Chapter III: Part 3

Charles V. married Jane of Bourbon a princess of that youngest branch of the Capetiens which finally came to the throne. His nobles had made an earnest effort to have him instead of his brother Philip, marry Margaret of Flanders. Had he done so, Flanders, Artois and La Franche Comté would have fallen early to the French crown; and the history of the Valois dukes might have been as uninteresting as that of their predecessors the Robertines.

It shows of how little account the Bourbons were at that time, that the king’s marriage was looked upon as a sort of misalliance; and the duke of Bourbon Queen Jane’s brother was not admitted to a share in the government because his estates were not considered ample enough.

Charles-the-wise died after a reign of sixteen years during which he had found a remedy for all the misrule of his father except the alienation of Burgundy: that was beyond cure; but as Philip was always true to his brother and to France, it was not yet that the evil was apparent.

Charles was succeeded by his son Charles VI. who was but eleven years old; and duke Philip became regent. Philip’s two brothers were nominally joined with him in the regency; but they were unworthy scions of royalty, the one intent only on filling his pockets, the other on filling his belly; so that in effect the whole power rested with Philip. The duke of Bourbon the young king’s uncle again sought a share in the government, and was again denied. Such at the close of the fourteenth century, were the ancestors of Louis XIV. haughtiest of monarchs.

Duke Philip led the young monarch to Rheims to be crowned. He was to be knighted first, so the boy in obedience to the law of chivalry, sat up all night in the cathedral, watching his arms, ready to meet face to face the caitiff who should attempt to steal them. In the morning the sword Joyeuse, sword of Charlemagne, was girded to his loins. His uncle the duke of Anjou bestowed the accolade and pronounced him a belted knight. The archbishop of Rheims poured on his head oil from the sacred vase a dove had brought to Saint Rémi for the baptism of Clovis, and pronounced him an anointed king.

The attention of Philip was soon called to the affairs of his father-in-law Count Louis. Some years before, a brewer of Ghent named Jacob Van Artevelde had headed a sedition and erected himself into a sort of tribune of the people. Queen Philippa who was by birth a Fleming and liked to meddle with Flemish business, was his patron. Like a true politician she had deigned to stand godmother to the brewer’s son, and to have him named Philip after herself. The father Jacob Van Artevelde like his cotemporary Rienzi, was put to death by the populace he had sought to befriend; and this son now a man grown, was residing at Ghent a prosperous gentleman.

Philip Van Artevelde has been much apotheosised by English poets and dramatists: sober history hardly bears out the deification. Under a tranquil exterior he hid an eager and ruthless ambition which was only waiting its opportunity; and that opportunity was at hand. The inhabitants of Bruges had obtained from Count Louis permission to cut a canal to the Scheldt so as to go to sea that way. The citizens of Ghent remonstrated saying that themselves only had a right to go to sea by the Scheldt. The remonstrance proving fruitless they fitted out a band of ruffians who slew the men digging the canal. Count Louis sent a messenger to Ghent demanding reparation: they killed the messenger.

Thus far the case was not beyond adjustment: there were more men to dig canals; and the count had more messengers; but the Ghenters incontinently went to a length which put them out of the pale of forgiveness. Count Louis had just finished the beautiful castle of Vandelhem. All the resources of architecture and of art had been lavished upon it. It was his boast, his pride, his bawble. He confessed that he prized it beyond all else on earth. The Ghenters broke into Vandelhem and left it a ruin. War was inevitable.

The head mischief maker of Ghent was Peter Dubois called by the Dutch, Vandenbosche. He recalled to Van Artevelde the noble career of his father, and told him that the prestige of his name was all that was needed for the success of the revolt. He found a willing listener, but misled by the gentle manners of Van Artevelde, he expressed a fear that he might not be equal to the rough work, and dwelt on the necessity of showing no mercy to the Brugian faction. Van Artevelde assured him that if blood was all there should flow enough of it; and the two conspirators having come to an understanding, levied their troops.

Van Artevelde to get his hand in, cut the heads off of twelve burgesses of Ghent who had taken part against his father, and applied the same discipline to the syndic of the weavers who was in favor of law and order. Count Louis not to be outdone in barbarity, took the town of Grammont which favored the insurgents, and put to the sword men women and children. The bishop of Liége and the duke of Brabant interfered, and a conference was held. Two deputies of Ghent met two deputies of the count; and preliminaries were adjusted. When the Ghentian pacificators returned, Dubois and Van Artevelde met them at the town-hall. How dare you treat for peace! cried Dubois, and he ran his man through with his dagger, while Van Artevelde despatched the other.

The two chieftains now resolved on a master stroke, the capture of Bruges. Count Louis hastened to intercept them. His force was superior to theirs; but Van Artevelde made a stirring speech to his men showing them that victory was their only chance even for life. He seized a convent of monks and compelled them to confess the soldiers and administer the communion, and thus prepare them to fight to the death. They won the obstinate battle which followed and took Bruges. The count fled through the town, the enemy at his heels. He dodged down an obscure street and into an obscure lodging where a woman a true Brugian who hated the Ghenters, put him to bed in the garret with her children till the pursuit was over.

