The King Without a Kingdom

by Maurice Druon

  As for the facts themselves, never would King Philip the Fair have agreed to the severing, for whatever reason, of a part of the kingdom’s territory, one that he himself had annexed! One doesn’t secure one’s throne by sawing off one of its legs. But it was a peaceful arrangement; Joan and Philip of Navarre remained most docile, Joan still under the cloud of her mother’s reputation, Philip by virtue of a dignified and thoughtful nature bequeathed him by his father, Louis of Évreux. They seemed to be happy with their rich Norman county and their small Pyrenean kingdom. Things would change when their son Charles, a boisterous young man of eighteen years, began to cast about vindictive looks, filled with condemnation for the failures evident in his family’s past, filled with ambition for his own future. ‘If my grandmother hadn’t been such a brazen whore, if my mother had been born a man, I would be King of France by now.’ I heard him say these things with my own ears. It was therefore considered advisable to show some interest in Navarre, the position of which, to the south of the kingdom, had secured the region even more importance since the English had conquered all of Aquitaine. So, as always in such circumstances, a marriage was to be arranged.

  Duke John would have happily refrained from contracting a new marital union. But he was destined to be king, and the royal image required him to have a wife at his side, particularly in his case. A wife would prevent him appearing to walk too openly on the arm of Monsieur of Spain. Moreover, how could he better pander to the boisterous Charles of Évreux-Navarre, and how better tie his hands, than by choosing the future Queen of France from amongst his sisters? The eldest, Blanche, was sixteen years old. She was beautiful, and blessed with a sharp wit. Plans were coming along well, the pope’s permission had been secured and the wedding was practically announced, even though during the terrible period we were living through, we were all wondering who would still be alive the next week.

  Because death continued to knock on every door. At the beginning of December the plague took the Queen of France herself, Madame Joan of Burgundy, the lame one, the bad queen. For her, decorum was scarcely enough to contain the cries of joy, and the people set to dancing in the streets. She was despised; your father must have told you so. She would steal her husband’s seal to have people thrown into prison; she would prepare poisoned baths for those guests she took a dislike to. She very nearly killed a bishop that way … The king occasionally beat her black and blue with torches; but he failed to mend her behaviour. I was most wary of the bad queen. Her suspicious nature filled the court with imaginary enemies. She was quick-tempered, a liar, a horrible person; she was a murderess. Her death seemed to be a delayed manifestation of heavenly justice. What’s more, immediately after her demise the scourge began to subside, as if this carnage, come from so far away, had had no other goal but to reach, at last, this harpy.

  Of all the men in France, it was the king himself who was the most relieved by the news of her death. One month less one day later, in the cold of January, he remarried. Even as the widower of a universally hated woman, such haste was setting little store by social convention. But the worst was not in the timing. To whom was he wed? To his own son’s fiancée, Blanche of Navarre, the slip of a girl with whom he had fallen madly in love upon her first appearance at court. Although the French are happy to turn a blind eye to bawdiness, they hate to see their sovereign let himself be ruled by it in such fashion.

  Philip VI was forty years older than the beauty he had snatched so brutally from the hand of his heir. And he couldn’t invoke a tradition of poorly matched princely couples, or the greater good of empires. He was setting a stone of scandal in his own crown, while inflicting upon his successor wounds of ridicule that would assuredly leave terrible scars. Philip and Blanche married in haste near Saint-Germain-en-Laye. John of Normandy of course did not attend. He had never been particularly fond of his father, and his father had offered him little affection in return. Now the son vowed the king nothing but hate.

  And one month later, the heir also remarried. He was keen to put the insult he had suffered behind him. He made out to be delighted to settle for Madame of Boulogne, widow of the Duke of Burgundy. It was my venerable brother, the Cardinal Guy of Boulogne, who arranged the marriage in the interests of his family, while not forgetting to further his own interests as well. From a financial perspective, Madame of Boulogne was an excellent match. This should have cleared up the business affairs of the prince, who was a spendthrift second to none, but in fact he was only encouraged to squander yet more.

