The Royal Succession

by Maurice Druon

  ‘Let us take our comfits away from the crowd, Cousin. Come with us, Uncle,’ he added, turning to Louis of Evreux, ‘and you too, Messire de Mello.’

  He took the three men into a little neighbouring room, and while the sweet wine and spiced comfits were being handed round, he began explaining to the Duke of Burgundy how much he wished to come to an arrangement, and what the advantages of the Act of Regency were.

  ‘I wished to postpone the final decisions until Jeanne’s majority,’ he said, ‘because I know that people are over-excited at the moment. From now until then there will be some ten years, and you know as well as I do that in ten years opinions change, if only because the most violent now may well by then be dead. I thought I was serving you in acting thus, and I think you have misunderstood my designs. Since you and Valois cannot at present agree with one another why don’t you both come to an agreement with me?’

  The Duke of Burgundy frowned; he was not an intelligent man; he was always afraid of being tricked and, indeed, frequently was. Duchess Agnès, whose maternal love did not blind her, saw her son as he was, and had given him sound advice on his departure: ‘Take care not to allow tricks to be played on you. Be careful not to speak before having thought, and if you have no thoughts, keep quiet and let Messire de Mello do the talking; he is more intelligent than you are.’

  Eudes of Burgundy, at thirty-five, invested with the titles and powers of Duke, still lived in fear of his mother, and knew that he would have to justify his actions to her. He did not, therefore, dare reply to Philippe’s overtures directly.

  ‘My mother, the Duchess, sent you a letter, Cousin, in which she said … what did the letter say, Messire de Mello?’

  ‘Madame Agnès asked that Madame Jeanne of Navarre should be placed in her charge, and she is surprised, Monseigneur, that you have not yet answered her.’

  ‘But how could I, Cousin?’ Philippe replied, still talking to Eudes as if Mello were merely an interpreter between them. ‘It is a decision that could be taken only by the Regent. Only today am I in a position to grant her request. What makes you think, Cousin, that I intend to refuse? I expect you would like to take your niece back with you when you go.’

  The Duke, surprised at meeting no resistance, looked at Mello, and his expression seemed to say: ‘Here’s a man one can come to terms with!’

  ‘On condition, Cousin,’ went on the Count of Poitiers, ‘on condition, of course, that your niece is not married without my consent. That is an obvious measure; this matter is too important to the Crown for our advice to be neglected in giving a husband to the girl who may, one day, be Queen of France.’

  The second part of the speech took away the sting of the first. Eudes really believed that it was Philippe’s intention to have Jeanne crowned, if Queen Clémence did not bear a son.

  ‘Of course, of course, Cousin,’ he said; ‘on that point we are in agreement.’

  ‘In that case, there is no longer anything dividing us and we will sign an agreement,’ said Philippe.

  He sent immediately for Mille de Noyers, who was the best hand at drafting treaties of this kind.

  ‘Messire Mille,’ he said, when the jurist appeared, ‘you will inscribe this on vellum: “We, Philippe, Peer and Count of Poitiers, Regent, by the Grace of God, of the two Kingdoms, and our well-beloved Cousin, the Magnificent and Puissant Lord Eudes IV, Peer and Duke of Burgundy, swear by Holy Writ to render each other good service and loyal friendship …” This is the broad outline I’m giving you, Messire Mille. “And by this friendship, which we mutually swear, have decided in common that Madame Jeanne of Navarre …”’

  Guillaume de Mello took the Duke by the sleeve and whispered in his ear, and the Duke grasped the fact that he was being made a fool of.

  ‘Oh, but Cousin,’ he cried, ‘my mother did not authorize me to recognize you as Regent!’

  They soon reached a deadlock. Philippe would grant the guardianship only if the Duke recognized his powers. He even went so far as to guarantee Jeanne her rights of possession over Navarre, Champagne and Brie. But the other grew obstinate. Without a formal agreement about the Crown, he refused to acknowledge the regency.

  ‘If Mello, who is clever, were not here,’ thought the Count of Poitiers, ‘Eudes would already have capitulated.’ He pretended to be tired, stretched out his long legs, crossed his feet one over the other and rubbed his chin.