The count appealed for aid to his son-in-law duke Philip. The latter gentleman was not well pleased to see his wife’s patrimony wasted by brewers of beer, so he levied an army in France and marched into Flanders. The king who was now fourteen and whose blood was on fire at the sound of a trumpet, insisted on accompanying the expedition. They met the insurgents at Rosebeke near Ypres. Van Artevelde and Dubois flushed with their previous success, were confident of victory. Van Artevelde himself issued the order that no quarter be given. Slay every Frenchman, cried he, except the young king! Bring him to Ghent and we will teach him to speak Flemish.

But they had left out of their reckoning one factor which perhaps oftener than any other determines the fate of battle. Duke Philip though himself a good captain, was prudent enough not to trust to his own soldiership when better was at hand. He had put his army under the command of Oliver de Clisson constable of France, the worthy successor of Du Guesclin. The stubborn courage of the Netherlanders was of no avail against the skill with which De Clisson directed his legions; and at the close of a bloody day the men of Ghent were routed.

At night-fall as the king, the duke, the count and the constable were walking over the field of battle, picking their way among the slain, a dying soldier raised his arm and pointed to a heap of dead bodies close by. They dragged aside alternate Frenchman and Fleming till they came to all that remained of Philip Van Artevelde. He had died like a soldier where the fight was the hottest. Dubois escaped wounded to England.

Charles-the-wise when dying had counselled his brother of Burgundy to marry the young king to a German princess in order to strengthen alliance with the Empire. Stephen duke of Bavaria had a daughter named Isabella; and the duchess Margaret together with her friend and gossip the duchess of Brabant resolved to make the match. Isabella was fourteen. She was handsome enough, but she was an uncouth tomboy and dressed in a style that was anything but French. The duchess of Brabant took her in hand, and by much discipline of her own seconded by a French dancing-master and a French dressmaker, succeeded in breaking this romping Rhinelander into some semblance of polite behavior. She was presented to the king who was now seventeen. She knelt at his feet with perfect grace: he raised her up and made a common-place remark, and she said just the right thing in reply. She had been made to rehearse the whole scene beforehand, in the king’s absence. He was charmed with her beauty and her manners, and he fell in love with her and married her. She turned out to be a veritable Messalina and did what she could to add to the misfortunes of France.

Another notable marriage a year later, that is in 1387, was that of the king’s brother Louis duke of Orleans with his cousin Valentina daughter of Galeazzo Visconti lord of Milan. The Visconti were rich, and a million of florins went to the dowry of Valentina. This marriage too brought disaster a century later when the great-grandson of Louis and Valentina, in attempting to recover the patrimony of the Visconti, was led captive to Madrid.

The constable De Clisson, the victor of Rosebeke, had a bitter enemy in John de Montfort duke of Brittany. One night in Paris, De Clisson returning from an entertainment given by Louis and Valentina, was suddenly attacked and knocked senseless into the doorway of a baker’s shop. The baker dragged him in and sent for a surgeon. The king himself who was fond of the constable, came to see him. The blow was not fatal; and De Clisson had recognised his assailant. It was a well known myrmidon of the duke of Brittany. The king vowed vengeance. His uncle of Burgundy tried to pacify him and to persuade him to leave the matter to him; but the king was not to be pacified; and duke Philip was obliged to follow him into Brittany with an armed force.

It was the first week in August, and the heat was intense. The king in order to suffer less from the dust, was riding separate from the rest. Suddenly he wheeled his horse and crying out Death to the traitors! charged upon the nearest of his followers. They all scattered till one of them, a tall trooper, pounced on him from behind and pinioned him. He was stark mad; and during the rest of his long and calamitous reign his reason returned only at intervals.

The king’s malady arrested the expedition against De Montfort; and De Clisson who recovered from his wound, was left to be his own avenger. He was not slack about it; and if he was not so powerful as his adversary, he was the better soldier, so between them both they stirred up a civil war of such dimensions, that the duke of Burgundy who was again regent was obliged to interfere. Dame Margaret his duchess was related to the Montforts, so as he valued peace at his own fire-side he thought best to proceed with caution. He sent to his cousin of Brittany a few puncheons of the finest Burgundy wine, and followed himself with a retenue of archers and men-at-arms. De Montfort relished the wine more than he did the visitors: the latter looked suspiciously like an armament, and he promised to keep the peace.

The rest reads like romance and yet is history. De Clisson received from the duke of Brittany, from the man who had plotted his assassination, a message offering reconciliation, and inviting him to a personal interview. The constable was not to be caught with chaff. He answered that he would come provided the duke’s eldest son was put in his hands as a hostage. To his astonishment the boy, the heir of the Montforts, was sent to him. The meeting took place, and John de Montfort and Oliver de Clisson were friends ever after; and years later when the duke went to Paris to marry this boy to the king’s daughter, he left de Clisson in charge of his domains and his household.

These were the days of the _Great Schism_, the days of two rival popes Urban VI. and Clement VII. and the division of Christendom into two factions, the Urbanists and the Clementists. (See Captivity of Babylon.)

