A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume II Part 9

This war was, on both sides, remarkable for cruelty. If Joan de Clisson gave to the sword all the people in a castle, belonging to Charles of Blois, to which she had been admitted on a supposition of pacific intentions, Charles of Blois, on his side, finding in another castle thirty knights, partisans of the Count of Montfort, had their heads shot from catapults over the walls of Nantes, which he was besieging, and, at the same time that he saved from pillage the churches of Quimper, which he had just taken, he allowed his troops to ma.s.sacre fourteen hundred inhabitants, and had his princ.i.p.al prisoners beheaded. One of them, being a deacon, he caused to be degraded, and then handed over to the populace, who stoned him. It is characteristic of the middle ages that in them the ferocity of barbaric times existed side by side with the sentiments of chivalry and the fervor of Christianity: so slow is the race of man to eschew evil, even when it has begun to discern and relish good. War was then the pa.s.sion and habitual condition of men. They made it without motive as well as without prevision, in a transport of feeling or for the sake of pastime, to display their strength or to escape from listlessness; and, whilst making it, they abandoned themselves without scruple to all those deeds of violence, vengeance, brutal anger, or fierce delight, which war provokes. At the same time, however, the generous impulses of feudal chivalry, the sympathies of Christian piety, tender affections, faithful devotion, n.o.ble tastes, were fermenting in their souls; and human nature appeared with all its complications, its inconsistencies, and its irregularities, but also with all its wealth of prospective development. The three Joans of the fourteenth century were but eighty years in advance of the Joan of Arc of the fifteenth; and the knights of Charles V., Du Guesclin and De Clisson, were the forerunners of the Bayard of Francis I.

An incident which has retained its popularity in French history, to wit, the fight between thirty Bretons and thirty English during the just now commemorated war in Brittany, will give a better idea than any general observations could of the real, living characteristics of facts and manners, barbaric and at the same time chivalric, at that period. No apology is needed for here reproducing the chief details as they have been related by Froissart, the dramatic chronicler of the middle ages.

In 1351, "it happened on a day that Sir Robert de Beaumanoir, a valiant knight and commandant of the castle which is called Castle Josselin, came before the town and castle of Ploermel, whereof the captain, called Brandebourg [or Brembro, probably Bremborough], had with him a plenty of soldiers of the Countess of Montfort. 'Brandebourg,' said Robert, 'have ye within there never a man-at-arms, or two or three, who would fain cross swords with other three for love of their ladies?' Brandebourg answered that their ladies would not have them lose their lives in so miserable an affair as single combat, whereby one gained the name of fool rather than honorable renown. 'I will tell you what we will do, if it please you. You shall take twenty or thirty of your comrades, as I will take as many of ours. We will go out into a goodly field where none can hinder or vex us, and there will we do so much that men shall speak thereof in time to come in hall, and palace, and highway, and other places of the world.' 'By my faith,' said Beaumanoir, 'tis bravely said, and I agree: be ye thirty, and we will be thirty, too.' And thus the matter was settled. When the day had come, the thirty comrades of Brandebourg, whom we shall call English, heard ma.s.s, then got on their arms, went off to the place where the battle was to be, dismounted, and waited a long while for the others, whom we shall call French. When the thirty French had come, and they were in front one of another, they parleyed a little together, all the sixty; then they fell back, and made all their fellows go far away from the place. Then one of them made a sign, and forthwith they set on and fought stoutly all in a heap, and they aided one another handsomely when they saw their comrades in evil case. Pretty soon after they had come together, one of the French was slain, but the rest did not slacken the fight one whit, and they bore themselves as valiantly all as if they had all been Rolands and Olivers.

At last they were forced to stop, and they rested by common accord, giving themselves truce until they should be rested, and the first to get up again should recall the others. They rested long, and there were some who drank wine which was brought to them in bottles. They rebuckled their armor, which had got undone, and dressed their wounds. Four French and two English were dead already."

It was no doubt during this interval that the captain of the Bretons, Robert de Beaumanoir, grievously wounded and dying of fatigue and thirst, cried out for a drink. "Drink thy blood, Beaumanoir," said one of his comrades, Geoffrey de Bois, according to some accounts, and Sire de Tinteniac, according to others. From that day those words became the war-cry of the Beaumanoirs. Froissart says nothing of this incident.

Let us return to his narrative.

"When they were refreshed, the first to get up again made a sign, and recalled the others. Then the battle recommenced as stoutly as before, and lasted a long while. They had short swords of Bordeaux, tough and sharp, and boar-spears and daggers, and some had axes, and therewith they dealt one another marvellously great dings, and some seized one another by the arms a-struggling, and they struck one another, and spared not.

At last the English had the worst of it; Brandebourg, their captain, was slain, with eight of his comrades, and the rest yielded themselves prisoners when they saw that they could no longer defend themselves, for they could not and must not fly. Sir Robert de Beaumanoir and his comrades, who remained alive, took them and carried them off to Castle Josselin as their prisoners; and then admitted them to ransom courteously when they were all cured, for there was none that was not grievously wounded, French as well as English. I saw afterwards, sitting at the table of King Charles of France, a Breton knight who had been in it, Sir Yvon Charnel , and he had a face so carved and cut that he showed full well how good a fight had been fought. The matter was talked of in many places, and some set it down as a very poor, and others as a very swaggering business."

The most modern and most judicious historian of Brittany, Count Daru, who has left a name as honorable in literature as in the higher administration of the First Empire, says, very truly, in recounting this incident, "It is not quite certain whether this was an act of patriotism or of chivalry." He might have gone farther, and discovered in this exploit not only the characteristics he points out, but many others besides. Local patriotism, the honor of Brittany, party spirit, the success of John of Montfort or Charles of Blois, the sentiment of gallantry, the glorification of the most beautiful one amongst their lady-loves, and, chiefly, the pa.s.sion for war amongst all and sundry-- there was something of all this mixed up with the battle of the Thirty, a faithful reflex of the complication and confusion of minds, of morals, and of wants at that forceful period. It is this very variety of the ideas, feelings, interests, motives, and motive tendencies involved in that incident which accounts for the fact that the battle of the Thirty has remained so vividly remembered, and that in 1811 a monument, unpretentious but national, replaced the simple stone at first erected on the field of battle, on the edge of the road from P1o6rmel to Josselin, with this inscription: "To the immortal memory of the battle of the Thirty, gained by Marshal Beaumanoir, on the 26th of March, 1350 (1351)."

