The notary smiled obsequiously and bowed his huge head; it was covered with a cap that looked like a big black cabbage. Monseigneur of Artois’ mocking compliments might well mean a promise of preferment.
‘Is that the whole harvest? Or have you any other news for me today?’ Robert asked. ‘How far have we got with the former bailiff of Béthune?’
Litigation can become as great a passion as gambling. Robert of Artois was utterly immersed in his lawsuit; his every thought and action were related to the case. Throughout this fortnight his one desire in life was to procure witnesses. He could think of nothing else from dawn to dusk, and even at night he would awaken, his dreams broken into by some sudden inspiration, and ring for his valet Lormet, who came grumbling and sleepy only to be asked: ‘You old snorer, didn’t you mention the other day a certain Simon Dourin or Dourier, who was a clerk to my grandfather? Do you happen to know if the man’s still alive? Try to find out tomorrow.’
At mass, which he attended every day for propriety’s sake, he caught himself out praying God to grant him success in his case. But the transition from prayer to scheming came naturally to him, and during the lesson he would be thinking: ‘What about that Giles Flamand, who was at one time an equerry to Mahaut and whom she sacked for some misdemeanour? He might perhaps give evidence on my behalf. I must remember that.’
Never before had he been so assiduous in attending the King’s Council, where his advice was much listened to. He went every day to the palace and seemed to be devoting himself to the business of the realm; but, in fact, he did so only to maintain his influence over his brother-in-law Philippe VI, and by making himself indispensable see that people of his own choosing who were likely to be useful to him were appointed to vacant places. He paid particular attention to legal matters in the hope that they might suggest some manoeuvre to him. He scorned everything else.
That in Italy the Guelphs and Ghibellines should still be massacring each other, that Azzo Visconti should have had his uncle, Marco, assassinated and have barricaded himself into the city of Milan against the troops of the Emperor, Louis of Bavaria, and that Verona, Vicenza, Padua and Treviso should have denied the authority of the French-protected Pope – these things Monseigneur of Artois knew and heard, but they made no impression on him.
And when he learned that in England the Queen’s party was in difficulties, and that Roger Mortimer’s unpopularity was increasing every day, Monseigneur of Artois merely shrugged his shoulders. He was not interested in England, nor in the fact that the wool merchants of Flanders were entering into increasingly close trade relations with the English companies.
But if it was a question of Master Andrieu de Florence, the Canon-Treasurer of Bourges, being given an ecclesiastical preferment, or of the Chevalier de Villebresme being nominated to the Exchequer, these were matters of importance and could brook no delay. The fact was that Master Andrieu, like the Chevalier de Villebresme, was one of the eight commissioners appointed to investigate the Artois case.
Robert had himself suggested the names of the commissioners to Philippe VI. Indeed, he had almost selected them personally. ‘Suppose we appointed Bouchart de Montmorency? He has always served us faithfully. Or Pierre de Cugnieres. There’s a sensible man everyone respects.’ And it was the same for the notaries, of whom Pierre Tesson had been attached first to the Hôtel de Valois for twenty years and then to Robert’s household.
Never before had Pierre Tesson felt so important; nor had he ever been treated with such friendly condescension, presented with so many lengths of stuff for dresses for his wife and so many little purses of gold for himself. Nevertheless, he was tired; Robert harassed his employees, and his extraordinary vitality was very exhausting.
Monseigneur Robert seemed almost always to be on his feet, pacing up and down his study between the frescoes of the saints; and Master Tesson could not sit uninvited in the presence of so great a personage as a peer of France. But notaries are in the habit of working sitting down, and Master Tesson suffered greatly from having to support his black leather bag, for he dared not put it down on the brocades. As he extracted documents from it one after the other, he feared that by the time the case was over he would have a stiff back for the rest of his life.
