And then he went on bequeathing golden sovereigns, ‘To the value of a thousand pounds,’ he added each time, to a variety of churches, to Notre-Dame of Boulogne because his daughter had been married in it, to Saint-Martin-de-Tour, and to Saint-Denis. This man who, all his life, had looked so carefully to his expenditure, still measured out the exact size of his gifts, as if he expected some indulgence from them.
Brother Renaud leant down towards him and whispered in his ear, ‘Sire, do not forget our Priory of Poissy.’
Upon Philip the Fair’s sunken face was visible an expression of annoyance.
‘Brother Renaud,’ he said, ‘I bequeath to your Monastery the fine Bible which I have annotated in my own hand. It will be useful to you, to you and to all the confessors of the Kings of France.’
The Grand Inquisitor who, from having burnt so many heretics and having so often been an accomplice of power, expected more than this, lowered his eyes to hide his vexation.
‘And to your sisters of the Dominican Order of Poissy,’ the King added, ‘I bequeath the great Cross of the Templars. It will be safe in your keeping.’30
All those present felt a great chill. Valois made an imperious sign to Maillard to finish and ordered him to read the codicil aloud. When the secretary came to the words ‘In the King’s name’, Valois, drawing his nephew Louis towards him and holding him by the arm, said, ‘Add, “And by the consent of the King of Navarre”.’
Then Philip the Fair looked at this son who was to succeed him, and knew that his own reign had come to an end at that moment.
His hand had to be guided as he signed at the bottom of the parchment. Then he murmured, ‘Is that all?’
But it was not, and the last day of the King of France was not yet over.
‘And now, Sire, you must transmit the royal miracle,’ said Brother Renaud.
And he ordered the room to be cleared so that the King might transmit to his son, according to the prescribed rites, the mysterious power of curing the King’s evil.
With his head fallen back, Philip the Fair groaned, ‘Brother Renaud, see what the world is worth. Here lies the King of France!’
Even at the moment of dying, a last effort was demanded of him so that he might teach his successor how to relieve a comparatively mild disease.
It was not Philip the Fair who gave instructions as to the sacramental gestures and words: he had forgotten them. It was Brother Renaud. And Louis of Navarre, kneeling beside his father, his burning hands joined to the King’s icy ones, received the secret inheritance.
When this ceremony was over, the Court was once more admitted into the King’s room, and Brother Renaud began to recite the prayers, which were taken up in low voices by all those present. They were in the middle of reciting the prayer, ‘In manus tuas, Domine’, ‘Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit’ when a door opened: Pierre de Latille came in. Everyone looked at the new arrival and, for a moment, while all lips were mechanically reciting, no one paid any attention except to the newcomer.
‘In manus tuas, Domine,’ said the Bishop, taking up the refrain with the others.
Then everyone turned back to the bed. Prayer died upon everyone’s lips: the Iron King was dead.
Brother Renaud moved forward to close the King’s eyes. But the eyelids, which had never blinked, opened of their own accord. Twice the Grand Inquisitor tried in vain to close them. They had to use a bandage to conceal the stare of this monarch who was entering eternity with open eyes.
THE END OF
THE IRON KING
Footnote
fn1 The numerals in the text refer the reader, if he so desires, to a few notes containing additional information placed at the end of the book.
Author’s Acknowledgements
I AM most grateful to Georges Kessel, José-André Lacour, Gilbert Sigaux and Pierre de Lacretelle for the assistance they have given me with the material of this book; to Colette Mantout, Christiane Souillard and Christiane Templier for their help in compiling it; and to the Bibliothèque Nationale for indispensable aid in research.
Historical Notes
1. In 1314, King Saint Louis had been dead 44 years. He had been canonised twenty-seven years after his decease, in 1297, during the reign of his grandson, Philip the Fair, under the Pontificate of Boniface VIII.
