The Iron King

by Maurice Druon

  Suddenly his shoulders appeared to become bowed. It was simply the matter of a date – 1305! It was the year of the death of his wife Jeanne, who had brought Navarre to the kingdom, and to him the only love of his life. He had never wanted any other woman; and since she had died nine years ago he had looked at none other and would never do so. He had recovered from the sorrow of his widowhood only to enter upon the uprising of 1306 in which, in the face of Paris rioting because of his Orders in Council about currency, he had had to take refuge in the Temple. The following year he had arrested those who had taken him in and defended him. The depositions of the Templars were preserved here, in huge rolls of parchment whose fastenings had been sealed by Nogaret. The King did not open them.

  And now? Like so many others, Nogaret’s face had lost the light and warmth which gave it life. His indefatigable mind, his strength of will, his tough and exalted spirit, were all effaced. Only his work remained. For Nogaret’s life had not been that of a man who, behind his official position, bequeaths those small, sorrowfully intimate memorials that people leave behind them and which are so often ignored by the heedlessness of others. Nogaret was indeed exactly as he appeared. He had identified his life with the life of the kingdom. His secrets were all here, written into the evidence of his labour.

  ‘How many forgotten things are here,’ thought the King. ‘So many prosecutions, so much torture, so many tears. A river of blood … and all for what? What earth has been nourished by it all?’

  His eyes unblinking, he was lost in thought.

  ‘And all for what?’ the King asked himself once more. ‘To what end? Where are my victories? Never a thing that is sure to live after me.’

  He felt the great need to act which men feel when assailed by the idea of their own death, and the total negation which lies in wait for them, as if the world had never existed.

  Marigny remained still, disquieted by the King’s gravity. Most things in his continually increasing work, in his responsibilities and honours came easily to him, except the understanding of his Sovereign’s silences. He was never certain of judging them aright.

  ‘We made Boniface canonise King Louis,’ Philip the Fair said suddenly in a low voice, ‘but was he really a saint?’

  ‘It was useful to the kingdom, Sire,’ replied Marigny.

  ‘But was it necessary, afterwards, to use force against Boniface?’

  ‘He was on the point of excommunicating you, Sire, because you were not putting the policies he desired into practice in your kingdom. You have not failed in the duty of kings. You have remained in the place God designed for you, and you have publicly proclaimed that you hold your kingdom from no one but God himself.’

  Philip the Fair indicated one of the rolls of parchment. ‘And the Jews? Have we not burnt rather too many of them? They are human beings, mortal and capable of suffering as we are. God did not order that.’

  ‘Messire Saint Louis, Sire, hated them, and the kingdom had need of their wealth.’

  The kingdom, the kingdom, every action was justified by the kingdom. ‘We had to do this or that because of the kingdom … We must do this because of the kingdom …’

  ‘Messire Saint Louis loved the Faith and the greatness of God! But what have I loved?’ said Philip the Fair in a low voice.

  ‘Justice,’ said Marigny. ‘The justice which is necessary for the common good and overtakes all those who diverge from the tendency of the world.’

  ‘Those who have diverged from the tendency of the world have been very numerous throughout my reign, and they will continue to be numerous if one century resembles another.’

  He picked up Nogaret’s dossiers and let them fall back on the table, one after another.

  ‘Power is a bitter thing,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing is great that has not its bitter side,’ replied Marigny, ‘and Christ knew it. You have reigned in the grand manner. Think merely that you have united under the crown Chartres, Beaugency, Champagne, Bigorre, Angoulême, Marche, Douai, Montpellier, Franche-Comté, Lyons, and part of Guyenne. You have fortified your cities, as your father, Monsieur Philippe III wished, so that they should no longer be at the mercy of foreigners. You have remade the laws in accordance with the law of ancient Rome. You have remodelled Parliament so that it may be in a position to make sounder laws. You have conferred upon many of your subjects the bourgeoisie du roi.26 You have enfranchised the serfs of many bailiwicks and seneschalships. No, Sire, you are in error if you fear having done wrong. From a kingdom torn by dissension you have built a country which begins to beat with a single heart.’

