‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘have you anything to complain of in me?’
‘Most assuredly not, Nephew,’ said the ex-Emperor of Constantinople.
How can one tell someone to his face that the only complaint one has against him is the fact that he exists!
‘Then, Uncle, if you have no complaint against me, why do you work against me? I assured you, when you handed over to me the keys of the Treasury, that you would not be asked to render an account, and I have kept my word. You have sworn me homage and loyalty, but you have not kept faith, Uncle, for you are supporting Robert of Artois’s cause.’
Valois made a gesture of denial.
‘You are making a bad bet, Uncle,’ Philippe went on, ‘for Robert will cost you dear. He has no money; he has no other resources than the income paid him by the Treasury, which I have just cut off. It is, therefore, to you that he will turn for subsidies. Where will you find them, since you no longer control the finances of the kingdom? Now, don’t be angry, don’t go scarlet in the face, or give way to insults which you will later regret, for I want nothing but your good. Give me your word not to help Robert, and I, on my side, will ask the Holy Father that the annates of Valois and Maine be paid direct to you, rather than to the Treasury.’
For a moment the Count of Valois was torn between hatred and cupidity.
‘How much do the annates amount to?’ he asked.
‘From ten to thirteen thousand livres a year, Uncle, for the sums which were not collected during the last years of my father’s and the whole of Louis’s reign must be included.’
For Valois, who was always in debt and yet lived regally, who had promised huge dowries to his daughters so as to marry them the better, ten or thirteen thousand livres a year presented, if not permanent salvation, at least a temporary one.
‘You are a good nephew who understands my needs,’ he replied.
The news from Gaucher de Châtillon being satisfactory, Philippe returned home by short stages, attending to a variety of business on the way, and making a last stop at Vincennes, to bring Clémence the blessing of the new Pope.
‘I am glad’, said the Queen, ‘that our dear Duèze has taken the name of Jean, because it is the one I have chosen for my child, in accordance with the vow I took, during the storm, in the ship which brought me to France.’
She seemed still as much a stranger as ever to the problems of power and concerned solely with the memories of her married life and the anxieties of motherhood. Living at Vincennes seemed to suit her health; she had regained her looks and, seven months gone as she was, seemed to be enjoying that respite which occurs sometimes towards the end of a difficult pregnancy.
‘Jean is no name for a King of France,’ said the Regent. ‘We have never had a Jean.’
‘Brother, I tell you it was an oath I made.’
‘In that case we shall respect it. If it’s a boy, he will be called Jean I.’
In the Palace of the Cité Philippe found his wife perfectly happy, dandling the little Louis-Philippe who was bawling with all the strength of his eight weeks.
But the Countess Mahaut, when she heard that her son-in-law had returned, arrived like a fury from the Hôtel d’Artois with her sleeves rolled up.
‘I’ve been betrayed, my son, since you’ve been away! Do you know what your fool of a Gaucher has been doing in Artois?’
‘Gaucher is the Constable, Mother, and but a little while ago you did not think him foolish at all. What has he done to you?’
‘He has declared me wrong!’ cried Mahaut. ‘He has condemned me on all points. Your envoys are hand in glove with my vassals; they have taken it on themselves to order that I may not go into Artois! You hear what I say, that I, Mahaut, am to be forbidden to go into my own county, until I have sealed this wicked peace which I refused to Louis last December? And they order me to make restitution of I don’t know what amount of taxes that, so they say, I have received wrongfully!’
‘I have no doubt this is all perfectly just. My envoys have faithfully carried out my orders,’ Philippe replied calmly.
For a moment Mahaut was taken aback with surprise. She stood there with her mouth open and her eyes staring. Then she went on, shouting louder than ever, ‘Just, to pillage my castles, hang my sergeants-at-arms, ravage my harvest! And it’s on your orders, is it, that my enemies are supported? Your orders! That’s a fine way to pay me back for all I have done for you!’
A thick purple vein swelled on her forehead and Philippe thought that she would need to be bled that night.
‘Except for giving me your daughter,’ he replied, ‘I do not see that you have done so much for me that I should let injury be done to my subjects and compromise the whole peace of the realm for your advantage.’
For a second Mahaut hesitated between prudence and anger. But the phrase her son-in-law had used, ‘my subjects’, a king’s phrase, won the day.
Advancing towards him, she cried, ‘Is to have killed your brother nothing?’
Ten weeks of deeply preserved secrecy had come to an end at a single blow.
Philippe neither started nor exclaimed, he simply rushed to the doors to make sure with his shortsighted eyes that there was no one near who could have overheard. He locked the doors, removed the keys and put them in his belt. Mahaut was suddenly afraid, and still more so when she saw his expression as he returned towards her.
‘So it was you,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and what has been whispered throughout the kingdom is true.’
Mahaut stood up to him since it was natural to her to attack.
‘And who else should it be, Son-in-law? To whom else do you think you owe it that you are Regent and possibly, one day, may seize the Crown? Don’t pretend to be so ingenuous. Your brother confiscated Artois from me; Valois was turning it against me; and you were in Lyons busy with the papacy. The papacy is always linked to my affairs as March to Lent! Don’t be so sanctimonious as to tell me that you blame me! You had no love for Louis, and you’re delighted that I’ve made it possible for you to take his place by putting a little seasoning in his sweets; but I did not expect to find that you were worse than he was.’
