by Jean Plaidy
‘That a man dazzled by the sun turns for consolation to the moon.’
‘There have been too many metaphors concerning the sun and moon. I have had enough of them. Are you implying that finding me unobtainable you turned to my sister?’
He bowed his head.
‘My sister will not be pleased if I tell her that.’
‘Your magnanimity and discretion would not allow you to.’
‘I never allow anyone or anything to prevent my doing what I wish.’
‘You are the law and it is our will to obey you. What would you have me do, my Queen? Say it and I will do it or die in the attempt.’
‘It is not exactly one of the labours of Hercules.’
‘I would it were that I might show my devotion.’
‘You should take care. I might set you some impossible task one day.’
‘Nothing could strain me more than to be near you and not allowed to love you.’
‘You do not speak like the prospective bridegroom of another woman.’
‘Bridegroom!’ He was alert. ‘My lady, alas I am married.’
‘To a lady of whom I gather you are not desperately enamoured.’
‘She is my wife. When I am in the presence of the irresistible I must perforce succumb.’
‘Are you referring to me or to my sister?’
‘You know my feeling. I am not alone in my adoration.’
‘And Petronelle? You are in love with her?’
‘She resembles you. What more can I say?’
‘That if you were free you would agree to marry her?’
‘With all my heart.’
‘I do not ask if you would be a faithful husband to her. I know the futility of that. She has a fancy for you.’
‘I would I were free.’
‘You could be if there were a blood tie between you and your wife.’
‘I know not …’
‘You are obtuse, Count. There are always blood ties between families of our blood. So much inter-marrying through the centuries means that if we search back far enough we can find the connection.’
‘If this could be found …’
‘If ! It can be found. It must be found. You have seduced my sister. For all I know she may already be with child. You are responsible. Forget not that she is the sister of the Queen. Would you marry her?’
‘If just cause could be found that I am not already married.’
‘Then found it shall be,’ said the Queen firmly. She was smiling to herself. Certainly Petronelle must marry her seducer; and how amusing that Raoul’s wife was the sister of her enemy Theobald. This would teach that family to flout the King and Queen.
It was disconcerting. Count Theobald was not the only baron who ignored the King’s summons. It should have been clear that the country was in no mood to go to war over Toulouse. The only enthusiasm came from the Queen and that which she imparted to her docile husband. Eleonore rode out of Paris beside her husband ready for the siege which would bring Toulouse into their hands. Eleonore was busy with plans; she had already traced the relation between Raoul and his wife. If one went back far enough there were always blood ties. She had set the bishops working on it and they knew that if they did not find what she wished them to they would incur her displeasure.
Louis had really very little heart for war. He hated death, nor did he wish to punish his people. When he had been victorious at Orleans he had granted his rebellious subjects what they had asked for, and had stopped what he considered the cruel law of cutting off people’s fingers if they did not pay their debts. Of what use was that, he had demanded, when they need their hands intact to work to pay off their debts?
The thought of innocent people’s suffering worried him; but what could he do? Eleonore insisted that Toulouse was hers and therefore his, and she could not forget the insolence of Theobald of Champagne.
‘Are we going to allow our subjects to treat us thus?’ she had demanded. ‘If so we are no rulers.’
He had had to agree with her; he always had to agree with her. So here he was marching on Toulouse.
Into the rich country they went. Louis’s spirits were revived. Of course he would like to add these fertile provinces to his kingdom. Eleonore’s eyes glowed. He wondered whether it was the sight of the land which made them so bright and eager, or the fulfilment of revenge. She was so sure that ere long Toulouse would be theirs. She would have subdued not only the Count of Toulouse who had refused to hand back that to which he had no right, but also the insolent Theobald. And when he heard that his sister was to be divorced from the Count of Vermandois he would be doubly humiliated!
He would see what it meant to defy the Queen of France - and so would others. It would be a lesson.
Alas, for Louis and Eleonore. Toulouse was well defended, and it soon became clear to Louis that even those who had rallied to his banner had no heart for the fight.
As he encamped outside the castle occupied by Raymond Saint-Gilles, group after group of his followers reminded him that they had agreed to fight with him for only a specified time. Time was running out and they must return to their estates.
Louis was disturbed.
‘Command them to stay!’ cried Eleonore.
But Louis had given his word. He was not a man to break that. He must stand out against Eleonore for the sake of his honour.
Thus it was the King found himself before the castle with scarcely any supporters, and it was either a case of retreat or ignominious defeat. As it was he must retire in humiliation.
There was nothing for it but to return to Paris and shelve the conquest of Toulouse, until the King and Queen could find some means of bringing it to the Crown.
Such a situation was galling to the Queen. She imagined Saint-Gilles and Theobald of Champagne sneering at the royal ineptitude.
She must be revenged and the first blow should be struck through Theobald’s sister. Her bishops had found that there was a blood relationship between Raoul and his wife. Therefore the marriage was no true marriage and Raoul was free to marry again.
