‘Most gracious sire,’ I continued, ‘you have here the flower of your kingdom’s chivalry, in their multitude, against but a handful, compared to you, of the English. They cannot hold out against your strength; and it would be more honourable for you that they put themselves at your mercy without battle, rather than chancing all of this chivalry, and watching good Christians perish on both sides. I am telling you this on the order of our Most Holy Father the pope, who has sent me as his apostolic nuncio, with all his authority, to help bring peace, according to God’s commandment which seeks it between all Christian peoples. And I also ask you to allow, in the name of the Lord, that I ride to the Prince of Wales, to explain to him the danger you hold him in, and to talk reason to him.’
If he had been able to bite me, King John, I believe he would have done so. But a cardinal on the battlefield doesn’t fail to impress. And the Duke of Athens nodded his head, as did the Marshal of Clermont, and Monseigneur of Bourbon. I added: ‘Most gracious sire, it is Sunday, the day of the Lord, and you have just heard Mass. Would you care to postpone the work of death on the day dedicated to the Lord? At least acquiesce that I go and talk to the prince.’
King John looked at his seigneurs all around him and understood that he, the most Christian king, could not but defer to my request. If some grievous accident were to occur, he would be held responsible and God’s punishment would therein be seen manifested.
‘So be it, monseigneur,’ he says to me. ‘It pleases us to agree to your wish. But return without delay.’
I had then a flush of pride, may the Good Lord forgive me. I knew I embodied the supremacy of the man of the Church, prince of God, over the three worldly realms. Had I been Count of Périgord instead of your father, never would I have been invested with such power. And I thought I was accomplishing the task of my life.
Still escorted by my lances, still signalled by the papal banner, I headed up the hill, by the path that Ribemont had scouted, in the direction of the small wood where the Prince of Wales’ base camp was.
‘Prince, my fine son,’ yes, this time, when I was before him, I no longer accorded him his monseigneur, to make him better feel his weakness … ‘If you had correctly estimated the power of the King of France as I have just done, you would allow me to attempt a convention between you, and bring you to agreement, if I may.’ And I enumerated the army of France that I had been able to contemplate before the town of Nouaillé. ‘Look where you are, and how many you are, do you really believe that you will be able to hold out long?’
No indeed, he would not be able to hold out for long, and he knew it well. His only advantage was the terrain; his entrenchment was the very best one could find. But his men had already begun to suffer from thirst, as there was no water on that hill; they would have needed to be able to go and draw it from the stream, the Miosson, down below; and the French held it. He had scarcely enough supplies to last one day. He had lost his handsome white smile beneath his Saxon moustache, the ravaging prince! If he hadn’t been who he was, amidst his knights, Chandos, Grailly, Warwick, Suffolk, who were watching him closely, he would have admitted what they were all thinking, that their situation allowed for hope no longer. Unless a miracle took place, and the miracle, perhaps it was I who was bringing it to him. Nevertheless, for grandeur’s sake, he argued a little: ‘I told you in Montbazon, Monseigneur of Périgord, I am unable to negotiate without the order of my father the king.’
‘Noble prince, above the order of kings, there is the order of God. Neither your father King Edward on his throne of London, nor God on the throne of Heaven would forgive you the loss of so many good lives, of the brave men put into your protection, if you can act otherwise. Will you accept to discuss the conditions by which you could, without loss of honour, spare yourself a most cruel and uncertain battle?’
Black armour and red robe face to face. The three-feathered helmet questioned my red hat and seemed to be counting the silk tassels. Eventually the helmet made a sign of assent.
Hurtling down Eustache’s path, where I made out the English archers in close ranks behind the stockades of stakes they had planted, there I was back before King John. I arrived in the middle of a discussion, and I understood, by certain looks that greeted me, that not everyone had had good words to say about me. The archpriest rocked backwards and forwards, raw-boned, mocking, under his Montauban hat.
