‘Brother,’ said Philippe of Poitiers in his calm voice, ‘I entirely agree with the counsel Gaucher has given you. The troops are in no condition to fight till they have had a good week in which to recuperate.’
‘That is also my advice,’ said Count Louis of Evreux.
‘And so we are never to punish the Flemings!’ cried Charles de la Marche, the King’s second brother, who always shared his uncle Valois’s opinions.
Everyone began to speak at once. Retreat or defeat, that was their choice, the Constable affirmed. Valois replied that he saw no advantage in retreating fifteen miles merely that the army should continue to rot. The Count of Champagne announced that his troops, having been raised only for a fortnight, would return home if no attack were launched; and Duke Eudes of Burgundy, brother of the assassinated Marguerite, took advantage of the argument to show how little eager he was to serve his ex-brother-in-law.
The King remained hesitant, uncertain with which party to side. The whole expedition had been conceived as a rapid campaign. Both the condition of the Treasury and his personal prestige depended upon quick results. He saw the chances of a lightning war diminishing. To follow the path of wisdom and good sense, to regroup elsewhere and wait, was to postpone both his marriage and his coronation. Whereas to expect to be able to cross a river in flood and charge through the mud at a gallop ...
It was at this moment that Robert of Artois rose to his feet and, an impressive sight in his massive scarlet and steel, strode into the centre of the meeting.
‘Sire, my Cousin,’ he said, ‘I understand your concern. You have not enough money to maintain this huge army in idleness. Moreover, you have a new wife awaiting you, and we are all impatient to see her made Queen, as we are to see you crowned. My advice is not to persist. It is not the enemy that forces us to turn back; it’s in the rain I see the will of God before which everyone, however great he may be, must bow. Who can tell, Cousin, whether God has not wished to warn you not to fight before you have been anointed with holy oil? You will gain as much prestige from a fine coronation as from a rash battle. Therefore, renounce for the moment your intention of whipping these wretched Flemings, and if the terror with which you have inspired them is not in itself sufficient, let us come back with as great a force next spring.’
This unexpected advice, coming from a man whose courage in battle could not be doubted, received the support of part of the meeting. No one understood then that Robert was pursuing ends of his own, and that his desire of raising Artois was closer to his heart than the interests of the Kingdom.
Louis X, impulsive but not particularly prompt to act, was always ready to give up in despair when events did not turn out as he wished. He seized the lifeline Artois offered him.
‘You have spoken wisely, Cousin,’ he said. ‘Heaven has given us a warning. Let the army withdraw, since it cannot advance. But I swear to God,’ he added, raising his voice and thinking thus to preserve his grandeur, ‘I swear to God that if I am still living next year, I shall invade these Flemings and will make no armistice with them short of unconditional surrender.’
From that moment he had no concern but to break camp as quickly as possible, and his sole preoccupations were with his marriage and his coronation.
The Count of Poitiers and the Constable had considerable difficulty in persuading him to take certain indispensable precautions, such as maintaining garrisons along the Flanders frontier.
The Hutin was in such a hurry to be gone, as were most of the commanders of ‘banners’, that the following morning, since they lacked wagons and could not extract all their gear from the mud, they set fire to their tents, their furnishings, and equipment.
Leaving behind it a huge conflagration, the foundering army arrived before Tournai that evening; the terrified inhabitants closed the gates of the town, and no one insisted that they should open them. The King had to find asylum in a monastery.
Two days later, on August 7th, he was at Soissons, where he signed a number of Orders in Council which put an end to this distinguished campaign. He charged his uncle Valois with making the final preparations for his coronation, and sent his brother Philippe to Paris to fetch the sword and the crown. Everyone would gather between Rheims and Troyes to meet Clémence of Hungary.
Though he had dreamed of meeting his fiancée as a hero of chivalry, Louis’s only concern now was that the distressing expedition be forgotten, an expedition which was already known as ‘The Muddy Army’.