  Louis of Evreux watched him, wondering how his nephew was going to get out of the difficulty. ‘I can see lances waving soon around Dijon,’ that wise man thought. He was on the point of intervening to say: ‘Very well, let us yield over the right to the Crown,’ when Philippe suddenly asked the Burgundian: ‘Let’s see, Cousin, don’t you want to get married?’

  The other opened his eyes wide, thinking at first, since he was not very bright, that Philippe intended him to be affianced to Jeanne of Navarre.

  ‘Since we have just sworn each other eternal friendship,’ went on Philippe, as if the few half-finished lines had been ratified, ‘and by that, my dear Cousin, you are giving me great support, I should like, on my side, to do something for you, and it would give me great pleasure to reinforce this link of affection with a closer relationship. Why don’t you marry my eldest girl, Jeanne?’

  Eudes IV looked at Mello, then at Louis of Evreux, then at Mille de Noyers, who was waiting, his pen poised.

  ‘But how old is she, Cousin?’ he asked.

  ‘Eight years old, Cousin,’ replied Philippe, falling silent for a moment; and then added, ‘She can also have the county of Burgundy, which comes to us from her mother.’

  Eudes raised his head like a horse smelling oats. To unite the two Burgundies, the duchy and the county, had been a dream of the hereditary Dukes since the time of Robert I, grandson of Hugues Capet. To amalgamate the Court of Dôle with that of Dijon, to unite the territories which stretched from Auxerre to Pontarlier and from Mâcon to Besançon, to have one foot in France and the other in the Holy Roman Empire, since the county was a Palatinate, all this was a mirage which suddenly assumed reality. No more was needed to make the Burgundians dream of rebuilding Charlemagne’s empire for themselves.

  Louis of Evreux could not but admire his nephew’s audacity; in a game which had seemed lost this was a considerable counterstroke. But looked at more closely, Philippe’s reasoning was easily discoverable; he was simply disposing of Mahaut’s territories. She had been given Artois, at Robert’s expense, to persuade her to surrender the county; while Philippe had been given the county as his wife’s dowry that he might be a candidate at the Imperial election. But Philippe had now an eye on the Crown of France, or at least on a ten years’ regency; the county was therefore of less interest to him, provided it went to a vassal, which would be the case.

  ‘May I see Madame your daughter?’ asked Eudes at once, and without even thinking of referring the matter to his mother.

  ‘You saw her just now, Cousin, at the feast.’

  ‘Of course, but I did not look at her closely. I mean I did not consider her with this in view.’

  They sent to summon the Count of Poitiers’s eldest daughter, who was playing tag with her sisters and the other children of the family.19

  ‘What do they want me for? Why can’t I go on playing?’ said the little girl, who was pursuing the Dauphiniet by the stables.

  ‘Monseigneur your father has sent for you,’ they said.

  She delayed to catch the little Guigues and, as she hit him in the back, cried: ‘You’re it!’ Then, unhappily sulking, she went with the chamberlain, who led her by the hand.

  Still out of breath, her cheeks damp, her hair across her face, and her figured dress dusty, she came into the presence of her cousin Eudes, who was twenty-seven years older than she was. She was neither ugly or pretty, still thin, and had no idea that at that moment her fate was mingled with that of France. There are children in whom one sees at an early age what they will look like when they are grown up; but with this child one could not
tell. There was merely the aura of the county of Burgundy.

  A province is a fine thing; but a wife must still not be deformed. ‘If she has straight legs, I’ll accept,’ thought the Duke of Burgundy. He had reason to beware of a surprise of that nature, since his second sister, who was younger than Marguerite, and was married to Philippe of Valois, had legs of different lengths.20 In the present animosity between the Valois and Burgundy, this lameness naturally played its part. The Duke asked therefore, without its seeming to surprise anyone, that the child’s skirts should be raised that he might see the shape of her legs. The child had thin thighs and calves; she took after her father, but her bones were straight.

  ‘You are quite right, Cousin,’ said the Duke. ‘It would be an admirable way of sealing our friendship.’

  ‘There, you see!’ said Poitiers. ‘Is not this a far better solution than quarrelling with each other? From now on I want to be able to call you son-in-law.’

