The King Without a Kingdom

by Maurice Druon

  There now … I could preach that on Sunday, in Sens. As I will have the homily to give. I am archdeacon of the cathedral. That is why I am compelled to make this detour. We would have shortened our journey by heading straight for Troyes, but I am obliged to inspect the Chapter of Sens.

  The fact remains that I would have been most pleased to prolong my stay a little in Auxerre. These two days have gone by too quickly … Saint-Étienne, Saint-Germain, Saint-Eusèbe, all of those beautiful churches where I have celebrated Mass, weddings and Communions … You know that Auxerre, Autissidurum, is one of the oldest Christian cities in the kingdom, that it was an Episcopal See two hundred years before Clovis, who by the way ravaged it almost as much as Attila, and that a council was held there before the year 600 … My greatest worry, all the time I spent at the head of that diocese, was to discharge the debts left behind by my predecessor, Bishop Pierre. And I couldn’t complain; he had just been created cardinal! Indeed, a good See, which serves as antechamber to the Curia … My various benefices as well as our family’s fortune helped me to fill in the financial holes. My successors were to find the situation much improved. And the current bishop is accompanying us today. He is a fine prelate, this new Monseigneur of Auxerre … But I sent Monseigneur of Bourges back … to Bourges. He had come once again to tug at my robes so that I would grant him a third notary. Oh! It didn’t take me long. I told him: ‘Monseigneur, if you really need so many lawyers, then your episcopal affairs must be very muddled. I urge you to go back forthwith and put your house in order. With my blessing.’ And we will do without his office in Metz. The Bishop of Auxerre will replace him most favourably … I informed the dauphin of this by the way. The messenger I sent him yesterday should be back tomorrow, or at the latest, the day after tomorrow. We will therefore have news of Paris before leaving Sens … He will not give in, the dauphin; in spite of all the manoeuvring and pressure brought to bear upon him, he has kept the King of Navarre in prison …

  What did our people of France do after the affair of Rouen? First of all the king chose to stay there a few days, living in the keep of Bouvreuil while sending his son to stay in another of the castle’s towers and having Navarre under guard in a third tower. He considered that he had numerous affairs to investigate, matters pending he must conduct enquiries into. Firstly, put Fricamps to the question. ‘Friquet is going to be fried alive.’34 This bon mot was told by Mitton le Fol, I believe. There was no need to heat up the fire very much, nor to get out the huge pincers. No sooner had Perrinet le Buffle and four other sergeants dragged Fricamps into the vault and manipulated a few instruments before his eyes than the Governor of Caen showed himself to be of an extreme goodwill. He talked and talked and talked, turning his bag of words upside down to shake out every last crumb. Apparently. But how can one doubt he revealed all when his teeth chattered so and he showed so much zeal for the truth?

  And what did he in fact avow? The names of those who took part in the murder of Charles of Spain? They had been known for quite some time, and he added no new guilty party to the list of those who had received letters of remission further to the Treaty of Mantes. But his account took up the entire morning. Secret negotiations, in Flanders and Avignon, between Charles of Navarre and the Duke of Lancaster? There was not a single European court that remained unaware of them; and that Fricamps himself took part didn’t add a great deal to our knowledge of their content. The aid in war that the kings of England and of Navarre promised each other? The least astute of people could have worked it out for themselves, the previous summer, seeing Charles the Bad turn up in the Cotentin and the Prince of Wales in the Bordelais at almost the same time. Ah! Of course there was the secret treaty in which Navarre recognized King Edward as rightful King of France, and in which they divided up the kingdom amongst themselves! Fricamps did indeed confess that such an agreement had been drawn up, which gave substance to the accusations of John of Artois. But only the preliminary exchanges, the treaty hadn’t been signed. King John, when this part of Friquet’s statement was related to him, shouted out: ‘The traitor, the traitor! Wasn’t I right?’

  The dauphin pointed out to him: ‘My father, these plans were prior to the Treaty of Valognes that Charles signed with you, and which states the exact opposite. The one that Charles betrayed is therefore the King of England rather than yourself.’

  And as the king screamed that his son-in-law betrayed everyone: ‘Most certainly, my father,’ retorted the dauphin, ‘and I am beginning to believe it myself. But you would be wrong to accuse him of treason specifically intended to harm you alone.’

