The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3: The Iron King, the Strangled Queen, the Poisoned Crown

by Maurice Druon

  When one has governed men for a long time, when one has thought that one has acted for the best, when one knows the pains the task has entailed, and then suddenly sees that one has never been either loved or understood, but merely submitted to, then one is overwhelmed with bitterness, and wonders whether one could not have found some better way of spending one’s life.

  The following days had been no less terrible. Taken back to Vincennes, not this time to sit among the dignitaries of the kingdom, but to appear before a tribunal of barons and prelates, among whom was his own brother the Archbishop, Enguerrand de Marigny had had to listen to a lawyer named Jean d’Asnières read, upon the order of Charles of Valois, the interminable grounds of indictment; peculation, treason, embezzlement, secret relations with the enemies of the kingdom.

  Enguerrand had asked permission to speak; it had been refused. He had demanded the right to single combat; it also had been refused. It was therefore clear that from now on he was considered guilty without even being allowed to defend himself, as if a dead man were brought to judgement.

  And when Enguerrand had turned his eyes upon his brother Jean, expecting him at least to raise his voice in his defence, he had met nothing but a detached expression, shifty eyes, and beautiful fingers elegantly toying with the embroidered bands which fell from his mitre upon his shoulders. If even his brother were abandoning him, if even his brother had ranged himself with so much cynicism in the ranks of his enemies, how could he expect from anyone else, even from those who owed their place and their wealth to him, any gesture of justice or gratitude?

  Philippe of Poitiers, doubtless chagrined to see that Enguerrand had paid no attention to the warning he had sent him by Bouville, was not present at the session.

  Marigny had been brought back from Vincennes amid the shouts of the crowd, who now blamed him at the tops of their voices as responsible for poverty and famine. Then he had been imprisoned in the Temple once more, but this time in irons, and in the same cell that had once been Jacques de Molay’s prison.

  The ring fixed to the wall was the same to which for seven years the Grand Master of the Order of Templars’ chain had been riveted. The damp had not yet obliterated the lines drawn upon the stone by the old knight to mark the passing of the days.

  ‘Seven years! We condemned him to pass seven years here, only to burn him afterwards. And I, who have been here but seven days,’ Marigny had thought, ‘I can already understand what he must have suffered.’

  The statesman, from the pinnacle where he exercises his power, protected by the whole apparatus of police force and army, feeling as he does that his person is physically unattainable, condemns abstractions when he pronounces sentences of imprisonment or death. They are not men whom he tortures or annihilates; they are oppositions which he is reducing, symbols which he is erasing. Nevertheless, Marigny remembered the disquiet he had felt while the Templars were being burnt on the Island of Jews, and how at that moment he had understood that it was human beings who were involved, that is to say people like himself, and not only principles or errors. On that day, though he had not dared show it, even blaming himself for his weakness, he had felt a certain empathy with the condemned, and had been frightened for himself. ‘We have indeed all been accursed for what we did that day.’

  And then, a third time, Marigny had been taken to Vincennes, to be present at the most appalling display of baseness. As if all the accusations brought against him were not sufficient, as if there was still in the conscience of the kingdom certain doubts which must at all costs be allayed, they had accused him of extravagant crimes, to establish which an incredible number of false witnesses had been brought forward.

  Charles of Valois prided himself upon having discovered in time a monstrous plot of sorcery. Madame de Marigny and her sister, the Dame de Chanteloup, instigated by Enguerrand of course, had cast spells and pierced with needles waxen dolls representing the King, the Count of Valois himself and the Count de Saint-Pol. At least, this was affirmed by people who came from the Rue des Bourdonnais where the business of magic was carried on with the tolerance of the police to whom they served as informers. Accomplices were named: a lame woman, a creature of the devil, and a certain Padiot, who had been caught in some similar affair, were sent to their deaths for it, a fate to which they would in any case have been condemned.

  After which it had been announced, to the great horror of the Court, that Marguerite of Burgundy was dead and, as a last piece of evidence against Marigny, the letter she had written from her prison and sent to the King was produced.