  The new Duchess of Normandy was older than her mother-in-law; the two women produced a strange effect at court receptions, all the more so as any comparison between them – in terms of beauty and bearing – was hardly to the daughter-in-law’s advantage. Duke John was greatly vexed by this; he had let himself believe that he loved Madame Blanche of Navarre with all his heart, and he suffered torment seeing her, who had been so wickedly taken from him, next to his father, and being cosseted by him, in public, in the most idiotic fashion. This didn’t help nocturnal matters between Duke John and Madame of Boulogne; rather, the Duke was pushed further into the arms of Monsieur of Spain. Extravagance became his revenge. One would have thought that he was buying back his honour, not vaingloriously wasting money.

  Besides, after the months of terror and grief we had endured, everybody was spending like mad. Especially in Paris. In and around the court was folly after the plague. They maintained that creating an abundance of luxury would provide work for the people. And yet we were hard put to see the effects in the hovels and the garrets. Between the princes with their rising debts and the poverty-stricken common people, there were the fixers and dealers who siphoned off the profit, big merchants like the Marcels, who deal in drapery, silks and other finery, and made themselves handsomely rich. Fashion became extravagant; Duke John, although he was already thirty-one years old, could be seen, together with Monsieur of Spain, wearing laced tunics so short his buttocks showed. People laughed at them no sooner had they passed by.

  Madame Blanche of Navarre had been made queen sooner than originally planned; her reign was shorter than expected. Philip of Valois had come through both the war and the plague unscathed; he wasn’t to withstand love. All the years he was tied to a cantankerous, lame wife, he remained a handsome man, a little overweight but always robust, active, handling weaponry, riding fast, hunting long and hard. Six months of gallant prowess with his new, beautiful wife would undo him. It was obsession; it was frenzy. He would leave his bed with the thought uppermost in his mind of getting back in as soon as he could. He would ask his physicians for potions that would make him indefatigable in the act. What is it? Are you surprised? But of course, my nephew; despite being of the Church, or rather because we are of the Church, we need to be informed of such things, above all when they touch on the person of a king.

  Madame Blanche was subjected to this obsession, the king’s passion was proved to her constantly; she was consenting, worried and flattered all at the same time. The king took to proclaiming publicly and with great pride that she wearied sooner than he. He lost weight. He lost interest in governing. Each week aged him a year. He died on the twenty-second of August 1350, at the age of fifty-seven, after a twenty-two-year reign.

  Beneath his splendid exterior, this sovereign, to whom I was faithful … he was King of France, wasn’t he? And moreover I couldn’t forget that he was the one who had asked for the galero8 on my behalf … this monarch had been a pitiful leader and a disastrous financier. He had lost Calais, he had lost Aquitaine; he left Brittany in a state of revolt and a good many of the kingdom’s strongholds in doubt or in ruin. Above all he had lost prestige. I’m afraid so! Although he had bought Dauphiny.9 Nobody can be a perpetual catastrophe. It was I, it is good that you should know, who secured the deal, two years before Crécy. The Dauphin Humbert was so far in debt that he didn’t know whom to borrow from to pay back whomever. I will tell you the story in detail another day, if you are interested, how I went abo
ut getting the eldest son of France to wear the dauphin’s crown and bring Viennois back into the kingdom’s fold. In this way I can safely say, without wishing to boast, that I served France better than King Philip VI, as he only knew how to make it smaller, while I successfully expanded its borders.

  Six years already! It has been six years since King Philip died and Monseigneur Duke John became King John II! Yet it still feels as if we are at the beginning of his reign, these six years have gone so quickly. Is it because our new king has achieved little one could deem noteworthy, or rather that the more one ages, the faster time seems to fly? At twenty, each month, each week, enriched with the new, seems to last for ever. You will see, Archambaud, when you get to be my age, if you do, that is, as I wish you may with all my heart, one turns around and one says to oneself: ‘How is it possible? Already another year gone by? How could it go so quickly!’ Perhaps it is because one takes up too many moments remembering, reliving times past.

