But though the mass of the people were ready to welcome any addition to the royal power, the French nobles were sufficiently keen-sighted to perceive the dangers |The Praguerie.| which it involved to their hereditary privileges. The ordinance of 1439 expressly deprived them of three valued rights: the power of taxing their own domain, the maintenance of troops under their own authority, and the carrying on of private war, which was enumerated among the causes of disorder which must be suppressed by the royal troops. It was necessary to strike at once before the monarchy became too strong. In 1440 a formidable conspiracy was formed under the leadership of the dukes of Bourbon and Alençon. Nearly all the great nobles of France were concerned in it, except the duke of Burgundy, who was occupied with his own affairs, and the two brothers-in-law of the king, Réné le Bon and Charles of Maine. Even Dunois allowed himself to be seduced from the royal cause by the desire to uphold the interests of his class. La Tremouille emerged from his obscurity to seize a last opportunity of injuring the country and overthrowing the hated constable. In the very forefront of the conspirators was the dauphin, Louis, who had quarrelled with his father on the ground that his mother was insulted by the ostentatious pomp of Agnes Sorel, and whose restless ambition demanded a share in the government. Like many another heir to a throne, Louis found himself as prince allied with a cause of which as king he became the strenuous opponent. The ‘Praguerie,’as the rising was called, in allusion to the recent disturbances in Bohemia, seemed at first sight to be irresistible, especially as the captains of the companies joined in the movement. But the king showed unexpected energy and decision; the people rallied to his side, and the selfish coalition against national interests broke to pieces. Many of the leaders escaped punishment by betraying their associates, and Louis was banished to his province of Dauphiné.
The suppression of the Praguerie enabled the government to take the necessary steps for carrying out the ordinance of 1439. By 1445 fifteen companies had been |Creation of a standing army.| created, each under a captain selected by the king. A company contained a hundred lances, and a lance implied six persons, viz., the man-at-arms, his page, three archers, and a coutillier, a soldier armed with a coutil or dagger worn at the side. Thus the total number of the gens d’ordonnance, as they were called, was nine thousand. Each captain on appointment had to take the following oath: ‘I promise and swear by God and Our Lady that I will maintain justice—that I will allow no pillage—that I will unsparingly punish all those under my charge who are guilty of such offence, and that I will make reparation for the injuries that come to my knowledge.’ The gens d’ordonnance were a cavalry force, and three years later an ordinance of 1448 instituted a body of infantry, the francs archiers. Each parish was to equip at the common expense a single archer. During peace the cost of his maintenance was borne by the parish, but when he was on service he was to receive pay from the crown. They were called ‘free’ archers because they were exempt from the taille and other obligations. Besides these troops, the king had his Scottish Guard, which had grown up during the intimate connection with Scotland in the early years of the reign and received its final organisation in 1445. There was also an efficient body of artillerymen and engineers, the creation of the brothers Bureau. That these military reforms were admirably suited to their purpose is proved both by the complete cessation of complaints about military outrages, and by the extraordinarily rapid successes of the French troops when active hostilities were resumed.
