The Royal Succession

by Maurice Druon

  ‘Gaucher, come here,’ said the King.

  Gaucher de Châtillon came forward and Philippe, unfastening the baldric, handed him the sword.

  Never had a constable, in the whole history of coronations, better deserved the honour of holding for his sovereign the symbol of military power. This gesture was more than the accomplishment of a rite; they exchanged a long look. The symbol had become fused with the reality.

  With the point of a golden needle the Archbishop took from the holy ampulla, which the Abbot of Saint-Rémy held out to him, a drop of the oil which was said to have been sent down from Heaven and, with his finger, mixed it with the chrism laid ready on a paten. Then the Archbishop anointed Philippe, touching him on the top of the head, on the breast, between the shoulders and in the armpits. Adam Héron fastened the hooks and eyes which closed the shirts. The King’s shirt would later be burnt, because it had been touched with the holy oil.

  The King was then clothed with the vestments from the altar: first the vermilion satin cotta embroidered with silver thread, then the blue satin tunic edged with pearls and strewn with golden lilies, and over that the dalmatic of the same material, and over that again the soq, a great square mantle fastened on the right shoulder by a golden clasp. Each time Philippe felt a greater weight on his shoulders. The Archbishop performed the anointing of the hands, slipped the royal ring on to Philippe’s finger, placed the heavy gold sceptre in his right hand, and the hand of justice in his left. After genuflecting before the tabernacle, the prelate finally took up the crown, while the Great Chamberlain began calling the roll of the peers present: ‘The magnificent and puissant Lord, the Count …’

  At that very moment a high imperious voice sounded in the nave: ‘Stop, Archbishop! Do not crown that usurper; it is the daughter of Saint Louis who commands you.’

  There was a great stirring among the congregation. All heads turned in the direction whence the cry had come. On the dais and among the officiating priests there were anxious looks. The crowd parted.

  Surrounded by a few lords, a tall woman with a still-beautiful face, a firm chin and clear, angry eyes, the narrow coronet and veil of a widow surmounting a mass of almost white hair, advanced towards the choir.

  As she went by there were whisperings of: ‘It’s the Duchess Agnès; it’s she!’

  People craned their necks to look at her. They were surprised that she was still so young in appearance and that her step was so firm. Because she was the daughter of Saint Louis, people thought of her as someone belonging to another age; she was looked upon as an ancestress, a broken shadow in a castle in Burgundy. But now she suddenly appeared as she really was, a woman of fifty-seven, still full of vigour and authority.

  ‘Stop, Archbishop!’ she repeated, when she was but a few paces from the altar. ‘And listen, all of you. Read, Mello!’ she added to her councillor who attended her.

  Guillaume de Mello unfolded a parchment and read: ‘We, most noble Dame Agnès of France, Duchess of Burgundy, daughter of Monsieur Saint Louis, in our name and in that of our son, the most noble and puissant Duke Eudes, address you, barons and lords here present or without in the realm, in order to prevent the Count of Poitiers, who is not the legitimate heir to the Crown, from being recognized King, and to demand that the coronation shall be postponed until such time as have been recognized the rights of Madame Jeanne of France and of Navarre, daughter and heir to the late King and of our daughter.’ The anxiety on the dais increased, and uneasy murmurs began to come from the back of the church. The congregation was crowding forward.

  The Archbishop seemed embarrassed by the crown, not knowing whether he should replace it on the altar or continue with the ceremony.

  Philippe stood still, his head bare, impotent, weighed down with forty pounds of gold and brocades, his hands encumbered by Power and Justice. He had never felt so helpless, so threatened and so alone. It was as if a steel gauntlet were gripping him in the hollow of his chest. His calm was terrifying. To make a gesture, to say a word at this moment was to begin an argument, cause a riot, and doubtless fail. He remained frozen within the matrix of his ornaments, as if the battle were taking place on some lower level.

  He heard the ecclesiastical peers whispering: ‘What should we do?’

  The Bishop of Langres, who had not forgotten the snub he had received that morning, was of the opinion that the ceremony should be stopped.

  ‘Let us retire and discuss the matter,’ proposed another.

  ‘We cannot, the King is already the anointed of the Lord. He is King; crown him,’ replied the Bishop of Beauvais.