Philippe sat down, crossed his legs, and considered.
‘This was bound to happen one day or another,’ thought Mahaut. ‘In one sense it may be just as well; I have a hold over him now.’
‘Does Jeanne know?’ Philippe asked suddenly.
‘She knows nothing. These are not women’s matters.’
‘Who knows besides yourself?’
‘Béatrice, my lady-in-waiting.’
‘Too many,’ said Philippe.
‘Oh, don’t you touch her!’ cried Mahaut. ‘She has a powerful family!’
‘Indeed yes, a family who have made you greatly beloved in Artois! And besides Béatrice? Who furnished you with the seasoning, as you call it?’
‘A witch of Arras, whom I have never seen, but whom Béatrice knows. I pretended to want to rid myself of the deer which infested my park and I took care to kill a number of them.’
‘This woman must be found,’ said Philippe.
‘Do you now understand’, went on Mahaut, ‘that you cannot abandon me? If it is thought that you are no longer supporting me, my enemies will take courage, libels will spread …’
‘Slanders, Mother, slanders,’ Philippe corrected.
‘And if I am accused, the weight of the accusation will fall on you, for it will be said that I did it for your advantage, if not on your orders even.’
‘I know, Mother, I know. I’ve already thought of all that.’
‘You must remember, Philippe, that I have risked the salvation of my soul in this action. Do not be ungrateful.’
This was one of the very rare occasions in Philippe’s life when he lost his temper.
‘Really, it’s going too far, Mother! You’ll be asking me next to kiss your feet because you’ve poisoned my brother! If I had known that this was the price of the regency, I would never, do you hear, never
have accepted it! I reprobate this murder; there is never any need to kill in order to achieve one’s ends; it’s a bad political method, and I order you, as long as I am your suzerain, never to use it again.’
For a moment he was tempted to take the honest course: summon the Council of Peers, denounce the crime and demand punishment. Mahaut, who guessed how his mind was working, had some unpleasant moments. But Philippe never gave way to impulse, even when it was a virtuous one. To act thus would be to bring discredit on his wife and on himself. And what accusations might Mahaut not make to defend herself or bring him down with her for not having defended her? It would be a splendid opportunity for reopening the question of the regency and the succession. Philippe had already done too much for the kingdom, and thought too much about what he was going to do, to run the risk of being deprived of power. His brother Louis, all in all, had been a bad king, and a murderer into the bargain. Perhaps it was the intention of Providence to punish the assassin by assassination, and to place France in better hands.
‘God will judge you, Mother, God will judge you,’ he said. ‘I should merely like to prevent the flames of Hell beginning to lick us all while we are still alive because of you. I must therefore pay the wages of your sin, and as I cannot put you in prison, I am compelled to support you. Your plan was well thought out. Messire Gaucher will receive new instructions the day after tomorrow. I won’t conceal from you the fact that it weighs on me.’
Mahaut tried to embrace him. He pushed her away.
‘But mark well’, he continued, ‘that from now on the dishes set before me will be tasted three times and that, at the first stomach-pain that causes me distress, your hours will be numbered. You had better pray for my health.’
Mahaut inclined her head.
‘I will serve you so well, my son,’ she said, ‘that you will end by giving me back your love.’
4
We Must Go to War
NO ONE UNDERSTOOD, and Gaucher de Châtillon least of all, what had caused Philippe’s change of mind concerning the affairs of Artois. The Regent, suddenly disavowing his envoys, declared that the agreement they had made was unacceptable and demanded that they draw up a new one more favourable to Mahaut. The results were immediate. The negotiations were broken off and those who were conducting them on the Artois side, representing the moderate elements among the nobility, at once rejoined the party of the extremists. They were very indignant; the Constable had deceived and betrayed them; from now on force was the only resource.
Count Robert was triumphant.
‘Haven’t I told you often enough that you can’t deal with those traitors?’ he told them.
He marched once more on Arras at the head of his whole army.
Gaucher, who was in the town with only a small escort, had just time to escape by the Porte de Péronne while Robert was entering by the Porte Saint-Omer with flags flying and trumpets sounding. A quarter of an hour earlier and the Constable of France would have been a prisoner. This event occurred on the 22nd of September. On the same day Robert wrote his aunt the following letter:
‘To the most high and noble Dame Mahaut of Artois, Countess of Burgundy, from Robert of Artois, Knight. As you have wrongly obstructed my right to the County of Artois, which much angers me and weighs on me every day, which thing I will no longer continue to suffer, by this I make known to you that I will put this affair in order and recover my property as soon as I can.’
Robert was not a great letter-writer; fine shades of meaning were not his forte, and he was delighted with this epistle, because it expressed so well what it was meant to say.
The Constable, when he reached Paris, did not cut a very good figure, nor did he mince his words when he met the Count of Poitiers. He was not intimidated by the Regent’s person; he had seen the young man born and wet his clothes; he told him forthrightly that it was ill-using a good servant and a loyal relation, who had commanded the armies of the kingdom for twenty years, to send him to negotiate on assurances which were later disavowed.