2. The succession of Artois is one of the greatest dramas of inheritance in the whole of history.
In 1237, Saint Louis had given the county of Artois in appanage to his brother Robert. This Robert I of Artois had a son, Robert II, who married Amicie de Courtenay, Dame of Conches. There were two children, Philippe, who died in 1298 as a result of wounds received in the battle of Furnes, and Mahaut, who married Othon, Count Palatine of Burgundy.
Upon the death of Robert II, killed at the battle of Courtray in 1302, ‘pierced by thirty lances’, the inheritance of the county was claimed both by his grandson Robert III (son of Philippe), and by his daughter Mahaut.
Philip the Fair decided in favour of Mahaut in 1309. The latter, having become Regent of the County of Burgundy through the death of her husband, had in the meantime married her two daughters, Jeanne and Blanche, to the second and third sons of Philip the Fair, Philippe and Charles. The decision in her favour was largely influenced by these alliances which brought to the crown notably the County of Burgundy, called the Franche-Comté, which was given to Jeanne as a marriage portion.
Robert refused to submit to this decision and, for twenty years, using every possible means at his disposal, battled determinedly against his aunt.
3. Edward II was the first King of England to bear the title of Prince of Wales before succeeding to the throne. According to some authors, he was three days old when the Welsh barons came to ask his father, Edward 1, to give them a prince who might understand them and could speak neither English nor French. Edward I replied that he would accede to their wishes and presented them with his son who as yet could speak no language at all.
4. The Sovereign Order of the Knights Templar of Jerusalem was founded in 1128 to guard the Holy Places in Palestine and to protect the pilgrim routes. Their rule, which they had received from Saint Bernard, was strict. Chastity, poverty, and obedience were imposed upon them. They must not ‘look women too much in the face,’ nor, ‘love any female whatever, neither widow, nor virgin, nor mother, nor sister, nor aunt, nor any other woman.’ When engaged in warfare, they must fight at odds of one against three and were not allowed to ransom themselves. They were permitted to hunt only lions.
As the only well-organised military force, these soldier-monks formed disciplined cadres among the rabble hordes which were then the crusading armies. The advance-guard of every attack, the rearguard of every retreat, subject to the incompetence or rivalry of the princes who commanded the adventuring armies, they lost during two centuries more than twenty thousand of their effectives on the field of battle, a considerable number in proportion to the size of the Order. None the less, towards the end, they committed some strategical errors which were fatal to them.
But, during all this time, they had also shown themselves to be good administrators. Both because they were necessary, and out of gratitude for all the services they rendered, the gold of Europe flowed into their coffers. Whole provinces were placed under their protection. For a hundred years they guaranteed the effective government of the Latin Kingdom of Constantinople. They travelled the world as masters, having to pay neither tax, tribute, nor toll. They obeyed no one but the Pope. They had commanderies in the whole of Europe and the whole of the Middle East, but the centre of their administration was in Paris. They had set themselves up as great bankers. The Holy See and the principal sovereigns of Europe kept current accounts with them. They lent money on security and advanced the ransoms of prisoners. The Emperor Baldwin pawned ‘the True Cross’ to them.
Everything appertaining to the Templars, their military expeditions, their conquests, their treasure, even the manner in which they were suppressed, has a fabu
lous quality. Even the roll of parchment which contains the report of the interrogations of 1307 measures twenty-five yards in length. Controversy concerning this prodigious law-case has never ceased. Certain historians have taken the part of the accused, others that of Philip the Fair. There is no doubt that the accusations brought against the Templars were generally exaggerated or false; but it is an undoubted fact, nevertheless, that there were profound deviations of dogma to be found within their ranks. Their long stay in the Orient had placed them in contact with certain surviving rites of primitive Christianity, even with some of the esoteric traditions of ancient Egypt. It was concerning their ceremonies of initiation that, by a process of confusion common to the medieval Inquisition, the accusation of adoring idols, demoniac practices and sorcery arose. This explains why King Philip the Fair, who, like every sovereign of the Middle Ages, showed great respect for the Inquisition and was much attached to the letter of Catholic dogma (whatever may have been, in other circumstances, his conflict with the Papacy), pursued the destruction of the Order with such determination, exactly as if it were the destruction of a heresy. This also explains why the Pope, in spite of all the interest he might have in maintaining the power of the Templars, ended by consenting to their suppression. Besides all this, King Philip was, by suppressing them, conducting a gigantic financial operation.