  Philip the Fair rose. The impregnable conviction of his Coadjutor reassured him, and he leant upon it in order to fight a weakness which was not truly natural to him.

  ‘You may be right, Enguerrand. But if you are satisfied with the past, what do you say of the present? Yesterday a crowd had to be dispersed in the rue Saint-Merri by the archers. Read what the Governors of Champagne, Lyons and Orleans write to me. There are outcries and complaints all over the country about the rising cost of wheat and the lowness of wages. And those who complain, Enguerrand, will never know that what they demand and what I should like to give them depend upon time and not upon my will. They will forget my victories in order to remember my taxes, and I shall be accused of not having fed them throughout their lives.’

  Marigny listened, more disquieted now by the King’s words than by his silences. He had never heard him talk so much, nor admit to such uncertainty, nor show such discouragement.

  ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘we must decide several matters.’

  Philip the Fair gazed once more upon the documents of his reign spread over the table. Then he straightened up, as if he had given himself an order to forget the pain and blood of human beings, and to become a king once more.

  ‘Yes, Enguerrand,’ he said, ‘we must.’

  4

  The King’s Summer

  WITH NOGARET’S DEATH, PHILIP the Fair seemed to be inhabiting a country in which no one could join him. Spring reigned over the earth and upon the houses of men; Paris was alive in the sunshine; but the King appeared to be exiled in some interior winter of his own. And the Grand Master’s prophecy was constantly present to his mind.

  He often went to spend a few days in one of his residences, or would distract himself for a moment from his obsession by hunting. But he was quickly recalled to Paris by alarming reports. The situation in town and country was bad. The cost of food was rising; the more prosperous regions did not export their surplus wealth to the poorer ones. ‘Too many police and not enough wheat,’ was the phrase upon everyone’s lips. Taxes remained unpaid and people were in open revolt before the Provosts and tax-gatherers. Taking advantage of this bad period, the leagues of the barons, in Burgundy and Champagne, reformed themselves and made unreasonable demands. In Artois, Robert, turning the scandal of the Princesses and the general discontent to his own advantage, was beginning once more to agitate.

  ‘A bad springtime for the kingdom,’ Philip the Fair allowed himself to remark to Monseigneur of Valois.

  ‘We are in the fourteenth year of the century,’ replied Valois, ‘a year that fate has marked out for disaster.’

  In saying this he was evoking the unhappy precedents of the past; 714, the invasion of the Spanish Moors; 814, the death of Charlemagne; 914, the Hungarian Invasion and the Great Famine; 1114, the loss of Brittany; 1214, Bouvines – a victory that was nearly a catastrophe, a victory dearly paid for. Only the year 1014 was without disaster or crisis.

  Philip the Fair looked at his brother as if he did not see him. He let his hand fall upon Lombard’s neck, stroking his hair the wrong way.

  ‘All the difficulties of your reign, Brother, derive from your advisers,’ said Charles of Valois. ‘Marigny now knows no bounds. He uses the confidence you repose in him to deceive you and constantly engages you in the policies that suit him. If you had listened to me over the Flanders business …’

  Philip the Fa
ir shrugged his shoulders in a gesture which meant, ‘As for that, there is nothing I can do about it.’

  The question of Flanders recurred that year, as it often recurred, like a mounting flood. Bruges, which he was unable to reduce, stood in the way of the King’s efforts; the County of Flanders continually escaped from the hands that wished to encircle it. From the field of battle to secret treaties the Flemish question remained an open wound in the kingdom’s flank. What remained of the sacrifices of Furnes and of Courtrai, what remained of the victory of Mons-en-Pévèle? Once more it was becoming necessary to use force.

  But the raising of an army required more gold, and if a campaign were to be initiated, the budget would undoubtedly overtop that of 1299, which remained in everyone’s memory as the highest the kingdom had ever known: 1,642,649 pounds, with a deficit of 70,000 pounds.27 When for several years the ordinary receipts of the Treasury had amounted to approximately 500,000 pounds, where was the balance to be found?

