Historic Bubbles

by Frederic Leake

The two chieftains now resolved on a master stroke, the capture of Bruges. Count Louis hastened to intercept them. His force was superior to theirs; but Van Artevelde made a stirring speech to his men showing them that victory was their only chance even for life. He seized a convent of monks and compelled them to confess the soldiers and administer the communion, and thus prepare them to fight to the death. They won the obstinate battle which followed and took Bruges. The count fled through the town, the enemy at his heels. He dodged down an obscure street and into an obscure lodging where a woman a true Brugian who hated the Ghenters, put him to bed in the garret with her children till the pursuit was over.

The count appealed for aid to his son-in-law duke Philip. The latter gentleman was not well pleased to see his wife’s patrimony wasted by brewers of beer, so he levied an army in France and marched into Flanders. The king who was now fourteen and whose blood was on fire at the sound of a trumpet, insisted on accompanying the expedition. They met the insurgents at Rosebeke near Ypres. Van Artevelde and Dubois flushed with their previous success, were confident of victory. Van Artevelde himself issued the order that no quarter be given. Slay every Frenchman, cried he, except the young king! Bring him to Ghent and we will teach him to speak Flemish.

But they had left out of their reckoning one factor which perhaps oftener than any other determines the fate of battle. Duke Philip though himself a good captain, was prudent enough not to trust to his own soldiership when better was at hand. He had put his army under the command of Oliver de Clisson constable of France, the worthy successor of Du Guesclin. The stubborn courage of the Netherlanders was of no avail against the skill with which De Clisson directed his legions; and at the close of a bloody day the men of Ghent were routed.

At night-fall as the king, the duke, the count and the constable were walking over the field of battle, picking their way among the slain, a dying soldier raised his arm and pointed to a heap of dead bodies close by. They dragged aside alternate Frenchman and Fleming till they came to all that remained of Philip Van Artevelde. He had died like a soldier where the fight was the hottest. Dubois escaped wounded to England.

Charles-the-wise when dying had counselled his brother of Burgundy to marry the young king to a German princess in order to strengthen alliance with the Empire. Stephen duke of Bavaria had a daughter named Isabella; and the duchess Margaret together with her friend and gossip the duchess of Brabant resolved to make the match. Isabella was fourteen. She was handsome enough, but she was an uncouth tomboy and dressed in a style that was anything but French. The duchess of Brabant took her in hand, and by much discipline of her own seconded by a French dancing-master and a French dressmaker, succeeded in breaking this romping Rhinelander into some semblance of polite behavior. She was presented to the king who was now seventeen. She knelt at his feet with perfect grace: he raised her up and made a common-place remark, and she said just the right thing in reply. She had been made to rehearse the whole scene beforehand, in the king’s absence. He was charmed with her beauty and her manners, and he fell in love with her and married her. She turned out to be a veritable Messalina and did what she could to add to the misfortunes of France.

Another notable marriage a year later, that is in 1387, was that of the king’s brother Louis duke of Orleans with his cousin Valentina daughter of Galeazzo Visconti lord of Milan. The Visconti were rich, and a million of florins went to the dowry of Valentina. This marriage too brought disaster a century later when the great-grandson of Louis and Valentina, in attempting to recover the patrimony of the Visconti, was led captive to Madrid.

The constable De Clisson, the victor of Rosebeke, had a bitter enemy in John de Montfort duke of Brittany. One night in Paris, De Clisson returning from an entertainment given by Louis and Valentina, was suddenly attacked and knocked senseless into the doorway of a baker’s shop. The baker dragged him in and sent for a surgeon. The king himself who was fond of the constable, came to see him. The blow was not fatal; and De Clisson had recognised his assailant. It was a well known myrmidon of the duke of Brittany. The king vowed vengeance. His uncle of Burgundy tried to pacify him and to persuade him to leave the matter to him; but the king was not to be pacified; and duke Philip was obliged to follow him into Brittany with an armed force.

It was the first week in August, and the heat was intense. The king in order to suffer less from the dust, was riding separate from the rest. Suddenly he wheeled his horse and crying out Death to the traitors! charged upon the nearest of his followers. They all scattered till one of them, a tall trooper, pounced on him from behind and pinioned him. He was stark mad; and during the rest of his long and calamitous reign his reason returned only at intervals.

The king’s malady arrested the expedition against De Montfort; and De Clisson who recovered from his wound, was left to be his own avenger. He was not slack about it; and if he was not so powerful as his adversary, he was the better soldier, so between them both they stirred up a civil war of such dimensions, that the duke of Burgundy who was again regent was obliged to interfere. Dame Margaret his duchess was related to the Montforts, so as he valued peace at his own fire-side he thought best to proceed with caution. He sent to his cousin of Brittany a few puncheons of the finest Burgundy wine, and followed himself with a retenue of archers and men-at-arms. De Montfort relished the wine more than he did the visitors: the latter looked suspiciously like an armament, and he promised to keep the peace.

The rest reads like romance and yet is history. De Clisson received from the duke of Brittany, from the man who had plotted his assassination, a message offering reconciliation, and inviting him to a personal interview. The constable was not to be caught with chaff. He answered that he would come provided the duke’s eldest son was put in his hands as a hostage. To his astonishment the boy, the heir of the Montforts, was sent to him. The meeting took place, and John de Montfort and Oliver de Clisson were friends ever after; and years later when the duke went to Paris to marry this boy to the king’s daughter, he left de Clisson in charge of his domains and his household.