  He opened his arms to embrace him; the son-in-law was twelve years older than the father-in-law.

  ‘There, my girl, go and give your betrothed a kiss,’ said Philippe to the child.

  ‘Oh, he’s my betrothed, is he?’ said the little girl.

  She drew herself up proudly.

  ‘What’s more,’ she added, ‘he’s bigger than the Dauphiniet!’

  ‘How lucky it was,’ thought Philippe, ‘that it was only my third daughter that I gave the Dauphin last month, and kept this one, who can inherit the county.’

  The Duke of Burgundy raised his future wife in his arms so that she might implant a large wet kiss on his cheek. Then, when he had put her down again, she went off to the courtyard to announce proudly to the other children: ‘I am betrothed!’

  The games were interrupted.

  ‘And not to a little fiancé like yours,’ she said to her sister, indicating the Dauphiniet. ‘Mine is as big as our father.’

  Then, seeing the little Jeanne of Navarre who was sulking somewhat apart from the others, she cried: ‘Now I shall be your aunt.’

  ‘Why my aunt?’ asked the orphan.

  ‘Because I shall be the wife of your uncle Eudes.’

  One of the younger daughters of the Count of Valois, who was not yet seven years old, but had already been taught to repeat everything she heard, rushed to the Château, found her father plotting in company with Blanche of Brittany and a few lords of his party, and told him what she had just heard. Charles got up, overturning his chair, and departed, his head thrust forward, towards the room in which the Regent was.

  ‘Ah, my dear Uncle, you’ve come just at the right moment!’ cried Philippe of Poitiers; ‘I was about to send for you in order that you may witness our agreement.’

  And he handed him the document which Mille de Noyers had just finished drawing up: ‘… for signing here with all our family the convention we have made with our good Cousin of Burgundy, and by which we agree to the whole.’

  It was a bitter week for the ex-Emperor of Constantinople, who could do no other than sign. After him followed Louis of Evreux, Mahaut of Artois, the Dauphin of Viennois, Aimé of Savoy, Charles de La Marche, Louis of Bourbon, Blanche of Brittany, Guy de Saint-Pol, Henry de Sully, Guillaume d’Harcourt, Anseau de Joinville and the Constable Gaucher de Châtillon, all of whom put their signatures to the agreement.

  The late dusk of July was falling over Vincennes. The earth and the trees were still impregnated with the heat of the day. Most of the guests had left.

  The Regent went for a stroll under the oaks, in company with his most devoted intimates, those who had followed him from Lyons and had assured his triumph. He joked a bit about Saint Louis’s tree, which they could not find. Suddenly the Regent said: ‘Messeigneurs, there is joy in my heart; my dear wife has this day borne a son.’

  He breathed deeply with happiness and delight, as if the air of the kingdom of France really belonged to him. He sat down on the moss, his back against the trunk of a tree, and was gazing up at the patterns of the leaves against the rose-coloured sky, when Gaucher de Châtillon came hurrying up. The Constable was looking grave.

  ‘I have come to give you bad news, Monseigneur,’ he said.

  ‘Already?’ said the Regent.

  ‘Count Robert set out a little while ago for Artois.’

  PART TWO

  ARTOIS AND THE CONCLAVE

  1

  The Arrival of Count Robert

  A DOZEN HORSEMEN, coming from Doullens and led by a giant in a blood-red surcoat, galloped through the village of Bouquemaison and stopped on the highest point of the road. From there they had a view over a vast plateau of cornfields, intersected by valleys and beech-groves, and descending in terraces towards a crescent-shaped horizon of distant forests.

  ‘This is where Artois begins, Monseigneur,’ said one of the horsemen, the Sire Jean de Varennes, addressing the leader of the cavalcade.

  ‘My county! My county at last!’ said the giant. ‘Here is my own good earth that I have not trodden for fourteen years!’

  The silence of midday lay over the sunlit fields. There was no sound but the breathing of the horses after their gallop and the murmur of bumble-bees drunken with heat.

  Robert of Artois jumped briskly from his horse, throwing the reins to his valet Lormet, climbed the bank, treading down the grass, and entered the nearest field. His companions remained still, respecting the privacy of his joy. Robert strode hugely forward through the corn, whose heavy golden ears waved about his thighs. He caressed them with his hands as if they were the coat of some quiet horse or the fair hair of a mistress.