While France was occupied with these reforms and with the ecclesiastical disputes connected with the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (see p. [237]), England in |Parties in England.| her turn was becoming more and more involved in those internal dissensions which developed into the Wars of the Roses. The personal quarrel between Gloucester and Cardinal Beaufort proved the origin of a lasting party struggle. After the treaty of Arras, Beaufort and his supporters had seen clearly that the conquest of France was impossible and had urged the conclusion of peace as the only means of preserving a part of the provinces acquired by Henry V. and Bedford. On the other hand, Gloucester, backed by the unreasoning sentiment of the mob, had urged the disgrace of surrender and the necessity of a dogged prosecution of the war. The strife of parties had materially contributed to relax the efforts of England in the languid warfare that went on from 1436 to 1444. In 1441 the peace party had secured the release of Charles of Orleans, who had been a prisoner since the battle of Agincourt and had found solace during his captivity in the composition of poems which have given him an honourable place in literary history. Three years later the Duke of Suffolk, who was gradually superseding the aged cardinal in the leadership of the party, succeeded in arranging a truce for twenty-two months and in negotiating a marriage between Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou, a daughter of Réné le Bon and a niece of Charles VII.’s wife. The marriage was solemnised in 1445, but it was extremely unpopular in England. Not only did Margaret bring no dowry, but it was part of the bargain that Anjou and Maine should be handed over to her uncle, Charles of Maine. Anjou had never been thoroughly conquered, but Maine had long been in English hands and they still had a garrison in its capital, Le Mans. Dreading the outbreak of popular fury, Suffolk did all in his power to keep the agreement secret and to postpone its execution. But in 1448, after several prolongations of the truce, the patience of the French was exhausted, and a small force marched to Le Mans and compelled the withdrawal |Renewal of the war, 1449.| of the garrison and the evacuation of the whole province. The truce was now extended for another two years, but no permanent treaty could be arranged, and a renewal of hostilities was sooner or later inevitable. France had by this time completed the work of internal reorganisation, while England was hopelessly unprepared and distracted by factious disputes. Under these circumstances it was madness for England to provoke a quarrel. But Suffolk and the Beauforts were conscious that the surrender of Maine had alienated public opinion, and hoped by a display of vigour to disarm opposition. The garrison of Le Mans had been quartered on the border of Normandy and Brittany. On March 24, 1449, while the truce was still in force, these troops attacked and took the Breton town of Fougères. The act was as ill-timed |Conquest of the English provinces.| as it was treacherous. Not only did it give Charles VII. a pretext for renewing the war, but it alienated the young Francis I. of Brittany, who had hitherto maintained an attitude of friendly neutrality. The duke appealed for aid to his suzerain, and Charles VII. despatched his army to invade Normandy. The campaign was little more than a triumphal progress for the French troops. Within two months more than twenty towns were taken. When Rouen was besieged, the citizens rose and shut up the garrison in the citadel, where Edmund Beaufort, who commanded, had to surrender (October 19, 1449). By the end of the year the English had lost the whole of Normandy except a few places on the coast, which were all taken in the course of 1450. In England these sudden and unexpected reverses excited a storm of indignation. Adam de Moleyns, bishop of Chichester, was assassinated at Portsmouth. Suffolk was impeached, exiled by the king, and murdered at sea. The rising of Jack Cade was only a prominent symptom of the prevalent discontent. The duke of York came over from Ireland, and civil war was on the verge of breaking out. But domestic disturbances, however justified by previous misgovernment, were ill calculated to assist the defence of the French provinces. From Normandy the French turned their attention to Guienne, and the campaign in the south was as rapid and successful as that in the north. On August 26, 1451, Bayonne surrendered, and the English held nothing in France except Calais and the adjacent forts of Guines and Ham. It is true that the long commercial intercourse with England and the recollection of the lenity of English rule as compared with that of Charles VII. led to a rising in Bordeaux in 1452, and an English force under the veteran Talbot was sent to take advantage of the opportunity. But Talbot was defeated and slain at the battle of Castillon (July 17, 1453), and Bordeaux was soon afterwards compelled to capitulate.
In spite of the glory reflected upon Charles VII. by the restoration of unity, independence, and comparative order to his kingdom, his later years were the reverse of happy. The gloomy suspicion which he had |Later years of Charles VII.| contracted in his troubled youth became a settled habit as he grew old. He shut himself up from the eyes of his subjects with the obscure mistresses who became his companions after the death of Agnes Sorel in 1450. To his loyal minister, Jacques Cœur, he showed the same cynical ingratitude as he had formerly displayed to Joan of Arc. There were plenty of courtiers who were jealous of the influence of the merchant whose wealth made the phrase ‘rich as Jacques Cœur’ almost a proverbial expression. All sorts of charges, ranging from malversation to the poisoning of Agnes Sorel, were trumped up to procure his ruin. His property was confiscated, and after a trial in which the evidence was ludicrously unconvincing, the sentence of death was commuted by royal clemency to perpetual imprisonment. From his prison he escaped to Italy, and was appointed by Nicolas V. commander of the papal galleys in the projected war against the Turks. But he died in 1456 before he had any opportunity of winning distinction in this novel capacity.
