The Royal Succession (6 page)

Philippe of Poitiers had several interviews with Cardinal Dueze, who seemed to him much the most intelligent member of the Conclave, at once the most lucid and the most imaginative expert in religious matters, and the most desirable administrator for Christendom in these difficult times.

`Heresy is flourishing everywhere, Monseigneur,' said the Cardinal in his cracked, disquieting voice. `And how could it be otherwise with the example we give? The Devil takes advantage of our discord to sow his tares. But it is above all in the diocese of Toulouse that, they flourish the most vigorously. It is an old land
of rebellion and nightmare! The next pope should divide that too-extensive diocese, so difficult to govern, into five bishoprics, placed in firm hands.'

`Which would create a number of new benefices,' replied the Count of Poitiers, `from which, of course, the Treasury of France would receive the annates. You see no objection to that?'

`None.'

The first year's revenues from new ecclesiastical benefices were called 'annates', which the King had a right to collect. The absence of a pope prevented appointments being made to these benefices, which was a considerable loss to the Treasu
ry, without taking into account
the near-impossibility of collecting the arrears of taxes from the Church, while the clergy too
k advantage of the situation to
raise every kind of difficulty which could not be resolved so long as the throne; of Saint Peter was vacant. And indeed, when Philippe and Dueze considered the future, one as Regent, the other as eventual Pontiff, finance was the first concern of both.

Owing to the feudal rebellions, the revolt of the Flemings, the insurrection of the nobles of Artois and the brilliant inspirations of Charles of Valois, the Royal Treasury was not only empty, but indebted for several years to come.

The Papal Treasury, after two years of errant conclave, was in no better state; and if the cardinals sold themselves dearly to the princes of this world, it was because many of them no longer had any means of subsistence other than bartering their votes.

`Fines, Monseigneur, fines,' Dueze counselled the young Regent. `Fine those who have misbehaved, and the richer they are, the more heavily. If someone should break the law who has a hundred livres, take twenty; if he has a thousand, take five hundred; and should he have a hundred thousand, take practically all that he has. You'll find that this policy has three advantages: in the first place, the yield will be the greater; in the second, deprived of his power, the malefactor will no longer be able to abuse it; and, finally, the poor, of whom there are great numbers, will be on your side and place confidence in your justice.'

Philippe of Poitiers smiled.

`What you so wisely suggest, Monseigneur, may be most suitable to royal justice which is a secular arm,' he replied, `but in order to restore the finances of the Church, I do not see ...'

`Fines, fines,' repeated Dueze. `Let us place a tax on sin; it will be an inexhaustible source of revenue. Man is sinful by nature,
but more disposed to penitence of the heart than of the purse. He will regret his sins the more keenly and be the more hesitant to relapse into error, if our absolutions are accompanied by a tax. Whoever wishes to reform must pay for the privilege.'

`Is he joking?' thought Poitiers who, as he saw more of Dueze, was discovering the Cardinal in Curia's liking for paradox and mystification.

`And what sins do you propose taxing, Monseigneur?' he asked, as if he were joining in the game.

`In the first place those committed by the clergy. We must begin by reforming ourselves before we undertake to reform others. Our Holy Mother is too tolerant of shortcomings and abuses. Thus, neither holy orders nor priesthood may be given to men who are mutilated or deformed. And yet, the other day, I saw a certain Abbe Pierre, who is with Cardinal Caetani, with two thumbs on his left hand.!
'

'
A little hit at our old enemy,'
thought Poitiers.

`I have made inquiries,' Dueze went on, `and it appears that the halt, the maimed and the eunuchs who conceal their misfortune beneath a habit, and indeed' are beneficed by the Church, are legion. Are we to cast them from our ''bosom rather than efface their fault, reduce them to penury and perhaps throw the
m into the arms of the heretics
of Toulouse or similar
religious confraternities? Let
us permit them rather to redeem themselves; and to redeem is to pay,

The old prelate was perfectly serious. His imagination, stimulated by his meeting with the Abbe Pierre, had created, during
these last nights, a complete
and precise system on which he intended writing a memorandum to be submitted so he modestly said, to the next Pope.