  Marigny, against the advice of Charles of Valois, ordered a Popular Assembly for the first of August 1314. Twice already resort had been made to this means, but each time it had been upon the occasion of conflict with the Papacy, the first over the affair of Boniface and the second over the affair of the Templars. It was in helping the civil power to free itself from obedience to the power of the Church that the bourgeoisie had acquired the right of speech. Now, and this was something new, the people were to be consulted over a matter of finance.

  Marigny made the preparations for the Assembly with the greatest possible care, sending messengers and agents into the towns, multiplying interviews and promises. His genius was that of a superb diplomat, he spoke to everyone in their own language.

  The Assembly was held in the Mercers’ Hall, where the stalls on that particular day were closed down. The forty statues of Kings, and that of Marigny, seemed to watch from their pillars. A platform had been erected upon which the King, the members of his Council, and the great barons of the kingdom, took their places.

  Marigny spoke first. He stood up to speak at the foot of his own marble effigy, and his voice seemed even more assured than usual, more certain of expressing the truth on behalf of the kingdom. He was superbly dressed; he had all the presence and all the gestures of an orator. Above him, in the huge double-aisled nave, several hundred people listened.

  Marigny explained that if food was short – and therefore more expensive – it was a fact which was far from surprising. Peace, which King Philip had maintained, favoured an increase in the population. ‘We grow the same amount of wheat, but we are a greater number to share it,’ he said. More must therefore be sown. Then he turned to the charge; the towns of Flanders threatened the peace. But, without peace, there could be no increase in the harvest, there would be no hands to till the uncultivated lands. And without the revenues and riches which came from Flanders, taxes would fall more heavily upon the other provinces. Flanders must yield; it must be forced to yield. For this, money was necessary, not for the King but for the kingdom. And everyone present must understand that their own personal security and prosperity were threatened.

  ‘We shall now see,’ he concluded, ‘who will give help to an expedition against the Flemish.’

  There was a murmuring in the crowd, immediately silenced by the piercing voice of Pierre Barbette.

  Barbette, a citizen of Paris, recognised by his equals as the most capable in argument with the royal authority upon questions of law and tax, rich from a cloth-business and also from horse-dealing, was Marigny’s creature and ally. The two men had prepared this interruption. In the name of the first city of the kingdom, Barbette promised the required aid. He carried the gathering with him, and the deputies from forty-three ‘good towns’ acclaimed the King and Marigny unanimously and Barbette, their loyal servant.

  If the Assembly had been a victory, the financial results that were expected from it soon appeared insufficient. The Army was placed upon a war footing before the subscription had been fully raised.

  The royal troops made a demonstration in Flanders, and Marigny, wishing to gain a victory at the earliest possible moment, hastened to negotiate and conclude, in the first days of September, the Convention of Marquette. As soon as the Army had left, Louis of Nevers, Count of Flanders, denounced the Convention and the trouble started all over again. Monseigneur of Valois and his supporters among the great barons accused Marigny of allowing himself to be bought by the Flemish. The bill for the campaign still remained to be paid, and the royal officers continued to demand, to the great discontent of the provinces, the special contribution which was from now on without an object. The Treasury was empty and Marigny, once more, had to consider exceptional means of raising money.

  The Jews had already twice been attacked. To shear them once again would produce but little wool. The Templars no longer existed and their gold had long since melted away. There remained only the Lombards.

  Already, in 1311, they had had to buy off a threat of expulsion from the kingdom. This time there could be no question of buying off; it was the seizure of all their goods, and their expulsion from France, which Marigny was preparing. Their trade with Flanders could serve as a pretext, as could also the financial support they gave to the leagues of discontented nobles.

  It was a considerable organisation that he was proposing to attack. The Lombards, bourgeois du roi, all worked together; they were well organised and had a Captain-General at their head. They were everywhere, dominating trade and controlling finance. They lent money to the barons, to the towns, and to the King. They even gave money in charity when it was necessary.

  Marigny spent several weeks in perfecting his scheme and in convincing the King.

