From his earliest years, Charles had manifested a passion for the chase. When about twelve years old, in the forest of Senlis, he had encountered a stag, bearing a collar with the inscription, "Cæsar hoc mihi donavit." This wonderful stag appeared to him in a dream a few years afterward, as he lay in his tent before Roosebeke in Flanders, whither he had been led by his uncle of Burgundy to quell an insurrection of the citizens of Ghent, headed by the famous Philip van Artevelde. Great had been the preparations of the turbulent burghers. Protected by their massive armor, they formed themselves into a solid square bristling with pikes. The French cavalry, armed with lances, eagerly waited for the signal of attack. The signal was to be the unfurling of the oriflamme, the sacred banner of France, which had never before been displayed but when battling against infidels. It had been determined, on this occasion, to use it against the Flemings because they rejected the authority of Pope Clement, calling themselves Urbanists, and were consequently looked on by the French as excluded from the pale of the church. As the young king unfurled this formidable banner, the sun, which had for days been obscured by a lurid fog, suddenly shone forth with unwonted brilliancy. A dove, which had long hovered over the king's battalion, at the same time settled on the flag-staff.
"Now, by the lips of those you love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies—upon them with the lance!"
The French chivalry did indeed execute a memorable charge on these burghers of Ghent. Their lance points reached a yard beyond the heads of the Flemish pikes. The Flemings, unable to return or parry their thrusts, fell back on all sides. The immense central mass of human beings thus forcibly compressed, shrieked and struggled in vain. Gasping for breath, they perished, en masse, suffocated by the compression, and crushed under the weight of their heavy armor. A reward had been offered for the body of Philip van Artevelde: it was found amid a heap of slain, and brought to the king's pavilion. The young monarch gazed on the mortal remains of his foe, but no wound could be discovered on the body of the Flemish leader—he had perished from suffocation. The corpse was afterward hanged on the nearest tree. When the king surveyed this horrible yet bloodless field, the appalling spectacle of this mass of dead, amounting, it is said, to 34,000 corpses, was more than his mind could bear. From this period unmistakable evidences of his malady became apparent. The marvelous stag took possession of his fancy; it seemed to him the emblem of victory, and he caused it to be introduced among the heraldic insignia of the kingdom.
In his sixteenth year, the king selected, as the partner of his throne, the beautiful Isabeau of Bavaria. She also was a Visconti by the mother's side, her father having wedded one of the daughters of Bernabos. In her honor various costly fêtes had been given. On one of these occasions the royal bridegroom displayed his eccentricity in a characteristic manner. The chroniclers of the time have given us very detailed accounts of these entertainments. The costumes were extravagantly fantastic: ladies carried on their head an enormous hennin, a very cumbrous kind of head-dress, surmounted by horns of such dimensions, that their exit or entrance into an apartment was a work of considerable difficulty. The shoes were equally absurd and inconvenient; their pointed extremities, half a yard in length, were turned up and fastened to the knees in various grotesque forms. The robes, the long open sleeves of which swept the ground, were emblazoned with strange devices. Among the personal effects of one of the royal princes we find an inventory of about a thousand pearls used in embroidering on a robe the words and music of a popular song.
The chronicle of the Religieux de St. Denis describes one of these masked balls, which was held in the court-yard of that venerable abbey, temporarily roofed over with tapestries for the occasion. The sons of the Duke of Anjou, cousins of the king, were prepared to invade Naples, in right of their father, to whom Joanna of Naples had devised that inheritance. Previous to their departure, their royal cousin resolved to confer on them the order of knighthood. An immense concourse of guests were invited to witness the splendid ceremonial, and take part in the jousts and tournaments which were to follow. The king had selected a strange scene for these gay doings. The Abbey of St. Denis was the last resting-place of the kings of France. Here mouldered the mortal remains of his predecessors, and here were to repose his bones when he, too, should be "gathered to his fathers." The celebrated "Captain of the Companies," the famous du Guesclin, the saviour of France in the reign of his father, had paid the debt of nature many years before, and reposed there among the mortal remains of those whose throne he had guarded so well. The astonishment of the guests was extreme, when it appeared that the exhumation and reinterment of du Guesclin formed part of the programme of the revels. The old warrior was taken up, the funeral rites solemnly gone through, three hundred livres appropriated to the pious use of masses for his soul, and the revelers dismissed to meditate on the royal eccentricities.
The murder of the Constable of France, Oliver de Clisson, followed soon after, and quite completed the break down of poor Charles's mind. This powerful officer of the crown had long been feared and hated by the great feudal lords especially by the Duke of Brittany, who entertained an absurd jealousy of the one-eyed hero. Although Clisson, by his decisive victory at Auray, had secured to him the contested dukedom of Brittany, the jealous duke treacherously arrested his benefactor and guest, whom he kept prisoner in the dungeons of his castle of La Motte. In the first transports of his fury the duke had given orders that de Clisson should be put to death; but his servants, fearing the consequences of so audacious an act, left his commands unexecuted. Eventually, the Constable was permitted by his captor to purchase his freedom, a condition which was no sooner complied with, than the duke repented having allowed his foe to escape from his hands. He now suborned Pierre de Craon, a personal enemy of de Clisson, to be the executioner of his vengeance. The Constable was returning to his hotel, having spent a festive evening with his sovereign, when he was set on by his assassins. He fell, covered with wounds, and was left for dead. To increase his torments, the murderer announced to him, as he fell, his name and motives. But, though severely injured, Clisson was yet alive. The noise of the conflict reached the king, who was just retiring to rest. He hastened to the spot. His bleeding minister clung to his robe, and implored him to swear that he should be avenged.
"My fidelity to your majesty has raised up for me powerful enemies: this is my only crime. Whether I recover or perish from my wounds, swear to me that I shall not be unavenged."
"I shall never rest, so help me God," replied the excited monarch, "until the authors of this audacious crime shall be brought to justice."
Charles kept his word. Although suffering from fever, the result of this night's alarm and exposure, he collected a considerable army, and marched for Brittany. His impatient eagerness knew no bounds. Through the sultry, noonday heat, over the arid plains and dense forests of Brittany, he pursued the assassin of his Constable. He rode the foremost of his host; often silently and alone. One day, having undergone great personal fatigue, he had closed his eyes, still riding forward, when he was aroused by the violent curveting of his steed, whose bridle had been seized by a wild-looking man, singularly clad.
"Turn back, turn back, noble king," cried he; "to proceed further is certain death, you are betrayed!" Having uttered these words, the stranger disappeared in the recesses of the forest before any one could advance to arrest him.