Charles IV. had been brought up in the court of Philippe de Valois; his sister, Bonne, had been the first wife of Jean, and he regarded the Valois family with strong affection. But he was too much like them to be of any use as an adviser, although he is said to have reproached his nephew with having, at this time of general distress, ordered for himself a new and splendid crown of gold. He, and probably the Duchesse de Normandie, spent Christmas with their uncle amidst a succession of fêtes, and returned to Paris towards the end of January to find the discontent of the people increased; which was not surprising, for there had been a still further depreciation of the coin of the realm; the seigneurs and knights who had been taken prisoners at Poitiers were returning in crowds to collect their ransoms, which were enormously heavy, and as the Jews and Lombards had been banished they could not borrow money on usury from them, as they might otherwise have done, so that there was no way of getting it but to wring it out of the peasants. As there was scarcely a family that had not at least one member a prisoner, a system of universal extortion was going on. They seized the property of their vassals and in many cases endeavoured, by imprisonment and other cruelty, to force them to give up any money they supposed them to have concealed,[14] in order that it might be sent to the English to buy back those, many of whom they did not at all wish to see.
And they were profoundly irritated by this new misfortune. At Crécy, at any rate, they grumbled, every one had fought bravely and done their best; no shadow of dishonour had rested on the lilies of France. The nobles might have been proud and extortionate, but in the hour of danger they did not flinch. They lay in heaps on the field of battle, and a life of extravagance and dissipation was redeemed by a hero’s death.
But now there were suspicions of panic; there had been confusion and mismanagement, and there appeared to be an extraordinary number of prisoners. The early flight of four out of the five young princes also displeased the people, who now began to despise the nobles whom hitherto they had only feared and hated. And whereas it had formerly been the custom for them to serve the King in time of war at their own cost and without pay, they had, in the reign of Philippe de Valois, begun to demand money while in the field, and the sums granted by Philippe had to be increased by Jean just at the time when they seemed to be least deserved.
The Hundred Years’ War between France and England in the fourteenth century was destructive to the prosperity and civilisation which, in spite of many drawbacks, had characterised the thirteenth. There could be no liberty while the country was full of armed bands led by powerful barons; agriculture was not likely to flourish in such a state of things as has been described; the nobles had no leisure to encourage or interest themselves in literary pursuits while their whole lives were spent in warfare. It was in the monasteries that learning was chiefly cultivated and protected, but many of those great religious establishments in the country, though always possessing some sort of fortification, had been sacked and burned by brigands, and others deserted by their inhabitants, who no longer found that security which the cloister had formerly afforded. The towns had become less free, and many of them had lost the liberties and privileges accorded them by the Capétiens Kings. For the Valois and their followers held the traders and unwarlike citizens in the deepest contempt, and so, as time went on, grew and strengthened a bitter hatred of the lower classes for those of gentle blood, making men the deadly enemies of their own countrymen and causing national calamities far more dreadful and disgraceful than any brought about by foreign invaders.
In other countries nobles and people, united in their sentiments and aspirations, developed in peaceful and harmonious progress to the accomplishment of their destinies;[15] whilst in France the deplorable separation that began in the fourteenth century caused the frightful excesses of the Jacquerie, and having produced the Reign of Terror in the days of our great-grandfathers and the Commune in our own, is still so fatal an injury to the power, stability, and prestige of the French nation.
{1358}
The first child of the Duke and Duchess of Normandy was born in September of this year (1357), a daughter, named Jeanne.
It was on the 28th of May, 1358,[16] that the Jacquerie, or rising of the peasants, broke out at the little town of Saint-Leu, where a number of labourers, joined by small tradesmen, artisans, and other persons of the lower classes, assembled in revolt; and having murdered nine gentlemen who happened to be in the town, spread themselves over the surrounding country, putting to death every man, woman, and child of good blood who came in their way, and plundering and burning the châteaux. They attacked the villages at each end of the forest of Ermenonville, and went to the castle of Beaumont-sur-Oise, where the Duchesse d’Orléans then was. Warned just in time of the approach of the murderers, she fled for her life, was out of the castle before they arrived and set it on fire, and escaped to Meaux, a town on the Marne, where the Duchess of Normandy, the Princess Isabelle de France and more than three hundred ladies had taken refuge, some having escaped in their nightdresses without having had time to dress themselves.
The rebellion spread rapidly over Picardy, Champagne, and the Ile-de-France, and the horrors of it have never been equalled in any Christian country. It was like a revolt of savages. Hordes of bloodthirsty miscreants went about burning castles, murdering and torturing men, women, and children. None who fell into their power might escape dishonour and death; any village refusing to join them was exposed to their vengeance.
A band of three thousand Jacques having just destroyed the Château de Poix, were marching on Aumale when they met a hundred and twenty Norman and Picards men-at-arms, led by Guillaume de Picquigny. The latter came forward to parley with them but was treacherously slain by one Jean Petit Cardaine. His followers fell upon the Jacques, killed two thousand of them, and put the remainder to flight. The Jacques had cause to repent of this murder, for Guillaume de Picquigny was a relation of that Jean de Picquigny who delivered the King of Navarre from Arleux. And Charles of Navarre, who was always ready to protect his friends and punish his enemies, took ample vengeance for his death. The Château d’Ermenonville belonged to Robert de Lorris, who had risen from humble life in the village from which he took his name. It is a mistaken notion that in the middle ages people could not and did not rise from the ranks to the highest social position. It was, of course, less frequent than in our own days, but in the fourteenth century there were hundreds of cases of the kind, both ecclesiastic and secular.[17]