The king had displayed some excellent and even brilliant qualities; and his sudden insanity drew forth expressions of sympathy from all parts of Europe. As to its cause opinions differed. The clergy of England and Flanders who were Urbanists, preached that it was because the king upheld the schismatic pope of Avignon; the clergy of France and Spain who were Clementists, that it was because the king had not invaded Italy and deposed the schismatic pope of Rome. The laity were convinced that the king was bewitched, and they even pointed out the wicked persons who had done it. Among these was the duchess Valentina whom the king regarded with brotherly affection. The evidence against her was that she was an Italian: were not all the Italians sorcerers and necromancers? Hermits and other holy men far and near were summoned to exorcise the king and cast the devil out of him. One cross-grained philosopher, half ecclesiastic half physician, with a scepticism that did not belong to the fourteenth century, maintained that Charles was neither bewitched nor bedevilled; that the schism had nothing to do with it; that the clergy were a pack of fools and the people brute beasts; that it was simply a case of mental breaking-down from over excitement and dissipation. The Church had received such rough handling from Philip-the-fair, that it dared not interfere; and this sciolist was left to flaunt his unbelief in the faces of the devout.

The duke of Burgundy’s oldest son John, god-son of the pope, was now twenty-five. He was small of stature but well knit and vigorous and a good soldier. Burning for glory he led a detachment of French and Flemings to the aid of the king of Hungary against the Turk Bajazet. They were successful in a skirmish and took some prisoners. To these they offered the choice either to turn Christians or to be slain. A French monk was sent who exhorted them long and earnestly; but they did not understand French, and consequently gave no evidence of conviction and conversion: they were put to death accordingly. The battle of Nicopolis followed, where the Christians were totally defeated. John and some of his comrades were brought before Bajazet who reminded them of their cruelty to their own prisoners, and ordered the heads to be struck off of all except John and one or two others for whose ransom he expected large sums. Legend says that a soothsayer warned Bajazet not to kill John of Burgundy; that that Frankish prince was destined to be more fatal to his brother misbelievers than all the Turks in Asia Minor.

The duke when he heard of his son’s captivity, laid a tax on his dominions and sent the required ransom to Bajazet who dismissed John with the remark that whenever he chose to come again on the same errand, he might count on the same welcome.

Good and pious churchmen all over Europe had tried in vain to put an end to the strife between two rival pontiffs who missed no occasion to curse each other in all those awful formulas provided for the heretical and reprobate; and the secular powers had at last taken the matter up.

The king had had a long season of being rational; and the duke of Burgundy thought it a favorable time for a conference between the king and the emperor on the state of the schism. The duke as a Frenchman, leaned toward the see of Avignon, but he kept it to himself because Dame Margaret being a Fleming, was of the other persuasion. Rheims the capital of Champagne was chosen as the place of meeting. It was a bad choice as we shall see.

Wenceslas emperor of Germany was a reformer who believed in the high hand and the out-stretched arm. On one occasion suspecting the fidelity of his wife, he summoned her spiritual director, and commanded him to divulge what he had heard from her lips at the confessional. The priest refused. The emperor ordered him sewed up in a sack and thrown into the Moldau; and the empress had to look for another confessor. But the emperor had one failing: he was by spells convivial, and then he was sometimes as delirious as the king of France himself.

It was in the autumn of 1397 that these two high consulting parties arrived at Rheims. The emperor was followed by his landgraves, his margraves, his burgraves and other grave gentlemen who talked German together so gravely that you would have sworn they understood each other. The king escorted by the duke of Burgundy, came with equal splendor. Charles was beginning to show symptoms of returning wildness; but that only made him all the more bent on the interview. Wenceslas on his part, had so strengthened his mind with the delicious wines of Champagne that he was ready to deal with a score of schisms.

They met, they conferred, they argued, they disputed, they quarrelled, they shouted. They called each other schismatics, heretics, traitors, liars, thieves, assassins, till their respective attendants were fain to bear them bodily forth, the one raving drunk, the other raving crazy.

The imperial diet was so little satisfied with this reformer’s success at the conference, that they passed upon him a sentence of deposition. He appealed from the sentence; and it was agreed that the duke of Burgundy and the French Council of State should arbitrate. Wenceslas sent as his advocate John of Moravia the most learned doctor of laws in Europe, who delivered before the duke and council a speech several hours long in latin of which they understood not one word. The diet on its side, sent Stephen of Bavaria the queen’s father who took with him an adroit pettifogging lawyer who spoke French. It was natural that the arbitrators should lean toward the pleadings they comprehended, and they gave in their adherence to the action of the diet. Rupert, count Palatine was elected emperor in the place of Wenceslas.

The evil genius of France at this time, was the king’s brother Louis of Orleans the husband of Valentina. He was showy, accomplished and for a nobleman learned, but he was unprincipled. While squandering money in every extravagance he was in debt for the necessaries of life; and woe to the tradesman who dared present his bill! One day his horses ran away with him and nearly threw him into the Seine. In the imminent peril he made a vow to the Virgin that he would pay his debts. He called his creditors together, and after a touching address in which he ascribed the glory of his rescue to the Queen of Heaven, he dismissed them without their money.

