The King Without a Kingdom (13 page)

This should have been the time for King John to show tolerance and present himself in a good light. But that man always chooses to act against the grain. He chose sabre-rattling; he prepared himself for war, ready to rush upon an absent enemy; and, racing to Caen, he commanded that all of his son-in-law’s Norman castles be seized, save Évreux. A fine campaign indeed, which, for want of an enemy, quickly turned into a campaign of feasting, and this greatly upset the Normans who watched the royal archers pillage their salting-rooms and larders.

Meanwhile, the Navarrese king quietly raised an army in his native Navarre, while his brother-in-law, the Count of Foix, Phoebus … I will tell you about him another day; that one is no mean lord … went to wreak havoc in the County of Armagnac just to be a nuisance to the King of France.

Having waited until summer so that they might take to the seas with the least possible risk, our young Charles landed in Cherbourg on a fine August day, accompanied by two thousand men.

And John II was flabbergasted to learn that at the same time, the Prince of Wales, who in April had been made Prince of Aquitaine and Lieutenant of the King of England in Guyenne, had boarded five thousand warriors onto his ships and was headed full sail for Bordeaux. And even though it was summer they had to wait for favourable winds. Ah! At least King John’s informants were doing their jobs! We in Avignon saw this well-planned two-pronged attack looming up over the water, aiming to catch France in a pincer movement. At one point the imminent arrival of King Edward himself was announced, he was scheduled to have landed already in Jersey, only the storm forced him back to Portsmouth. We can safely say that it was the wind, and nothing else, that saved France last year.

Being unable to fight on three fronts simultaneously, King John chose to defend none at all. Once more he headed for Caen, but this time to negotiate. Travelling with him were his two cousins from Bourbon, Pierre and Jacques, as well as Robert of Lorris, recently returned to favour as I explained. But Charles of Navarre didn’t come. He sent Messires of Lor and of Couillarville, two of his lords, to negotiate on his behalf. King John had no choice but to depart, and the two Bourbons were left behind, with instructions to come to an agreement as quickly as possible.

This was concluded at Valognes on the tenth of September. Charles of Navarre recovered all that had been acknowledged to him in the Treaty of Mantes, and a little more into the bargain.

And two weeks later, at the Louvre, another ceremonious reconciliation took place between king and son-in-law, in the presence of course of the Widowed Queens, Madame Joan and Madame Blanche … ‘Sire my cousin, here is our nephew and brother that we beg you for our sakes …’ And the king’s arms were opened wide, and he kissed while longing to bite the Navarrese cheeks, and forgiveness and faithful friendship were sworn …

Ah! I am forgetting a detail which in fact has every importance. John II had, in order to reassure the escort of honour for the King of Navarre, dispatched his son, the Dauphin Charles, newly appointed Lieutenant General in Normandy, to go and meet him. From Vaudreuil on the Eure River, where they spent four days, all the way to Paris, the brothers-in-law travelled together. It was the first time that they had seen each other for such a long time, they got to know each other again, riding, conversing, dawdling, dining and sleeping side by side. Monseigneur the dauphin is the exact opposite of the Navarrese, as long as the other is brief, as slow as the other is quick, as quiet as the other is talkative. And with that, six years younger, and no precocity in anything at all. In addition, the dauphin is afflicted with a condition that, strictly speaking, would seem to be an infirmity; his right hand swells and becomes purple whenever he tries to lift a heavy weight or hold on to an object tightly. He is unable to wield a sword. His father and his mother begot him very early, and at a time when they were both recovering from illness; and the fruit showed the signs.

But you mustn’t conclude that from all this, as do certain people rather too hastily, beginning with King John himself, that the dauphin is an idiot and would make a bad king. I took great care to study his birth charts … the twenty-first of January 1338 … The Sun is still in Capricorn, just before entering Aquarius … those born in Capricorn triumph late in life, but they triumph nonetheless, as long as they possess intelligence. Winter plants grow slowly … I am willing to wager on that prince over many others who offer a better aspect. If he gets through the dangers that threaten him in these critical times … he has already overcome a good many; but the worst is yet to come … he will know how to make himself heard in government. But it has to be said that his appearance doesn’t work in his favour …

Ah! And now the wind is driving the showers in gusts. Undo the silk ties that hold the curtains, would you, Archambaud. It is better to continue to chat in darkness than to get wet. And we will thus muffle the splashing of the horses’ hooves that will end up deafening us. And tell Brunet, this evening, to fit my palanquin with oilskins under the coloured cloth. It is a bit heavier for the horses, I know. We will change them more often …

Yes, I was telling you that I can imagine only too well how Monseigneur of Navarre, during the trip from Vaudreuil to Paris … Vaudreuil benefits from one of the finest situations in all Normandy; King John wanted to make it one of his residences; they say that the palace he had built there is a wonder; I myself have never seen it, but I know that it cost the Treasury a fortune; there are pictures painted on the walls in pure gold … I can imagine how Monseigneur Charles of Navarre, with all his eloquence and the ease with which he professes friendship, must have applied himself to winning over Dauphin Charles of France. Young people like to model themselves on others. And for the dauphin, what an amiable companion, his elder by six years, who was already so well travelled, had seen and done so much, and who told so many secrets and entertained him with his gibing at those surrounding his father at court … ‘Your father, our sire, must have painted a very different picture of me than I really am … Let’s be allies, let’s be friends, let us truly be the brothers that we are.’ The dauphin, most pleased to find himself appreciated by a relative much further advanced in life than he, already reigning and yet so agreeable, was easily taken in.

This rapprochement was not without consequence for future developments, and contributed heavily to the misadventures and confrontations that were to take place.

