A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume II Part 11

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, Philip de Repenti by name, lost his head on the 19th of March, 1358, on the market-place, 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 25th of March, the dauphin succeeded in escaping, and repaired first of all to Senlis, and then to Provins, where he found the estates of Champagne eager to welcome him. Marcel at once sent to Provins 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 parley together, and sent to pray the regent to come and meet them. "My lord," said the Count de Braine to him in the name of the n.o.bility, "did you ever suffer any harm or villany at the hands of De 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 Braine, "we Champagnese 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt of them who had been the authors of the outrage.

The dauphin, with full trust in this manifestation and this promise, convoked at Compiegne, for the 4th of May, 1858, no longer the estates of Champagne only, but the states-general in their entirety, who, on separating at the close of their last session, had adjourned to the 1st 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 continuer of the Chronicle of William of Nangis, the most favorable 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 n.o.bles slain, did with one heart and one mind counsel the lord Charles, Duke of Normandy, to have the homicides 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 thereinto, 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 regent's 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 back word to Paris that the demand made at Compiegne 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 Compiegne, 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 friends.h.i.+p with the Parisians. But Provost Marcel and his accomplices, who were afeard 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 Compiegne or to Meaux, whither 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 n.o.ble comrades were so ardently desirous of re-entering, and being minded to put 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 a 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 15th of June, by the Parisians, to the great indignation of the prince-regent, his friends, and many others.

The n.o.bles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to ride about in the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a sortie 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. At sight hereof the Parisians suspected that this king, who was himself a n.o.ble, 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 sore 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 ma.s.sacred 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 even 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 Nangis, the least declamatory and the least confused of all the chroniclers of that period: "In this same year 1358," says he, "in the summer [the first rising took place on the 28th of May], the peasants in the neighborhood of St. Loup de Cerent and Clermont, in the diocese of Beauvais, took up arms against the n.o.bles of France. They a.s.sembled in great numbers, set at their head a certain peasant named William Karle [or Cale, or Callet], of more intelligence than the rest, and marching by companies under their own flag, roamed over the country, slaying and ma.s.sacring all the n.o.bles they met, even their own lords. Not content with that, they demolished the houses and castles of the n.o.bles; and, what is still more deplorable, they villanously put to death the n.o.ble dames and little children who fell into their hands; and afterwards they strutted about, they and their wives, bedizened 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 Ermenonville, where they put to death a mult.i.tude of men and dames of n.o.ble family who had taken refuge there. For some time the n.o.bles no longer went about as before; none of them durst set a foot outside the fortified places."

Jacquery had taken the form of a fit of demagogic fury, and the Jacks [or Goodfellows] swarming out of their hovels were the terror of the castles.

Had Marcel provoked this b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Beauvaisis and Champagne, and other districts, against the n.o.bles of the said kingdom; whence 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 a.s.sistance of the peasants who were besieging the castle of Ermenonville. 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 inc.u.mbent on them to prevent or repress.

The reaction against Jaequery was speedy and shockingly b.l.o.o.d.y. The n.o.bles, the dauphin, and the King of Navarre, a prince and a n.o.ble at the same time that he was a scoundrel, made common cause against the Goodfellows, who were the more disorderly in proportion as they had become more numerous, and believed themselves more invincible. The ascendency of the masters over the rebels was soon too strong for resistance. At Meaux, of which the Goodfellows had obtained possession, they were surprised and ma.s.sacred to the number, it is said, of seven thousand, with the town burning about their ears. In Beauvaisis, the King of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their chieftain, William Karle or Callet, 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 Goodfellows a.s.sembled near Montdidier, 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 Nangis, so justly severe on the outrages and barbarities of the insurgent peasants, is not less so on those of their conquerors. "The n.o.bles of France," he says, "committed at that time such ravages in the district of Meaux 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 n.o.bles 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 Froissart, "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 negotiation 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 Valois and the Plantagenets together, and to become King of France himself, as a descendant, in his own person, of St. 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 defence 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 ma.s.sacred by the people; and four hundred others, it is 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 St. Denis and St. Cloud. The Parisians were beaten; and the King of Navarre withdrew to St. Denis. On the 27th of July, Marcel boldly resolved to set at liberty and send over to him the four hundred English imprisoned in the Louvre. He had them let out, accordingly, and himself escorted them as far as the gate St. Honore, 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 aught 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 chronicle, there was not a man who durst commence 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 favor. Men of note, who were lately Marcel's comrades, were now p.r.o.nouncing against him; and John Maillart, one of the four chosen captains of the munic.i.p.al forces, was the most vigilant. Marcel, at his wit's end, made an offer to the King of Navarre to deliver Paris up 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 St. Denis gate, but Maillart opposed him, rushed to the Hotel de Ville, seized the banner of France, jumped on horseback and rode through the city shouting, "Mountjoy St. Denis, 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, Maillart came up "with torches and lanterns and a numerous a.s.semblage. He went straight to the provost and said to him, 'Stephen, Stephen, what do you here 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 G.o.d,' rejoined Maillart, '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.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: "In his Hands the Keys of the Gates."----354]