‘It is a good thing,’ said the Queen to the King, ‘that your cousin should marry with my sister.’
The Count of Champagne was amazed one day to see his sister with a few of her attendants ride into the courtyard of his castle. He hastened down to meet her.
‘Why Eleonore,’ he cried, ‘what brings you here?’
For a moment she could not answer him. She threw herself into his arms and clung to him.
‘I did not know where to go.’
‘Where is your husband?’
‘I have no husband.’
‘Come into the castle,’ said Theobald. ‘Tell me what this means. Raoul is dead?’
‘Nay,’ she answered. ‘It is simply that he is no longer my husband.’
‘But this makes nonsense. You were married to him. I myself attended the ceremony. Come, sister, you must calm yourself.’
He took her to his private chamber and she poured out her story. A blood tie had been discovered that meant her marriage to Raoul was not valid. She was not married to Raoul; had never been married and the ceremony she had gone through with Raoul was no true one at all. Moreover Raoul had married someone else. There had been a grand wedding and the King and Queen had attended.
‘Who was the bride?’ asked Theobald blankly.
‘The lady Petronelle.’
‘What! The Queen’s sister?’
‘Indeed yes, the Queen’s sister.’
‘This is monstrous. It is a plot.’
Eleonore nodded sadly.
Theobald was furious. It was not only the dishonour to his sister that he raged against; it was an insult to his family. The Queen had arranged this he knew. She had insisted that the bishops prove the marriage invalid and they had done so on pain of her displeasure. And why had she contrived this? To be revenged on him. Because he had refused to support her and the King over the annexation of Toulouse, she had arranged for his sister’
s dishonour.
‘I will not endure this,’ he said. ‘This day I will send a messenger to Rome. I shall put my case before the Pope and it will be proved that this was a plot to discredit me through you, sister.’
‘And you think the Pope will not agree to the dissolution of the marriage?’
‘How can he? The reasons put forward are groundless. I will make Raoul take you back. I will prove that his marriage to Petronelle was no marriage. She will be the one to suffer dishonour, not you, my sister.’
‘Raoul was eager to go to his new wife, I know.’
‘He will be begging to come back to you when I have the Pope’s word.’ Theobald was not a man to delay when action was necessary.
He asked the advice of Bernard of Clairvaux who suggested that he take his case immediately to Rome with an account of the wrong done to his sister.
Petronelle was content with her marriage. She glowed with satisfaction. Watching her Eleonore felt a little discontented with her own. True it had brought her the crown of France and she would not have missed that for anything, but she did wish it had brought her a man like Raoul instead of a monk like Louis.
She must get an heir. The country needed an heir and so did she. The purpose of marriage for such as herself was the procreation of children. She could not endure that she should fail in anything.
She was in a mood of discontent when the messenger arrived from Rome.
He brought letters for the King and the Count of Vermandois.
Eleonore made a point of being with Louis when he read his. They were very much to the point. The Pope found that there had been a miscarriage of justice. The Count of Vermandois had put away his true wife on the instigation of the Queen and the bishops and married the Queen’s sister. The Pope could find no just cause why the marriage of the Count of Vermandois and the sister of the Count of Champagne was not legal. The Count of Vermandois was excommunicated and ordered to put away the woman with whom he was now living and return to his wife.
Eleonore was furious.
‘This is an insult to my sister,’ she cried. ‘Does His Holiness realise that? The sister of the Queen of France … !’
Louis said mildly, ‘My dearest, we should never have allowed Raoul to put away his wife.’
‘His wife! That was no true marriage. They are too closely related.’
The King looked at her sadly.
‘You have allowed your love for your sister to blind you,’ he said. ‘Petronelle should have looked elsewhere for a husband.’
‘He is her husband. She has lived openly with him. Do you realise what this means? Who will want to marry her now?’
‘Many I think would wish for an alliance with the sister of the Queen of France.’
‘I’ll not endure this insolence.’
‘This is the edict of the Pope, my love.’
‘You know who has done this. It is Theobald. He was determined to flout us. I’ll not rest until I have driven him from Champagne.’
‘Champagne is his, my dear. It is independent of France.’
The Queen narrowed her eyes. ‘Louis, sometimes I think you do not love me.’
‘You cannot doubt that I do.’
‘Yet you allow me to be insulted.’
‘Theobald has done only what any brother would have done. He has tried to preserve his sister’s honour.’
‘And what of my sister’s honour?’
‘It was unwise to marry her to my cousin.’
‘Unwise! He had no wife, his marriage to Theobald’s sister being invalid. Why shouldn’t they, who had been lovers, sanctify their union!’
‘Because he already had a wife.’
‘He had not, I tell you. The marriage was illegal. He is married to Petronella and we are going to teach Theobald a lesson.’
‘How so?’
‘We shall invade his lands. We shall raze his castles to the ground. I tell you we will be revenged on Theobald.’
‘We should have no support.’
‘Then we will do it without support. I have my loyal subjects of Aquitaine. They would follow me wherever I wished to go.’