  The Countess Mahaut leaned towards her daughter Jeanne and murmured: ‘The bitch! She deserves to die for it.’

  There was poison in the air.

  With his saurian eyes the Constable signed to Adam Héron to continue the roll.

  ‘The magnificent and puissant Lord, the Count of Valois, Peer of the Realm,’ announced the chamberlain.

  All eyes then turned on the King’s uncle. If he responded to the call, Philippe had won. For it was the support of the lay peers, the real power, that Valois embodied. If he refused, Philippe had lost.

  Valois showed no alacrity and the Archbishop, who as a Courtenay was his relation by marriage, was visibly awaiting his decision.

  Philippe then at last made a slight movement; he turned his head towards his uncle; and the look he gave him was worth a hundred thousand livres. The Burgundian would never pay so much.

  The ex-Emperor of Constantinople rose to his feet, his face expressionless, and came to take his place behind his nephew.

  ‘How right I was not to be mean with him,’ thought Philippe.

  ‘The noble and puissant Dame Mahaut, Countess of Artois, Peer of the Realm,’ called Adam Héron.

  The Archbishop raised the heavy circle of gold surmounted at the front by a cross and said at last: ‘Coronet te Deus.’

  One of the lay peers had then at once to take the crown and hold it over the King’s head, while the other peers placed on it a symbolic finger. Valois was already putting out his hands; but Philippe with a gesture of his sceptre, stopped him.

  ‘You, Mother, hold the crown,’ he said to Mahaut.

  ‘Thank you, my son,’ murmured the giantess.

  By this spectacular choice she received thanks for her double regicide. She was taking her place as the first peer of the realm, and the possession of the county of Artois was confirmed to her for ever.

  ‘Burgundy will not yield!’ cried the Duchess Agnès.

  And, gathering her suite, she marched off towards the doors, while Mahaut and Valois slowly led Philippe back to his throne.

  When he had taken his seat on it, his feet resting on a silken cushion, the Archbishop removed his mitre and came to kiss the King on the mouth, saying: ‘Vivat rex in aeternum.’

  The other peers followed him, repeating: ‘Vivat rex in aeternum.’

  Philippe felt weary. He had won his last battle, after seven months of unceasing struggle for the supreme power, which no one could now dispute with him.

  The bells shattered the air as they rang out his triumph; outside the people were cheering, wishing him glory and long life; all his adversaries were defeated. He had a son to assure his line, a happy wife to share his sorrows and his joys. The kingdom of France was his.

  ‘How weary I am, how very weary!’ Philippe thought.

  To this King of twenty-three, who had imposed himself on the kingdom by his own tenacious will, who had accepted the benefits of crime, and who possessed all the gifts of a great monarch, nothing, indeed, seemed to be lacking.

  The days of chastisement were about to begin.

  Historical Notes

  1. Charles of Valois (see preceding volumes), second son of Philippe III and Isabella of Aragon, younger brother of Philip the Fair, was nominated at the age of thirteen, by Pope Martin IV, to receive the throne of Aragon which had been withdrawn from his uncle Pierre of Aragon, who had been excommunicated after th
e massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. Crowned as a matter of form in 1284, during the disastrous campaign conducted by Philippe III, the Bold, who was to die immediately afterwards, Valois never occupied his throne and finally renounced it in 1295.

  Later, having married as his second wife Catherine de Courtenay, titular heiress to Byzantium, he bore, from 1301 to 1313, the title of Emperor of Constantinople.

  The relationship between Charles of Valois and Clémence of Hungary is among the most complicated that have ever existed; Valois was cousin to Clémence, because they were both descended, one in the third and the other in the fourth generation, from Louis VIII of France. He was also her uncle twice over: in the first place because he had married as his first wife Marguerite of Anjou-Sicily, Clémence’s aunt, and secondly because he married Clémence off to his nephew, Louis X.

  But he was also related to the Anjou family in another way, having in 1313 married his eldest daughter by Catherine de Courtenay, Catherine of Valois, to Philippe, Prince of Taranto, the brother of his first wife. He was thus also great-uncle by marriage to Queen Clémence.