  On the subject of the expedition to Germany, that Navarre and the dauphin had not accomplished, Friquet of Fricamps was unstoppable. The names of the conspirators, the rallying point, and who had gone and said what to whom, and what they had to do … But the dauphin had already made all of that known to his father.

  A new plot hatched by Monseigneur of Navarre with the intention of seizing the King of France and slaying him? No, Friquet hadn’t heard the slightest word nor detected the smallest indication of it. Admittedly the Count of Harcourt … in charging a dead man the suspect takes no risk at all; it is a known fact of law … The Count of Harcourt was most incensed these last few months, and had pronounced threatening words; but he alone, and speaking only for himself.

  How can one not believe a man, I repeat, as obliging with his interrogators, who spoke six hours straight, without even leaving the secretaries the time to sharpen their quills? A wily one, that Friquet, very much his master’s apprentice, drowning all around him in a flood of words and playing the garrulous one all the better to conceal what was most important for him to keep quiet! Anyway, in order to use his confession in a trial, it would be necessary to start his interrogation all over again in Paris, before a properly constituted commission of enquiry, as this one wasn’t properly constituted in the slightest. All in all, a big net had been cast, and very few fish had been caught.

  During these same days, King John busied himself going about seizing the properties and goods of the traitors, and he dispatched his Viscount of Rouen, Thomas Coupeverge, to get his hands on the Harcourts’ possessions, whilst he sent the Marshal of Audrehem to invest Évreux. But everywhere Coupeverge came across unwelcoming occupants, and the seizure remained somewhat nominal. He would have had to leave a garrison in each castle, but he hadn’t taken with him enough men-at-arms. On the other hand the huge headless body of John of Harcourt didn’t remain exposed long on the gallows of Rouen. During the second night it was taken down secretly by good Normans who gave him a Christian burial, at the same time enjoying the pleasure of deriding the king.

  As for the town of Évreux, the marshal had to lay it to siege. But it was not the only fief of the Évreux-Navarre clan. From Valognes to Meulan, from Longueville to Conches and from Pontoise to Coutances a threatening climate reigned in the towns, and the hedgerows along the sides of the road quivered suspiciously.

  King John didn’t feel at all safe in Rouen. He had come with troops enough to assail a banquet, but not to withstand a revolt. He avoided leaving the castle. His most loyal servants, including John of Artois himself, advised him to withdraw. His presence aroused anger.

  A king who is reduced to fearing his own people is a poor sire whose reign is very likely to be cut short.

  So John II decided to regain Paris; but he wanted the dauphin to accompany him. ‘You will not hold out, Charles, should there be tumult in your duchy.’ He feared most of all that his son proved too accommodating with the Navarrese party.

  The dauphin gave way, demanding only that they travel by water. ‘My father, I am accustomed to going from Rouen to Paris via the Seine. Should I do otherwise it might appear that I was fleeing. Furthermore, in moving at the slow speed of a boat, news can more easily reach us, and if I am required to return, that too will be more convenient.’

  So there we have the king embarked on the great barge35 that the Duke of Normandy ordered specially fo
r his own travel, since, just as I told you, he hates to ride. A large flat-bottomed boat, highly decorated, adorned and gilded, bearing the banners of France, Normandy and Dauphiny, and manoeuvred by sail and oar. The forecastle is fitted out like a veritable residence, with a fine chamber furnished with carpets and chests. The dauphin enjoys conversing there with his advisors, playing chess or draughts, or gazing at the country of France which displays much beauty all along that great river. But the king was seething with impatience at such a subdued pace. What a foolish idea it was to follow every bend of the Seine, which tripled the length of the journey, when there are routes that cut straight across the country! This confined space was unbearable to him; as far as it allowed he paced up and down as he dictated a letter, a single one, always the same one that he went over and rewrote again and again. And, at any moment, on impulse, mooring the boat, wading through the mud of the landing stage, wiping his boots in the daisies, ordering his horse brought to him, which followed with the escort along the riverbanks, to go and visit, for no particular reason, a castle he had caught a glimpse of through the poplars. ‘And may the letter be copied out for my return.’ His letter was to the pope, in which he would explain the causes and grounds for the King of Navarre’s arrest. Was there any other business in the kingdom? One wouldn’t have thought so. In any case, none that required his attention. The poor levels of aid revenues collected, the need to devalue the currency once again, the tax on cloth that had provoked the anger of the trade, the necessary repair work to the fortresses under threat from the English; he brushed these worries aside. Didn’t he have a chancellor, a governor of finance, a master of the royal household, masters of requests and presidents at Parliament to deal with such things? May Nicolas Braque, who had left for Paris, go about his business, and likewise Simon of Bucy or Robert of Lorris. And indeed they did, swelling their fortunes, speculating on the price of coinage, hushing up accusations against relatives, permanently upsetting various merchant companies, towns or dioceses that would never forgive the king for the treatment received.