‘Sire,’ I said, ‘I have indeed seen the English. You have no need to be too hasty in fighting them, and you will lose nothing by resting a little, because, positioned where they are, they cannot flee or escape you. I think in truth that you could have them without meeting the slightest opposition. Consequently I ask you to grant them respite until tomorrow, at sunrise.’
Without meeting the slightest opposition … I saw several of them, like the Count John of Artois, Douglas, Tancarville himself, flinch at the word respite and shake their heads. Opposition was what they wanted and they wanted to meet it. I insisted: ‘Sire, grant your enemy nothing if you like, but grant God His day.’
The constable and the Marshal of Clermont were inclined to favour this suspension of hostilities. ‘Let us wait and see, sire, what the Englishman has to offer and what we can demand in return; we have nothing to lose.’ On the other hand, Audrehem, oh! Simply because Clermont was of one opinion, he was of another, said, loud enough for me to hear: ‘So are we here for battle or to listen to a sermon?’ Eustache of Ribemont, because his combat strategy had been adopted by the king, and as he was keen to see it implemented, urged an immediate engagement.
And Chauveau, the Count-Bishop of Châlons who wore a helmet in the shape of a mitre, painted purple, suddenly gets restless, almost losing his temper.
‘Is it the duty of the Church, Messire Cardinal, to let plunderers and traitors walk free unpunished?’ There, I get a little angry. ‘Is it the duty of a servant of the Church, Messire Bishop, to refuse God a truce? Please learn, if you don’t know it, that I have the power to strip any ecclesiastic of his office and benefices who should impede my efforts for peace. Providence punishes the presumptuous, messire. So leave the king the honour of showing his greatness, should he so wish. Sire, you hold everything in your hands; God decides through you.’
The compliment had hit home. The king prevaricated a little while longer, while I continued to plead, seasoning my words with compliments as big as the Alps. Which prince, since Saint Louis, had shown such an example as the one he could set? All of Christendom would admire a gallant gesture and would from now on seek his wisdom for arbitration or assistance in his power!
‘Have my pavilion raised,’ said the king to his equerries. ‘So be it, Monseigneur Cardinal; I will remain here until tomorrow, at sunrise, for your sake.’
‘For the sake of God, sire; only for the sake of God.’
And I left again. Six times during the day, I had to ride back and forth, proposing the terms of an agreement to one, bringing them back to the other; and each time, passing between the hedgerows of the Welsh archers clad in their half-white, half-green livery, I said to myself that if some of them, mistaking me for someone else, shot a volley of arrows at me, I would be well stung.
King John played dice to pass the time under his pavilion of vermilion drapery. All around the army wondered. Battle or no battle? And they argued about it hard, even in front of the king. There were wise ones and braggarts, timorous natures and the quick-tempered. Each allowed himself to air an opinion. In truth, King John remained undecided. I don’t think he considered himself for a single moment as the agent of the general good. He asked himself only the question of how his personal glory, which he confused with the good of his people, was best served. After so many setbacks and disappointments, what would most magnify his stature, a military victory or a negotiated settlement? Naturally, the idea of a defeat didn’t occur to him, nor to any of his advisors.
And yet, the king’s glory aside, the offers I brought him, with each trip, were by no means insignificant. After the
first trip, the Prince of Wales consented to return all of the spoils he had taken during his chevauchée, as well as all the prisoners, without any demand for ransom. On the second, he accepted to give back all the strongholds and castles conquered, and to take for null and void all the homages and rallying to him and his cause. On the third trip, it was a payment in gold, as reparation for all that he had destroyed, not only that summer, but also the year before in the lands of Languedoc. One might well say that from his two expeditions, Prince Edward kept no benefit whatsoever.
And King John demanded yet more? Very well. I obtained from the prince the withdrawal of all of his garrisons located outside Aquitaine, a considerable success, and the commitment to never have any future dealings with either the Count of Foix, (while on that subject, Phoebus was in the king’s army, but I didn’t see him, he kept himself well out of the way) or with any of the king’s relatives, which referred precisely to Navarre. The prince was giving up a great deal; he was giving up more than I thought he would. And yet, I guessed that he didn’t, deep down, think that he would be exempted from fighting.