By far the greatest trouble of Charles VII. in the later part of his reign arose out of his quarrel with his elder son Louis. After the suppression of the Praguerie a temporary |Quarrel with the dauphin.| reconciliation took place, and the dauphin returned to court. But Charles was intensely suspicious of his son, and in 1446 the alleged discovery of a new conspiracy induced him to banish Louis once more to Dauphiné. From this time the quarrel became irreconcilable, and father and son never met again. For the next ten years Louis set himself to rule his appanage as if it were an independent principality. He erected a parliament of his own at Grenoble and a university at Valence. His court became the refuge of all malcontents against the royal government. To strengthen himself against his father he concluded a close alliance with the duke of Savoy, and married his daughter Charlotte. So notorious was the quarrel that the Pope and the kings of Aragon and Castile proffered their mediation, but in vain. At last, in 1456, Charles despatched Dammartin with an army to compel the submission of Dauphiné. Louis had no adequate military force of his own, his father-in-law declined to run the risk of assisting him, and he fled to Franche-Comté and threw himself upon the protection of the duke of Burgundy. Philip received him with great pomp in Brabant, and assigned to him a residence at Genappe, where he remained for the next five years.
Since the treaty of Arras and the futile siege of Calais, Philip the Good had taken little part in the affairs of France. He had allowed the Praguerie to be put down, |Relations with Burgundy.| and the English to be expelled from France, without stirring to the aid of either, although the aggrandisement of the French monarchy was obviously dangerous to himself. His absorbing interest during these years was the government and extension of the heterogeneous dominions which had come under his rule. The Flemish citizens found it difficult to defend their liberties against a ruler who could employ against them the resources of so many other provinces. A rising in Bruges in 1437 was suppressed with great severity. In 1448 a more serious rebellion broke out in Ghent, and the citizens appealed for aid to Charles VII. But the French king was prevented from interfering by the renewal of the English war, and the Gantois were left unaided to conduct a heroic resistance against overwhelming odds. It was not till 1453 that a crushing defeat at the battle of Gavre compelled them to submit, and even then the duke granted fairly moderate terms to such formidable opponents. This victory was followed by the acquisition of Luxemburg, which Philip finally acquired on the death of his aunt Elizabeth, in opposition to the strong legal claims of Ladislas Postumus, whose mother was a daughter of the emperor Sigismund. In spite of the extent and wealth of his dominions, Philip was conscious of two serious elements of weakness. There was no social or political unity between the various provinces, which were held together only by subjection to a common ruler. And, geographically, they were split into two distinct units. Between the Netherlands and the two Burgundies lay the provinces of Champagne and Lorraine, over which the duke had no legal authority. He could not travel from his northern capital at Brussels to his southern residence at Dijon without having to pass through foreign and possibly hostile territories.
Charles VII. was fully conscious of the danger involved to the French monarchy in the erection of a practically independent state on the eastern and north-eastern frontiers of France. His suzerainty over the French fiefs of Philip was suspended during the latter’s lifetime by the treaty of Arras, and even when it should be revived by his own death or that of the duke, it would be of little use against a vassal who was strong enough to defy his overlord. The most pressing danger was the occupation by Philip of the strongest places in Picardy, which brought him into dangerous proximity to Paris. Twice Charles endeavoured to exercise the power of redeeming the towns on the Somme which had been reserved in the treaty of Arras, but both times he had to put up with a rebuff. An open struggle between France and the Burgundian power was, sooner or later, inevitable, but Charles was too weary of warfare to allow it to break out during his reign. Even when the duke gave such an ostentatious welcome to the rebellious dauphin, the king refused to depart from his policy of peace. But he showed a grim sense of humour when he heard of the reception of his restless and ambitious son in Brussels. Philip, he said, ‘is nourishing the fox who will one day devour his chickens.’