With some fondness, and at some length, this portion of Brittany's history in the fourteenth century has been dwelt upon, not only because of the dramatic interest attaching to the events and the actors, but also for the sake of showing, by that example, how many separate a.s.sociations, diverse and often hostile, were at that time developing themselves, each on its own account, in that extensive and beautiful country which became France. We will now return to Philip of Valois and Edward III., and to the struggle between them for a settlement of the question whether France should or should not preserve its own independent kings.h.i.+p, and that national unity of which she already had the name, but of which she was still to undergo so much painful travail in acquiring the reality.

Although Edward III. by supporting with troops and officers, and sometimes even in person, the cause of the Countess of Montfort, and Philip of Valois by a.s.sisting in the same way Charles of Blois and Joan of Penthievre, took a very active, if indirect, share in the war in Brittany, the two kings persisted in not calling themselves at war; and when either of them proceeded to acts of unquestionable hostility, they eluded the consequences of them by hastily concluding truces incessantly violated and as incessantly renewed. They had made use of this expedient in 1340; and they had recourse to it again in 1342, 1343, and 1344. The last of these truces was to have lasted up to 1346; but, in the spring of 1345, Edward resolved to put an end to this equivocal position, and to openly recommence war. He announced his intention to Pope Clement IV., to his own lieutenants in Brittany, and to all the cities and corporations of his kingdom. He accused Philip of having "violated, without even sending us a challenge, the truce which, out of regard to the sovereign pontiff, we had agreed upon with him, and which he had taken an oath, upon his soul, to keep. On account whereof we have resolved to proceed against him, him and all his adherents, by land and sea, by all means possible, in order to recover our just rights." It is not quite clear what pressing reasons urged Edward to this decisive resolution. The English Parliament and people, it is true, showed more disposition to support their king in his pretensions to the throne of France, and the cause of the Count of Montfort was maintaining itself stubbornly in Brittany, but nothing seemed to call for so startling a rupture, or to promise Edward any speedy and successful issue. He had lost his most energetic and warlike adviser; for Robert d'Artois, the deadly enemy of Philip of Valois, had been so desperately wounded in the defence of Vannes against Robert de Beaumanoir, that he had returned to England only to die. Edward felt this loss severely, gave Robert a splendid funeral in St. Paul's church, and declared that "he would listen to nought until he had avenged him, and that he would reduce the country of Brittany to such plight that, for forty years, it should not recover."

Philip of Valois, on his side, gave signs of getting ready for war. In 1343 he had convoked at Paris one of those a.s.semblies which were beginning to be called the states-general of the kingdom, and he obtained from it certain subventions. It was likewise in 1343 and at the beginning of 1344, that he ordered the arrest, at a tournament to which he had invited them, and the decapitation, without any form of trial, of fourteen Breton and three Norman lords whom he suspected of intriguing against him with the King of England. And so Edward might have considered himself threatened with imminent peril; and, besides, he had friends to avenge. But it is not unreasonable to suppose that his fiery ambition, and his impatience to decide, once for all, that question of the French kings.h.i.+p which had been for five years in suspense between himself and his rival, were the true causes of his warlike resolve.

However that may be, he determined to push the war vigorously forward at the three points at which he could easily wage it. In Brittany he had a party already engaged in the struggle; in Aquitaine, possessions of importance to defend or recover; in Flanders, allies with power to back him, and as angry as he himself. To Brittany he forwarded fresh supplies for the Count of Montfort; to Aquitaine he sent Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, his own cousin, and the ablest of his lieutenants; and he himself prepared to cross over with a large army to Flanders.

The Earl of Derby met with solid and brilliant success in Aquitaine.

He attacked and took in rapid succession Bergerac, La Reole, Aiguillon, Montpezat, Villefranche, and Angouleme. None of those places was relieved in time; the strict discipline of Derby's troops and the skill of the English archers were too much for the bravery of the men-at-arms, and the raw levies, ill organized and ill paid, of the King of France; and, in a word, the English were soon masters of almost the whole country between the Garonne and the Charente. Under such happy auspices Edward III. arrived on the 7th of July, 1345, at the port of Ecluse (Sluys), anxious to put himself in concert with the Flemings touching the campaign he proposed to commence before long in the north of France. Artevelde, with the consuls of Bruges and Ypres, was awaiting him there. According to some historians, Edward invited them aboard of his galley, and represented to them that the time had come for renouncing imperfect resolves and half-measures; told them that their count, Louis of Flanders, and his ancestors, had always ignored and attacked their liberties, and that the best thing they could do would be to sever their connection with a house they could not trust; and offered them for their chieftain his own son, the young Prince of Wales, to whom he would give the t.i.tle of Duke of Flanders. According to other historians, it was not King Edward, but Artevelde himself, who took the initiative in this proposition. The latter had for some time past felt his own dominion in Flanders attacked and shaken; and he had been confronted, in his own native city, by declared enemies, who had all but come to blows with his own partisans. The different industrial corporations of Ghent were no longer at one amongst themselves; the weavers had quarrelled with the fullers. Division was likewise reaching a great height amongst the Flemish towns. The burghers of Poperinghe had refused to continue recognizing the privileges of those of Ypres; and the Ypres men, enraged, had taken up arms, and, after a sanguinary melley, had forced the folks of Poperinghe to give in. Then the Ypres men, proud of their triumph, had gone and broken the weavers' machinery at Bailleul, and in some other towns. Artevelde, constrained to take part in these petty civil wars, had been led on to greater and greater abuse, in his own city itself, of his munic.i.p.al despotism, already grown hateful to many of his fellow- citizens. Whether he himself proposed to shake off the yoke of Count Louis of Flanders, and take for duke the Prince of Wales, or merely accepted King Edward's proposal, he set resolutely to work to get it carried. The most able men, swayed by their own pa.s.sions and the growing necessities of the struggle in which they may be engaged, soon forget their first intentions, and ignore their new perils. The consuls of Bruges and Ypres, present with Artevelde at his interview with King Edward in the port of Ecluse (Sluys), answered that "they could not decide so great a matter unless the whole community of Flanders should agree thereto," and so returned to their cities. Artevelde followed them thither, and succeeded in getting the proposed resolution adopted by the people of Ypres and Bruges. But when he returned to Ghent, on the 24th of July, 1345, "those in the city who knew of his coming," says Froissart, "had a.s.sembled in the street whereby he must ride to his hostel. So soon as they saw him they began to mutter, saying, 'There goes he who is too much master, and would fain do with the counts.h.i.+p of Flanders according to his own will; which cannot be borne.' It had, besides this, been spread about the city that James Van Artevelde had secretly sent to England the great treasure of Flanders, which he had been collecting for the s.p.a.ce of the nine years and more during which he had held the government. This was a matter which did greatly vex and incense them of Ghent. As James Van Artevelde rode along the street, he soon perceived that there was something fresh against him, for those who were wont to bow down and take off their caps to him turned him a cold shoulder, and went back into their houses. Then he began to be afraid; and so soon as he had dismounted at his house, he had all the doors and windows shut and barred. Scarcely had his varlets done so, when the street in which he lived was covered, front and back, with folk, and chiefly small crafts-folk. His hostel was surrounded and beset, front and back, and broken into by force. Those within defended themselves a long while, and overthrew and wounded many; but at last they could not hold out, for they were so closely a.s.sailed that nearly three quarters of the city were at this a.s.sault. When Artevelde saw the efforts a-making, and how hotly he was pressed, he came to a window over the street, and began to abase himself, and say with much fine language, 'Good folks, what want ye? What is it that doth move ye? Wherefore are ye so vexed at me? In what way can I have angered ye? Tell me, and I will mend it according to your wishes.' Then all those who had heard him answered with one voice, 'We would have an account of the great treasure of Flanders, which you have sent to England without right or reason.'

