communes, and colleges of the country of Gascony in the Duchy of Aquitaine, have come thence into our presence that they might have justice touching certain undue grievances and vexations, which you, through weak counsel and silly advice, have designed to impose upon them, whereas we are quite astonished. We of our kingly majesty and lordship do command you to come to our city of Paris, in your own person, and to present yourself before us in our chamber of peers, for to hear justice touching the said complaints and grievances proposed by you to be done to your people, which claims to have resort to our court, and be it as quickly as you may. When the Prince of Wales read this letter, says Fuisart, he shook his head and looked a scant at the aforesaid Frenchman, and when he had thought awhile he answered, We will go willingly at our own time, since the King of France doth bid us, but it shall be with our bask on our head and with sixty thousand men at our back. It was a declaration of war, and deeds followed it once upon words. Edward III, after a short and fruitless attempt at an accommodation, assumed on the 3rd of June, 1369, the title of King of France, in order to levy of all his subjects between 16 and 60, Laic or ecclesiastical, for the defence of England, threatened by a French fleet which was cruising on the channel. He sent reinforcements to the Prince of Wales, whose brother, the Duke of Lancaster, landed with an army at Calais, and offered to all the adventurers, with whom Europe was teaming, possession of all the fives they could conquer in France. Charles V, on his side vigorously pushed forward his preparations. He had begun them before he showed his teeth. For as early as the 19th of July, 1368, he had sent into Spain ambassadors with orders to conclude an alliance with Henry of Trans-Tamar, against the King of England, and his son, whom he called the Duke of Aquitaine. On the 12th of April, 1369, he signed the treaty which, by a contract of marriage between his brother Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and the Princess Margarita Flanders, transferred the latter rich province to the House of France. Lastly, he summoned to Paris Dugouce-Clan, who since the recovery of his freedom had been fighting at one time in Spain, and at another in the south of France, and announced to him his intention of making him Constable. Dear sir and noble king, said the honest and modest Britain, I do pray you to have me excused. I am a poor knight and a petty bachelor. The office of Constable is so grand and noble that he who would well discharge it should have long previous practice in command, and rather over the great than the small. Here are my lords, your brothers, your nephews, and your cousins, who will have charge of mended arms in the armies, and the rides afield, and how durst I lay commands on them. In sooth, sir, jealousies, be so strong that I cannot well but be afeard of them. I do affectionately pray you to dispense with me, and to confer it upon another who will more willingly take it than I, and will know better how to fill it. Sir Bertrand, sir Bertrand, answered the king, do not excuse yourself after this fashion. I have, nor brother, nor cousin, nor nephew, nor count, nor baron in my kingdom, who would not obey you. And if any should do otherwise, he would anger me so that he would hear of it. Take therefore the office with a good heart, I do beseech you. Sir Bertrand saw well, says Foyce-art, that his excuses were of no avail, and finally assented to the king's opinion, but it was not without a struggle, and to his great disgust. In order to give him further encouragement and advancement the king did set him close to him at table, showed him all the signs he could of affection, and gave him, together with the office, many handsome gifts in great estates for himself and his heirs. Charles V might fearlessly lavish his gifts on the loyal warrior, for Dugu's clan felt nothing more than binding upon him than to lavish them in his turn for the king's service. He gave numerous insumptuous dinners to the barons, knights and soldiers of every degree, whom he was to command. At Bertrand's plate gazed every eye, so massive, chased so gloriously, says the poet chronicler Couvelier, but Dugu's clan pledged it more than once, and sold a great portion of it, in order to pay, without fail, the knights and honorable fighting men, of whom he was the leader. End of Chapter 22 Part 5