His uncle of Burgundy had excluded him from the council of State; and he put forth all his resources which were considerable, to embarrass the public business. He protested against the approval of the diet, and raised fifteen hundred soldiers and marched or pretended to march to the aid of the fallen emperor. He threatened to go to deliver the pope who was held in a sort of honorable captivity in his palace at Avignon. During the absence of the duke in Flanders, Louis and his compeer in evil, Queen Isabella, seized the reins of government and filled Paris with their satellites. The duke came back with an armed force and bloodshed was threatened; but the two dukes came to a truce and appeared in the streets, riding side by side, to the relief of well-disposed people.

Duke Philip soon returned to Flanders, and while in apparent health he was attacked by a disease then prevalent and which was probably typhoid fever, and died in his castle of Hal, in April 1404, in his seventy-third year. Philip-the-bold was the first and best of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. If the French people were not happy under his administration, it was that happiness could not be their lot. Their country was desolated by the English wars, and war was uppermost in their minds. Even in intervals of peace they would have no peace; and military games not always bloodless were the amusement of all classes. On one occasion a challenge was received from the English pale, that seven French knights should meet seven English to fight à outrance, which means mortal combat. The challenge was accepted. The most noted of the French seven was Tanneguy du Châtel whom we shall meet again in a scene of bloodshed more important. (See Two Jaquelines.) The English knights had planned that at the onset, two of them at once should attack Du Châtel, and he done for they thought to have an easy bargain of the rest. This would of course leave for a moment one of the French champions without an antagonist, and they arranged that this floating warrior should be one they feared the least. This was an awkward gentleman from Champagne, of no great renown, who had been let into the French seven for his ponderous strength. When the signal was given, this unwieldy knight for want of something better, threw himself upon the stoutest of the English seven, and with a single blow laid him dead at his feet. The English could not overcome this disadvantage and were worsted. It is but just to say that the French chroniclers explain differently the defeat of the English. The French seven, before the fight, had heard mass and received the communion, while the English had neglected that precaution.

The king’s mental disorder grew worse. The worthless queen abandoned him on the plea that she was afraid of him, and he was often shamefully neglected. While the whole court was drinking the choicest wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux, the king was served with such abominable piquette, that he was often doubled up with the colic. It is true he was at times stubborn and violent. On one occasion he refused to wash his face and put on clean linen. Three stout fellows sprang in upon him and by main strength washed him and changed him.

The opinion that he was possessed was nearly universal, and means of casting out the evil spirit were not omitted. Three famous exorcists, a priest, a locksmith and a woman who had had much success in that branch of therapeutics, came to cure him. They took him out into a grove, and seated him in a magic chair. They planted around him twelve stakes to each of which was attached a chain, every seventh link of silver. Then they announced that twelve persons of repute must be fastened to the stakes by the neck. Such was the devotion to the monarch that knights, magistrates, burgesses all pressed to offer themselves. Twelve were chosen and with their faces toward the king were chained not tight enough to choke them but enough to give them a gruesome expression which would now be called weird. The incantation was in full blast when one of the twelve losing either faith or breath crossed himself. This broke the spell, and the king lapsed into a worse frenzy than ever.

In March 1405, Margaret countess of Flanders, double duchess dowager of Burgundy died, having survived her second Philip but eleven months. She seems to have been every way reputable and worthy except that she was imperious and domineering. Philip either from unswerving affection or because he knew what would be his portion at home if he did not behave, was always true to her, a virtue not much in vogue in those days. The contention between him and his nephew of Orleans, was fully shared by their wives; and the lofty airs of the Flemish dame were not put up with submissively by the high-spirited Italian: indeed those two august ladies at times so far forgot their augustness as to call each other names.

John-the-fearless was now duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders. In the French peerage, Burgundy was held to outrank Orleans, and John claimed to be first peer of the realm. His claim did not pass undisputed: Louis of Orleans was the king’s brother and in default of the king’s sons, might become king himself; and bitter as had been the feud between him and his uncle, that between him and his cousin, was so much more so that it was fated to destroy them both.

John and Louis mustered their respective forces and marched to Paris. The old duke of Berri uncle to both and to the king, brought about a truce. Then as troops were ready for any mischief, Louis proposed to lead their joint levies against the English provinces; and John consented in hopes that some honest Cockney or Gascon might knock him on the head.

A girl who was crazy and therefore considered inspired, told Louis that the expedition would succeed provided he kissed the head of Saint Denis before setting out. He was proceeding to the abbey of Saint Denis for that purpose when the canons of Notre Dame informed him that it was they who possessed the true head of the saint, and that the other was a fraud. The monks of the abbey retorted the charge of imposture; the canons answered back; and these two reverend bodies opened upon each other such a fire of abuse and recrimination that the king who happened to be rational, imposed silence on them both. In the uncertainty, Louis must have kissed the wrong head, for the expedition failed. It was now duke John’s turn; he made an attack upon Calais and was repulsed. On his return the quarrel between him and Louis broke out more fiercely than ever. Once more did their uncle of Berri interpose and bring them to partake of the communion together; but it was too late, the feud was mortal.