Artevelde answered full softly, 'Of a surety, sirs, I have never taken a denier from the treasury of Flanders; go ye back quietly home, I pray you, and come again to-morrow morning; I shall be so well prepared to render you a good account, that, according to reason, it cannot but content ye.' 'Nay, nay,' they answered, with one voice, 'but we would have it at once; you shall not escape us so; we do know of a verity that you have taken it out and sent it away to England, without our wit; for which cause you must needs die.' When Artevelde heard this word, he began to weep right piteously, and said, 'Sirs, ye have made me what I am, and ye did swear to me aforetime that ye would guard and defend me against all men; and now ye would kill me, and without a cause. Ye can do so an if it please you, for I am but one single man against ye all, without any defence. Think hereon, for G.o.d's sake, and look back to bygone times. Consider the great courtesies and services that I have done ye. Know ye not how all trade had perished in this country? It was I who raised it up again. Afterwards I governed ye in peace so great, that, during the time of my government, ye have had everything to your wish, grains, wools, and all sorts of merchandise, wherewith ye are well provided and in good case.' Then they began to shout, 'Come down, and preach not to us from such a height; we would have account and reckoning of the great treasure of Flanders which you have too long had under control without rendering an account, which it appertaineth not to any officer to do.' When Artevelde saw that they would not cool down, and would not restrain themselves, he closed the window, and bethought him that he would escape by the back, and get him gone to a church adjoining his hostel; but his hostel was already burst open and broken into behind, and there were more than four hundred persons who were all anxious to seize him. At last he was caught amongst them, and killed on the spot without mercy. A weaver, called Thomas Denis, gave him his death-blow.

This was the end of Artevelde, who in his time was so great a master in Flanders. Poor folk exalted him at first, and wicked folk slew him at the last."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Statue of James Van Artevelde----296]

It was a great loss for King Edward. Under Van Artevelde's bold dominance, and in consequence of his alliance with England, the warlike renown of Flanders had made some noise in Europe, to such an extent that Petrarch exclaimed, "List to the sounds, still indistinct, that reach us from the world of the West; Flanders is plunged in ceaseless war; all the country stretching from the restless Ocean to the Latin Alps is rus.h.i.+ng forth to arms. Would to Heaven that there might come to us some gleams of salvation from thence! O Italy, poor father-land, thou prey to sufferings without relief, thou who wast wont with thy deeds of arms to trouble the peace of the world, now art thou motionless when the fate of the world hangs on the chances of battle! "The Flemings spared no effort to re-a.s.sure the King of England. Their envoys went to Westminster to deplore the murder of Van Artevelde, and tried to persuade Edward that his policy would be perpetuated throughout their cities, and "to such purpose," says Froissart, "that in the end the king was fairly content with the Flemings, and they with him, and, between them, the death of James Van Artevelde was little by little forgotten." Edward, however, was so much affected by it that he required a whole year before he could resume with any confidence his projects of war; and it was not until the 2d of July, 1346, that he embarked at Southampton, taking with him, besides his son, the Prince of Wales, hardly sixteen years of age, an army which comprised, according to Froissart, seven earls, more than thirty-five barons, a great number of knights, four thousand men-at-arms, ten thousand English archers, six thousand Irish, and twelve thousand Welsh infantry, in all something more than thirty-two thousand men, troops even more formidable for their discipline and experience of war than for their numbers. When they were out at sea none knew, not even the king himself, for what point of the Continent they were to make, for the south or the north, for Aquitaine or Normandy. "Sir," said G.o.dfrey d'Harcourt, who had become one of the king's most trusted counsellors, "the country of Normandy is one of the fattest in the world, and I promise you, at the risk of my head, that if you put in there you shall take possession of land at your good pleasure, for the folk there never were armed, and all the flower of their chivalry is now at Aiguillon with their duke; for certain, we shall find there gold, silver, victual, and all other good things in great abundance." Edward adopted this advice; and on the 12th of July, 1346, his fleet anch.o.r.ed before the peninsula of Cotentin, at Cape La Hogue. Whilst disembarking, at the very first step he made on sh.o.r.e, the king fell "so roughly," says Froissart, "that blood spurted from his nose. 'Sir,' said his knights to him, 'go back to your s.h.i.+p, and come not now to land, for here is an ill sign for you.' 'Nay, verily,' quoth the king, full roundly, 'it is a right good sign for me, since the land doth desire me.'" Caesar did and said much the same on disembarking in Africa, and William the Conqueror on landing in England.

In spite of contemporary accounts, there is a doubt about the authenticity of these striking expressions, which become favorites, and crop up again on all similar occasions.