The dauphin was still at Genappe when the news reached him that his father had died on July 22, 1461. It was said that Charles was so terrified of being poisoned in |Accession of Louis XI.| his food that he starved himself to death; and it is quite possible that his suspicious timidity was a trait of insanity inherited from the unfortunate Charles VI. Louis lost no time in setting out to take possession of his kingdom, and he was accompanied by his Burgundian host and champion. At the coronation ceremony at Rheims, and in the formal entry into Paris, Philip played the most prominent part. It is true that, in accordance with the treaty of Arras, he did homage to the new king for his French fiefs, but under the circumstances the homage seemed almost ironical. In the eyes of the people the duke was the powerful patron and protector, while his nominal suzerain appeared as his grateful dependant. Louis was still looked upon as the leader of the Praguerie, as the rebel lord of Dauphiné, as the fugitive guest in the dominions of the duke of Burgundy; and his first acts seemed to accord with the principles which had guided his conduct in the past. He gave the duchy of Berri as an appanage to his younger brother Charles. To Philip’s son and heir, Charles of Charolais, he granted the government of the all-important province of Normandy. The duke of Brittany received the government of the district between the Lower Seine and the Loire. The faithful servants of his father, such as Dunois and Dammartin, were dismissed, and the latter was imprisoned. The offices thus left vacant were conferred upon men who had supported the dauphin against the late king. It seemed as if the feudal nobles of France had at last found a king who would govern in their interests rather than in those of the crown. The history of the reign is the record of their bitter disappointment.
Louis XI. is perhaps the most familiar figure in the history of the fifteenth century. His character has been painted for all time by Philippe de Commines; and his portrait has been described for English readers by Sir Walter Scott. He is the model prince of the new type, the astute pupil of that |Character and policy of Louis XI.| Italian statecraft which Machiavelli drew up in a systematic treatise. He was, according to Chastellain, ‘the universal spider’; his intrigues formed a vast web with himself at the centre. No consideration of morality, pride, or mercy was allowed to interfere with the attainment of his ends. His industry was unceasing, and he had a wonderful insight into the weaker side of human nature. ‘No one ever took more trouble to gain over a man who might do him either service or injury.’ His one weakness was a caustic tongue, and he acknowledged that his indulgence of this unruly member frequently brought him into scrapes. He was naturally suspicious and mistrustful; he would listen to advice, but follow his own counsel; his ministers must be his tools; independence was treachery in his eyes. He forgot nothing, and forgave nothing, but he could dissimulate even his anger. His policy has been equally clearly portrayed for us. He was, in the words of Commines, ‘the enemy of all great men, whose power might surpass his own, and he was naturally the friend of men of low estate.’ But this phrase must not be misunderstood. Louis XI. did not depress the nobles in order to exalt the lower classes or to extend their liberty. Municipal independence was as hateful to him as aristocratic privilege. Everything was to be equally subject to the crown. The great achievement of his reign was the victory of centralisation over the tendencies to disintegration in France. Individual members of the bourgeois class were his favourite instruments; for the class itself he did nothing, except so far as the people were better off under a strong monarchy than under the rule of a selfish and divided noble caste.
Commines tells us that Louis XI. was ‘the wisest king at recovering from a false step,’ and at the beginning of his reign false steps were not infrequent. In the |Louis’ first measures.| first consciousness of the authority which he had long coveted, he made many powerful enemies by his restless activity, and did not stop to consider the danger to which their combined hostility might expose him. The vengeful spirit with which he began his reign soon gave way to the resolute purpose of increasing his power. Instead of conciliating the people by the expected remission of taxes, he imposed a new charge upon the sale of wines. To the great indignation of the clergy he annulled the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, which, for the last twenty-three years, had given a large measure of independence to the Gallican Church. Yet his strong sense of his own authority prevented him from restoring to the papacy its former powers, and ecclesiastical anarchy prevailed during the rest of his reign. The Roman Curia treated the Pragmatic Sanction as null and void, whereas the Parliament of Paris acted as if it were still in force, and the king regulated his conduct according to his varying need to conciliate either the papacy or his own subjects.