'You lie, John,' said Marcel. 'By G.o.d, you traitor, 'tis you who lie,'

replied Maillart: '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. Maillart plied his battle-axe upon Marcel, who fell pierced with many wounds. Six of his comrades shared the same fate; and Robert Lecocq, Bishop of Laon, saved himself by putting on a Cordelier's habit. Maillart's company divided themselves into several bands, and spread themselves all over the city, carrying the news everywhere, and despatching or arresting the partisans of Marcel. The next morning, the 1st of August, 1358, "John Maillart brought together in the market-place the greater part of the community of Paris, explained for what reason he had slain the provost of tradesmen and in what offence 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 des Beoliers, on the very spot where, by his orders, the corpses of the two marshals, Robert de Clermont and John de Conflans, 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 prud'hommes of Paris, and executed by divers 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 traitors 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 burgher of Paris and quite a new man, entered the a.s.sembly of the states-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 subst.i.tute for the kings.h.i.+p and its agents the people and their elect. For more than three centuries the kings.h.i.+p had been the form of power which had naturally a.s.sumed shape and development in France, whilst seconding the natural labor attending the formation and development of the French nation; but this labor 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 states-general of the fourteenth century to bring to pa.s.s 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 kings.h.i.+p. Being reduced to depend entirely during this struggle upon such strength as could be supplied by a munic.i.p.al 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 scoundrelly 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 burgher of Paris, John Maillart, stopped him, and put him to death at the very moment when the patriot of the states-general of 1355 was about to become a traitor to his country.

Hardly thirteen years before, when Stephen Marcel was already a full-grown man, the great Flemish burgher, James Van Artevelde, 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 won for France by the states-general of the fourteenth century, namely, the principle of the nation's right to intervene in their own affairs, and to set their government 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 states-general had been hardly anything more than a temporary expedient employed by the kings.h.i.+p itself to solve some special question, or to escape from some grave embarra.s.sment. Starting from King John, the states-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 states-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.

CHAPTER XXII.----THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.--CHARLES V.

So soon as Marcel and three of his chief confidants had been put to death at the St. Anthony gate, at the very moment when they were about to open it to the English, John Maillart had information sent to the regent, at that time at Charenton, with an urgent entreaty that he would come back to Paris without delay. "The news, at once spread abroad through the city, was received with noisy joy there, and the red caps, 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 Chatelet, 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 2d of August, 1358, in the evening, the dauphin, Charles, re-entered Paris, and was accompanied by John Maillart, who "was mightily in his grace and love." On his way a man cried out, "By G.o.d, sir, if I had been listened to, you would never have 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 Pisan, "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 trades-men were repressed with severity, and John Maillart and his family were loaded with gifts and favors. On becoming king, Charles determined himself to hold his son at the baptismal font; but Robert Lecocq, Bishop of Laon, 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; Marcels widow even recovered a portion of his property; and as early as the 10th of August, 1358, Charles published an amnesty, from which he excepted 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 Jacquery, "whether by n.o.bles or ign.o.bles." 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 recommence 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 round him the populations aweary of war and anarchy; negotiations were opened between the two princes; and their agents 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 councillors.