  And there it is; night has fallen. I knew we would be arriving at Nontron in the black of night.

  Brunet! Brunet! Tomorrow we must leave before dawn, we have a long day’s travelling ahead of us, without the luxury of making any stops. So, everyone must be stocked up with provisions and we must be harnessed up in time. Who has gone ahead to Limoges to announce my arrival? Armand de Guillermis; that’s good. I send my knights on each one in turn to take care of my lodgings and the preparations for my welcome, one or two days in advance, no more. Just enough for the people to gather around eagerly, but not enough for the plaintiffs of the diocese to rush up and overwhelm me with their petitions for the king. The cardinal? Ah! We only found out the day before; alas, he is already gone. Otherwise, my nephew, I would be a veritable travelling tribunal.

  4

  The Cardinal and the Stars

  HEY! MY NEPHEW, I can see that you are taking to my palanquin and to the meals I am served here. And to my company, and to my company, of course. Do take some of this confit de canard that was given to us in Nontron. It is the town’s speciality. I don’t know how my chef managed to keep it warm for us …

  Brunet! Brunet, you will tell my chef how much I appreciate his keeping the dishes warm; he prepares them for me beforehand, for the journey; he is most skilful. Ah! He has hot coals in his cart … No, no, I don’t mind being served the same food twice in a row, as long as I enjoyed it the first time. And I had found the confit quite delicious yesterday evening. Let us thank God that he provides for us so plentifully.

  The wine is, admittedly, rather too young and thin. This is neither the Sainte-Foy nor the Bergerac, to which you are accustomed, Archambaud. Indeed, nor is it the wine of Saint-Émilion and Lussac, both of which are a delight, but which now all leave Libourne in heavily-loaded ships headed for England. French palates are not allowed them any more.

  Isn’t it true, Brunet, that this has nothing on a tumbler of Bergerac? The knight Aymar Brunet is from Bergerac, and finds nothing in the world better than what is grown on home soil. I mock him a little about that.

  This morning, the Papal Secretary Dom Francesco Calvo is keeping me company. I want him to refresh my memory on all the matters I will have to deal with in Limoges. We will be staying there two full days, maybe three. In any case, unless I am obliged to do so by some urgent business or express summons, I avoid travelling on Sundays. I want my escort to be able to attend church services and take some rest.

  Ah! I can’t hide the fact that I am excited at the idea of seeing Limoges once more! It was my very first bishopric. I was … I was … I was younger than you are now, Archambaud; I was twenty-three years old. And I treat you like a youngster! It is a failing that comes with age, to treat youth as if it were still childhood, forgetting what one was oneself at the same age. You will have to correct me, my nephew, when you see me veering off along this path. Bishop! My first mitre! I was most proud of it, and I was soon to commit the sin of pride because of it. It was said of course that I owed my seat to favour, just as I had my first benefices, which were bestowed upon me by Clement V because he held my mother in high esteem; now it was said John XXII obtained the bishopric for me because our families had matched my last sister, your aunt Aremburge, to his grand-nephew, Jacques de la Vie. And to be totally honest, there was some truth to it. Being the pope’s nephew is a happy accident, but the benefit of it doesn’t last unless it be combined with nobility such as ours. Your uncle La Vie was a good man.

  As for me, as young as I was, I do not believe I am remembered as a bad bishop in Limoges, or anywhere else. When I see so many hoary diocesans who know neither how to keep their flock nor their clergy in check, and who overwhelm us with their grievances and their legal proceedings, I tell myself that I did the job rather well, and without too much trouble. I had good vicars – here, pour me some more of that wine would you; I need to wash down the confit – and I left it up to those good vicars to govern. I ordered them never to disturb me except for the most serious matters, for which I was respected, and even a little feared. This arrangement afforded me the luxury of continuing my studies. I was already most knowledgeable in canon law; I called the finest professors to my residence to enable me to perfect my mastery of civil law. They came up from Toulouse, where I was awarded my degree, and which is as good a university as Paris, as densely populated with learned scholars. By way of recognition, I have decided … I wanted to let you know, my nephew, as I now have the opportunity; this is recorded in my last will and testament, in case I am not able to accomplish it during my lifetime. I have decided to found, in Toulouse, a college for poor Périgordian schoolchildren. Do take that hand towel, Archambaud, and dry your fingers.