Truce does not prevent work. Consequently, all day he busied his men with strengthening their position. The archers doubled up the fences of stakes sharpened at both ends, to make defensive harrows. They cut down trees that they dragged across to block the pathways that the enemy could take. The Count of Suffolk, Marshal of the English army, inspected each troop, one after the other. The Counts of Warwick and Salisbury, and Lord of Audley took part in our meetings and escorted me through their camp.
The sun was going down as I brought King John a final proposal that I myself had suggested. The prince was ready to swear and sign that seven years long he would not take up arms nor undertake anything against the kingdom of France. We were therefore on the verge of a general peace.
‘Oh! We know the English,’ said Bishop Chauveau. ‘They swear, and then go back on their word.’
I retort that they would have difficulty going back on a commitment taken before the papal legate; I was to be signatory of the convention.
‘I will give you my answer at sunrise,’ said the king.
And I went away to lodge at the Abbey of Maupertuis. Never had I ridden so much in the same day, nor had I debated so much. As exhausted as I was, I took time to pray well, with all my heart. I was woken at the crack of dawn. The sun was just beginning to shine forth when I appeared once more before the battle tent of King John. At sunrise he had said. No one could be more punctual than I. I had a bad feeling. The entire army of France was under arms, in battle order, on foot, except for the three hundred designated for the charge, and were waiting only for the signal to attack.
‘Monseigneur Cardinal,’ declares the king briefly, ‘I will only accept to abandon the idea of fighting if Prince Edward and one hundred of his knights, of my choice, come and place themselves in my prison.’
‘Sire, that is too great a demand, and one that goes against honour; it renders all of our discussions yesterday useless. I have got to know the Prince of Wales well enough to know that he will not even consider it. He is not a man to give up without a fight, and to come and give himself up into your hands with the finest of the English chivalry would be the last thing he would do. Would you do such a thing, or any of your Knights of the Star, if you were in his position?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Then, sire, it seems to me vain to take him a request made only to be rejected.’
‘Monseigneur Cardinal, I have every respect for your offices; but the sun is up. Please withdraw from the battlefield.’
Behind the king, they looked at each other through their ventails, and exchanged smiles and winks, Bishop Chauveau, John of Artois, Douglas, Eustache of Ribemont and even Audrehem and of course the archpriest, just as happy, it seemed, to have scuppered the efforts of the pope’s legate as they would be to crush the English.
For a moment, I wavered, so much wrath was welling up inside of me, hesitating to point out that I had the power of excommunication. But to what end? What effect would that have had? The French would have gone off to attack anyway, and I would only have managed to show up even more clearly the powerlessness of the Church. I only added: ‘God will be the judge, sire, as to which one of you will have shown himself to be the better Christian.’
And I went back up the hill for the last time towards the copses. I was raging. ‘They can all go to hell, these madmen!’ I said to myself in a gallop. The Lord won’t need to sort them; they are all good for his flames.’
Once arrived before the Prince of Wales, I tell him: ‘Good son, do what you can; you will have to fight. I was able to find no favour for an agreement with the King of France.’
‘To fight is indeed our intention,’ replied the prince. ‘May God help me!’
Thereupon, I left for Poitiers, embittered and greatly vexed. Now that was the moment my nephew Durazzo chose to tell me: ‘I beg you to relieve me from my service, my uncle. I want to go and fight.’
‘And with whom?’ I cried.
‘With the French of course!’
‘So you don’t think there are enough of them already?’
‘My uncle, understand that there will be a battle, and it is unworthy of a knight not to take part. And Messire of Hérédia also asks you.’
