The Iron King
Page 29
24. Philip the Fair may be considered as the first Gallican King.
Boniface VIII, by the bull ‘Unam Sanctam’, had declared: ‘that every human creature is subject to the Roman Conclave and this submission is necessary to his salvation.’
Philip the Fair constantly fought for the independence of the civil power in temporal affairs. Charles of Valois, his brother, was on the contrary resolutely ultramontane.
25. The Cathares were the members of a religious sect which found many adherents, particularly in the South of France, at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century.
The Cathares, divided into Perfectionists (Parfaits) and Believers (Croyants), professed indifference to the physical body and earthly life; they encouraged sterility and honoured suicide; they refused to look upon marriage as a sacrament and nursed a solid enmity for the Church of Rome. They were declared heretics; Pope Innocent III launched a crusade against them which is known as the Albigensian Crusade and which was conducted in the most savage manner by the famous Simon de Montfort. A true religious civil war, it ended with a treaty signed in Paris in 1229.
Guillaume de Nogaret’s father and mother belonged to the Cathares.
26. Created towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the bourgeoisie du roi were a particular category of subjects who, having the right to the King’s justice, were freed, either from their subjection towards an overlord, or from their obligations to reside in a particular town, and owed allegiance only, wherever they might be in the kingdom, to the central power. Under Philip the Fair this institution increased in scale. One might say that the bourgeoisie du roi were the first French citizens to have a legal system similar to that of modern times.
27. The English word ‘budget’ was adopted in France to designate the state’s accounts only in the nineteenth century; but this use of it was but a return to the French language, for the term ‘budget’ came from the word bougette which designated the little purse that the Norman lords, who conquered England, wore at their belts.
28. City Centre. The ‘Parloir aux Bourgeois’ has become the Hôtel-de-Ville of Paris and was upon the same site.
29. From the documents and reports of ambassadors, which still exist, it is possible to conclude that Philip the Fair died of a haemorrhage which did not affect the motor part of the brain. The aphasia at the start may have been due to a temporary oedema following the haemorrhage. The persistence of thirst, his difficulty in moving and his torpor may have been due to a lesion in the region of the base of the brain. He had a fatal relapse on the 26th or 27th November.
30. This cross was encrusted with pearls, rubies and sapphires. It was attached to a shaft of chased silver gilt. In the centre of the cross a little crystal container allowed a fragment of the ‘True Cross’ to be seen. It was taken to the Monastery of Poissy, as was the heart of Philip the Fair. This heart was, according to those who saw it, so small ‘that it might be compared to that of a newborn child or a bird.’
In the reign of Louis XIV, on the night of July 4th 1695, lightning struck the monastery church and almost completely burnt it down. Philip the Fair’s heart and the Templars’ Cross were destroyed.
ALSO BY MAURICE DRUON
The Accursed Kings
The Iron King
The Strangled Queen
The Poisoned Crown
The Royal Succession
The She-Wolf
The Lily and the Lion
The King Without a Kingdom
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by Rupert Hart-Davis 1956
Century edition 1985
Arrow edition 1987
Published by HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
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Copyright © Maurice Druon 1955
Maurice Druon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9780007491254
Ebook Edition © 2013 ISBN: 9780007454198
Version 1
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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