The suppression of the Templars would not interest us so much if it had not been followed by effects which have lasted into the history of the modern world. It is known that the Order of the Knights Templar, immediately after its official destruction, reconstituted itself in the guise of an international secret society, and the names of the secret Grand Masters are recorded right down to the eighteenth century. The Templars are the origin of the guilds, institutions which still exist today. They had need, in their distant commanderies, of Christian workmen. They organised them in accordance with their own peculiar philosophy and gave them a rule called ‘duty’. These workmen, who did not bear arms, were clothed in white. They went through the Crusades and built in the Middle East the most splendid castles. They acquired there certain methods of construction inherited from antiquity and these served them in building the gothic churches of the West. In Paris, the members of these guilds lived either within the precincts of the Temple or in the neighbouring quarter where they enjoyed certain rights. This district remained for five hundred years the centre for initiated workmen. Finally, the Order, by a natural development of these guilds, is related to the origins of Freemasonry. Here can be found the tests which derive from the ceremonies of initiation, and even the precise emblems which, being not only those of the ancient guilds, are, more astonishingly still, yet to be seen upon the walls of certain tombs of ancient Egyptian architects; these walls are veritable manuals of professional initiation. All the evidence therefore leads one to suppose that these rites, emblems, and professional methods of work, can only have been brought back at this period of the Middle Ages by the Templars and their guilds of workmen.
5. The methods used in the Middle Ages for dividing up the year were not the same as those in use today; moreover, they changed from country to country.
The official year began, in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, on Christmas Day; in Venice, upon the 1st March; in England, upon the 25th March; in Rome, at one time upon the 25th January and at another upon the 25th March; in Russia, at the spring equinox.
In France the official year began on Easter Day. This curious custom of taking a movable feast as the beginning of the year (this is what is known as the Easter style, or the French style, or the ancient style), led to the year varying in length from three hundred and thirty to four hundred days. Some years had two springtimes, one at the beginning and one at the end.
This ancient style is the source of infinite confusion and creates great difficulties in establishing exact dates; for, if one is not very careful, one can discover a date of decease earlier by several months than the marriage of the character concerned, or again battles which appear to have been fought after the treaty of peace.
According to the old manner of dating things, the end of the trial of the Templars took place in 1313, since the year 1314 did not begin till the 7th April.
It was only in December 1564, under the reign of Charles IX, the last but one of the Kings of the Valois dynasty, that the beginning of the official year was fixed on the 1st January.
Russia did not adopt this ‘new style’ till 1725, England in 1752, and Venice after the Napoleonic conquest.
All dates in this book are translated into the ‘new style’.
6. The Palace of the Temple, its annexes and gardens and all the neighbouring streets, formed the quarter of the Temple which still bears that name. It was in its Great Tower that Louis XVI was confined during the revolution. He left it only to go to the guillotine. The Tower disappeared in 1811.
7. The Sergeants-at-Arms (sergents) were junior functionaries whose duty it was to perform a variety of tasks connected with public order and the execution of justice. Their functions overlapped those of the doorkeepers (huissiers) and the mace-bearers (massiers). Part of their duty consisted in escorting or preceding the King, the Ministers, the leaders of Parliament and of the University. Under the reign of Charles IV, the youngest son of Philip the Fair, a certain Jourdain de I’Isle, a seigneur of Gascony, was executed for having, among more important crimes, impaled some of the King’s Sergeants-at-Arms upon their belilied staves.
