The Poisoned Crown

by Maurice Druon

  He was now talking in a mixture of Italian and French and gesticulating even more with his hands than usual.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I don’t need your help, I shall go and see the Queen.’

  Tolomei hit the table lightly with the palm of his hand.

  ‘Now, you shut up,’ he said, hardly raising his voice, but his eye which was normally shut had suddenly opened. ‘You’ll go and see no one, and certainly not the Queen, for our affairs have not been going all that well since her arrival that we can afford to attract attention to ourselves with a scandal. The Queen is kindness itself, she is charitable and religious, I know it well! She gives alms to everyone she meets, but in the meantime, since she has gained ascendancy over the King’s mind, we, the poor Lombards, are fleeced to the bone. It’s with our wealth that the Treasury gives alms! We are accused of being usurers, and every opportunity is taken of blaming the follies of others upon us. Monseigneur of Valois to begin with, who has much disappointed me. Queen Clémence will give you fair words and her blessing; but there are too many people about her who would be happy to have you arrested and subjected to the punishment reserved for those who seduce the daughters of nobles, even if it were only to do me an injury. Have you forgotten that I am Captain-General of the Lombards of Paris? The wind has changed while you have been away. Marigny’s best friends, who don’t exactly love me, have been freed and form a party about the Count of Poitiers ...’

  But Guccio wasn’t listening; for the moment he was reckless of taxes, Orders in Council, lawyers, and the fluctuations of power. He was determined to carry out his intention: he would abduct Marie without anyone’s help.

  ‘Segnato da Dio!’ said Tolomei, touching his forehead as if he were dealing with a halfwit. ‘But, my poor afflicted boy, you wouldn’t get twenty miles without being arrested. Your girl would be taken from you and placed in a convent; as for you ... You want to marry her? Very well! You shall marry her, since it seems to be the only way to cure you. I’ll help you.’

  And his left eye closed again.

  ‘Folly for folly, since it is folly, it’s likely to be less serious than if I leave you to act alone,’ he added. ‘But why should one have to be responsible for the follies committed by one’s family?’

  He rang a bell; a clerk came in.

  ‘Go to the Monastery of the Augustin fathers,’ Tolomei said to him, ‘and find me Fra Vincento who arrived from Pérouse the other day.’

  Two days later Guccio took the road again to Neauphle, in company with an Italian monk who was going to deliver Monseigneur Robert’s message in Artois. His journey was well paid and Fra Vincento had not hesitated to make a detour to render Tolomei two services instead of one.

  Moreover the banker had succeeded in putting the matter before him in a most acceptable light. Guccio, having seduced a young girl, had committed with her the sins of the flesh, and Tolomei did not wish these two young people to live any longer in a state of sin. But it was necessary to proceed with discretion in order not to awaken the suspicions of the family.

  These admirable reasons being accompanied by a small purse of gold, Fra Vincento found them wholly convincing. Moreover, like all his compatriots, whether in holy orders or not, he was always ready to lend a hand to an amorous intrigue.

  Guccio and his monk appeared at the Manor of Cressay at nightfall. Dame Eliabel and her children were about to go to bed. The young Lombard asked them for hospitality for the night, saying that he had not had time to warn Ricard, and that his house at Neauphle was not ready to entertain a priest in a sufficiently dignified fashion. As Guccio, in the past, had on several occasions slept at the Manor, and upon the invitation of the Cressays themselves, his action now was not particularly surprising; the family did their best to welcome the travellers.

  ‘Fra Vincento and I don’t in the least mind sleeping in the same room,’ said Guccio.

  Fra Vincento’s round face inspired confidence as much as did his habit; moreover, he spoke only Italian, which enabled him to give no reply to indiscreet questions.

  He said grace in an extremely pious manner before touching the food set before him.

  Marie dared not look Guccio in the face; but the young man took advantage of a moment when she passed close by him to whisper to her, ‘Don’t go to sleep tonight.’

  At the moment of going to bed, Fra Vincento said something to Guccio which was incomprehensible to the Cressays; the words chiave and capella were mentioned.

  ‘Fra Vincento asks me,’ Guccio translated for the benefit of Dame Eliabel, ‘if you would give him the key to the Chapel, because he must leave early and would like to say his Mass before going.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied the lady of the Manor, ‘one of my sons will rise early in order to help him say his office.’