  ‘She has been murdered!’ Marigny cried.

  But the men who were guarding him had suddenly pulled him down, while Jean d’Asnières completed his indictment with this new evidence.

  In vain had King Edward II of England intervened with a message, endeavouring to put pressure upon his brother-in-law of France to spare the late Coadjutor of Philip the Fair; in vain had Louis de Marigny thrown himself at his godfather’s, The Hutin’s, feet, asking for mercy and justice. Louis X, repeating before the Court the words he had uttered to his uncle, had said, indicating Marigny, ‘He forfeits my protection.’

  And Enguerrand had heard himself condemned to be hanged, his wife imprisoned and all his goods confiscated. While Jeanne de Marigny and the Dame de Chanteloup were arrested and imprisoned in the Temple, Marigny was himself transferred to a third prison, the Châtelet, for Valois had remembered that his enemy had also been an administrator of the Temple. Valois saw accomplices everywhere, and feared right up to the last that vengeance might escape him.

  It was, therefore, from a cell in the Châtelet that Marigny, during the night of April 30th, 1315, watched the sky through a narrow window.

  He was not afraid of death, at least he compelled himself to accept the inevitable. But the memory of the curse obsessed his mind; before appearing in the presence of God, he needed to have resolved for himself the question of whether he were guilty or innocent.

  ‘Why? Why were we all accused, those named and even those not named, merely because we were present? After all, we acted only for the good of the kingdom, for the majesty of the Church and for the purity of the Faith. So why should heaven have turned so furiously upon each of us?’

  When he was but a few hours from his own execution, his mind returned to the various stages of the Templars’ case, as if it were in this rather than in any of the other public or private actions of his long life that lay hidden, somewhere or other, the ultimate explanation, the ultimate justification he wished to find before dying. And treading slowly the stair of memory, he suddenly arrived at a threshold where light broke and all became clear.

  The curse did not come from God. It emanated from himself and had no other source but in his own actions; and this was true of every man and of every punishment.

  ‘The Templars became strangers to their rule; they ceased to serve Christianity in order to busy themselves with trade and finance; vices crept in among their ranks; their curse lay in that, and it was just that they should be suppressed. But in order to have done with the Templars, in order that he might condemn them on false charges, I made my brother Archbishop, and he was both ambitious and treacherous. It is therefore not surprising that my brother should have turned against me and has betrayed me when he might perhaps have been able to save me. I should not blame him; it is I who am to blame … It was certainly a good thing for France to have a French Pope, but because this Pope, in order to get elected, surrounded himself with cardinals who were alchemists and avid, not for virtue, but for the manufacture of gold, he died of the powdered emeralds which the alchemists made him swallow. Because Nogaret tortured too many innocent people in order to extract the confessions he required, thinking them necessary for the public good, his enemies poisoned him in the end … Because Marguerite of Burgundy was married for political reasons to a prince she did not love she betrayed her marriage, and because she betrayed it she was discovered and imprisoned. Because I burnt the lette
r which might have released King Louis from his marriage, I condemned Marguerite and condemned myself at the same time … Because Louis had her assassinated and accused me of the crime, what will happen to him? What will happen to Charles of Valois who is going to have me hanged this morning for invented crimes? What will happen to Clémence of Hungary if she consents to marry a murderer in order to be Queen of France? … Even when we are punished for the wrong reasons, there is always a real cause for our punishment. Every unjust act, even committed for the sake of a just cause, carries its curse with it.’

  When he had discovered these things, Enguerrand de Marigny ceased to hate anyone or to hold others responsible for his fate. He had made his act of contrition, but one valuable in a way different from those made by means of muttered prayers. He felt a great peace, and as if he were at one with God in the acceptance that his destiny should be accomplished in this way.

  He remained calm till dawn broke, and had no impression of a descent from the luminous threshold to which his meditations had led him.