For a month Edward marched his army over Normandy, "finding on his road,"

says Froissart, "the country fat and plenteous in everything, the garners full of corn, the houses full of all manner of riches, carriages, wagons and horses, swine, ewes, wethers, and the finest oxen in the world." He took and plundered on his way Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan, and St. Lo. When, on the 26th of July, he arrived before Caen, "a city bigger than any in England save London, and full of all kinds of merchandise, of rich burghers, of n.o.ble dames, and of fine churches," the population attempted to resist. Philip had sent to them the constable, Raoul d'Eu, and the Count of Tancarville; but, after three days of petty fighting around the city and even in the streets themselves, Edward became master of it, and on the entreaty, it is said, of G.o.dfrey d'Hareourt, exempted it from pillage. Continuing his march, he occupied Louviers, Vernon, Verneuil, Mantes, Meulan, and Poissy, where he took up his quarters in the old residence of King Robert; and thence his troops advanced and spread themselves as far as Ruel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St.

Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine, and almost to the gates of Paris, whence could be seen "the fire and smoke from burning villages." "We ourselves," says a contemporary chronicler, "saw these things; and it was a great dishonor that in the midst of the kingdom of France the King of England should squander, spoil, and consume the king's wines and other goods." Great was the consternation at Paris. And it was redoubled when Philip gave orders for the demolition of the houses built along by the walls of circ.u.mvallation, on the ground that they embarra.s.sed the defence. The people believed that they were on the eve of a siege. The order was revoked; but the feeling became even more intense when it was known that the king was getting ready to start for St. Denis, where his princ.i.p.al allies, the King of Bohemia, the Dukes of Hainault and of Lorraine, the Counts of Flanders and of Blois, "and a very great array of baronry and chivalry," were already a.s.sembled. "Ah! dear sir and n.o.ble king," cried the burghers of Paris as they came to Philip and threw themselves on their knees before him, "what would you do? Would you thus leave your good city of Paris? Your enemies are already within two leagues, and will soon be in our city when they know that you are gone; and we have and shall have none to defend us against them. Sir, may it please you to remain and watch over your good city." "My good people," answered the king, "have ye no fear; the English shall come no nigher to you; I am away to St. Denis to my men-at-arms, for I mean to ride against these English, and fight them, in such fas.h.i.+on as I may." Philip recalled in all haste his troops from Aquitaine, commanded the burgher-forces to a.s.semble, and gave them, as he had given all his allies, St. Denis for the rallying-point. At sight of so many great lords and all sorts of men of war flocking together from all points, the Parisians took fresh courage. "For many a long day there had not been seen at St. Denis a king of France in arms and fully prepared for battle."

Edward began to be afraid of having pushed too far forward, and of finding himself endangered in the heart of France, confronted by an army which would soon be stronger than his own. Some chronicles say that Philip, in his turn, sent a challenge either for single combat or for a battle on a fixed day, in a place a.s.signed, and that Edward, in his turn also, declined the proposition he had but lately made to his rival. It appears, further, that at the moment of commencing his retreat away from Paris, he tried ringing the changes on Philip with respect to the line he intended to take, and that Philip was led to believe that the English army would fall back in a westerly direction, by Orleans and Tours, whereas it marched northward, where Edward flattered himself he would find partisans, counting especially on the help of the Flemings, who, in fulfilment of their promise, had already advanced as far as Bethune to support him. Philip was soon better informed, and moved with all his army into Picardy in pursuit of the English army, which was in a hurry to reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its march northward. It was more than once forced to fight on its march with the people of the towns and country through which it was pa.s.sing; provisions were beginning to fall short; and Edward sent his two marshals, the Earl of Warwick and G.o.dfrey d'Harcourt, to discover where it was practicable to cross the river, which, at this season of the year and so near its mouth, was both broad and deep. They returned without having any satisfactory information to report; "whereupon," says Froissart, "the king was not more joyous or less pensive, and began to fall into a great melancholy."

He had halted three or four days at Airaines, some few leagues from Amiens, whither the King of France had arrived in pursuit with an army, it is said, more than a hundred thousand strong. Philip learned through his scouts that the King of England would evacuate Airaines the next morning, and ride to Abbeville in hopes of finding some means of getting over the Somme. Philip immediately ordered a Norman baron, G.o.demar du Fay, to go with a body of troops and guard the ford of Blanche-Tache, below Abbeville, the only point at which, it was said, the English could cross the river; and on the same day he himself moved with the bulk of his army from Amiens on Airaines. There he arrived about midday, some few hours after that the King of England had departed with such precipitation that the French found in it "great store of provisions, meat ready spitted, bread and pastry in the oven, wines in barrel, and many tables which the English had left ready set and laid out." "Sir,"

said Philip's officers to him, as soon as he was at Airaines, "rest you here and wait for your barons and their folk, for the English cannot escape you." It was concluded, in point of fact, that Edward and his troops, not being able to cross the Somme, would find themselves hemmed in between the French army and the strong places of Abbeville, St.

Valery, and Le Crotoi, in the most evil case and perilous position possible. But Edward, on arriving at the little town of Oisemont, hard by the Somme, set out in person in quest of the ford he was so anxious to discover. He sent for some prisoners he had made in the country, and said to them, "right courteously," according to Froissart, "'Is there here any man who knows of a pa.s.sage below Abbeville, where-by we and our army might cross the river without peril?' And a varlet from a neighboring mill, whose name history has preserved as that of a traitor, Gobin Agace, said to the king, 'Sir, I do promise you, at the risk of my head, that I will guide you to such a spot, where you shall cross the River Somme without peril, you and your army.' 'Comrade,' said the king to him, 'if I find true that which thou tellest us, I will set thee free from thy prison, thee and all thy fellows for love of thee, and I will cause to be given to thee a hundred golden n.o.bles and a good stallion.'"

The varlet had told the truth; the ford was found at the spot called Blanche-Tache, whither Philip had sent G.o.demar du Fay with a few thousand men to guard it. A battle took place; but the two marshals of England, "unfurling their banners in the name of G.o.d and St. George, and having with them the most valiant and best mounted, threw themselves into the water at full gallop, and there, in the river, was done many a deed of battle, and many a man was laid low on one side and the other, for Sir G.o.demar and his comrades did valiantly defend the pa.s.sage; but at last the English got across, and moved forward into the fields as fast as ever they landed. When Sir G.o.demar saw the mishap, he made off as quickly as he could, and so did a many of his comrades." The King of France, when he heard the news, was very wroth, "for he had good hope of finding the English on the Somme and fighting them there. 'What is it right to do now?' asked Philip of his marshals. 'Sir,' answered they, 'you cannot now cross in pursuit of the English, for the tide is already up.'"