‘Nay, Eleonore, let us not go rashly into war.’
Her eyes blazed at him. He was a weakling, a monk, and they had married him to her! He had little to give her but her crown.
And he was going to obey her.
She was determined they were going to war. They were going to ravage the lands of Champagne and teach its disobedient Count a lesson. She was frustrated, married to a man who could not satisfy her intense longings. She had her crown from him but had grown accustomed to that now, and she wanted a strong man whom she could find some pleasure in subduing. Louis was too easily managed although in this matter of war he was proving obstinate. It would not be for long; she would make him agree shortly and there was a certain stimulation in urging him. She enjoyed the battle with him while his repulsion to war infuriated her.
Petronelle and Raoul were smugly content with each other; and she was determined that they should remain together. She was not going to give way.
Meanwhile she badgered Louis. Was he a coward? Was he going to allow little rulers of small provinces to outwit him? Would he stand by and see the sister of his wife dishonoured? It was tantamount to dishonouring his wife.
Louis implored her to be patient, and then another matter arose which demanded his attention.
The Archbishopric of Bourges had fallen vacant and Eleonore and Louis had chosen the man who was to fill the post. He was ideal, being a friend of theirs. Then to their consternation a message came from the Pope that he had chosen Pierre de la Chatre for the office.
‘How dare he interfere in matters which concern us and us only!‘demanded the Queen.
Louis supported her. He was the King. It was for him to say who should be his Archbishop.
‘Not so,’ retorted the Pope. ‘I have appointed Pierre de la Chatre and none other shall have it.’
Louis, prompted by Eleonore, replied that as long as he lived de la Chatre should not enter Bourges.
Then the Pope made a remark which when reported to Louis raised his anger.
‘The King of France is a child,’ said the Pope. ‘He must get schooling and be kept from bad habits.’
‘You see,’ cried Eleonore when this was reported, ‘they have no respect for you. It is because you allow people to insult you. You have been over-lenient. Look at Theobald of Champagne. If you had marched into his country and laid it waste the Pope would not have spoken to you as though you were a schoolboy.’
Louis was silent for a few moments then he burst out: ‘It would have meant war. Killing brings such suffering to innocent people.’
‘A fine way for a king to talk,’ commented Eleonore scornfully.
Theobald played right into her hands by supporting the Pope’s choice and letting it be known.
Eleonore was furious. ‘What now?’ she cried. ‘Will you stand by and allow this?’
Louis knew that he could not, and when the Pope excommunicated him he knew that he had to take action.
He prepared to march on Champagne in order to subdue the Count who had dared take sides against his King.
Eleonore rode out of Paris beside her reluctant husband. There was to be war with Champagne and Louis knew that such conflicts enriched no one but the soldiers who plundered and pillaged while innocent people suffered.
The Queen however was adamant and he had after much persuasion agreed that Theobald must be taught a lesson.
It was not a very impressive army that marched into Champagne. Many wandering adventurers joined it, and because it was not very large the King was glad to welcome any who followed him, even though he knew they were out for the spoils which would come their way.
As they marched deeper into the terrain of the man the Queen detested, the rougher elements of the army plundered the villages against the King’s order. Louis heard the cries of protesting villagers who sought to protect their crops, thei
r houses and their family. He saw his rough soldiery ordering the villagers from their houses, illtreating the women, raping, feasting, drinking and acting in a manner of which he had heard much and which had made him hate the thought of war.
He endeavoured to stop their cruelties; they did not heed him.
Eleonore regarded him with contempt. What sort of a king was he whom men would not obey and who shuddered at the prospect of war? She could only remember that this was the enemy’s country. She exulted over the burning land. This would teach Theobald what it meant to flout his King because if that King was weak his Queen was not.
They had reached the walled city of Vitry.
There was little defence offered and in a short time the King’s men were in the streets killing, pillaging, shedding the blood of its inhabitants. The old and the maimed and the women and the children ran screaming before the soldiers and barricaded themselves into the wooden church.
‘Enough, enough,’ cried Louis. But his command was not heeded.
His followers had come to pillage and murder and they could not be restrained. There then occurred a terrible incident which was to haunt the King for the rest of his days.
Inside the church the children clung to their mothers, and mothers begged for the safety of their little ones. The King’s men knew no pity. They did not attempt to break into the church. They merely set it on fire.
As the flames enveloped it and the thick black smoke filled the air the cries of the innocent could be heard calling curses on their murderers and screaming for mercy.
‘Have done. Have done,’ pleaded Louis but they would not listen to him. In any case it was too late. In that burning church were thirteen hundred innocent people and they were all burned to death.
In his tent Louis lay staring blankly before him. Eleonore lay beside him.
‘I can hear their screaming,’ he said.
She answered: ‘There is no sound now. They are all dead.’
‘All dead!’ he cried. ‘Those innocent people. Holy Mother of God help me! I shall never be able to escape from the sound of their cries.’