  It was also in Limoges that I began my studies in astrology. For this reason: the two sciences most necessary for the exercise of authority in government are indeed the science of law and the science of the stars. The former teaches us the laws that govern the relationships between men and the obligations they have towards each other, or with the kingdom, or with the Church, while the latter gives us knowledge of the laws that govern the relationships men have with Providence. The law and astrology; the laws of the earth, the laws of the heavens. I say that there is no denying it. God brings each of us into the world at the hour He so wishes, and this exact time is written on the celestial clock, which by His good grace, He has allowed us to read.

  I know there are certain believers, wretched men, who deride astrology as a science because it abounds in charlatans and peddlers of lies. But that has always been the way; the old books tell us that paltry fortune-tellers and false wise men, hawking their predictions, were denounced by the ancient Romans and by the other ancient civilizations; that never stopped them seeking out the art of the good and the just observers of the celestial sphere, who often practised their skills in sacred places. Just so, it is not thought wise to close down all the churches because there exist simoniacal or intemperate priests.

  I am so pleased to see that you share my opinions on this matter. It is the humble attitude proper for the Christian before the decrees of Our Lord, the Creator of all things, who stands behind the stars.

  You would like to … but of course, my nephew, I will be delighted to do yours. Do you know your time of birth? Ah! That you will need to find out; send someone to your mother and ask her to give you the exact time of your first cry. Mothers remember such things.

  As far as I am concerned, I have never received anything but praise for my practice of astral science. It enabled me to give useful advice to those princes who deigned to listen to me, and also to know the nature of any man I found myself up against and to be wary of those whose fate was adverse to mine. Thus I knew from the beginning that Capocci would be an opponent in all things, and I have always distrusted him. It is the stars that have guided me to the successful completion of a great many negotiations, and the making of as many favourable arrangements, such as the match for my sister in Durazzo, or the felicitous marriage of Louis of Sicily; and the grateful beneficiari
es swelled my fortune accordingly. But first of all, it was to John XXII (may God preserve him; he was my benefactor) that this science was of the most invaluable service. Because Pope John himself was a great alchemist and astrologian; knowing of my devotion to the same art, and the distinction I had attained in it, impelled him to show increased favour for myself and inspired him to listen to the wishes of the King of France and make me cardinal at the age of thirty, which is a most unusual thing. And so I went to Avignon to receive my galero. You know how such a thing takes place. Don’t you?

  The pope gives a grand banquet for the entrance of the new recruit to the Curia, to which he invites all the cardinals. At the end of the meal, the pope sits on his throne, poses the galero upon the head of the new cardinal, who remains kneeling and kisses first his foot, then his lips. I was too young for John XXII … he was eighty-seven at that time … to call me venerabilis frater; so he chose to address me with a dilectus filius. And before inviting me to stand up, he whispered in my ear: ‘Do you know how much your galero cost me? Six pounds, seven sols and ten deniers.’ It was in the way of that pontiff to humble you, precisely at that moment when you felt the most proud, always having a word of mockery for delusions of grandeur. Of all the days of my life there is not a single one of which I have kept a sharper memory. The Holy Father, all withered and wrinkled under his white zucchetto, which hugged his cheeks … It was the fourteenth of July of the year 1331 …

  Brunet! Have them stop my palanquin! I am going to stretch my legs a little, with my nephew, while they brush off these crumbs. This is a flat stretch, and we are graced with a ray of sunlight, you will pick us up further on. Only twelve will escort me; I would like a little peace … Hail, Master Vigier … hail, Volnerio … hail, du Bousquet … may the peace of God be with you all, my sons, my good servants.