It was to create a Holy Office of Penitentiary, which would bring in revenue to the Holy See from Bulls of Absolution of all kinds. Mutilated priests might obtain absolution at the rate of a few livres for a missing finger, twice as much for a lost eye, and the same for the absence of one or both testicles. A priest who had castrated himself would have to pay a higher price. From bodily infirmities Dueze passed to those of the soul. Bastards who had concealed their condition when receiving orders, priests who had taken the tonsure though married, priests who married secretly
after ordination while it was still current, priests who lived unmarried with a woman, priests who were bigamists, or incestuous, or sodomites, would all be taxed proportionately to their sin. Nuns who had wantoned with several men, either within or
without their convent, would be subject to parti
cularly costly rehabilitation.

`If the creation of this Penitentiary,' declared Dueze, `does not
bring in two hundred thousand livres the first year, I'll be. .
'

He was going to say `I'll be burnt', but stopped in time.

`At least,' thought Poitiers, `if he's elected, I shall have no need
to be concerned for the Papal finances.'

But in spite of all Dueze's manoeuvres, and in spite of the support Poitiers gave him secretly, the Conclave still marked time.

Moreover, the news from Paris wass far from good. Gaucher de Chatillon, making common front with the Count of Evreux and Mahaut of Artois, was doing his best to put a brake on Charles of Valois' ambitions. But Charles was living in the Palace of the Cite, where he had Queen Clemence at his mercy; he was running affairs as he pleased, and sending out to the provinces instructions contrary to those sent by Poitiers from Lyons. Moreover, the Duke of Burgundy had arrived in Paris, on June 16th, to establish his rights; he knew that
h
e had the support of the vassals of his huge duchy. France, therefore, had three regents. This situation could not continue for long, and Gaucher asked Philippe to return to Paris.

On June 27th, after a re
stricted
Council
meeting,
attended by the Count de Forez and the Count de la Voulte, the young Prince decided to set out as soon as possible, and ordered his escort's baggage-train to be assembled. At the, same time, learning that no solemn mass had yet been held for the repose of his brother's soul, he ordered masses to be said on the following day, before his departure, in every parish in the town. All the high and low clergy were expected to attend to join their prayers with the Regent's.

The cardinals, particularly the Italians, were delighted. Philippe of Poitiers was being compelled to leave Lyons without having made them give way.

`He is concealing his flight under the pomp of mourning,' said Caetani, `but let him go all the same, that accursed young man. He thought he held us in the hollow of his hand. I assure you that we shall be back in Rome before the month is out.'

5. The G
ates of the Conclave

CARDINALS ARE important people who must not be mixed with the small fry of the clergy. The Count of Poitiers had ordered that the church of the Monastery of the Predicant Friars, called the Church of the Jacobins,
10
the most beautiful, the largest, after the Primatial Saint-Jean, and also the best fortified, should be reserved to them for the service to the memory of Louis X. The cardinals saw in this selection no more than normal respect for their dignity. None was absent from the ceremony.

They numbered but twenty-four and yet the church was full, for each cardinal was escorted
by his whole household - chap
lain, secretary, treasurer, clerks, pages, valets, link men and train bearers: nearly six hundred people in all were assembled between the massive white pillars.

Rarely had a funeral mass been followed with so little peaceful
meditation. It was the first time for many months that the cardinals, who had been living in cliques in separate residences, had
found themselves all gathered together. Some had not seen each other for nearly two years. They watched each other, quizzed each other, commented on each other's actions and appearance.

`Did you see that?' someone would whisper. `Orsini has greeted the younger Fredol. Stefaneschi has been talking for quite a while to Mandagout. Are they rallying to the Provencaux? But Dueze doesn't look at all well; he's grown much older.'

And, indeed, Jacques Dueze was making an effort to control his youthful lightness of foot, and walked in with slow step, replying to greetings vaguely, as if he were already detached from this world.

Guccio Baglioni, dressed as a page, formed part of his suite. He was supposed to speak nothing but Italian and to have come straight from Siena.