‘I have seen the old bailiff Guillaume de la Planche,’ he replied to Robert’s inquiry; ‘at the moment he’s a prisoner in the Châtelet. The Dame de Divion had already been to see him; and he has testified as we expected. He requests you not to forget to speak to Messire Mille de Noyers about a pardon. Things look serious for him and he’s in grave danger of being hanged.’11
‘I’ll see he’s released; let him sleep sound. What about Simon Dourier, have you taken his evidence?’
‘I have not actually taken his evidence yet, Monseigneur, but I’ve approached him. He’s prepared to declare to the commissioners that he was present on the day in 1302 when your grandfather, Count Robert II, dictated the letter shortly before his death confirming your right to the inheritance of Artois.’
‘Excellent, excellent!’
‘I have also promised him that you will take him back into your house and give him a pension.’
‘Why was he sacked?’ Robert asked.
The notary bent his arm in a gesture of putting money into his pocket.
‘To hell with that!’ cried Robert. ‘He’s an old man now and has had time to repent. I’ll give him a hundred livres a year, lodging and clothes.’
‘Manessier de Lannoy will confirm that the stolen documents were burned by Madame Mahaut. His house, as you know, was on the point of being sold to pay his debts to the Lombards; he’s most grateful to you for having kept a roof over his head.’
‘I’m a kind man; it’s not sufficiently well known,’ said Robert. ‘But what about Juvigny, Enguerrand’s former valet?’
The notary bowed his head in failure.
‘I can get nothing out of him,’ he said; ‘he absolutely refuses; he pretends he doesn’t know or can’t remember.’
‘What!’ cried Robert. ‘I myself went to the Louvre, where he enjoys a pension for doing damned little, and had a talk with him. You mean to tell me he refuses to remember? See to it that he’s put to the question. The sight of the pincers may well encourage him to tell the truth.’
‘Monseigneur,’ replied the notary sadly, ‘the accused can be tortured, but not witnesses as yet.’
‘Well, you can at least let him know that unless his memory comes back to him, I’ll have his pension stopped. I may be kind, but it’s all the more reason that people should help me.’
He picked up a bronze candelabra, which must have weighed all of fifteen pounds, and tossed it from one hand to the other as he walked up and down. The notary thought how unjust it was of God to give so much strength of muscle to people who used it merely for their own pleasure, and so little to poor notaries who had to carry heavy leather bags.
‘Are you not afraid, Monseigneur, that if you cut off his pension, he’ll manage to get it back from Countess Mahaut?’
Robert came to a halt.
‘Mahaut?’ he cried. ‘She can’t do anything now; she’s afraid, she daren’t show her face. There’s been no sign of her at Court recently. She’s keeping quiet, and she’s shaking in her shoes, because she knows she’s lost.’
‘God willing, Monseigneur, God willing! We shall win, of course; but there are still a few little difficulties …’
Tesson hesitated to go on, not from fear of what he had to say, but because of the weight of his bag. It meant standing for another five or ten minutes.
‘I have been informed,’ he went on, ‘that our inquiry agents in Artois have been followed, and that our witnesses have been visited by others besides our own people. There has also been a certain amount of coming and going of messengers recently between Madame Mahaut’s house and Dijon. Couriers wearing the Burgundy livery have been seen going in at her door.’
Mahaut was clearly trying to reinforce her alliance with Duke
Eudes. But what support had the Burgundy party at Court? There was Queen Jeanne the Lame’s of course, which was far from negligible.
‘But I have the King on my side,’ said Robert, ‘and the bitch will lose, Tesson, I can promise you that.’
‘All the same, we shall have to produce the documents, Monseigneur. Mere statements can always be countered by other statements. And the sooner we can do it the better.’
He had excellent personal reasons for stressing it. A notary might make his fortune by tampering with witnesses, not to speak of extorting evidence by threats and bribes, but he also ran the risk of the Châtelet and even of the wheel. Tesson had no wish to exchange places with the former bailiff of Béthune.