  It was owing to the Valois–Taranto marriage that the titular crown of Constantinople, which was part of Catherine of Valois’s inheritance, had had to be abandoned by Charles to his son-in-law Prince Philippe.

  2. These quotations are from the Elixir des Philosophes by Cardinal Jacques Duèze, Pope John XXII. This work, besides a dictionary of the principal terms of alchemy, contains curious recipes, such as the following for ‘purifying’ a child’s urine: ‘Take it and put it in a jar and let it remain for three days or four; then pour it out gently; let it stand again till the solids sink to the bottom. Then heat it well and skim it until it is reduced to a third; then strain it through felt and keep it well stoppered against the corruption of the air.’

  3. It was not until about the middle of his pontificate, in 1325, that Jacques Duèze (John XXII) began to proclaim in sermons and studies his theory of the beatific vision. One may, however, well suppose that he had been interested in the subject for a long time.

  His theory was passionately argued among all the theologians in Europe, arguments which lasted several years and nearly brought about a schism. The University of Paris condemned John XXII’s theories and the question arose of deposing the ‘Pope of Cahors’, as he was derisively called. Duèze retracted on his deathbed, the day before his death, doubtless anxious to preserve the unity of the Church. He was ninety years of age.

  Among other propositions put forward by this strange and fascinating Pontiff must be noted that concerning the legislative powers of the Pope. According to him a Pope might modify all legislation created by his predecessors; he considered, indeed, that Popes, being men, were incapable of knowing or foreknowing everything, and that their laws were thus subject to the consequences of change in the world, which necessitated new rules of conduct.

  John XXII also pronounced himself against the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, but considered that if Mary had been conceived with original sin, God had purified her before birth but at a moment, he added, difficult precisely to determine.

  It was also he, if Viollet-le-Duc’s opinion is correct, who added the third crown to the tiara of which, indeed, no trace is to be found in the papal effigies before his reign.

  4. The sovereign lords of Viennois bore the name of ‘Dauphin’ because of the dolphin which ornamented their crests and their arms, from which arose the name of Dauphiné, given to the whole region over which they exercised sovereignty, and which included: Grésivaudan, Roannez, Champsaur, Briançonnais, Ambrunois, Gapençais, Viennois, Valentinois, Diois, Tricastinois and the Principality of Orange.

  At the beginning of the fourteenth century the sovereignty was exercised by the third dynasty of the Dauphins of Vienne, that of La Tour du Pin. It was not until the end of the reign of Philippe VI of Valois, by the treaties of 1343 and 1349, that the Dauphiné was ceded by Humbert II to the Crown of France, on condition that the eldest son of the Kings of France should henceforth bear the title of Dauphin.

  5. Most authors give the figure of twenty-three for the Cardinals at the Conclave of 1314–16. We make the number twenty-four.

  The party of the ‘Romans’ consisted of six Italians: Jacques Colonna, Pierre Colonna, Napoléon Orsini, François Caetani, Jacques Stefaneschi-Caetani, Nicolas Alberti (or Albertini) de Prato, one Angevin from Naples, Guillaume de Longis, and finally a Spaniard, Lucas de Flisco (sometimes called Fieschi), brother of the King of Aragon. These Cardinals had been created before the pontificate of Clement V and the installation of the Papacy at Avignon; the hat had been conferred on them between 1278 and 1303, during the reigns of Nicolas III, Nicolas IV, Célestin V, Boniface XVIII and Benoît XI.

  All the others had been created by Clement V. The party called ‘Provençal’ comprised: Guillaume de Mandagout, Bérenger Frédol the elder, Bérenger Frédol the younger, the native of Cahors, Jacques Duèze and the Normans, Nicolas de Fréauville and Michel du Bec.

  Finally the Gascons, who were ten in number, were Arnaud de Pélagrue, Arnaud de Fougères, Arnaud Nouvel, Arnaud d’Auch, Raymond-Guillaume de Farges, Bernard de Garves, Guillaume-Pierre Godin, Raymond de Got, Vital du Four and Guillaume Teste.

  In preceding volumes we have mentioned the death of Clement V, the aggression of Carpentras and the vagrant Conclave.

  6. Until the middle of the twelfth century the town of Lyons was under the power of the Counts de Forez and de Roannez, under the purely nominal suzerainty of the Emperor of Germany.