  ‘My earth, my corn!’ he repeated.

  Suddenly he threw himself to the ground, stretched himself out, rolled wallowing wildly among the corn as if he wished to merge with it; he crammed ears of corn into his mouth, chewing them to find that milky flavour at the heart which they have a month before harvest; he did not notice that his lips were scratched with the beards of the wheat. He was drunk with the blue sky, the dry earth and the scent of crushed stalks, doing as much damage by himself as a herd of wild pig. He rose to his feet, superb and rumpled. As he returned to his companions, he was brandishing a handful of corn.

  ‘Lormet,’ he said to his valet, ‘unclasp my surcoat, unlace my hauberk.’21

  When this had been done, he slipped the corn beneath his shirt against his skin.

  ‘I swear to God, Messeigneurs,’ he said in a great voice, ‘that these ears of corn shall not leave my breast till I have reconquered my county to the last field, to the last tree. Now, forward into battle!’

  He remounted his horse, dug in his heels, and set it into a gallop.

  ‘Do you not think, Lormet,’ he shouted into the wind of their passage, ‘that the earth here has a better sound beneath our horses’ hooves?’

  ‘Yes indeed, Monseigneur,’ replied that tender-hearted killer, who shared all his master’s opinions and waited on him like a wet-nurse. ‘But your surcoat is loose in the wind; slow down a little so that I can do it up for you.’

  They rode on thus for a moment. Then the plateau fell quickly away, and Robert saw a great mass of armed men awaiting him; they were drawn up in a field and glistened in the sun, an army of eighteen hundred knights come to greet him. He could never have believed that his partisans would come in such numbers to the meeting-place.

  ‘Well done, Varennes! You’ve done good work, my friend,’ cried Robert in astonishment.

  When the knights of Artois recognized him there were shouts of acclamation from their ranks.

  ‘Welcome to our Count Robert! Long life to our sweet Lord!’

  And the most eager set their horses towards him, their steel knee-pieces jostling, their lances waving like another field of corn.

  ‘Ah, here’s Caumont! Here’s Souastre! I know you by your shields, my friends,’ said Robert.

  The knights’ faces showed through the raised visors of their helms, running with sweat, but gay with their ardour for war. Many of them were
but little country lords, wearing ancient, old-fashioned armour, inherited from father or great-uncle, and which they had themselves altered to their measure: work done in the manor house. Before night they would be galled by the joints and their bodies covered with bleeding sores; indeed they all carried with them in the baggage of their valets of arms a pot of unguent prepared by their wives and strips of linen for bandages.

  Before Robert’s eyes was every pattern of military fashion for the last century: every shape of helm and bascinet; some of the hauberks and great swords had been on the Crusade. The provincial dandies had adorned their helmets with feathers of cocks, pheasants or peacocks; golden dragons decorated others, and a naked woman was bolted to one of them, which attracted much attention.

  They had all freshly painted their short shields, which carried their armorial bearings in brilliant colours; their coats-of-arms were simple or complex according to their degree of nobility and the age of their house, the more simple designs being naturally those of the oldest families.

  ‘This is Saint-Venant, this is Longvillers, this is Nédonchel,’ said Jean de Varennes, presenting the knights to Robert.

  ‘Your féal, Monseigneur, your féal,’ each one said as his name was called.

  ‘Féal, Nédonchel … féal, Bailiencourt … féal, Picquigny …’ replied Robert, as he passed in front of each in turn.

  To some of the young men, sitting upright on their horses and proud to be wearing the harness of war for the first time, Robert promised that he would arm them knights himself if they behaved well in the imminent engagements.

  He then decided to appoint two marshals at once, as was done for the royal army. He chose first the Sire de Hautponlieu, who had been very active in gathering these unruly lords.

  ‘And then I’ll have, let’s see, you, Beauval!’ Robert announced. ‘The Regent has a Beaumont for a marshal; I shall have a Beauval.’

  The little lords, who were partial to a pun or a play on words, laughingly acclaimed Jean de Beauval who had been thus selected because of his name.