The King had a painted barge like a floating house, richly decorated inside and outside, in which he used to go up and down the Seine from the Louvre to his new and favourite palace of St. Paul,[65] which he had built chiefly while he was still regent.
Charles and Jeanne had now been married eighteen years, and had no children. They had never had a son, and their three daughters had all died, to their great grief. But on the 3rd of December, 1368, “on the first day of the Advent of our Lord, at the third hour after midnight, the Queen Jehanne, wife of King Charles, then King of France, had her first son in the ostel near St. Pol; and the moon was in the sign of the Virgin in the second phase of the said sign, and the moon was twenty-three days old. For the which birth the King and all the people in France had great joy, and not without cause, for until now the said King had had no male child. And the King gave thanks to God and the Virgin Mary. And that day he went to Notre Dame de Paris, and caused a beautiful mass to Our Lady to be sung before her image at the entrance of the choir; and the next day, Monday, he went to Saint Denis in France on pilgrimage, and he caused to be given away at Paris a great heap of florins, to the number of three thousand florins and more.”[66]
The child was christened on Wednesday, the 6th of December, and the chronicler thus describes the proceedings:—
“The Wednesday following, sixth day of December, in the year one thousand three hundred and sixty-eight aforesaid, the said son of the King was christened in the church of Saint-Pol of Paris, about the hour of prime, in the manner which follows. And the day before were made enclosures of wood in the street before the said church, and also inside the said church about the font, to take care that there should not be too great press of people.
“First: before the said child went two hundred varlés who carried two hundred torches, who all remained in the said street,[67] holding the said burning torches, except twenty-six who went inside. And after was Messire Hue de Chasteillon, seigneur de Dampierre, master of the crossbowmen, who carried a candle in his hand, and the Comte de Tanquarville, who carried a cup in which was the salt, and had a towel at his neck with which the said salt was covered. And after was the Queen, Jehanne d’Evreux, who carried the said child in her arms, and Monseigneur Charles, seigneur de Montmorenci, et Monseigneur Charles, comte de Dampmartin, were beside her; and thus they issued from the said hostel of the King of Saint-Pol, by the door which is the nearest to the church. And immediately after the said child, were the Duc d’Orléans, the King’s uncle, the Duc de Berry, the Duc de Bourbon, the Queen’s brother, and many other great seigneurs and ladies; Queen Blanche, the Duchesse d’Orléans, the Comtesse de Harcourt and the Dame de Lebret,[68] sisters of the Queen, who were well adorned with coronets and jewels.”[69]
The chronicler goes on to describe the christening, the cardinals, bishops, and abbots with mitres and crosiers, how the crowd was so great that the child had to be taken home by a back way and how the King gave away money in the coulture Ste. Katherine, where there was also such a crowd that several women were killed.
The Queen seems to have been ill a long time, for the chronicler says that there was a great fête when she recovered (releva de sa gésine) from her confinement, on the 4th February, and after the dinner a dance and other amusements, and the King gave his son the title of Dauphin du Viennois.
Charles had succeeded in getting rid of the Grande Compagnie led by the Archiprêtre, mentioned in the life of Jeanne de Boulogne, Bertrand du Guesclin having persuaded them to go with him to Spain, to fight against Pedro el Cruel, at the request of the King, who said: “If some one would lead ces gens-là against the miscreant and tyrant Pedro, who has killed our sister, let him do so whatever it costs me.”[70]
{1369}