Philip went disconsolate to lie at Abbeville, whither all his men followed him. Had he been as watchful as Edward was, and had he, instead of halting at Airaines "by the ready-set tables which the English had left," marched at once in pursuit of them, perhaps he would have caught and beaten them on the left bank of the Somme, before they could cross and take up position on the other side. This was the first striking instance of that extreme inequality between the two kings in point of ability and energy which was before long to produce results so fatal for Philip.

When Edward, after pa.s.sing the Somme, had arrived near Crecy, five leagues from Abbeville, in the counts.h.i.+p of Ponthieu which had formed part of his mother Isabel's dowry, "'Halt we here,' said he to his marshals; 'I will go no farther till I have seen the enemy; I am on my mother's rightful inheritance which was given her on her marriage; I will defend it against mine adversary, Philip of Valois;' and he rested in the open fields, he and all his men, and made his marshals mark well the ground where they would set their battle in array." Philip, on his side, had moved to Abbeville, where all his men came and joined him, and whence he sent out scouts "to learn the truth about the English. When he knew that they were resting in the open fields near Crecy and showed that they were awaiting their enemies, the King of France was very joyful, and said that, please G.o.d, they should fight him on the morrow [the day after Friday, August 25, 1346]. He that day bade to supper all the high-born princes who were at Abbeville. They were all in great spirits and had great talk of arms, and after supper the king prayed all the lords to be all of them, one toward another, friendly and courteous, without envy, hatred, and pride, and every one made him a promise thereof. On the same day of Friday the King of England also gave a supper to the earls and barons of his army, made them great cheer, and then sent them away to rest, which they did. When all the company had gone, he entered into his oratory, and fell on his knees before the altar, praying devoutly that G.o.d would permit him on the morrow, if he should fight, to come out of the business with honor; after which, about midnight, he went and lay down. On the morrow he rose pretty early, for good reason, heard ma.s.s with the Prince of Wales, his son, and both of them communicated. The majority of his men confessed and put themselves in good ease. After ma.s.s the king commanded all to get on their arms and take their places in the field according as he had a.s.signed them the day before." Edward had divided his army into three bodies; he had put the first, forming the van, under the orders of the young Prince of Wales, having about him the best and most tried warriors; the second had for commanders earls and barons in whom the king had confidence; and the third, the reserve, he commanded in person. Having thus made his arrangements, Edward, mounted on a little palfrey, with a white staff in his hand and his marshals in his train, rode at a foot-pace from rank to rank, exhorting all his men, officers and privates, to stoutly defend his right and do their duty; and "he said these words to them," says Froissart, "with so bright a smile and so joyous a mien that whoso had before been disheartened felt reheartened on seeing and hearing him." Having finished his ride, Edward went back to his own division, giving orders for all his folk to eat their fill and drink one draught: which they did. "And then they sat down all of them on the ground, with their head-pieces and their bows in front of them, resting themselves in order to be more fresh and cool when the enemy should come."

Philip also set himself in motion on Sat.u.r.day, the 26th of August, and, after having heard ma.s.s, marched out from Abbeville with all his barons.

"There was so great a throng of men-at-arms there," says Froissart, "that it were a marvel to think on, and the king rode mighty gently to wait for all his folk." When they were two leagues from Abbeville, one of them that were with him said, "Sir, it were well to put your lines in order of battle, and to send three or four of your knights to ride forward and observe the enemy and in what condition they be." So four knights pushed forward to within sight of the English, and, returning immediately to the king, whom they could not approach without breaking the host that encompa.s.sed him, they said by the mouth of one of them, "Know, sir, that the English be halted, well and regularly, in three lines of battle, and show no sign of meaning to fly, but await your coming. For my part, my counsel is that you halt all your men, and rest them in the fields throughout this day. Before the hindermost can come up, and before your lines of battle are set in order, it will be late; your men will be tired and in disarray; and you will find the enemy cool and fresh. To-morrow morning you will be better able to dispose your men and determine in what quarter it will be expedient to attack the enemy. Sure may you be that they will await you." This counsel was well pleasing to the King of France, and he commanded that thus it should be. "The two marshals rode one to the front and the other to the rear with orders to the bannerets, 'Halt, banners, by command of the king, in the name of G.o.d and St.

Denis!' At this order those who were foremost halted, but not those who were hindermost, continuing to ride forward and saying that they would not halt until they were as much to the front as the foremost were.

Neither the king nor his marshals could get the mastery of their men, for there was so goodly a number of great lords that each was minded to show his own might. There was, besides, in the fields, so goodly a number of common people that all the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered with them; and when these folk thought themselves near the enemy, they drew their swords, shouting, 'Death! death!' And not a soul did they see."

"When the English saw the French approaching, they rose up in fine order and ranged themselves in their lines of battle, that of the Prince of Wales right in front, and the Earls of Northampton and Arundel, who commanded the second, took up their place on the wing, right orderly and all ready to support the prince, if need should be. Well, the lords, kings, dukes, counts, and barons of the French came not up all together, but one in front and another behind, without plan or orderliness. When King Philip arrived at the spot where the English were thus halted, and saw them, the blood boiled within him, for he hated them, and he said to his marshals, 'Let our Genoese pa.s.s to the front and begin the battle, in the name of G.o.d and St. Denis.' There were there fifteen thousand of these said Genoese bowmen; but they were sore tired with going a-foot that day more than six leagues and fully armed, and they said to their commanders that they were not prepared to do any great feat of battle.

'To be saddled with such a sc.u.m as this that fails you in the hour of need!' said the Duke d'Alencon on hearing those words. Whilst the Genoese were holding back, there fell from heaven a rain, heavy and thick, with thunder and lightning very mighty and terrible. Before long, however, the air began to clear and the sun to s.h.i.+ne. The French had it right in their eyes and the English at their backs. When the Genoese had recovered themselves and got together, they advanced upon the English with loud shouts, so as to strike dismay; but the English kept quite quiet, and showed no sign of it. Then the Genoese bent their cross-bows and began to shoot. The English, making one step forward, let fly their arrows, which came down so thick upon the Genoese that it looked like a fall of snow. The Genoese, galled and discomfited, began to fall back.

Between them and the main body of the French was a great hedge of men-at-arms who were watching their proceedings. When the King of France saw his bowmen thus in disorder he shouted to the men-at-arms, 'Up now and slay all this sc.u.m, for it blocks our way and hinders us from getting forward.'" Then the French, on every side, struck out at the Genoese, at whom the English archers continued to shoot.

"Thus began the battle between Broye and Crecy, at the hour of vespers."