But I can hear the escort drawing in, preparing to parade. Pull back the curtain a little … Yes, I can see the outskirts of the town. We are entering Châteauroux. We won’t have much of a welcoming committee. Only a truly great Christian, or truly inquisitive, would get soaked in this heavy rain for the sole purpose of watching a cardinal’s palanquin go past.

T
HESE ROADS OF
Berry have always had a bad reputation. But I see that the war has hardly improved them … Hey! Brunet, La Rue! Slow down, by the grace of God. I know full well that everyone is in a hurry to reach Bourges. But it is no reason to rattle my bones in this crate. Stop, stop right here! And stop the front-runners too. All right … no, it is not at all my horses’ fault. You are all to blame, you who push your mounts as if you had burning tow on your saddles … Now let us start off again, and may you be mindful, I beseech you, of driving me at a cardinal’s pace. Otherwise I will oblige you to fill in the ruts before me.

They would break my bones, these wicked devils, to get to bed an hour earlier! At last the rain has stopped … Look, Archambaud, another scorched hamlet. The English came to romp as far as the outskirts of Bourges, where they proceeded to set fire to the city, and they even sent on a party that showed up at the walls of Nevers.

You see, I don’t hold it against the Welsh archers, Irish coutiliers and other such bawdy fellows that the Prince of Wales employs to this end. They are miserable souls before whom he dangled the promise of fortune. They are poor, ignorant, and are led with an iron hand. War for them means ransack, pillaging and wasteful destruction. At the first sight of them the villagers flee, screaming, ‘The English, the English, God help us!’, children in their arms. How villains enjoy scaring villeins! They feel their strength. They feed it, they eat poultry and fattened pork every day; they broach all the barrels they can find to quench their thirst, and what they are not able to eat or drink, they spoil before leaving. Mounting stolen horses, they seek out and slit the throats of anything that lows or bleats in cowsheds or along the roadside. And then, drunk and demon-faced, black-handed, laughing, they hurl their lit torches onto the haystacks and barns and anything else they can burn. Ah! What good fun it must be for this army of drunkards and churls to obey such orders! They are like wicked children invited to do wrong.

And I don’t even blame the English knights. After all, they are far from home; they were called up to go to war. And the Black Prince sets a fine example, pillaging the most beautiful objects brought to him, in gold, ivory and silver, the most beautiful fabrics, to fill up his carts or to present to his captains. He strips innocents bare of all their belongings in order to gratify his friends, therein lies the greatness of that man.

No, those for whom I wish a truly horrible death and damnation for eternity roasting in Gehenna … yes, yes, good Christian that I am … are the knights of Gascony, Aquitaine, Poitou, and even certain of our lesser nobles in Périgord, who prefer to follow the English duke over and above their French king, and who occupy themselves laying their own country to waste, through a taste for plundering or by sheer evil pride, or through jealousy of their neighbour, or because they have failed to digest some travesty of justice. No, those men, I pray to God, may He forgive them not.

There is only one thing to be said in their defence; they had been subjected to the foolishness of King John, who hardly showed he was the man to lead them, always raising his banners too late and stubbornly sending them where the enemy was no longer. Ah! What a scandal it is that God should allow such a disappointing prince into this world!

Why then did he consent to the Treaty of Valognes that I conversed with you about yesterday, and receive another terrible kiss of Judas from his son-in-law of Navarre? Simply because Prince Edward of England’s army had set sail for Bordeaux and he was filled with dread. Now common sense would have it that, having freed his hands on the Norman front, he would be heading full tilt for Aquitaine. One doesn’t need to be a cardinal to figure that one out. But no. Our pathetic king dawdled, issuing important-sounding orders for the tiniest of things. He let the Prince of Wales land on the Gironde and make his triumphant entry into Bordeaux. He knew, from reports of spies and travellers, that the prince was preparing his troops, swelling their number with Gascons and Poitevins … those whom I was telling you earlier I hold in little esteem. Everything thus indicated that a tough expedition should be urgently under way. And another would have swept down like an eagle to defend his kingdom and his subjects. But this paragon of chivalry didn’t move an inch.

It has to be said that he had financial troubles at the time, at the end of September last year, even more than usual. And it was precisely then, while Prince Edward was equipping his troops, that King John announced he would have to defer payment of his debts and officers’ wages by six months.

It is often when a king is short of money that he sends his people to war. ‘Be victorious and you will make yourselves rich! Claim your spoils, demand your ransoms …’ King John preferred to let the Englishman ruin the southern part of his kingdom and himself be further impoverished.

Ah! The
chevauchée
was good and easy for the Prince of England! He took just one month to lead his army from the banks of the Garonne down to Narbonne and the coast, delighting in shaking Toulouse to its foundations, burning Carcassonne, devastating Béziers. He left behind him a long swathe of fear, and earned himself quite a reputation at little personal expense.

His art of war is simple, and our Périgord suffered greatly this year from his tactics; he attacks only that which is undefended. He sends a vanguard well ahead to scout out the route and reconnoitre the villages and castles. Those that are securely held he bypasses. As for the others, he sends in heavy corps of knights and men-at-arms that swoop down on towns and villages with a roar worthy of doomsday, scattering the inhabitants, crushing against the walls those who are not fast enough, while their lances and maces pierce and batter to death whosoever should in panic offer themselves as targets; then they head off in different directions for the neighbouring hamlets, manors or monasteries.

Then come the archers, who grab supplies, subsistence enough for the army to live on, and loot the houses before setting fire to them; then the coutiliers and the batmen who pile up the spoils in their carts and finish off the dirty work of burning the place down.