Louis was intimate with the queen and passed much of his time in her company. One night when he was supping with her, the message came that the king wished to see him. He mounted his mule and escorted by a few servants carrying torches, took his way toward the king’s lodgings. Suddenly he was attacked by armed men. Thinking there was some mistake he cried out I am the duke of Orleans! You are the man we want, was the response, and they struck him down and left him dead.

Even at that time when acts of violence were so common, the murder of the king’s brother in the streets of the capital, gave a shock to the court; and vigorous search was made for the assassins. Suspicion fell at first on the lord of Canny whose wife Louis had misled; but it was soon shown that Canny was many leagues away that night. Evidence at last pressed so close around John of Burgundy that he confessed the deed. He laid the blame to the devil who he said had put him up to it. At the same time he proclaimed the duke of Orleans a public enemy deservedly slain. He employed a Franciscan named John Petit renowned for his eloquence, to justify the act. The monk in an oration which has come down to us, and in which dates, events, personages, customs, creeds, epochs are jumbled together in matchless confusion, demonstrated that the taking off of Louis de Valois was the most righteous taking off since the day when Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.

Felon as he was, John was still popular with the Parisiens. He had a good deal of rough talent and many of the arts of the politician. Moreover he paid his debts, a rare virtue for a prince of the blood of those days. His father had died owing his butcher and his grocer and his tailor, and John had not hesitated to sell the furniture of his town palace the hotel Artois, to pay these tradesmen. They had not forgotten how his rival had served them on that solemn occasion when all the glory was ascribed to Our Lady; and they were not to blame if they preferred the man who paid to the man who did not.

Duke John married Margaret of Bavaria, and her brother William, Count of Hainault, married John’s sister Margaret. It was decreed that no Margaret should marry without bringing increased power to the house of Burgundy; and it was the nuptials of these two Margarets that made possible some years later, the violence and fraud which wrested Holland, Zealand, Hainault and other provinces from John’s niece Jaqueline, sole issue of the last named marriage. (See Two Jaquelines).

John’s wife Margaret had another brother, John of Bavaria, bishop of Liége, called John-the-pitiless, a riotous prelate and a cruel, whose riotings and whose cruelties were to be one more element of strength to the dukes of Burgundy. The town of Liége on the river Meuse, was a fief of the Empire, but was under ecclesiastical government. The chief magistrate was a bishop. The reigning diocesan at this time, was that disreputable brother-in-law of John-the-fearless. The inhabitants of Liége weary of his unclerical behavior, had driven him out of their territory. He besought his brother of Burgundy to reinstate him; and John, with an eye to acquiring that sort of predominance over both diocese and diocesan, which is now-a-days called a protectorate, levied his troops. The Liégeois prepared to receive him. The two armies met at Hasbain. The duke’s force was small but well disciplined. The Liégeois aided by five hundred English archers were the stronger, and so proud a front did they present, that the duke’s lieutenants warned him of the risk of a general engagement. What, cried he, have I come as far as this to quail before a rabble of tinkers and tailors! and he gave the signal for combat.

There is no doubt that John-the-fearless was in his element on the field of battle. He did not, as did his grandfather John-the-good, mount his charger and precipitate himself into the wrong place at the wrong moment; but astride an active little jennet, he flew from rank to rank, directing everything and inspiring everybody. The Liégeois charged in column upon his centre. His pikemen stood firm. He detached a body of cavalry which spurred into the flank of the advancing column, and it gave way.

Just before the battle John had confessed and received absolution and eucharist, so that his conscience was clear for a new score. He ordered that no quarter be given, and the conflict became a massacre. But few of the men of Liége escaped. Their leader a citizen named Pervez was found dead on the field, still holding by the hand, his son dead by his side.

The Liégeois were crushed, and their mitred but unregenerate suzerain was again set to reign over them. What with those who had perished in the massacre and those he threw directly after into the Meuse, it would seem that he had not many subjects left to govern.

In the articles of submission which the surviving few were compelled to sign, it was agreed that if they were again disobedient, they were to be laid under that awful discipline an interdict, provided there existed any authority competent to fulminate interdicts. The Schism comes up again to explain this curious proviso. The Council of Pisa was sitting to restore unity to the Church. They had declared the throne of Saint Peter to be one and indivisible; and they had declared it vacant in spite of the incumbent at Rome and the incumbent at Avignon. They had elected a new pope to that vacancy. The other two refused to abdicate, so there were three popes; and as each was himself under double interdict by the anathemas launched at him by his own rivals, it was doubtful whether a rescript from such maimed authority would be canonical. So paralysed was the Church that even her curses would no longer hold. The degree to which they recovered their validity when the Schism was healed, is a point of history that illustrates the saying that truth is stranger than fiction.