7
The Philtre
AT DAWN A MULE-BORNE litter, escorted by two armed servants, entered the great porch of the Artois house in the Rue Mauconseil. Beatrice d’Hirson, niece of the Chancellor of Artois and lady-in-waiting to the Countess Mahaut, alighted from it. No one would have thought that this handsome dark-haired girl had travelled nearly a hundred miles since the day before. Her dress was hardly creased; her face with its high cheekbones was as smooth and fresh as if she had just awakened from sleep. Besides, she had slept part of the way under comfortable rugs, to the swinging of the litter. Beatrice d’Hirson, and it was rare in a woman of that period, had no fear of travelling by night; she saw in the dark like a cat and knew that she was under the protection of the devil. Long-legged and high-breasted, walking with steps that seemed slow because they were long and regular, she went straight to the Countess Mahaut, whom she found at breakfast.
‘It is done, Madam,’ said Beatrice, handing the Countess a little horn box.
‘Well, and how is my daughter Jeanne?’
‘The Countess of Poitiers is as well as can be expected, Madam; her life at Dourdan is not too harsh and her gentle disposition has won over her gaolers. Her complexion is clear and she has not grown too thin; she is sustained by hope and by your concern for her.’12
‘What of her hair?’ the Countess asked.
‘It has only a year’s growth, Madam, and is not yet as long as a man’s; but it seems to be growing thicker than it was before.’
‘But is she presentable?’
‘With a veil about her face, most certainly. And she can wear false plaits to hide her neck and ears.’
‘You can’t keep false hair on in bed,’ said Mahaut.
She finished up her bacon-and-pea stew in great spoonfuls and then, to cleanse her palate, drank a full goblet of red Poligny wine. Then she opened the horn box and looked at the grey powder it contained.
‘How much did this cost me?’
‘Seventy pounds.’
‘Damn it, these witches make one pay heavily for their art.’
‘They run a big risk.’
‘How many of the seventy pounds have you kept for yourself?’ said the Countess, looking her lady-in-waiting straight in the eye.
Beatrice did not turn her eyes away and, still smiling ironically, replied in her slow voice, ‘Hardly any, Madam. Merely enough to buy this scarlet dress which you had promised me but failed to give me.’
Countess Mahaut could not help laughing; the girl knew how to handle her.
‘You must be hungry, have some of this duck pâté,’ she said, helping herself to a huge slice.
Then, reverting to the horn box, she added, ‘I believe in the value of poisons for getting rid of enemies, but not much in philtres for the winning over of adversaries. It’s your idea, not mine.’
‘And yet I assure you, Madam, that you must believe in them,’ Beatrice replied, showing more animation than usual, for everything which had to do with magic excited her strongly. ‘This philtre is peculiarly effective; it is not made from a sheep’s brain, but from herbs only and was prepared in my presence. I went to Dourdan, as I asked your permission to do, and drew a little blood from Madame Jeanne’s right arm. Then I took the blood to Dame Isabelle de Férienne, who mixed it with vervain, campion, and lovage; and Dame de Férienne pronounced the spell; she put the mixture on a new brick and burnt it with ashwood to obtain the powder I have brought you. Now it only remains to put the powder in a drink, make the Count of Poi
tiers swallow it, and in a little while you will see him in love with his wife once again and so violently that nothing will be able to destroy it. Is he still coming to see you this morning?’
‘I’m awaiting him now. He came home from the army last night, and I have asked him to call on me.’
‘In that case I shall mix the philtre with hippocras so that you may give it to him to drink. Hippocras, which is well spiced and dark in colour, will conceal the powder well. But I counsel you, Madam, to go back to bed and pretend to be indisposed so as to have a pretext for not drinking yourself. It would hardly do if you drank the concoction and found yourself in love with Madam your daughter,’ said Beatrice, laughing.
‘Receiving him in bed and pretending that I am unwell is an excellent idea,’ replied the Countess of Artois. ‘One can say things more straightly.’