‘You shall have your documents! You shall have them, I tell you! Do you think laying one’s hands on them is as easy as all that? By the way, Tesson,’ Robert went on, suddenly pointing to the black leather bag, ‘you have noted in Count de Bouville’s deposition that the marriage contract was signed by twelve peers. Why did you record that?’
‘Because the witness said so, Monseigneur.’
‘Yes, I see. That’s very important,’ Robert said thoughtfully.
‘Why, Monseigneur?’
‘Why? Because I’m waiting for the copy of the contract from the Artois archives. It’s to be handed over to me, and at a very high price too. If the names of the twelve peers aren’t there, it obviously won’t be authentic. Who were the peers at that time? The dukes and counts are easy enough, but who were the spiritual peers? You see how careful one’s got to be?’
The notary gazed at Robert with mingled anxiety and admiration.
‘Do you realize, Monseigneur, that if you were not so great a lord, you would have made the best notary in the kingdom? I intend no offence, Monseigneur, no offence!’
Robert rang to have his visitor shown out.
Hardly had the notary gone, when Robert left the room by a door opening in Mary Magdalene’s stomach – a little decorative fantasy which gave him much pleasure – and hastened to his wife’s apartments. Having sent away her ladies-in-waiting, he said: ‘Jeanne, my dear countess, tell La Divion to stop work on the marriage contract: it must include the names of the twelve peers of the year ’82. Do you happen to know who they were? No, nor do I! How can we find out without arousing suspicion? What a lot of time wasted!’
The Countess of Beaumont looked up at her husband with her splendid, calm blue eyes. She was smiling a little. Her giant was uneasy again. She said quietly: ‘At Saint-Denis, my dear, at Saint-Denis, in the abbey registers. The names of the peers are bound to be there. I’ll send Brother Henry, my confessor; he can pretend he’s engaged on some piece of historical research.’
Robert’s broad face expressed at once tenderness, gratitude and a certain amusement.
‘Do you realize, my dear,’ he said, bowing with rather over-elaborate grace, ‘that if you were not so great a lady, you would have made the best notary in the kingdom?’
They smiled at each other, and the Countess of Beaumont, who had been born Jeanne of Valois, read in Robert’s eyes a promise that he would visit her bed that night.
3.
The Forgers
WHEN A MAN SETS out on the path of deception, he always thinks the journey will be short and easy. The first obstacles are surmounted without difficulty and indeed with a certain pleasure. But soon the forest thickens and the way becomes uncertain, branching off into many a track that gets lost in a bog. He stumbles at each step, flounders, sinks into the mire. He grows angry and exhausts himself in vain attempts to find his way; but each attempt turns out to be merely one imprudence the more.
At first sight, the forging of an old document appears to be a comparatively simple matter. You merely require a piece of parchment that has been turned yellow in the sun and rubbed with ash, the hand of a suborned clerk, and a few seals applied to silk laces. None of these should need much time or expenditure.
And yet Robert of Artois had temporarily been compelled to stop the work on his father’s marriage contract. Nor was this due only to the search for the names of the twelve peers: the contract had to be drawn up in Latin, and there were few clerks who still knew the formulas used in princely marriage contracts in old days. Queen Clémence of Hungary’s former almoner, who was knowledgeable in these matters, was taking his time in supplying the proper opening and closing phrases; and he could not be pressed for fear of arousing his suspicions.
There was also the matter of the seals.
‘Have them copied from the old seals by a die-sinker,’ Robert said.
But the die-sinkers were sworn men. And, when asked, the Court die-sinker declared it to be impossible to copy a seal with precision; no two dies were ever completely identical, and a seal impressed with a false die could readily be detected by an expert; moreover, the original dies were always destroyed at their owners’ deaths.
Robert had therefore to procure old deeds with the seals he required, detach them – which was far from easy – and transfer them to the forged document.
Robert told La Divion to concentrate her efforts on a document which was simpler to manufacture but of no less importance.