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 especial 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 G.o.d, who doth blow where He listeth, and doth accomplish in a moment that which men with their own sole intelligence have nor wit nor power to do in a long while. The town of Melun was restored to the lord duke; the navigation of the river once more became free up stream 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 Navarre 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 Poitiers to the death of Stephen Marcel (from the 19th of September, 1356, to the 1st 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 galas 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 pa.s.sed 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 Froissart, "all the highest barons of Gascony, and told them that he had made up his mind to go to England, whither he would take some of them, leaving the rest in the country of Bordelais and Gascony, to keep the land and the frontiers against the French. When the Gaseous 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, 'Dear sir, we owe you, 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 G.o.d, 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 sirs, 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 Gascons, until a means thereto was found by Sir Reginald de Cobham and Sir John Chandos; for they knew the Gascons to be very covetous. So they said to the prince, 'Sir, offer them a sum of florins, and you will see them come down to your demands.' The prince offered them sixty thousand florins; 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 to sea 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 Froissart, and on the 12th 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 thereat, and gave orders to the burgesses of London to get themselves ready in as splendid fas.h.i.+on as was beseeming 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 herald-at-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 accoutred 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 Froissart, "to hawk, hunt, disport himself, and take his pastime 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 honor only." Chandos's poet adds, "Many a dame and many a damsel, right amiable, gay, and lovely, came to dance there, to sing, and to cause great galas and jousts, 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 wont 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 cession of the western half of France, from Calais to Bayonne, 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 M. Picot, in his work concerning the History of the States-General, which was crowned in 1869 by the _Academie 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, n.o.bles, 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 the roads were blocked by the English and the Navarrese, who occupied fortresses in all parts whereby it was possible to get to Paris." The a.s.sembly 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 mult.i.tude filled the court-yard. In presence of all the people, William de Dormans, 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 2d of June, the n.o.bles 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 counselled 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 recommencing the war; but before engaging in it he had King John removed from Windsor to Hertford Castle, and thence to Somerton, 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 Rheims, which he was in hopes of surprising, and where, it is said, he purposed 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 Chalons, where the same disappointment awaited him. Pa.s.sing 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 Auvergne, Queen of France, second wife of King John, and guardian of the young Duke of Burgundy, Philip de Rouvre, 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 the 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-weight, at this same time, another province, Picardy, aided by many Normans and Flemings, its neighbors, "n.o.bles, burgesses, and common-folk," was sending to sea an expedition which was going to try, with G.o.d'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, G.o.d-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 honor and boasting of divine succor! The Picard expedition landed in England on the 14th 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 Winchelsea, after which it put to sea again, and returned to its hearths." (_The Continuer of William of Nangis,_ t. ii. p. 298.)

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 Froissart, "that he would tan and hide in such sort that they would be glad to come to some 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 Montrouge, 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 a 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. Foreseeing 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 St.

Germain, St. Marcel, and Notre-Dame-des-Champs; he turned a deaf ear to all King Edward's warlike challenges; and some attempts at an a.s.sault 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 aught to eat," withdrew from Paris by the Chartres road, declaring his purpose of entering the good country of Beauce, where he would recruit himself all the summer,"

and whence 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 Froissart, "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 G.o.d, sent as a warning, and that G.o.d 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 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 honor; 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, legates of Pope Innocent VI., warmly seconded them; and negotiations were opened at the hamlet of Bretigny, close to Chartres.