The French, as they came up, were already tired and in great disorder: "howbeit so many valiant men and good knights kept ever riding forward for their honor's sake, and preferred rather to die than that a base flight should be cast in their teeth." A fierce combat took place between them and the division of the Prince of Wales. Thither penetrated the Count d'Alenccon and the Count of Flanders with their followers, round the flank of the English archers; and the King of France, who was foaming with displeasure and wrath, rode forward to join his brother D'Alencon, but there was so great a hedge of archers and men-at-arms mingled together that he could never get past. Thomas of Norwich, a knight serving under the Prince of Wales, was sent to the King of England to ask him for help. "'Sir Thomas,' said the king, 'is my son dead or unhorsed, or so wounded that he cannot help himself?' 'Not so, my lord, please G.o.d; but he is fighting against great odds, and is like to have need of your help.' 'Sir Thomas,' replied the king, 'return to them who sent you, and tell them from me not to send for me, whatever chance befall them, so long as my son is alive, and tell them that I bid them let the lad win his spurs; for I wish, if G.o.d so deem, that the day should be his, and the honor thereof remain to him and to those to whom I have given him in charge.' The knight returned with this answer to his chiefs; and it encouraged them greatly, and they repented within themselves for that they had sent him to the king." Warlike ardor, if not ability and prudence, was the same on both sides. Philip's faithful ally, John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, had come thither, blind as he was, with his son Charles and his knights; and when he knew that the battle had begun he asked those who were near him how it was going on.

"'My lord,' they said, 'the Genoese are discomfited, and the king has given orders to slay them all; and all the while between our folk and them there is so great disorder that they stumble one over another and hinder us greatly.' 'Ha!' said the king, 'that is an ill sign for us; where is Sir Charles, my son?' 'My lord, we know not; we have reason to believe that he is elsewhere in the fight.' 'Sirs,' replied the old king, 'ye are my liegemen, my friends, and my comrades; I pray you and require you to lead me so far to the front in the work of this day that I may strike a blow with my sword; it shall not be said that I came hither to do nought.' So his train, who loved his honor and their own advancement," says Froissart, "did his bidding. For to acquit themselves of their duty, and that they might not lose him in the throng, they tied themselves all together by the reins of their horses, and set the king, their lord, right in front, that he might the better accomplish his desire, and thus they bore down on the enemy. And the king went so far forward that he struck a good blow, yea, three and four; and so did all those who were with him. And they served him so well and charged so well forward upon the English, that all fell there and were found next day on the spot around their lord, and their horses tied together."

"The King of France," continues Froissart, "had great anguish at heart when he saw his men thus discomfited and falling one after another before a handful of folk as the English were. He asked counsel of Sir John of Hainault, who was near him and who said to him, 'Truly, sir, I can give you no better counsel than that you should withdraw and place yourself in safety, for I see no remedy here. It will soon be late; and then you would be as likely to ride upon your enemies as amongst your friends, and so be lost.' Late in the evening, at nightfall, King Philip left the field with a heavy heart--and for good cause; he had just five barons with him, and no more! He rode, quite broken-hearted, to the castle of Broye. When he came to the gate, he found it shut and the bridge drawn up, for it was fully night, and was very dark and thick. The king had the castellan summoned, who came forward on the battlements and cried aloud, 'Who's there? who knocks at such an hour?' 'Open, castellan,'

said Philip; 'it is the unhappy King of France.' The castellan went out as soon as he recognized the voice of the King of France; and he well knew already that they had been discomfited, from some fugitives who had pa.s.sed at the foot of the castle. He let down the bridge and opened the gate. Then the king, with his following, went in, and remained there up to midnight, for the king did not care to stay and shut himself up therein. He drank a draught, and so did they who were with him; then they mounted to horse, took guides to conduct them, and rode in such wise that at break of day they entered the good city of Amiens. There the king halted, took up his quarters in an abbey, and said that he would go no farther until he knew the truth about his men, which of them were left on the field and which had escaped."

Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with his army as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat than it had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardor and intelligence, to reap the fruits of his victory. In the difficult war of conquest he had undertaken, what was clearly of most importance to him was to possess on the coast of France, as near as possible to England, a place which he might make, in his operations by land and sea, a point of arrival and departure, of occupancy, of provisioning, and of secure refuge. Calais exactly fulfilled these conditions. It was a natural harbor, protected, for many centuries past, by two huge towers, of which one, it is said, was built by the Emperor Caligula and the other by Charlemagne; it had been deepened and improved, at the end of the tenth century, by Baldwin IV., Count of Flanders, and in the thirteenth by Philip of France, called Toughskin (Hurepel), Count of Boulogne; and, in the fourteenth, it had become an important city, surrounded by a strong wall of circ.u.mvallation, and having erected in its midst a huge keep, furnished with bastions and towers, which was called the Castle. On arriving before the place, September 3, 1346, Edward "immediately had built all round it," says Froissart, "houses and dwelling-places of solid carpentry, and arranged in streets as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve years, for his intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever time and whatever trouble he must spend and take. He called this new town Villeneuve la Hardie; and he had therein all things necessary for an army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of a market on Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day; and therein were mercers' shops, and butchers'

shops, and stores for the sale of cloth, and bread, and all other necessaries. King Edward did not have the city of Calais a.s.saulted by his men, well knowing that he would lose his pains, but said he would starve it out, however long a time it might cost him, if King Philip of France did not come to fight him again, and raise the siege."

Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful Burgundian knight, "the which, seeing," says Froissart, "that the King of England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that all sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city without further notice. They went forth on a Wednesday morning, men, women, and children, more than seventeen hundred of them, and pa.s.sed through King Edward's army. They were asked why they were leaving; and they answered, because they had no means of living. Then the king permitted them to pa.s.s, and caused to be given to all of them, male and female, a hearty dinner, and after dinner two s.h.i.+llings apiece, the which grace was commended as very handsome; and so indeed it was." Edward probably hoped that his generosity would produce, in the town itself which remained in a state of siege, a favorable impression; but he had to do with a population ardently warlike and patriotic, burghers as well as knights.