  A sovereign who on the one hand claims to see to everything, down to the very last ceremonial detail, and on the other hand seems not to worry any longer about anything, not even the most important matters, isn’t a man who will guide his people to great things.

  On the second day the dauphin’s vessel was moored at Pont-de-l’Arche when the king saw the prevost of the Paris merchants, Master Étienne Marcel, riding at the head of a company of fifty to a hundred lances beneath the town’s blue and red banner. These bourgeois were better equipped than many a knight.

  The king didn’t get off the boat, nor did he invite the prevost on board. They spoke to each other from deck to riverbank, both equally surprised to find themselves face to face with one another. The prevost clearly hadn’t expected to meet the king in this place, and the king wondered what the prevost could possibly be doing in Normandy with such an equipage. There was surely some Navarrese intrigue afoot behind it all. Was it an attempt to free Charles the Bad? The matter seemed rather swift in the making, just one week after his arrest. But it was possible. Or was the prevost part of the conspiracy revealed by John of Artois? The machinations he told of thus gained in verisimilitude.

  ‘We came to salute you, sire,’ was all the prevost said. The king, rather than making him talk a little, answered out of the blue and in a threatening tone that he had had to seize the King of Navarre against whom he held serious grievances, and that all would be revealed in the broad light of day in the letter that he was intending to send to the pope. King John also said that he expected to find his town of Paris in good order, and both peaceful and busy, upon his return … ‘And presently, Messire Prevost, you may yourself return.’

  A long way indeed for so few words. Étienne Marcel left, his tuft of a black beard sitting up on his chin. And as soon as the king had seen the banner of Paris disappear between the willows, he sent for his secretary to modify once more the letter to the pope … Ah, that reminds me … Brunet? Brunet! Brunet, call Dom Calvo to my window … yes, if you please … dictating something like ‘And once again Most Holy Father, I have established proof that Monseigneur the King of Navarre attempted to rouse the merchants of Paris against me, making contact with their prevost who came to Norman country without warning, accompanied by a company of men-at-arms so great they could not be counted, in order to help the evil members of the Navarrese faction put the finishing touches to their perfidy, seizing my very person and that of my eldest son, the dauphin …’

  For that matter, in his head Marcel’s cavalcade was to grow by the hour, and soon would count five hundred lances.

  And then he decided to move on immediately from that mooring and, having had Navarre and Fricamps extracted from the Castle of Pont-de-l’Arche, he ordered the boatmen to head for Les Andelys. As the King of Navarre was following on horseback, stage by stage, surrounded by a solid escort of sergeants who kept him on the tightest of reins and had been given the order to run him through should he look set to flee or should there occur any attempt to rescue him. He should always stay within sight of the boat. In the evening, he would be locked up in the nearest tower. He had been held prisoner in Pont-de-l’Arche. He was to be held in Château-Gaillard … yes, Château-Gaillard, where his grandmother of Burgundy had so early ended her days … yes, more or less at the same age.

  How was Monseigneur of Navarre bearing up under all this? Frankly speaking, rather badly. Now he has probably got more accustomed to his status as prisoner, at least since he found out that the King of France himself is prisoner of the King of England and thus, as a result, he no longer fears for his life. But in the early days …

  Ah! There you are, Dom Calvo. Remind me if the word light figures in the gospel reading next Sunday, or some other word that evokes the idea … yes, the second Sunday of Advent. It would be most surprising not to find it somewhere … or in the epistle … the one from last Sunday obviously … Abjiciamus ergo opera tenebrarum, et induamur arma lucis … Let us therefore reject the works of darkness and cloak ourselves in the light … But that was last Sunday. You don’t have it in mind either. All right, you will tell me later on; I would appreciate it …

  A fox cub caught in a trap, turning round and round in his cage, panic-stricken, eyes ablaze, muzzle sullied, body starved thin, whining, and whining … This is how he was, our Monseigneur of Navarre. But it has to be said that everything was being done to frighten the life out of him.