`Perha
ps I should have done better,'
thought Guccio, `to have put myself under the Count of Poitier's protection, for I should certainly have gone back to Paris with him today and I should have been able to make inquiries about Marie, of whom I have had no news for so long. Instead of which, here I am, entirely dependent on this old fox, to whom I have promised my uncle's
money, but who will do nothing for me till the money has arrived. And my uncle does not reply. They say that Paris is in turmoil. Marie, Marie, my beautiful Marie! She'll think I've abandoned her. Perhaps she even hates me now? What have they done with her?'

He imagined her shut up at Cressay by her brothers, or in some convent for Magdalens. `Another week like this, and I shall go back to Paris.'

Dueze turned every now and then to look behind him with a curiously alert expression.

`Are you afraid of something, Monseigneur?' Guccio asked. `No, no, I fear nothing,' replied the Cardinal, who began secretly observing his neighbours.

The redoubtable Cardinal Caetani, with his thin face divided by a long aquiline nose, and his hair which seemed to shoot out like white flames from the edge of his red skull-cap, made no attempt to conceal his triumph. The catafalque, symbol of Louis X's death, corresponded in his mind to the waxen doll, pierced with pins, with which he had, cast a spell. The glances he exchanged with his following, the Abbe Pierre, Father Bost and the clerk Andrieu, his secretary, were those of victory. He wanted to say to all those present: `This,' Messeigneurs, is what happens when you attract the, vengeance of the Caetani, who were already powerful at the time of Julius Caesar.'

The two brothers Colonna, each heavy chin divided by a vertical cleft, looked like warriors disguised as prelates.

The Count of Poitiers had not economized on the choir. There were a full hundred of them, their voices sounding above the organ, which had four men pumping at its bellows. A royal, reverberating music echoed among the vaults, saturated the air with vibrations, and enveloped the crowd. The junior clerks could gossip among themselves with impunity, and the pages laugh or mock their masters. It was impossible to hear what was being said three paces away, and still less what was taking place at the doors.

The service came to an end; the organ and the choir fell silent. Both wings of the great door stood open;-but no daylight penetrated into the church.

There was a moment of astonishment, as if some miracle had occurred during the ceremony, obscuring the stun. Suddenly, the cardinals understood; and an angry clamour broke out. A brand
-
new wall blocked the doorway. During the mass, the Regent had bricked up the exits. The cardinals were prisoners.

There was a fine panic; prelates, canons, priests and valets; all mingled together, ran to and fro like rats in a trap. The pages, climbing on each other's shoulders, hoisted themselves up to the windows, from where they shouted: `The church is surrounded by armed men!'

`What are we going to do, what are we going to do?' groaned the cardinals. `The Regent has played a trick on us.'

`That's why he favoured us with such loud music!'

`It's an attack on the Church. What are we going to do?'

`We'll excommunicate him,' cried Caetani.

`But what if he starves us to death, or has us massacred?'

The two brothers
Colonna and the people of their
party had already armed themselves with heavy bronze candelabra, benches and processional maces,
determined to sell their lives dearly. The Italians and the Gascons were already beginning to hurl reproaches at each other.

`All this is your fault,' cried the Italians. `If you had only refused to come to Lyons. We knew some dastardly trick would be played on us.'

`If you had elected one of us, we should not be here now,' replied the Gascons.

`It's your fault, you bad Christians!'

They were almost on the point of coming to blows.

One door alone had not been entirely blocked; barely room for a man to pass through had been left, but the narrow opening was a hedge of pikes held in iron gauntlets. The pikes lifted and the Count de Forez, in armour, followed by Bermond de la Voulte and a few more armed men, entered the church. They were received with a volley of threats and obscene insults.

His hands crosse
d on the hilt of his, sword ; th
e Count de Forez waited till the clamour died down. He was a strong, courageous man, unmoved by threats or entreaties, profoundly shocked by the example the cardinals had given during the last two years, and prepared to go to any length to obey the Count of Poitiers' instructions. His rugged, wrinkled face appeared through his open visor.

When the cardinals and their people had grown hoarse, his voice rang out over their heads, precise and emphatic, reaching to the end of the nave.