Pictures of the old French court

by Mrs. Bearne

Comte d’Alençon, Duc de Bourbon, Comte d’Etampes, Comte d’Artois, Duc de Bretagne, Comte de Clermont and Roi de Navarre (as Comte d’Evreux).

The lay peers sat on the right of the King, the ecclesiastical on the left. New peers sat according to creation.[78]

That Charles should forbid private wars among the nobles was a matter of course. He also made a law forbidding games of hazard. He discouraged all books of licentious tendency and conversation of the same kind, and gave out that those who led scandalous lives would lose his favour and be dismissed from court. He was very angry with a young chevalier who had, as Christine de Pisan expresses it, “instructed the Dauphin in love and folly,” and forbade him to enter his presence, or that of the Queen and their children; but he does not seem to have been cruel or very severe. He would by no means allow either his nobles or any one else to condemn their wives to perpetual imprisonment if they were unfaithful to them, “considering the fragility of human nature,” and was with great difficulty persuaded to allow of their being kept under restraint if their conduct was too outrageous.

On one occasion his barber, who was shaving him, kept putting his hand in the pouch or purse the King wore at his side and taking out money. Charles saw what he was about and forgave him; but he repeated his offence twice or thrice. The fourth time, the King dismissed him but would not allow him to be put to death, as by the laws of that time he was liable to be; because he had served him so long. Another time, “it was in the time of the pestilence, before he was crowned,[79] as he was entering Paris with a great company, after a great commotion in the town which had been against him,” as he passed through a street one of the rabble cried out, “By God, Sire! if I had been believed, you would not have come in; but they will not do much for you.”

The Comte de Tanquarville, who rode before the King, wanted to go and put the fellow to death, but Charles restrained him, only answering with an indifferent smile. “They will not believe you, beau sire.” On being told by some of the princes that he was too easy and too ready to grant pardons, by which he encouraged crime, he replied that he would much rather be too indulgent than too severe. He was exceedingly charitable both to the convents and to the poor and unfortunate of all classes, and gave away an immense amount of money.

The government of Languedoc had been entrusted by the King to the Duc d’Anjou, the eldest and perhaps the worst of his brothers. But his rule was so cruel and oppressive, and such commotions arose from it that Charles interfered; forbade the executions and punishments ordered by the Duke to be carried out, and took the government of the province away from him. The two elder of the King’s brothers were a continual source of uneasiness to him. Believing from his delicate health that his own life would not be a long one, he felt a dread that was only too well founded of what would happen if in the event of his death the kingdom and the Dauphin should fall into their hands. He did what he could to obviate this contingency. He fixed the majority of the Dauphin at fourteen years of age. He gave the guardianship of him and his brother and sisters to the Queen, her brother the Duc de Bourbon, and his third brother the Duc de Bourgogne. The Duc d’Anjou, though he was to be regent, was to swear on the gospels and holy relics to govern loyally for the welfare of the kingdom and his nephew, and was to have no jurisdiction over the town and vicomté of Paris, the towns and baillages of Melun and Sens, and the whole of the duchy of Normandy, which were to be administered for the King by his guardians and a council; he also regulated the fortunes of his younger children. The Princess Marie was betrothed to Guillaume de Bavière, Comte de Hollande, et de Hainault, eldest son of the Duke of Bavaria, and the Princess Isabelle to Jean, Duc d’Alençon. The crowns or coronets for these little princesses and several other of their possessions appear in a list made by order of their father.[80]

{1377}

In December, 1377, the Emperor Charles IV. came on a visit to the King and Queen. Preparations for his reception were made on the grandest scale. He arrived at Cambrai on Tuesday before Christmas with his son, the King of the Romans, was met by a body of nobles and cavaliers sent by the King to welcome him and entertained by the Bishop. The next night he slept at the abbey of Mont St. Martin. The Duc de Bourbon, the Comte d’Eu, cousin of the King, and the Bishops of Beauvais and Paris came to meet him at Compiègne with three hundred cavaliers in blue and white, the Duke’s colours. The Duc de Bourbon entertained the whole company at supper and the next day, at Senlis, the Emperor was met by another array of cavalry with the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry. As he had been seized on the way with an attack of gout, the King of France sent a litter drawn by mules and “noblement appareilliée”[81] belonging to the Queen, which the Emperor received with great satisfaction and in which he travelled to St. Denis. There he was met by a train of prelates and dignitaries who accompanied him to the famous church, into which, as he was not well enough to walk, he caused himself to be carried and offered his prayers before the altar of St. Louis. He was then carried to his room and his suite were supplied by the Abbot with “great fish, beef, mutton, rabbits, fowls, fodder for their horses, and abundance of wine.” Many presents were brought by the people of the town, and the Emperor when he had rested was carried to the treasury of the abbey, where priceless collections of relics, crowns, and gems were displayed before him. The robes, crowns, jewels, and everything of the kind used at the coronations were kept by the Abbot and monks of St. Denis.

The Emperor spent that day in the Abbey, and rose very early the next morning, January 4th, as on that day he was to go to Paris. But before he set off he was carried again into the church, where he asked to see the tombs of the kings, especially of Jean and of Philippe de Valois and his wife, Jeanne de Bourgogne. For he was the son of the gallant King of Bohemia, who died at Crécy; his sister, Bonne, was the first wife of Jean, and he himself had been brought up in the court of Philippe de Valois and Jeanne de Bourgogne. As he remarked, “his youth had been nourished in their hostel and much good they had done to him.”[82] And he called the Abbot and monks and begged them to pray to God for the “bons seigneurs et dames qui gisoient là.” Then, with much state and ceremony, he began his journey to Paris, to visit once more the splendid scenes of those far-off days and the children of those, who had been the friends and companions of his youth. And he said that more than any creature on earth he desired to see the King and Queen and their children, and then let God take him, for he would willingly die.

The Emperor got out of his litter and entered Paris mounted on a black horse richly caparisoned with the arms of France, sent him by the King his nephew, who came out to meet him mounted on a tall white charger wearing a scarlet robe, mantle and hat covered with pearls, with a great train of nobles and chevaliers gorgeously dressed attended by their followers wearing their liveries, the officers of the households of the King and the Dauphin in immense numbers dressed according to their grades. The King had sent a proclamation the day before that no one should dare (que nul ne fust tant hardi) to take up the space in the grant rue by coming to the palace with carts or people, and no one should move from the places where they had put themselves to see the King and Emperor pass. None were allowed to come into the town, and many of the inhabitants had to stay outside in the fields, while sergeants-at-arms were posted in the streets, and thirty of them with swords and maces rode before the King’s bodyguard. The King of France, the Emperor and the King of the Romans rode into Paris side by side in this magnificent procession, and it was three o’clock when they arrived at the marble steps of the palace, when the Emperor, who could hardly hold himself up from the gout, was placed in a chair covered with cloth of gold and with much honour and ceremony conducted to the apartment prepared for him.