The news of the victory of Hasbain was not good news to the queen and the court who favored the Orleans faction, and were alarmed at the growing power of the duke of Burgundy. A council was held, and the king spirited away to Tours. An accidental delay of the duke, gave them time for this. He had stopped at Lille to settle a quarrel between his brother, Anthony and his brother-in-law William of Hainault, touching 50,000 florins left by the late duchess of Brabant. They were on the point of deciding by mortal combat which should have the money, when the duke came. I regret I cannot inform you which of them got the 50,000 florins.

The escape of the king from under his hand, was a serious loss to the duke who was aiming at supreme control; and on reaching Paris he bent all his diplomacy to recover possession of the monarch. He won over the grand master of the king’s household, a parvenu named Montague; and by his means Charles was brought back to the capital.

Montague by minding his own business, had grown wealthy; and as he was now of no further use to his new friends, they put him to torture, and made him confess a list of crimes he had never committed. They then cut off his head, gibbetted his carcass, and divided his estates among them, duke John getting the castle of Marcoussis for his share.

When the distracted king came slowly and mistily to a sense of the way his faithful steward had been done to death, and his wealth seized by his murderers, he was wroth. He wandered about the palace of Saint Paul muttering vengeance; but the queen who in the meantime had sold herself to the Burgundians, represented to him how unseemly it was for a parvenu like Montague to own castles; and Charles after a vain struggle to master the point, let it drop.

We propose incidentally to resume the history of the dukes of Burgundy in our essay on the Jaquelines.

EPILOGUE.

Madame de Sévigné said that Providence favors the best battalions. It was she who was the author of that remark, and not Frederick-the-great nor Napoleon nor others to whom it is attributed. It has not always proved true. Henry V., ablest of the Plantagenets, at the head of the best armies then existing, tried to wrest the sceptre of France from the palsied hand of Charles VI., and perished in the attempt. From the loins of that crazy monarch and his worse than crazy queen, came forth that House of Tudor which, by the ordeal of battle, displaced the Plantagenet on the throne of England.

Much bad logic and worse history has been put forth in good English, touching the claim of Edward III. to the throne of France. It is often said that Edward denied the validity of the salic law. He did nothing of the kind. His theory was that the salic law, while it excluded females, did not exclude their progeny, and he claimed the crown of France by right of his mother Isabella daughter of Philip-the-fair. But even this theory gave the right to somebody else, as Hume has shown, and as we propose to make visible to the naked eye.

Philip IV.=Joanna, queen regnant of Navarre
|
+------+---+--------------------------+
| | | |
Louis X. Philip V. Charles IV. Isabella.
| | | |
Joanna. Daughters. Daughter. Edward III.
|
Charles-the-bad, }
King of Navarre }

Edward’s theory would have given the crown of France to Charles-the-bad, grandson of Louis X. It went to Philip of Valois, Philip VI. by right of unbroken male descent from Hugh Capet, as it did long afterwards to the House of Bourbon.

Louis IX. Eighth in male line from Hugh Capet.
|
Philip III.
|
+--+--------------+
| |
Philip IV. Charles of Valois.
|
Philip VI.
|
John II.

Two Jaquelines

They were both Dutchwomen. They were contemporaries and lived in the fifteenth century. They both contributed, though unwittingly and by their love scrapes, to break the alliance between England and Burgundy, and thus to the salvation of the French monarchy. They were both of high lineage and married kings’ sons: one of them married two kings’ sons; and they both married commoners. One of them died without issue; the other by a misalliance with a simple knight, became the mother of a line of kings as long as that which Macbeth saw when the race of Banquo defiled before him. Indeed Macbeth on that dread occasion looked till he beheld those who “two fold balls and triple sceptres bore,” and those were of the generation of Jaqueline.

John-the-fearless, second of the four Valois dukes of Burgundy married Margaret of Bavaria. Her brother William of Bavaria was count of Hainault, lord of Holland, of Zealand, of Friesland and of nearly all the territory which now goes to make up the kingdom of the Netherlands. Now John having married William’s sister Margaret, William to be even with him, turned round and married John’s sister Margaret, Margaret of Valois, Margaret of Burgundy. These two princes having each married the other’s sister Margaret, were thus double brothers-in-law; and this close relationship did not breed any dissention between them: it was otherwise with their children who were, you perceive, double cousins. John and his Margaret were blest with one son and seven daughters. William and his Margaret had but one child, a daughter whom they christened Jaqueline. This lady is called by so many different names in history, that if you were not on your guard you might imagine there were half a dozen of them: Jaqueline of Bavaria, Jaqueline of Holland, Jaqueline of Hainault, Jaqueline of Brabant. Then the Dutch called her Jacoba; so some English writers affect to call her Jacoba, and ring the changes on it. But in spite of these manifold appellations she was but a sole and only child; and as the salic law did not rule in the low countries, she was a great heiress. Her situation was a repetition of that of her grandmother Margaret of Flanders except that the provinces they inherited respectively were different. (See Second House of Burgundy.)