  Nicolas Braque had obtained a deferral for his execution by arguing that the King of Navarre should be made to feel like he is dying every day; this did not fall on deaf ears.

  At Château-Gaillard, not only did King John order that he be specifically incarcerated in the chamber where Madame Marguerite of Burgundy had died, and this he was well made to understand … ‘The shamelessness of his rascally wench of a grandmother it was that produced this evil breed; he is the offspring of a harlot’s offspring; he must be made to think that he will end up like her …’ what’s more, over the handful of days that he held him there, the king announced on numerous occasions, even during the night, that his demise was imminent.

  ‘Get yourself ready, monseigneur. The king has ordered your scaffold to be mounted in the castle’s courtyard. We will come and get you shortly.’ During his sorry stay, Charles of Navarre was told this by the King of the Ribald, or le Buffle, or any number of other sergeants. A moment later, Sergeant Lalemant would appear, to find Navarre with his back against the wall, gasping for breath, eyes terror-stricken. ‘The king has granted you a reprieve; you will not be executed before tomorrow.’ Upon which Navarre got his breath back and collapsed on a stool. An hour or so went by, when Perrinet le Buffle returned. ‘The king will not have you beheaded, monseigneur. No … He wants you hanged. He is erecting the gallows now.’ And then, once salvation until the morrow was declared, it was the castle governor’s turn, Gautier of Riveau.

  ‘Have you come to get me, messire governor
?’

  ‘No, monseigneur, I have come to bring you your supper.’

  ‘Have they erected the gallows?’

  ‘What gallows? No, monseigneur, no gallows have been prepared.’

  ‘Nor any scaffold?’

  ‘No, monseigneur, I have seen nothing of the kind.’

  Six times over. Monseigneur of Navarre had been beheaded, and hanged, drawn or quartered as many times again. Perhaps the worst trick was leaving a large sack of hemp in his cell and telling him that during the night he would be tied up in it and thrown in the Seine. The following morning, the King of the Ribald came to recover the sack, and went away smiling when, turning it over, he saw that Monseigneur of Navarre had made a hole in it.

  King John constantly asked for news of the prisoner. This helped make him wait more patiently while his letter to the pope was altered. Was the King of Navarre eating? No, he scarcely touched the meals he was brought, and his plate came back down exactly as it had gone up. He was certainly afraid of being poisoned. ‘Is he losing weight? A good thing, a good thing indeed. Make his food bitter-tasting and foul-smelling, so that he thinks that we really want to poison him.’ Is he sleeping? Badly. During the day, he was sometimes to be found slumped over the table, his head in his hands, starting like someone suddenly pulled from his sleep. But at night, he could be heard walking without cease, round and round his circular chamber … ‘Like a fox cub, sire, like a fox cub.’ He certainly dreaded someone coming to strangle him, just as his grandmother had been, in the same place. Certain mornings one could tell that he had been crying. ‘Ah good, ah good,’ said the king. ‘Does he speak to you?’ But of course he spoke! He tried to strike up conversations with those who entered his lodgings. And he attempted to wear them down, starting with their weaknesses. He promised the King of the Ribald a mountain of gold if he would help him escape, or just agree to sending letters to the outside. He offered Sergeant Perrinet the chance to come with him and become his King of the Ribald in Évreux and in Navarre, as he had noticed that le Buffle was jealous of the other man. To the fortress’s governor, whom he had judged to be a loyal soldier, he pleaded innocence and injustice. ‘I know not what they hold against me, as I swear to God that I have harboured no evil thought against the king, my dear father, nor have undertaken anything at all to harm him. He was misled about me by perfidious traitors. They wanted to send me down in his esteem; but I can bear all the punishments that he cares to inflict upon me, because I know that they are not really of his doing. There are so many things I could advise him of for his safeguarding, so many favours I could do him and that I will not be able to do him should he have me killed. Go to him, messire governor, go and tell him that it would be to his advantage to grant me an audience. And if God wishes that I return to good fortune, rest assured that I will take care of yours, as I can see that you are sympathetic to my cause as much as you are concerned about the true wellbeing of your master.’