She therefore went back to bed, had the table cleared, and sent for her Chancellor, Thierry d’Hirson, and for her cousin, Henri de Sulli, who lived in her house and to whom she was much attached these days, so as to work with them upon matters affecting her county.
A little later the Count of Poitiers was announced. He came in sombrely dressed as usual, his heron’s legs covered with soft leather boots, and his head, beneath the hood he was wearing, somewhat inclined to one side upon his long body.
‘Ah, Son-in-law,’ cried Mahaut, as if she had seen her Saviour appear to her, ‘how delighted I am to see you! Do you know what I’m busy doing? I was having the inventory of my possessions read over to me so that I might make my will. I have spent one of the worst nights of my life, with the agony of death in my entrails; and I was much afraid of passing over without having opened my thoughts to you, for, despite all that has happened, I love you with a mother’s heart.’
To insure against the sin of lying as she was about to do, she secretly touched the relic of Saint Druon13 which she always wore upon a golden chain between her breasts.
Henri de Sulli turned away in order not to burst out laughing, for he had spent a great part of the night with his cousin and well knew that what she had had in her entrails was not all that agonizing; the Countess Mahaut was not made for widowhood, that was all there was to it; she had the needs and appetites of an ogress, as much in bed as at the dining-table.
Moreover, Mahaut, comfortably propped among her brocaded cushions, her cheeks broad and high in colour, her shoulders wide, her arms plump, gave every appearance of being in the most robust health. All that she needed was to be bled perhaps of a pint or two of blood.
‘Well, she’s up to some game,’ thought Philippe of Poitiers. ‘Both physically and mentally she is extraordinarily like Robert of Artois, so much so that one might think they were brother and sister rather than nephew and aunt. I am sure she is going to speak to me of him.’
He was not wrong. Mahaut immediately began complaining about her wicked nephew, his manoeuvres and intrigues, the league of the barons of Artois whom he had roused against her. For Mahaut as for Robert, everything that happened in the world was reduced to terms of the county over which they had been fighting for thirteen years; their thoughts, their plotting, their friendships, their alliances, even their love affairs were all determined in one way or another by this tussle; one joined a certain political party because the other belonged to the opposite one; Robert supported a royal Order in Council only because Mahaut disapproved of it; Mahaut was immediately hostile to Clémence of Hungary because Robert had supported Charles in the negotiations for the marriage. Their hate, which excluded every possible basis for agreement, every possible compromise, seemed to extend beyond the object in dispute, till one might well have wondered if there did not perhaps exist a sort of perverse passion between the giant and the giantess of which they were unaware, one which might better have been appeased by incest than by war.
‘Every bad turn he does me brings nearer the hour of my death,’ said Mahaut. ‘I know that my vassals, assembled by Robert, have taken an oath against me. This is what has upset me and caused my present condition.’
For she was now beginning to persuade even herself that she had spent a bad night.
‘They have sworn to kill me, Monseigneur,’ said Thierry d’Hirson.
Philippe of Poitiers turned towards the Canon-Chancellor and saw that it was he, and not Mahaut, who was really ill, from sheer fright.
‘I was about to go to the army, to put some kind of order into my “banner”,’ Mahaut went on; ‘as you see, I have had my war dress prepared.’
She indicated an imposing lay figure in a corner of the room which was draped with a long coat of chain-mail and a silk surcoat embroidered with the arms of Artois; beside it lay helm and gauntlets.
‘And then I heard of the end of this glorious campaign which has cost the Kingdom so much in money and more in honour. Indeed, one may say that your poor brother is not covering himself with glory, and that everything he undertakes goes agley. In truth, and I am merely saying what I believe, you would have made a much better king than he, and it’s a great pity for us all, Son-in-law, that you were born the second. Your father, upon whom God have mercy, often deplored it.’