They endured for eleven months all the sufferings arising from isolation and famine; though, from time to time, fishermen and seamen in their neighborhood, and amongst others two seamen of Abbeville, the names of whom have been preserved in history, Marant and Mestriel, succeeded in getting victuals in to them. The King of France made two attempts to relieve them. On the 20th of May, 1347, he a.s.sembled his troops at Amiens; but they were not ready to march till about the middle of July, and as long before as the 23d of June a French fleet of ten galleys and thirty-five trans-ports had been driven off by the English. John de Vienne wrote to Philip, "Everything has been eaten, cats, dogs, and horses, and we can no longer find victual in the town unless we eat human flesh. . . . If we have not speedy succor, we will issue forth from the town to fight, whether to live or die, for we would rather die honorably in the field than eat one another. . . . If a remedy be not soon applied, you will never more have letter from me, and the town will be lost as well as we who are in it. May our Lord grant you a happy life and a long, and put you in such a disposition that, if we die for your sake, you may settle the account therefor with our heirs!" On the 27th of July Philip arrived in person before Calais. If Froissart can be trusted, "he had with him full two hundred thousand men, and these French rode up with banners flying as if to fight, and it was a fine sight to see such puissant array; and so, when they of Calais who were on the walls saw them appear and their banners floating on the breeze, they had great joy, and believed that they were going to be soon delivered! But when they saw camping and tenting going forward they were more angered than before, for it seemed to them an evil sign." The marshals of France went about everywhere looking for a pa.s.sage, and they reported that it was nowhere possible to open a road without exposing the army to loss, so well all the approaches to the place, by sea and land, were guarded by the English. The pope's two legates, who had accompanied King Philip, tried in vain to open negotiations. Philip sent four knights to the King of England to urge him to appoint a place where a battle might be fought without advantage on either side; but, "Sirs," answered Edward, "I have been here nigh upon a year, and have been at heavy charges by it; and having done so much that before long I shall be master of Calais. I will by no means r.e.t.a.r.d my conquest which I have so much desired. Let mine adversary and his people find out a way, as they please, to fight me."

Other testimony would have us believe that Edward accepted Philip's challenge, and that it was the King of France who raised fresh difficulties in consequence of which the proposed battle did not take place. Froissart's account, however, seems the more truth-like in itself, and more in accordance with the totality of facts. However that may be, whether it were actual powerlessness or want of spirit both on the part of the French army and of the king, Philip, on the 2d of August, 1347, took the road back to Amiens, and dismissed all those who had gone with him, men-at-arms and common folk.

When the people of Calais saw that all hope of a rescue had slipped from them, they held a council, resigned themselves to offer submission to the King of England rather than die of hunger, and begged their governor, John de Vienne, to enter into negotiations for that purpose with the besiegers. Walter de Manny, instructed by Edward to reply to these overtures, said to John de Vienne, "The king's intent is, that ye put yourselves at his free will to ransom or put to death such as it shall please him; the people of Calais have caused him so great displeasure, cost him so much money, and lost him so many men, that it is not astonis.h.i.+ng if that weighs heavily upon him." "Sir Walter," answered John de Vienne, "it would be too hard a matter for us if we were to consent to what you say. There are within here but a small number of us knights and squires who have loyally served our lord the King of France even as you would serve yours in like case; but we would suffer greater evils than ever men have had to endure rather than consent that the meanest 'prentice-boy or varlet of the town should have other evil than the greatest of us. We pray you be pleased to return to the King of England, and pray him to have pity upon us; and you will do us courtesy."

"By my faith," answered Walter de Manny, "I will do it willingly, Sir John; and I would that, by G.o.d's help, the king might be pleased to listen unto me." And the brave English knight reported to the king the prayer of the French knights in Calais, saying, "My lord, Sir John de Vienne told me that they were in very sore extremity and famine, but that, rather than surrender all to your will, to live or die as it might please you, they would sell themselves so dearly as never did men-at- arms." "I will not do otherwise than I have said," answered the king.

"My lord," replied Walter, "you will perchance be wrong, for you will give us a bad example; if you should be pleased to send us to defend any of your fortresses, we should of a surety not go willingly if you have these people put to death, for thus would they do to us in like case."

These words caused Edward to reflect; and the greater part of the English barons came to the aid of Walter de Manny. "Sirs," said the king, "I would not be all alone against you all. Go, Walter, to them of Calais, and say to the governor that the greatest grace they can find in my sight is that six of the most notable burghers come forth from their town, bare-headed, bare-footed, with ropes round their necks, and with the keys of the town and castle in their hands. With them I will do according to my will, and the rest I will receive to mercy." "My lord," said Walter, "I will do it willingly." He returned to Calais, where John de Vienne was awaiting him, and reported the king's decision. The governor immediately left the ramparts, went to the market-place, and had the bell rung to a.s.semble the people. At sound of the bell men and women came hurrying up hungering for news, as was natural for people so hard-pressed by famine that they could not hold out any longer. John de Vienne then repeated to them what he had just been told, adding that there was no other way, and that they would have to make short answer. On this they all fell a-weeping and crying out so bitterly that no heart in the world, however hard, could have seen and heard them without pity. Even John de Vienne shed tears. Then rose up to his feet the richest burgher of the town, Eustace de St. Pierre, who, at the former council, had been for capitulation. "Sir," said he, "it would be great pity to leave this people to die, by famine or otherwise, when any remedy can be found against it; and he who should keep them from such a mishap would find great favor in the eyes of our Lord. I have great hope to find favor in the eyes of our Lord if I die to save this people; I would fain be the first herein, and I will willingly place myself in my s.h.i.+rt and bare-headed and with a rope round my neck, at the mercy of the King of England." At this speech, men and women cast themselves at the feet of Eustace de St. Pierre, weeping piteously. Another right-honorable burgher, who had great possessions and two beautiful damsels for daughters, rose up and said that he would act comrade to Eustace de St.