‘Until this day, Monseigneur, I have always been considered a true man whose word of honour could not be doubted. You have made me play the part of a traitor and a dastard. When I supported your rights to the regency I thought to find in you something of my King, your father, whom until now you have shown signs of resembling. I see that I have been cruelly mistaken. Have you fallen so completely under a woman’s tutelage that you change your policy as you might your coat?’
Philippe did his best to calm the Constable, accusing himself of having ill-judged the affair in the first place, and of having issued mistaken instructions. There was no point in dealing with the nobility of Artois so long as Robert was undefeated. Robert was a danger to the kingdom and a peril to the honour of the royal family. Was he not the instigator of this campaign of slander which pointed to Mahaut as the poisoner of Louis X?
Gaucher shrugged his shoulders.
‘And who believes that nonsense?’ he cried.
‘Not you, Gaucher, not you,’ said Philippe, ‘but others listen to it, only too happy to be able to injure us thereby; and tomorrow they’ll be saying that I, and you, were implicated in this death they wish people to believe was suspect. But Robert has just made the mistake I was awaiting. Look at what he has written to Mahaut.’
And he handed the Constable the letter of the 22nd of September.
‘By this letter,’ went on the Regent, ‘he rejects the judgment given by my father and Parliament in 1309. Until now he has done no more than support the Countess’s enemies; but by this he enters into rebellion against the law of the realm. You will return to Artois.’
‘Oh, no, Monseigneur!’ cried Gaucher. ‘I have cut too poor a figure there. I had to fly from Arras like an old boar from the hounds, without even time to piss. Do me the favour of choosing someone else to handle this business.’
Philippe put his hand to his mouth. ‘If you knew, Gaucher,’ he thought, ‘if you only knew how painful it is to me to deceive you! But if I told you the truth, you would despise me still more!’ He went on obstinately: ‘You will go back to Artois, Gaucher, for love of me, and because I ask you to do so. You will take with you your brother-in-law, Messire Mille, and this time a good band of knights and also some of the commonalty, enlisting reinforcements in Picardy; and you will summon Robert to appear before Parliament to render an account of his conduct. At the same time you will supply money and men-at-arms to the burgesses of the towns which have remained loyal. And if Robert will not submit, I will take other steps to make him. A prince is like anyone else, Gaucher,’ Philippe went on, taking the Constable by the shoulders, ‘he may make an error at the start, but it would be a still greater error to continue in it. The royal trade has to be learned like any other, and I have still much to learn. Forgive me for forcing you to appear in such a bad light.’
Nothing moves an older man more than a confession of inexperience from a younger, particularly if the latter be his social superior. Beneath their saurian lids Gaucher’s eyes dimmed a little.
‘Oh, I forgot,’ went on Philippe. ‘I have decided that you shall be tutor to the future child of Madame Clémence – our King, if God so wills that it be a boy – and his second godfather, immediately after myself.’26
‘Monseigneur, Monseigneur Philippe …’ said the Constable, much moved.
And he embraced the Regent, as if it had been he who had been at fault.
‘As for godmother,’ said Philippe, ‘we have decided with Madame Clémence that it shall be the Countess Mahaut, so as to still the gossip.’
Eight days later the Constable set out once more.
Robert of Artois, as might have been foreseen, refused to submit to the summons and continued to rage at the head of his horde of knights. But the month of October was not a lucky one for him. If he was a valiant warrior, he was not a great strategist; he sent out forays without plan, one day to the north, the next to the south, at the mere whim of the moment. A Reiter before Reiter, a c
ondottiere before condottieri, he was more suited to taking service with others as a great fighting man – as he was indeed to do, fifteen years later, in the service of England – than to command on his own behalf. In this county, which he considered his own, he behaved as if he were in enemy territory, leading the wild, dangerous and exciting life he loved. He rejoiced in the terror created by his approach, but did not see the hate he left in his wake. His passage was marked by too many bodies hanging from the branches of trees, too many headless corpses, too many victims buried alive amid gusts of cruel laughter, too many women raped, their flesh bearing the marks of mailed coats, and too many acts of arson. Mothers threatened their naughty children with calling Monseigneur Robert; but if he was said to be in the neighbourhood they hid their brats in their skirts and ran for the nearest forest.
The towns barricaded themselves; artisans, following the example of the Flemish towns, sharpened their knives, and the aldermen kept contact with Gaucher’s emissaries. Robert liked open warfare; he hated a war of siege. The burgesses of Saint-Omer or of Calais would shut their gates in his face; he would shrug his shoulders and say: ‘I’ll come back another day and kill the lot of you!’
And he would go off to frolic elsewhere.
But money was beginning to run short. Valois no longer answered his demands, and his rare messages contained only good advice and exhortations to wisdom. Tolomei, his dear banker Tolomei, also turned a deaf ear. He was away; his clerks had no orders. The Pope himself took a hand in the affair; he wrote personally to Robert and to several of the Artois barons to recall them to their duty.