  After 1173, the Emperor having recognized the sovereign rights of the Archbishop of Lyons, Primate of the Gaules, Lyonnais was separated from Forez and the town was governed by ecclesiastical power with rights of justice, minting coinage and raising troops.

  This rule displeased the Commune of Lyons, which was composed exclusively of burgesses and merchants, who struggled to emancipate themselves for more than a century. After several unsuccessful rebellions, they appealed to King Philip the Fair who, in 1292, took Lyons under his protection.

  Twenty years later, on 10 April 1312, a treaty was concluded between the Commune, the Archbishop and the King, uniting Lyons permanently to the kingdom of France.

  In spite of the claims made by Jean de Marigny, Archbishop of Sens, who controlled the diocese of Paris, the Archbishop of Lyons succeeded in keeping the Primacy of the Gaules, the only one of his prerogatives which remained to him.

  By the end of the Middle Ages, Lyons had approximately 24 tavern-keepers, 32 barbers, 48 weavers, 56 tailors, 44 fishmongers, 36 butchers, grocers and sausage-makers, 57 shoemakers, 36 bakers, 25 fruit merchants, 87 lawyers, 15 goldsmiths or gilders, and 20 drapers.

  The town was administered by the Commune, which consisted of burgesses engaged in business who elected, on the 21st of December each year, twelve Consuls, always notable men and selected from among the rich families; this consular body was called the ‘Syndical’.

  7. The family of Varay, drapers and money-changers, was one of the oldest and most considerable in Lyonnais.

  Thirty-one of its members bore the title of Consul; some were frequently re-elected, and one of them as many as ten times. There were eight members of the Varay family among the fifty citizens whom the inhabitants of Lyons chose as their leaders, in 1285, in the struggle against the Archbishop and to achieve annexation by France.

  8. The ‘Knights Pursuivant’, created by Philippe V at the beginning of his reign, were nominated by the King to accompany him and advise him; some of them were always with him on all his journeys.

  Among them are to be found close relations of the King, such as the Count of Valois, the Count of Evreux, the Count de La Marche, the Count of Clermont; great lords such as the Counts de Forez, Boulogne, Savoy, Saint-Pol, Sully, Harcourt, and Comminges; great officers of the Crown such as the Constable, the Marshals, the Master of the Crossbowmen, as well as other personages, such as members of the Secret Council or ‘the Council which governs’, jurist
s, administrators of the Treasury, ennobled burgesses and personal friends of the King. There are to be found such names as Mille de Noyers, Giraud Guette, Guy Florent, Guillaume Flotte, Guillaume Courteheuse, Martin des Essarts, Anseau de Joinville.

  These knights more or less foreshadowed the ‘Gentlemen of the Chamber’ instituted by Henri III and kept in being until the reign of Charles X.

  9. The Roman Church has never, as its adversaries have contended, sold absolution. But it has, and this is quite a different matter, made sinners pay for the bulls given them to prove that they had received absolution for their sin.

  These bulls were necessary when the sin or crime had become public knowledge and proof had to be produced of having been absolved in order to be readmitted to the sacraments.

  The same principle was applied in civil law for letters of reprieve and remissions granted by the King; the delivery of these letters and their being recorded in the registers were taxed. This very ancient custom dated from the Franks before even their conversion to Christianity. John XXII’s idea was, through his Book of Taxes and by the creation of the Holy Apostolic Penitentiary, to codify and make general this usage; it was an idea which brought in considerable revenues to the Church, as is proved by the flourishing condition of the pontifical treasury at this Pope’s death.

  Members of the clergy were not alone in being affected by these bulls; the laity was also taxed. The tariffs were calculated in gros, one of which was worth about six livres.

  Thus parricide, fratricide, or the murder of a relation among laymen was taxed between five and seven gros, as was incest, the rape of a virgin, or the theft of sacred objects. The husband who beat his wife or made her miscarry was fined six gros, and seven if the wife had her hair torn out. The heaviest fine, twenty-seven gros, was imposed for the forgery of apostolic letters, that is to say the Pope’s signature.

  The fines increased with time, in proportion to the devaluation of the coinage.