Since the prosecution at Pontoise, the Count of Poitiers had not seen his mother-in-law except at public ceremonies and occasions such as the funeral of Philip the Fair, or the sessions of the Chamber of Peers, never in private. The scandal in which her daughter had been concerned had necessarily rebounded upon Mahaut. Philippe of Poitiers, throughout all this time, had treated her with coldness. As a way of reopening relations, the flattery was gross, but Mahaut was prepared to lay on compliments with a trowel. She invited her son-in-law to sit beside her bed. D’Hirson and Sulli retired towards the door.
‘No, my good friends, don’t go away; you know that I have no secrets from you,’ she said.
At the same time she made them a sign to leave the room.
For at that period great lords and important personages rarely received visitors alone. Their rooms and apartments were constantly full of relations, friends, vassals, and clients. Private conversations therefore were apt to take place in the view of all; from which came the necessity for allusion, the half-word, and confidence in the people about one. When the two principal personages began to speak in lowered voices, or retired into the embrasure of a window, everyone in the room might wonder whether it was not his own fate which was being discussed. Conversations behind closed doors took on an aspect of conspiracy. And this was precisely the aspect Mahaut wished to give to her conversation with the Count of Poitiers, if it were only to compromise him a little and therefore make him the easier to involve in her game.
As soon as they were alone, she asked, ‘What are your feelings towards my daughter Jeanne?’
As he hesitated to reply, she launched out into her speech for the defence. Certainly Jeanne of Burgundy had been wrong, even very wrong, in not warning her husband of the intrigues of the alcove which dishonoured the royal family, and in becoming an accomplice – voluntarily, involuntarily, who could say? – of the scandal. But she herself had not actually sinned with her body, nor had she betrayed her marriage; everyone knew that; and King Philip himself, incensed as he was, had been convinced of it, since he had put Jeanne under certain restraints but had never said that her confinement was to be for life.
‘I know, I was at the council of Pontoise,’ said the Count of Poitiers, to whom the memory was still painful.
‘And how could Jeanne have betrayed you, Philippe? She loves you. She loves only you. You need only remember her cries, as she was being taken away in the black-draped cart: “Tell Monseigneur Philippe that I am innocent”. My mother’s heart still bleeds to have witnessed it. And for all the fifteen months that she had been at Dourdan, I know it from her confessor, she has never said a word against you, nothing but words of love and prayers to God that she may recapture your heart. I assure you that you have in her a wife more faithful, more devoted to your will than many another, and that she has been harshly punished
.’
She threw all the blame on Marguerite of Burgundy and with all the less qualms because Marguerite was not a member of her family and was now dead. Marguerite was the shameless one; it was Marguerite who had led Blanche, the poor innocent child, astray, who had made use of Jeanne and taken advantage of her friendship. Besides, there were even excuses for Marguerite herself. The mere hope of being Queen was not all-sufficient, and what woman could have been happy with the husband she had been given! Finally, Mahaut held Louis X primarily responsible for his own betrayal and misfortunes.
‘It appears that your brother lacks a certain virility.’
‘On the contrary, I have been assured that he is perfectly normal in that respect, possibly somewhat over-excitable and violent, but certainly not impotent,’ replied the Count of Poitiers.
‘Clearly, unlike myself, you have not heard the confidences of women,’ replied Mahaut.
She sat up, massive among her pillows, looked her son-in-law straight in the eye, and said, ‘Philippe, let’s put our cards on the table. Do you think that the heiress to the throne, little Jeanne of Navarre, is Louis’s child or the child of Marguerite’s lover?’
Philippe of Poitiers momentarily passed his hand across his chin.
‘My uncle Valois asserts that she is a bastard,’ he replied, ‘and Louis himself, by keeping her at a distance as he does, would seem to confirm the fact. Others, such as my uncle of Evreux and the Duke of Burgundy, believe her to be legitimate.’
‘If some mishap occurred to Louis, whose health is weak, as everything goes to show, you are for the moment the second in line of succession. But if little Jeanne of Navarre is declared to be a bastard, as we believe she is, you become the first, and you will become King. You would make a good king, Philippe.’
The Poisoned Crown Page 6