I should have berated him forcefully, telling him that he was required by the Holy See to escort me on my mission of peace, and that, quite the opposite of an act of nobility, to have joined one of the two sides could be seen rather as an act of treachery. I should have simply ordered him to stay. But I was weary, I was angry. And in a certain way, I understood him. I would also have liked to take up a lance, and charge whomever, Bishop Chauveau. So I shouted at him: ‘Go to hell both of you! And may it do you good!’ Those are the last words I addressed to my nephew Robert. I regret it, I regret it terribly.
7
The Hand of God
IT IS A DIFFICULT thing indeed, when one isn’t there oneself, to reconstruct a battle, and difficult even when one was there. Particularly when it takes place as confusedly as that of the Battle of Maupertuis. It was told to me just hours afterwards, in twenty different ways, each considering it only from his point of view and only judging important what he himself had done there. Especially the defeated; from listening to them, they would have been victorious if not for their neighbours’ errors, the latter saying much the same thing.
An account that cannot be challenged is of what happened immediately after my departure from the French camp: the two marshals had an argument. The constable, Duke of Athens, having asked the king if he would care to listen to his advice, tells him something like this: ‘Sire, if you really want the English to surrender to your mercy, why don’t you let them wear themselves out through lack of supplies? Because their position is strong, but they will no longer be able to hold it when their bodies are weak. They are surrounded on all sides, and if they attempt to escape by the only way out, we can ourselves force them towards it, and we will crush them without difficulty. As we have waited a day, why can’t we wait another day or two, all the more so that with every moment our numbers are swelling with latecomers joining us?’ And the Marshal of Clermont to back him up: ‘The constable is right. A little wait will give us everything to gain and nothing to lose.’
That is when the Marshal of Audrehem lost his temper. Procrastinating, always procrastinating! It should already be over, since yesterday evening. ‘You will delay so much that you will end up letting them get away, as so often happens. Look at them moving around. They come down towards us to strengthen their position lower down and prepare their escape route. One might think, Clermont, that you are in no great rush to fight, and that it troubles you to see the English so close.’
The marshals’ quarrel had to come out into the open. But was it the most well-chosen moment? Clermont was not a man to take such outrage on the nose. He retorted, as if in a jeu de paume59: ‘You will not be so bold today, Audrehem, as to
put your horse’s muzzle up my horse’s arse.’
Thereupon he joins the knights he is leading into the attack, is hauled up into his saddle, and himself gives the order to attack. Audrehem immediately copies him, and before the king has said a thing, or the constable commanded anything, the charge was under way, not at all grouped as had been decided, but in two separate squadrons which seemed less concerned with breaking the enemy than with distancing or chasing each other. The constable in turn asks for his charger and races off in an attempt to round them up.
Then the king has the attack called for all the banners; and all the men-at-arms, on foot, clumsy, weighed down by the fifty or sixty pounds of iron they carry on their backs, begin to advance through the fields towards the uphill path along which the cavalry are already rushing. Five hundred paces to cover.
High up, the Prince of Wales, seeing the French charge set off, cries out: ‘My fine lords, we are but small in number, but do not be afraid. Virtue nor victory do not inevitably go to the bigger party but go where God wants to send them. If we are defeated, we will incur no condemnation, and if the day is ours, we will be the most honoured in the world.’
The ground was already shaking at the foot of the hill; the Welsh archers were ready, kneeling behind their pointed stakes. And the first arrows began to whistle by …
First the Marshal of Clermont charged headlong at the banner of Salisbury, hurling himself into the hedge to make a breach in it. A hail of arrows broke his charge. It was a dreadful volley, according to those who came through it. The horses that had not been hit went on to impale themselves on the Welsh archers’ pointed stakes. From behind the stockade, the coutiliers and other foot soldiers suddenly appeared with their halberds, those terrible three-purpose weapons whose hook seizes the rider by his mail shirt, and sometimes by his skin to throw him down from his mount … whose point tears armour apart at the groin or the armpit when the man is down, whose curved blade, lastly, splits open the helmet. The Marshal of Clermont was amongst the first killed, and almost none of his people could make a hole in the English position. All undone along the route recommended by Eustache of Ribemont.