The great expectations of Jaqueline entitled her to a distinguished husband, and when only five years old she was wedded to John of Touraine second son of Charles VI. The marriage was celebrated with much splendor at Compiegne, at the same time with that of prince John’s cousin the count of Angoulême who espoused Isabella, John’s sister, widow of Richard II. of England who had been murdered at Pomfret. It is said that the joy of these double nuptials was saddened by the tears of Isabella who wept aloud at having to give up the title of queen.

Not long after the marriage, John’s elder brother the dauphin died, and John himself became dauphin. Behold then our little Jaqueline in a fair way to become queen of France! But it was not to be: prince John died suddenly one day, and his death like all sudden death of exalted personages in those days, was attributed to poison. But the probability is that all the poison he took was what the doctors gave him in good faith, to cure him of a cold he had caught playing at tennis; and I may hold the case up to you as a warning either against tennis or the doctors as you prefer.

Jaqueline was eleven years old when her husband died. The same year, 1417, she lost also her father the count William. Thus from a great heiress she became a great potentate. She was of course too young to administer her own affairs; and they fell chiefly into the hand of her powerful uncle John-the-fearless. She was not only a great potentate but a stylish young widow, the best match in the market; and great was the scramble for her hand. Not a single princely fortune hunter in Europe but was dying of love for her.

After some years of widowhood, a family council was held, and it was determined that she should marry her cousin John duke of Brabant, son of Antony of Burgundy and Elizabeth of Luxembourg. Antony who was brother of John-the-fearless, had fallen at Agincourt. Jaqueline and the duke of Brabant being first cousins, a dispensation was of course necessary to their marriage; and they applied for one to the Roman pontiff Martin V. In the family council referred to, an active part had been taken by an uncle of Jaqueline on her father’s side, namely John-the-pitiless, bishop of Liége, whom we have already introduced to you in our paper on the House of Burgundy. He had approved of the betrothal, and had joined in the application to the pope; but he was secretly resolved to leave no stone unturned to seize his dead brother’s estates, the inheritance of Jaqueline; and indeed it is alleged that he was even manoeuvring to espouse her himself. He despatched furtively a messenger to the pope praying him to withhold the dispensation, or to revoke it if already granted, pleading that he had just discovered a flaw in his brother’s marriage with Margaret of Burgundy, that would render Jaqueline illegitimate. The dispensation was already on its way to Flanders; so the pontiff instantly put forth an annulment, and the one document arrived at the heels of the other. But when they came to unroll them they found that there was wanting to the revocation a bit of red tape and a leaden seal. In the great haste some functionary through whose hands it had passed, had neglected to attach those ornaments; and for the want of an ounce of lead, the annulment was of no weight, while the dispensation duly ballasted with that metal, was of force. The wedding party did not give the bishop time to have the error corrected, and the nuptials took place.

The bishop immediately levied ban and arrière ban and invaded the provinces of his niece. It was a favorable moment for him. Holland was convulsed with civil strife between two factions called the Fishhooks and the Codfish. The latter sided with the bishop, and the former with Jaqueline who flew in an undaunted manner to the rescue of her patrimony. The duke of Burgundy sent to the seat of war his son afterwards Philip-the-good; and that prince compelled both parties to lay down their arms. The duke then thought to pacify the bishop by investing him with the revenues of certain of his niece’s estates.

John-the-pitiless was bishop by brevet only. He had taken no orders higher than those of deacon, and therefore was not irrevocably a churchman. His plan to marry Jaqueline having failed, he fixed his eye on another bride. In order to carry out this fresh design upon the peace and tranquillity of the sex, he appealed to the pope for a decree of secularisation unfrocking him. The pope was compliant and the ex-bishop led to the altar, Elizabeth of Luxembourg relict of Anthony of Burgundy, mother of the duke of Brabant and mother-in-law of Jaqueline.

Jaqueline had been so busy fighting her demi-reverend uncle who had just assumed a nearer and dearer relationship to her, that she had given herself no time to see what sort of a husband she had married. She now took a good look at him and found that he was a puny, misshapen invalid, while her looking-glass and her friends told her that she had grown up into a handsome, wholesome, vigorous woman. They went to housekeeping however, and quarrelled like man and wife. One day while she was absent, her husband of Brabant took it upon him to dismiss all her Dutch hand-maidens, and send them back, bag and baggage, to Holland. The reason he gave for it was that they talked Dutch, a dialect he did not understand and did not commend. Jaqueline was not disposed to put up with this affront. She left him and went back to her mother who was residing at Valenciennes. She soon found life too dull there for a spirit as restless as hers, and planned an expedition to England. A retinue suitable to a princess of her rank was furnished her, and she crossed the channel.

England was at that time ruled by Henry V. the second king of the house of Lancaster. His queen was Catharine of France daughter of Charles VI., and sister of Jaqueline’s first husband prince John. Catharine was therefore her sister-in-law and her cousin. Henry was also related to her but more remotely through their common descent from Charles of Valois. Henry and Catharine received Jaqueline with great distinction, and invited her to stand godmother to their infant son afterwards the good and pious but unfortunate Henry VI.