  At seven o’clock he heard a great tumult beyond the walls. When he saw the Provost of Paris, the Sheriff and the Procurator come in, he got slowly to his feet and waited for his irons to be removed. He took the scarlet cloak which he had been wearing on the day of his arrest, and covered his shoulders with it. He had a strange feeling of strength, and constantly repeated to himself the truth which he had discovered, ‘Every unjust act, even committed for a just cause …’

  He was made to get into a wagon drawn by four horses, and went on his way, escorted by the archers and sergeants-at-arms, by the very men he had commanded, who now were leading him to execution.

  To the howling mob closely lining the whole length of the Rue Saint-Denis Marigny, standing upright, replied in the same manner as he would have received their acclamation, ‘Good people, pray for me.’

  At the corner of the Rue Saint-Denis the procession halted before the convent of the Filles-Dieu. Marigny was made to get out of the wagon and was led into the courtyard of the convent, to the foot of a wooden crucifix placed upon a plinth. ‘It is right,’ he thought; ‘this is what always happens, but I was never present to see it. And how many men have I condemned to death? I have had sixteen years of happiness and riches to reward me for the good I have been able to do, sixteen days of unhappiness and one morning of death to punish me for the harm. God is still merciful.’

  At the foot of the crucifix the chaplain to the convent recited above the kneeling Marigny the prayers for the dying. Then the nuns brought the condemned man a glass of wine and three pieces of bread which he slowly ate, appreciating for the last time the taste of this world’s food. Beyond the walls the crowd continued to shout for his death. ‘The bread they will shortly be eating,’ thought Marigny, ‘will seem less good to them than that which I have just been given.’

  Then the procession set off again by the Faubourg Saint-Martin, and at last, standing upon a mound, the gibbet of Montfaucon came into sight.

  It was a huge square construction, erected upon twelve huge blocks of uncut stone forming the foundations of a platform which was itself surmounted by sixteen pillars and covered with a roof. In the interior, the gallows were arranged in a row. The pillars were joined by double beams and iron chains, to which the bodies of the condemned were attached after execution. They were left there to rot at the mercy of the wind and the crows, so as to serve as an example and impress the population with salutary thoughts. On that particular day there were some ten bodies hanging up, some already almost skeletons, others beginning to decompose within their clothes, their faces green or black, appalling discharges oozing from their ears and mouths, and fragments of flesh, torn off by the beaks of birds, hanging down upon their clothes. An appalling stench hung about them.

  It was Marigny himself who, a few years earlier, had had this fine, new, solid gibbet built to purify the city’s morals. And it was there that he himself was sent to his death. Never had destiny, in one sense, provided a better example of poetic justice than sending the judge to end his life upon the same gibbet as the public malefactors.

  When Marigny got out of the wagon, the accompanying priest urged him to confess the crimes for which he had been condemned.

  ‘No, Father,’ said Marigny with great dignity.

  He denied having cast any spell upon the King, denied having robbed the Treasury, denied all the heads of the charges brought against him, and asserted that the deeds for which he was blamed had all been either commanded or approved by the late King.

  ‘But for the sake of just causes I have committed unjust acts,’ he said.

  And saying these words he looked at the corpses hanging above him.

  The crowd was shouting so loud that he placed his hands over his ears as if he was prevented from thinking. Preceded by the executioner, he walked up the stone ramp which gave on to the platform and, with that authority which had always been his, asked, indicating the gibbet, ‘Which one?’

  As if from a stage, he glanced for the last time upon the innumerable crowd in which women were screaming hysterically, children hiding their heads in their fathers’ cloaks, and men shouting, ‘A good job too! He has robbed us enough! And now he’s paying for it!’ Marigny demanded that his hands should be untied.

  ‘Let no one hold me.’

  He himself raised his hair and placed his bull-like head in the noose they held out to him. He took a deep breath, as if to preserve life as long as possible in his lungs, clenched his hands, and the rope raised him slowly into the air.