Pierre: his name was John d'Aire. Then, for the third, James de Vissant, a rich man in personalty and realty; then his brother Peter de Vissant; and then the fifth and sixth, of whom none has told the names. On the 5th of August, 1347, these six burghers, thus apparelled, with cords round their necks and each with a bunch of the keys of the city and of the castle, were conducted outside the gates by John de Vienne, who rode a small hackney, for he was in such ill plight that he could not go a-foot. He gave them up to Sir Walter, who was awaiting him, and said to him, "As captain of Calais I deliver to you, with the consent of the poor people of the town, these six burghers, who are, I swear to you, the most honorable and notable in person, in fortune, and in ancestry, in the town of Calais. I pray you be pleased to pray the King of England that these good folks be not put to death." "I know not," answered De Manny, "what my lord the king may mean to do with them; but I promise you that I will do mine ability." When Sir Walter brought in the six burghers in this condition, King Edward was in his chamber with a great company of earls, barons, and knights. As soon as he heard that the folks of Calais were there as he had ordered, he went out and stood in the open s.p.a.ce before his hostel and all those lords with him; and even Queen Philippa of England, who was with child, followed the king her lord. He gazed most cruelly on those six poor men, for he had his heart possessed with so much rage that at first he could not speak. When he spoke, he commanded them to be straightway beheaded, All the barons and knights who were there prayed him to show them mercy. "Gentle sir," said Walter de Manny, "restrain your wrath; you have renown for gentleness and n.o.bleness; be pleased to do nought whereby it may be diminished; if you have not pity on yonder folk, all others will say that it was great cruelty on your part to put to death these six honorable burghers, who of their own free will have put themselves at your mercy to save the others." The king gnashed his teeth, saying, "Sir Walter, hold your peace; let them fetch hither my headsman; the people of Calais have been the death of so many of my men that it is but meet that yon fellows die also." Then, with great humility, the n.o.ble queen, who was very nigh her delivery, threw herself on her knees at the feet of the king, saying, "Ah gentle sir, if, as you know, I have asked nothing of you from the time that I crossed the sea in great peril, I pray you humbly that as a special boon, for the sake of Holy Mary's Son and for the love of me, you will please to have mercy on these six men."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Queen Philippa at the Feet of the King----314]

The king did not speak at once, and fixed his eyes on the good dame his wife, who was weeping piteously on her knees. She softened his stern heart, for he would have been loath to vex her in the state in which she was; and he said to her, "Ha! dame, I had much rather you had been elsewhere than here; but you pray me such prayers that I dare not refuse you, and though it irks me much to do so, there! I give them up to you; do with them as you will." "Thanks, hearty thanks, my lord," said the good queen. Then she rose up and raised up the six burghers, had the ropes taken off their necks, and took them with her to her chamber, where she had fresh clothes and dinner brought to them. Afterwards she gave them six n.o.bles apiece, and had them led out of the host in all safety.

Edward was choleric and stern in his choler, but judicious and politic.

He had sense enough to comprehend the impressions exhibited around him and to take them into account. He had yielded to the free-spoken representations of Walter de Manny and to the soft entreaties of his royal wife. When he was master of Calais he did not suffer himself to be under any illusion as to the sentiments of the population he had conquered, and, without excluding the French from the town, he took great care to mingle with them an English population. He had allowed a free pa.s.sage to the poor Calaisians driven out by famine; he now fetched from London thirty-six burghers of position and three hundred others of inferior condition, with their wives and children, and he granted to the town thus depeopled and repeopled all such munic.i.p.al and commercial privileges as were likely to attract new inhabitants thither. But, at the same time, he felt what renown and importance a devotion like that of the six burghers of Calais could not fail to confer upon such men, and not only did he trouble himself to get them back to their own hearths, but on the 8th of October, 1347, two months after the surrender of Calais, he gave Eustace de St. Pierre a considerable pension "on account of the good services he was to render in the town by maintaining good order there," and he re-instated him, him and his heirs, in possession of the properties that had belonged to him. Eustace, more concerned for the interests of his own town than for those of France, and being more of a Calaisian burgher than a national patriot, showed no hesitation, for all that appears, in accepting this new fas.h.i.+on of serving his native city, for which he had shown himself so ready to die. He lived four years as a subject of the King of England. At his death, which happened in 1351, his heirs declared themselves faithful subjects of the King of France, and Edward confiscated away from them the possessions he had restored to their predecessor. Eustace de St. Pierre's cousin and comrade in devotion to their native town, John d'Aire, would not enter Calais again; his property was confiscated, and his house, the finest, it is said, in the town, was given by King Edward to Queen Philippa, who showed no more hesitation in accepting it than Eustace in serving his new king.

Long-lived delicacy of sentiment and conduct was rarer in those rough and rude times than heroic bursts of courage and devotion.

Philip of Valois tried to afford some consolation and supply some remedy for the misfortune of the Calaisians banished from their town. He secured to them exemption from certain imposts, no matter whither they removed, and the possession of all property and inheritances that might fall to them, and he promised to confer upon them all vacant offices which it might suit them to fill. But it was not in his gift to repair.

even superficially and in appearance, the evils he had not known how to prevent or combat to any purpose. The outset of his reign had been brilliant and prosperous; but his victory at Ca.s.sel over the Flemings brought more cry than wool. He had vanity enough to flaunt it rather than wit enough to turn it to account. He was a prince of courts, and tournaments, and trips, and galas, whether regal or plebeian; he was volatile, imprudent, haughty, and yet frivolous, brave without ability, and despotic without anything to show for it. The battle of Crecy and the loss of Calais were reverses from which he never even made a serious attempt to recover; he hastily concluded with Edward a truce, twice renewed, which served only to consolidate the victor's successes. A calamity of European extent came as an addition to the distresses of France. From 1347 to 1349 a frightful disease, brought from Egypt and Syria through the ports of Italy, and called the black plague or the plague of Florence, ravaged Western Europe, especially Provence and Languedoc, where it carried off, they say, two thirds of the inhabitants.

Machiavelli and Boccaccio have described with all the force of their genius the material and moral effects of this terrible plague. The court of France suffered particularly from it, and the famous object of Petrarch's tender sonnets, Laura de Noves, married to Hugh de Sade, fell a victim to it at Avignon. When the epidemic had well nigh disappeared, the survivors, men and women, princes and subjects, returned pa.s.sionately to their pleasures and their galas; to mortality, says a contemporary chronicler, succeeded a rage for marriage; and Philip of Valois himself, now fifty-eight years of age, took for his second wife Blanche of Navarre, who was only eighteen. She was a sister of that young King of Navarre, Charles II., who was soon to get the name of Charles the Bad, and to become so dangerous an enemy for Philip's successors. Seven months after his marriage, and on the 22d of August, 1350, Philip died at Nogent-le-Roi in the Haute-Marne, strictly enjoining his son John to maintain with vigor his well-ascertained right to the crown he wore, and leaving his people bowed down beneath a weight "of extortions so heavy that the like had never been seen in the kingdom of France."

Only one happy event distinguished the close of this reign. As early as 1343 Philip had treated, on a monetary basis, with Humbert II., Count and Dauphin of Vienness, for the cession of that beautiful province to the crown of France after the death of the then possessor. Humbert, an adventurous and fantastic prince, plunged, in 1346, into a crusade against the Turks, from which he returned in the followin