In the family party assembled at the baptism, was the king’s youngest brother Humphrey duke of Gloucester, called by historians and by Shakspeare, the good duke of Gloucester. He looked wistfully across the font at his blooming Dutch cousin; and she, I am sorry to say, looked wistfully back at him. They fell in love and so desperately that they resolved that nothing should prevent their union, not even the crooked little duke of Brabant who was already the husband of Jaqueline. They applied to pope Martin to annul that marriage; and the pontiff usually so compliant, was obstinate in his refusal. We shall see by and by what was the cause of his obstinacy. But he was not the only pope. These were still the days of the Great Schism: a pope at Rome, and a pope at Avignon. To such a degree however, had the Eternal City regained its prestige, that at the epoch of our story, the greater number of the powers of Europe, had renounced the obedience of Avignon and gone over to that of Rome. Among the first that had done so, were the houses of Plantagenet and Bavaria, the houses to which our two lovers belonged. But to them the true pope was the pope who would let them marry. They had failed before Martin V., so they appealed from him to Benedict XIII. who sat in a kind of survival of grandeur on the throne of Avignon. Benedict, flattered that an English prince and a Flemish princess should abjure his rival and come over to him, granted a bull in due form annulling Jaqueline’s marriage with the duke of Brabant, and anathematising Martin V. Gloucester and Jaqueline were immediately united.

Leaving them to enjoy the honey-moon, we will go back and take a rapid survey of the events which gave political importance to their marriage.

One hot day in August 1392, Charles VI. had a sun-stroke and went crazy. The reins of government fell once more into the hands of his uncle Philip. (See House of Burgundy.) At the death of Philip a bitter contest for the supremacy broke out between his son John-the-fearless and Louis of Orleans, the king’s brother. This rivalry led to a desultory civil war interrupted by truces and pacifications during one of which, John-the-fearless thought to settle the dispute once for all, by a touch of his fearlessness. He assassinated his rival in the streets of Paris.

The stroke was to a great degree successful, and John duke of Burgundy was the greatest man in the realm. But the faction of Orleans though disorganised for the moment by the death of its chief, was not extinguished. The young duke son of the murdered man, had taken for his second wife the daughter of the count of Armagnac an energetic leader who put himself at the head of the Orleansists, and even gave them his name; and France was torn by the bloody strife between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs.

It was this state of things that tempted Henry V. of England to revive an absurd claim to the crown of France which had been trumped up as a pretext for plunder, by his great grandfather Edward III. Henry invaded France and won the battle of Agincourt. Both factions courted his alliance, each being more anxious to wreak vengeance on the other than to save their common country. Henry after some coquetting, sided with the Burgundians who were the stronger of the two, and held the north of France including the capital which they put into his hands. In that city he afterwards married Catharine daughter of Charles and Isabella, and was declared heir of the monarchy, in contempt of the rights of Catharine’s young brother the dauphin Charles. The demented king and his disreputable queen deserted the cause of their son and of France, and went over to the English. The dauphin himself was rescued from the clutches of his father and mother, by a bold stroke of Tanneguy du Châtel an Armagnac noble who broke into the boy’s lodging one night, snatched him out of bed, wrapped him up in his cloak, mounted his horse with him, and made good his escape; and Charles lived to recover his inheritance and more besides. The Armagnac faction thus became the party of the dauphin, the party of the nation and of the independence of France.

There were among the Burgundian barons some who remembered they were Frenchmen and who fought reluctantly on the side of England. These projected an interview between the dauphin and duke John, with a view of reconciling their differences, and uniting their arms against the common enemy. The meeting took place on the bridge of Montereau, and John-the-fearless was struck dead at the feet of the young prince. Thus did one foul murder avenge another murder equally foul committed twelve years before.

Some English writers inform you that John-the-fearless was assassinated by orders of the dauphin. Charles at that time was an indolent boy of sixteen; and he probably was not allowed to know that such an act was meditated. Indeed so impolitic was the murder that it is far from certain that there was any premeditation about it. It is much more likely that duke John fell a victim to a sudden outbreak of revenge on the part of nobles he had long pursued.

His son and successor Philip was in his twenty-third year. He is called in history Philip-the-good for reasons perhaps as satisfactory as in the case of his great grandfather king John II. He was good tempered however, and whenever his domestic servitors, his equerries and his chamberlains came to talk with him about household matters he received them affably instead of kicking them on the shins with his jack-boots as his sire had done, and as was indeed the style in those days.

Philip had married Charles’s sister Michelle of France; but he eagerly adopted the theory of his English counsellors, that Charles was the assassin; and he went home and exclaimed O Michelle your brother has murdered my father! The poor princess threw herself into his arms and declared that his enemies were her enemies, and the tragedy worked no breach between them.

But Philip thought of nothing but revenge. He sent an envoy to the English king offering a formal alliance with him for the destruction of the French monarchy. The _astonishing treaty_ as Hume calls it, by which this prince of the blood royal of France declared himself the enemy of his family, of his country and of that throne to which he was so nearly related that in the chapter of chances he might become its heir, is called the treaty of Troyes from Troyes in Champagne where it was signed.[8]