"The King of England was a hard nut to crack," says Froissart; he yielded a little, however, and on the 8th of May, 1360, was concluded the treaty of Bretigny, a peace disastrous indeed, but become necessary. Aquitaine ceased to be a French fief, and was exalted, in the King of England's interest, to an independent sovereignty, together with the provinces attached to Poitou, Saintonge, Aunis, Agenois, Perigord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, Angoumois, and Rouergue. The King of England, on his side, gave up completely to the King of France Normandy, Maine, and the portion of Touraine 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 golden crowns, payable in six years, and John Galeas Visconti, Duke of Milan, paid the first instalment of it (six hundred thousand florins) as the price of his marriage with Isabel 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 ceded to the King of England had great difficulty in resigning themselves to it. "In Poitou, and in all the district of Saintonge," says Froissart, "great was the displeasure of barons, knights, and good towns when they had to be English. The town of La Roch.e.l.le was especially unwilling to agree thereto; it is wonderful what sweet and piteous words they wrote, again and again, to the King of France, begging him, for G.o.d'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 pa.s.s into the hands of the English. And when they saw that neither excuses, nor remonstrances, 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 [_per d.a.m.na, per caedes ab ipso Duxit opes animumque ferro_], 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 Bretigny, the King of England returned on the 18th of May, 1360, to London; and, on the 8th 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 Froissart, "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, bareheaded." 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 instalment of his royal father's ransom. Payment having been made, the two kings solemnly ratified at Calais the treaty of Britigny. Two sons of King John, the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Berry, with several other personages of consideration, princes of the blood, barons, and burgesses of the princ.i.p.al 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 precarious as ever. The work of pacification having been thus accomplished, King John departed on foot for Boulogne, where he was awaited by the dauphin, his son, and where the Prince of Wales and his two brothers, like-wise on foot, came and joined him. All these princes pa.s.sed two days together at Boulogne in religious ceremonies and joyous galas; 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 Froissart, "by all manner of folk, for he had been much desired there. Rich presents 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 counsels 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 disbursing, 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 kings.h.i.+p even more evils and disasters than those which had made the treaty of Bretigny a necessity. In 1362, the young Duke of Burgundy, Philip de Louvre, the last of the first house of the Dukes 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 23d of December, 1362, to Dijon, swore on the altar of St. Benignus that he would maintain the privileges of the city and of the province, and, nine months after, on the 6th of September, 1363, disposed of the duchy of Burgundy in the following terms: "Recalling again to memory the excellent and praise-worthy 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 Poitiers . . . 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 proprietors.h.i.+p . . .

for the which gift our said son hath done us homage as duke and premier peer of France." Thus was founded that second house of the Dukes 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 Bretigny, had broken his word of honor and escaped from England, in order to go and join his wife at Guise Castle.

Knightly 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 councillors, a.s.sembled 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, honor, 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 Nangis, "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 amus.e.m.e.nts were the favorite subject of King John's meditations. This time he found in England something else besides galas; he before long fell seriously ill, "which mightily disconcerted 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 Froissart, "for the honor 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 V. a practical and an effective king.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles V.----371]

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, committed 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 Argenteuil, for example, where there were wont to be numbered seven hundred 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. Let it suffice to quote one instance. "In Beauce, on the Orleans and Chartres side, some brigands and prowlers, with hostile intent, dressed as pig-dealers or cow-drivers, came to the little castle of Murs, close to Corbeil, 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 rumor 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 a.s.sault, they fell back on Corbeil, and then themselves set to ravaging the country, taking away from the farm-houses provisions and wine without paying a dolt, and carrying them off to Corbeil 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.

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 Nangis, "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 (Jack Goodfellows), as they are called. There is a place pretty well fortified in a little town named Longueil, not far from Compiegne, in the diocese of Beauvais, and near to the banks of the Oise. This place is close to the monastery of St. Corneille-de-Compiegne. 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 a- Larks (aux Alouettes). He had for servant, and held as with bit and bridle, a certain peasant of lofty stature, marvellous bodily strength, and equal boldness, who had joined to these advantages an extreme modesty: he was called _Big Ferre_. 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 labor 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 open. 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 a-Larks, 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 a mortal wound. At sight hereof, those of his folk who were still in the courts, with Big Ferre at their head, said one to 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 thres.h.i.+ng-floor; their arms went up and down again, and every blow dealt out a deadly wound. Big Ferre, 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 axe, he dealt about him deadly blows, insomuch that in front of him the place was soon a void; he felled 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 hand slain eighteen of them, without counting the wounded; and at this sight 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 Ferre, advancing to the spot where the English had planted their flag, took it, killed the bearer, and told one of his own fellows to go and hurl it into a ditch where the wall was as not yet finished. 'I cannot,' said the other, 'there are still so many English yonder.' 'Follow me with the flag,' said Big Ferre; and marching in front, and laying about him right and left with his axe, 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 G.o.d and Big Ferre, who, with his own hand, as 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 a-Larks, 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."