Relieved from the pressure of a foreign enemy, the quarrels between the Bishop and the Chapter broke out with renewed vigour. The disgraceful and ridiculous scenes of the last century were repeated. Then the esteem in which the clergy were held had been damaged by the exhibition of the Bishop and the Chapter quarrelling over the question of authority, excommunicating each other and continuing to say Mass. Apart from deeds of violence—and these were not few—it was a sufficiently deplorable object-lesson for the people. Canons in the Cathedral made such a clatter with their chairs that the proclamations of the Bishop could not be heard. Now, the Chapter, who refused to recognise the right of mandamus claimed by the Bishop, was involved in a similar quarrel with Miles d’Illiers. When he endeavoured to enforce his episcopal jurisdiction upon the canons of the cloister, they declared that he was violating the rights of the Holy See, to which alone they were responsible, and forthwith excommunicated him. Nothing daunted, he appeared in the choir of Notre-Dame. The canons rose from their stalls and made for the doors, as if to avoid all contact with a man who had been excommunicated. The Bishop, treating the matter as a jest, pronounced his blessing on the fugitives, ‘to absolve them from the excommunication which they were afraid of sharing with him.’ Then he ordered his chaplains to continue divine service without the canons. The violent and imperious temper of Miles d’Illiers brought him into conflict, not only with the Chapter of the Cathedral, but also with the abbeys and the town. He was usually in the wrong. Louis XI., who divided his time between Chartres, where his devotion held him, and Paris, whither the administration of his kingdom summoned him, invariably decided against him when the cases of his aggression were submitted to him. These affairs, endless litigation with reference to the navigation of the river, the plague, and benefactions from the King to the Cathedral, made up the history of Chartres till the end of the fifteenth century.
CHAPTER IX
The Siege and the Breach, 1568
‘Le canon battait nos murailles.
La Vierge, comme un bouclier,
Au choc terrible des batailles
Opposait son blanc tablier.
Le plomb, dans sa course rapide,
Devant la Vierge se courbait,
Et l’obus, au vol homicide,
Sans bruit, dans son giron tombait.’
L. Jolliet.
PLAGUE and famine weighed heavily upon Chartres throughout the sixteenth century; not less heavily the wars of François I. and of Henry IV., and the continual contributions in money which she was called upon to make in order to enable them to be waged. Year by year, under the three curses of that age—plague, soldiers, and impositions—the exhaustion of the city increased. She was able, however, to receive with sufficient magnificence the occasional visits of kings and princes. Particularly splendid was the reception accorded to Mary Queen of Scots, when, at the age of six, she was brought here in state by the Constable de Montmorency and the Duc d’Aumale. And the period in which Jean de Beauce wrought the Clocher and the Clôture of the Cathedral cannot have been one of abject poverty.