  The crowd, which had been awaiting nothing else, nevertheless uttered a loud cry of astonishment. For several minutes he twisted there, his eyes bulging, his face turning first blue and then violet, his tongue protruding and his arms and legs moving as if he were trying to climb an invisible mast. At last his arms fell to his sides, the convulsions grew less and less and then stopped and his eyes grew sightless.

  The crowd fell silent, surprised as always by its own attitude, terrified by its own complicity. The executioners took down the body, dragged it by the feet across the platform and suspended it, in its fine aristocratic clothes, in the place of honour which was its due, upon the front of the gibbet, to let one of the greatest ministers France ever had rot there.

  6

  The Fall of a Statue

  AT MONTFAUCON IN THE darkness, as the chains creaked in the wind, thieves that night took down the illustrious corpse and stripped it of its clothes; when dawn broke, Marigny’s body was found lying naked upon the stones.

  Monseigneur of Valois, who was told immediately as he still lay in bed, ordered that it should be dressed and hung up again. Then he himself dressed and came downstairs. Feeling peculiarly lively, more so than ever, he went in all pride of his strength to mingle with the coming and going of the town, with the trafficking of men, with the power of kings.

  He arrived at the Palace and there, accompanied by Canon Etienne de Mornay, his old Chancellor, whom he had now made Keeper of the Seals of France, he went to take up his position at an interior window which opened upon the Mercers’ Hall, so as to feast himself upon a sight for which he had longed for many years. Beneath him the crowd of merchants and loungers were watching four masons at work upon a scaffolding. They were taking down the statue of Enguerrand de Marigny. It was well fixed to the wall, not only by its base, but by the back. Larger than life, it did not seem to wish to leave its niche or come away from the Palace. Picks and chisels chipped the stone. White splinters flew about the masons.

  ‘Monseigneur, I have finished taking an inventory of Marigny’s possessions,’ said Etienne de Mornay. ‘The total is pretty large.’

  ‘Then the King will be able to reward those who have served him well in this matter,’ said Valois. ‘I insist that in the first place my lands of Gaillefontaine, which the rascal tricked me into exchanging to my disadvantage, should be returned to me. And then my son Philippe is old enough to have his own establishment outside my house and
his own personal household. This will be a good opportunity; you will tell the King so. The house in the Rue d’Autriche, or that in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, would do very well indeed. Perhaps that in the Rue d’Autriche would be best. I know, too, that my nephew wishes to give some reward to Henriet de Meudon, who opens his baskets of doves and whom he calls huntsman. Oh, and don’t forget that thirty-five thousand pounds of the revenues of the County of Beaumont are due to Monseigneur of Artois. I think this is the moment to give him some of it, if not all.’

  ‘The King will have to make expensive presents to his new wife,’ continued the Chancellor, ‘and he seems to have decided, in his present state of amorousness, upon making the greatest possible gestures of liberality, though the Treasury is in no state to meet them. Could we not take the presents for the new Queen from Marigny’s possessions?’

  ‘That is well thought of, Mornay. Apportion them in this way to show the King, placing my niece of Hungary at the head of the beneficiaries,’ replied Charles of Valois, without taking his eyes off the masons.

  ‘Of course, Monseigneur,’ said the Chancellor, ‘I ask nothing for myself.’

  ‘And in that you are quite right, for malicious people might say that you wished to get rid of Marigny only so as to profit from his possessions. Make my share a little larger, and I will myself give you what you deserve.’

  The back of the statue was now completely freed from the wall; the marble torso was bound with cords and the winches began to turn. Suddenly Valois placed his ringed hand upon the Chancellor’s arm.

  ‘Do you know, Mornay, I feel a most extraordinary sensation? I have the impression that I am going to miss Marigny.’

  Mornay looked at the King’s uncle with surprise. He didn’t understand what Valois meant, and Valois himself could not have explained exactly what he felt. Hate creates links as strong as those of love, and when the enemy one has fought for a long time disappears, one feels an emptiness at the heart, the emptiness created by the end of every great passion.