“Mais que le partir soit joly
Vous ne regardez point la fin!”
Gay young gallants, unfit for privation, who, when they reach Palestine, will be too weak to strike three strokes with the magnificent swords so much too heavy for their hands.
“Les Sarrazins s’arment légier;
Sy c’est bon courage et fier.”
But the panoply of these splendid youths—these gens de paraige—was for decoration rather than for battle. Valentine, the confidant of her father—who in the long afternoons of exile would turn with the expansion of relief to her one kinsman, her staunch protector—would tell him of the weakness that underlay the glory of this martial going-off. She would write to him the plan of campaign, the route decided on, the means of attack and defence. She would inform him not only of the quality but of the number of the army. And Giangaleazzo was aware that these details transmitted to the Turks would ensure the disaster of the French, and draw away the gathering storm that threatened to break on Milan.
The Duke of Milan was not scrupulous; he was “moult bien” in the friendship of the Turk. The Turk gained a singular acquaintance with the disposition of the French army. No need to dwell here on the terrible disaster of that unforgotten battle: the twelve to twenty thousand dead; the rare fugitives stealing homewards, dukes and barons, in the dress of beggar-men; the harder lot of those taken by the Turks, sold into slavery, or massacred in vengeance for the Faithful slain at Christian hands; of the heartsick waiting of the few—a very few, of the richest and noblest—set aside for ransom. One of these, Jacques de Heilly, was sent by the Sultan on parole to France, to inform the King of the disaster and to bring back the news of their intentions with respect to ransom. He was bidden to pass by Milan[[36]] in order to convey to Giangaleazzo Visconti the salutations of the Sultan. On Christmas night he arrived in Paris; the Court were feasting and dancing. In the prison of the Châtelet, hungry and cold, there were men who spent their Christmas in a dungeon for having spread false news, as it was said, of a great defeat in Turkey. But the tale of D’Heilly told, all that was changed: the prisoners were freed, the Court was in tears. The bells rang in all the churches for the dead. The universal thought was how to redeem the flower of France from a savage captivity. On the 20th of January, 1397, a French embassy was sent to Milan. A few days earlier Jacques de Heilly, laden with propitiatory gifts, had returned to the Sultan. Nothing was spoken of but mediation and reconciliation. And Valentine—so long the innocent scapegoat of her party—was recalled to favour in the very hour when all men might have suspected her as the involuntary origin of misery.
X.
Actual war with Milan was averted; but the rumours against the King’s brother continued still in France.
On the 24th of March, 1403, Ives Gilemme, a priest; Demoiselle Marie de Blansy, Perrin Hémery, a locksmith, and Guillaume Floret, a clerk, were publicly burned for sorcery. And still the King was mad. Were those who bewitched him, the head of the State, to keep their immunity? There was such a crime as witchcraft, and people legally suffered for it. The King was bewitched: who was the wizard?