8. This concession, made to certain merchant corporations, of selling in the neighbourhood of, or even within, the sovereign’s habitation seems to come from the Orient. At Byzantium, it was the sellers of perfumes who had the right to erect their stalls before the entrance to the Palace, their essences being the most agreeable odour that was likely to reach the Imperial nostrils.
The Palace of Justice in Paris occupies the site of Philip the Fair’s palace; some of its buildings still date from that period.
9. The Hôtel-de-Nesle and its Tower occupied the present site of the French Institute and part of the Mint. Its dimensions were much the same as those of the Louvre of the period.
10. Paper made from cotton, which is thought to be a Chinese invention, and which originally was known as ‘Greek parchment’ because the Venetians had found it in use in Greece, made its appearance in Europe about the tenth century. Paper made from flax (or rags) was imported from the Orient somewhat later by the Spanish Moors. The first paper factories were established in Europe during the course of the thirteenth century. For reasons of strength and conservation, paper was never used for official documents to which were to be affixed depending seals.
11. It was from these assemblies, first instituted under Philip the Fair, that the Kings of France derived the habit of resorting to national consultations which, later on, became known as États-Généraux and from which in turn issued, after 1789, the first parliamentary institutions.
12. This little island, off the point of the Island of the Cité, owed its name to the numbers of Jews who were burned upon it. Joined to a second island, it forms today the garden of Vert-Galant.
13. This child was to become the illustrious Boccaccio, author of The Decameron.
14. Provosts were royal functionaries who united in themselves the duties which are today spread among Prefects and sub-Prefects, the Commanders of military subdivisions, Superintendents of Police, Collectors of Taxes, and various other agents of the national economy. It is enough to say that they were rarely loved. But already, at this period, in certain provinces, they were beginning to share their duties with ‘Receivers’ who raised the taxes, and with ‘Captains of Towns’ who were concerned with military affairs.
15. The Orders in Council of Philip the Fair concerning the freeing of the serfs in certain bailiwicks and seneschalships. There will be more talk of these later on.
16. Literally: ‘I wish you well.’ A euphemism for ‘I love you.’
17. It was in the Castle of Clermont that Prince Cha
rles, third son of Philip the Fair and future Charles IV, was born.
18. The notion of time in the Middle Ages being much less precise than it is today, the ecclesiastical method of division into prime, tierce, nones and vesper was in general use.
Prime corresponded roughly to 6 o’clock in the morning. Tierce was applied to the later morning hours. Nones to midday and the middle hours. And vesper to all the rest of the day till the sun set.
19. Gautier d’Aunay left two sons, named Philippe and Gautier. One of his grandchildren was Master of the Household to King Charles V and King Charles VI, and one of his great-grandsons became, in 1413, Grand Master of Waters and Forests (Eaux et Forêts) of France.
20. Agnes of France, daughter of Saint Louis, Duchess of Burgundy and mother of Marguerite of Burgundy, wife of Louis le Hutin.
21. At this period, when the postal service had not yet been organised, official messages were carried by couriers. Sovereign princes, the Pope, and the great nobles and principal ecclesiastical dignitaries had each their own organisation of couriers who wore their livery. The royal couriers had a priority right to requisition an exchange of horses upon their road.
22. This purchase tax (maltote) was a tax on purchases of a penny in the pound. It was this tax of less than .5 per cent, at a period when there was no tax on profits, which gave rise to riots and left in history the memory of a crushing financial measure.
23. This poison must have been sulphocyanide of mercury. This salt, by combustion, gives off sulphuric acid fumes of mercury and hydrocyanic compounds which can produce an intoxication at once hydrocyanic and mercurial.
Nearly all the poisons of the Middle Ages had mercury, a favourite material of alchemists, as their base. The name Pharaoh’s Serpent (serpent de Pharaon) later became the name of a children’s toy, in the composition of which this salt is used.
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