The barons, though temporarily disheartened, were by no means reduced to peaceful submission. England was still in a threatening attitude; while the long and relentless war against the Albigenses was dragging on, with success now on this side, now on that. Blanche had need to fortify herself as wisely as she could. She sought the support of the bourgeois. The citizens of Limoges and of Saint-Junien in the Limousin, in charters granted in 1228, swore fealty to the queen as well as to the king. Cardinal Remain, at Blanche's instance, came back to France as legate; she found his advice, and the prestige of the papal authority, of material assistance. After some negotiation, the truce with England was renewed for a year, from July, 1228, to July, 1229.
Philippe Hurepel, who had been faithful for a time to the interests of his sister-in-law and her son, displayed discontent, and now went over to the side of the rebels. It is said that he even had an eye on the throne, and that the barons had some notion of trying to set up Enguerrand de Coucy as king that Coucy who was the head of the house with the famous motto:
"Je ne suis roi, ne due, ne prince, ne comte aussi:
Je suis le sire de Coucy."
Before actual hostilities began, Blanche had required and received new oaths of fealty from the communes of the royal domain north of the Seine, as far as Flanders. Magistrates of Amiens, Compiègne, Laon, Peronne, and a host of other places, swore to defend the king, Queen Blanche, and her children. The barons had arranged that Pierre Mauclerc should begin hostilities, and that when Blanche summoned the feudal army to march against him each should come, but come with only two knights, which would make a force so small that Mauclerc would have nothing to fear. Once more Thibaud de Champagne came to the rescue. He gathered all the troops he could, and came with over three hundred knights, these being, when joined to the contingents from the loyal communes of the royal domain, enough to save Blanche. In January, 1229, Blanche marched into the domains of the refractory Mauclerc--who had refused to appear when summoned to the court--and laid siege to the strong castle of Bellême. In a few days, though the stronghold was considered impregnable, the garrison was forced to surrender. The actual military operations of this successful siege were conducted, of course, by Blanche's general, Jean Clément, the marshal of France; but she herself looked after the comfort of her army. It was intensely cold; she ordered the soldiers to build great bonfires in the camp, promising pay to those who would fetch fuel from the forests; by this means, men and horses were kept warm.
After the capitulation of the garrison of Bellême, Mauclerc's power was temporarily broken, and Blanche marched back to Paris with Louis, who had accompanied her. The barons had not received the support on which they had counted from Henry III., whose weakness and vacillation kept him from taking advantage of what would have been a splendid opportunity to weaken the power of France.
In her precarious situation Blanche needed the support of all classes; it was now her misfortune to incur, for a time, the ill will of the students of the University of Paris. These students had, from long custom and by royal favor, been allowed all sorts of privileges and immunities, since the University added no little to the prestige of Paris. They were a turbulent set, frequently engaged in brawls with the citizens. On Shrove Monday, 1229, some students went to an inn at Saint-Marcel, outside Paris, where they ate and drank, and then engaged in a violent quarrel with the innkeeper when the bill was presented. The quarrel at first seemed rather comic; after a wordy battle they came to blows and pulling of hair, till the students were driven ignominiously from the field. But next day, February 27th, they returned in force, armed with sticks and stones, and even swords. In a spirit of undiscriminating revenge, they wrecked the first inn they came across and beat the people in the streets, women as well as men. Word was sent at once to the authorities of the University, who appealed to Queen Blanche through Cardinal Romain. The prefect of Paris, with his soldiers, was ordered to proceed to the scene of the rioting and restore order, which he did with rather too good a will, for in the process there was bloodshed; several students were killed, and the complaint was made that those whom the prefect and his men attacked were not the guilty ones. The authorities of the University were up in arms against the queen. As she declined to make the reparation they demanded--which would have left the students more lawless than ever for the future--teachers and students scattered, to Rheims, to Angers, to Orléans, and many returned to their native land. The concessions which Blanche then made could not bring back all who had gone away. Though her policy may have been mistakenly severe one can but grant that she had cause for being severe. All our sympathies are with the woman whom the students did not hesitate to vilify, reviving the calumny about the relations of Blanche and Cardinal Romain, who had given her able support in this affair. Such currency did this vile story gain that one chronicler tells us that the queen submitted to an examination to disprove it.
The first real victory for France in the long war of the Albigenses came with the treaty of Paris, sometimes called the treaty of Meaux, April 12, 1229. It is, perhaps, fortunate for the reader's good opinion of Blanche that we omit to chronicle the horrors of this war, though most of those horrors were committed before she became ruler of France. Raymond VII., Count of Toulouse, the head and front of the resistance in Provence, was Blanche's cousin, and she had always shown herself mindful of family ties, so that we may charitably suppose that she did the best she could for the ruined Raymond. We do not know that she assisted at his humiliation,--barefooted, and in his shirt, he was led to the door of Notre Dame and made to swear absolute submission to the Church--but we cannot go wrong in assuming that some of the wise provisions of the treaty of Paris were of her suggesting. The provisions were very wise indeed, securing to the French crown almost everything that could be hoped; in our wildest moments of enthusiasm, however, we could not accuse Blanche of having tempered policy with mercy. As a summary of the situation, we may state that Raymond contracted to' surrender to Louis Beaucaire, Nimes, Carcassonne, and Beziers, with other territories on the Mediterranean to the west of the Rhone; that Toulouse and its territory must revert to his daughter Jeanne, who was to be espoused by one of the brothers of Louis IX.; that the dominions remaining to him should also revert to Jeanne, in failure of other heirs of his body. Failing heirs of Jeanne, the domains acquired as her dower were to revert to the crown of France. More complete ruin for Raymond could hardly have been compassed. It was the end of Provence both as a political and an artistic entity.
We have alluded several times to the famous Thibaud IV., called Le Chansonnier, Count of Champagne. His relations with Blanche of Castille are matter both of history and of legend; it behooves us to try to sift the one from the other and to present some account of the loves of Blanche and Thibaud.
Thibaud's mother, Blanche de Navarre, Countess of Champagne, had to play a role not unlike that of her cousin Blanche de Castille; she acted as regent in the name of her son, and it was due to her good management that he was allowed to inherit his patrimony. This was surely an age of woman, with Berengère ruling in Castille, Queen Blanche in France, and another Blanche, of the same family, in Champagne. Thibaud was of a gallant temperament, priding himself upon his knightly accomplishments, but not less upon his talent as a poet; for he was one of those imitators of the troubadours whom we might almost class with the troubadours themselves. Of his gifts as a poet we shall not speak here; in the histories of French literature will be found the record of many of his chansons. As a man, it is altogether probable that Thibaud did not suffer from an over-scrupulous conscience; we have knowledge of his acting in very bad faith on several occasions. But these manifestations of bad faith were almost always to the advantage of Blanche de Castille. The rebel barons would enter into league with Thibaud, and he would agree to betray his queen, and would even consider seriously the question of marrying the daughter and heiress of Pierre Mauclerc. At the critical moment comes a missive, nominally from the boy king: "Sir Thibaud de Champagne, I have heard that you have promised to take to wife the daughter of the Count Pierre de Bretagne; I bid you, by all that you hold most dear in this kingdom, that you do not so. The reason, you know full well;... for never have I had one who wished me more ill than this same count." The impulsive Thibaud reads the note, and he and his knights turn aside to support the fair lady who was the real author of the missive. It was this sort of thing which made the barons hate and distrust Thibaud and which gave some color to the reports they industriously circulated, alleging that Blanche was the mistress of Thibaud. The latter had already been accused of poisoning Louis VIII.; it was now added that this crime had been connived at by his paramour, Blanche.