On June 28th, 1302, before leaving to join the Army in Flanders, where he had died from twenty lance-thrusts, old Count Robert II had put his affairs in order and confirmed in a document the dispositions he had made bequeathing the County of Artois to his grandson.
‘And it is true, every single witness will confirm it!’ Robert told his wife. ‘Simon Dourier even remembers which of my grandfather’s vassals were present, and of which bailiwicks the seals were attached. We’re doing nothing more than establishing the truth!’
Simon Dourier, who had been notary to Count Robert II, provided the general tenor of the document in so far as he could remember it. The writing was done by one of the Countess of Beaumont’s clerks, called Dufour. But Dufour’s text had too many erasures, and his hand might well be recognized.
La Divion went into Artois to take the text to a certain Robert Rossignol, who had been clerk to Thierry d’Hirson; he recopied the document, not with a goose-quill, but with a bronze pen, the better to disguise his writing.
Rossignol, who was promised as a reward the price of a journey to Santiago de Compostela, to which he had vowed to make a pilgrimage if he recovered from an illness, had a son-in-law called Jean Oliette, who was something of an expert in detaching seals. The family was clearly most resourceful. Oliette showed La Divion how to set about it.
She returned to Paris and was immediately closeted with Madame de Beaumont and a servant, Jeannette la Mesquine.12 The three women, with the help of a hot razor, and a horsehair steeped in a liquor that prevented its breaking, set about detaching the wax seals from old documents. They first split the seal in half; then they heated one half and reapplied it to the other over the silk lace or the parchment appendix of the forged document; and finally they heated the edge of the wax a little to remove the traces of the cut.
Jeanne of Beaumont, Jeanne de Divion and Jeanne la Mesquine treated more than forty seals in this manner, never working twice in the same place, but sometimes hiding in a room in the Hôtel d’ Artois, sometimes in the Hôtel de l’Aigle, or again in various country houses.
Robert would sometimes come to see how they were getting on.
‘So my three Jeannes are hard at it!’ he would say good-humouredly.
Of the three, the Countess of Beaumont was by far the cleverest.
‘A woman’s fingers are fairy fingers,’ Robert would say, courteously kissing his wife’s hand.
But it was not only a matter of being able to detach seals; the right seals had to be procured.
There was little difficulty in finding Philip the Fair’s seal, for there were many royal decrees available. Robert got the Bishop of Evreux to send him a document concerning his lordship of Conches on the plea that he needed to consult it. He never returned it.
In Artois, La Divion set her friends R
ossignol and Oliette, and also two servants, Marie the White and Marie the Black, to seek out old seals of bailiwicks and lordships.
They had soon acquired all the necessary seals save one, the most important of all, that of the late Count Robert II. This might seem absurd, but the fact was that all the family documents were in the Artois archives under the guardianship of Mahaut’s clerks, and Robert, who had been a minor at the time of his grandfather’s death, possessed none at all.
Through a cousin, La Divion approached a man called Ourson the One-Eyed, who owned a trade-licence issued by the late Count and sealed with his seal ‘in token of good faith’. He was prepared to part with it for three hundred livres. The Countess of Beaumont had told La Divion that the document must be acquired no matter what the cost. But La Divion had nothing like that sum of money in Artois; and Messire Ourson the One-Eyed was suspicious and refused to part with his licence merely on a promise.
Lacking the necessary resources, La Divion remembered she had a husband living quietly in the castellany of Béthune. He had never shown any sign of jealousy even when Bishop Thierry was alive. She decided to go to see him. There were already too many people in the secret. But what was she to do? Her husband refused to lend the money; but he consented to part temporarily with a good horse he had ridden in tournaments, and Messire Ourson agreed to accept it as security. La Divion also left with him such pieces of jewellery as she had with her.
La Divion was certainly doing her best! Time, trouble, intrigue and travel – she spared herself none of them. Nor was she economical of her powers of persuasion. She was, too, being particularly careful not to mislay things, and she always slept with her keys under her pillow.