  Necessity found in Marigny a tenacious advocate, and towards the middle of October all was ready for an immense campaign, whose unfolding would very much resemble that which, seven years before, had been the prelude to the destruction of the Templars.

  But the Lombards of Paris were very well-informed. Having learnt from experience, they paid dearly for the secrets of the King’s Council.

  Tolomei watched with his single open eye.

  5

  Power and Money

  CHARLES OF VALOIS HAD conceived such a hatred for Marigny that he could even wish for some disaster to overtake the kingdom if that disaster would destroy the Coadjutor. He also felt bound to place obstacles in the way of all his plans. Robert of Artois seconded him in his own way; asking larger and larger sums from Tolomei, he mollified the banker by reporting Marigny’s intentions.

  One evening in mid-October there was a meeting at Tolomei’s of some thirty men who represented one of the most extraordinary organisations of power of the period.

  The youngest, Guccio Baglioni, was eighteen years old; the oldest was sixty-five: this was Boccanegra, Captain-General of the Lombard companies. However different these men were in age and appearance, there was nevertheless a singular resemblance between them: the same richness of clothing, the same assurance in speech, the same mobility of expression and gesture, the same attentive attitude when leaning forward to miss nothing of Tolomei’s discourse.

  Lit by huge candles placed in sconces along the walls, these dark-skinned men, with their mobile faces, formed a single family with a common language. They were, too, a tribe at war, and their strength, in spite of their small numbers, was equal to that of all the leagues of nobles and all the assemblies of bourgeois.

  There were present the Peruzzi, the Albizzi, the Guardi, the Bardi, the Pucci, the Casinelli, all from Florence, as was old Boccanegra and Signor Boccaccio, the head traveller for the Bardi; there were, too, the Salimbene, the Buonsignori, the Allerani, and the Zaccaria, from Genoa; there were the Scotti, from Piazenca, and the Siennese clan led by Tolomei. There existed between all these men rivalries of prestige, commercial competition, and long-inherited family quarrels or those created by matters moral or marital. In danger, however, they acted together like brothers.

  Tolomei
explained the situation without in any way brightening the colours that the picture presented.

  When all the Lombards were prepared to make the great decision – that was to leave France, put their banking houses into liquidation, enter claims for money owed them by ungrateful lords, and provoke, by a great expense of gold, serious uprisings in the capital – when everyone had been roused to the boiling point, and was thinking with anger of what he would be compelled to abandon, this one his luxurious house, that one the marriage he had arranged for himself, that other his three mistresses, Tolomei said, ‘I possess a means of binding the Coadjutor’s hands and possibly of destroying him.’

  ‘Don’t hesitate then. Destroy him!’ said Buonsignori, the chief of the Genoese clan. ‘We have had enough of making a fortune for these pigs who grow fat upon our labour.’

  ‘We shall no longer bare our backs to the whip!’ cried one of the Albizzi.

  ‘What are your means?’ Scotti asked.

  Tolomei shook his head. ‘I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Debts I suppose?’ said Zaccaria. ‘And what good will that do us? Have they ever embarrassed these upstarts? On the contrary! If we leave, they’ll merely take the opportunity to forget what they owe us.’

  Zaccaria was bitter: he represented a small company and was jealous of those who had important clients. Tolomei turned towards him and, in a tone of voice that at once expressed prudence and determination, said, ‘Much more than debts, Zaccaria! A poisoned weapon of which he knows nothing and which, forgive me, I must keep secret. But, in order to be able to use it, I need your help. Because in dealing with the Coadjutor we must match power with power. I hold a threat to him in my hand; I want to be able to confront him with a dilemma. Marigny must choose between agreement or war to the death.’

  He developed his idea. If the Lombards were to be despoiled, it was because the King lacked the money to pay for his war in Flanders. At all costs Marigny must fill the Treasury; his personal destiny was at stake. The Lombards would show themselves good subjects, and spontaneously propose a huge loan at very low interest. If Marigny refused, Tolomei would draw his sword from its scabbard.