  Guccio expostulated that no one must be put to any trouble. Fra Vincento would really be getting up so early, at the crack of dawn, and Guccio looked upon it as an honour to act as his acolyte himself. Pierre and Jean took care not to insist.

  Dame Eliabel gave the monk a candle, the key of the Chapel, and that of the ciborium; then everyone parted.

  ‘Really, I think that we have misjudged Guccio,’ said Pierre to his mother as they parted for the night; ‘he is extremely attentive to matters of religion.’

  Towards midnight, when the whole Manor seemed plunged in sleep, Guccio and the monk crept from their rooms. The young man went to scratch gently upon Marie’s door; the girl appeared at once. Without a word Guccio took her by the hand; they went down the spiral staircase and gained the open air by the kitchens.

  ‘Look, Marie,’ murmured Guccio, ‘look at the stars. The Brother is going to marry us.’

  She did not even appear surprised. He had promised to come back and he had come back; to marry her, and he was about to do so. The circumstances did not matter; she completely and utterly deferred to him. A dog began barking but, having recognized Marie, fell silent again.

  The night was freezing but neither Guccio nor Marie felt the cold.

  They entered the Chapel. Fra Vincento lit a candle from the tiny lamp which burnt above the altar. Though no one could hear them, they went on talking in low voices. Guccio translated for Marie the priest’s question as to whether she had been to confession. She said that she had done so two days before, and Fra Vincento gave her absolution for the sins that she might have committed since, with all the more confidence for the fact that, had she avowed them, he would have been incapable of understanding her. As far as Guccio was concerned the formality had been complied with before they came downstairs.

  A few minutes later, by exchanging the word ‘yes’ in low voices, the nephew of the Captain-General of the Lombards and beautiful Marie de Cressay were united before God, if not in the sight of men.

  ‘I would have liked to give you a more sumptuous wedding,’ Guccio murmured.

  ‘As far as I am concerned, darling, there could be no finer wedding,’ replied Marie, ‘since it joins me to you.’

  As they were leaving the Chapel, the monk gave signs of a lively disquiet.

  ‘Che cosa?’ Guccio whispered to him.

  Fra Vincento pointed out that the door had been closed during the wedding.

  ‘E allora?’

  The monk explained to him that, for a marriage to be valid, the doors of the church must be left open, so that any stranger could theoretically be a witness to the fact that the vows had been properly given and without constraint. If this were not done, there was a case for annulment.

  ‘What is he saying?’ Marie asked.

  ‘He’s counselling us to go quietly back to the house,’ said Guccio.

  They entered the house again and went up the stairs. When they arrived before Marie’s door, the monk, whose scruples seemed to have disappeared, took Guccio by the shoulders and pushed him gently into the room.

  Marie had been in love with Guccio for two years. For two years she had thought of no one but him and lived only in the longi
ng to be his. Now that her conscience was set at rest and the fear of damnation had been put aside, there was nothing to prevent her giving free rein to her passion.

  Marie had been brought up in isolation in the country, and had been spared the gallant speeches which so often create a false bashfulness. She was in love with love without ever having known it; and she now abandoned herself to it frankly and with delight.

  The pain suffered by girls at the moment of their true marriage is more often due to fear than nature. Marie did not know this fear. Guccio, though he was only nineteen, had already sufficient experience to avoid being clumsy, but not enough to have forgotten emotion. That night he made Marie a happy woman, and as, in matters of love, what one receives is always in proportion to what one gives, his own cup of happiness was overflowing.

  Towards four o’clock in the morning the monk came and woke them up, and Guccio went back to his room on the other side of the house. Then Fra Vincento went downstairs making as much noise as possible, and going by the Chapel went and took his mule from the stable and rode off into the night.

  At the first light of dawn Dame Eliabel, somewhat suspicious, opened the door of the travellers’ bedroom and had a look. Guccio was breathing regularly in a deep sleep; his black hair curling upon the pillow; his face wearing an expression of childish peace.

  ‘Oh, what a handsome fellow!’ thought Dame Eliabel, sighing.

  Guccio was so deeply asleep that she dared approach the bed on tiptoe and place a kiss upon the young man’s hair which had for her all the seductiveness of sin.

  4

  The Comet

  IN THE SAME LAST DAYS of January in which Guccio had secretly married Marie de Cressay, the Queen, the King, and some of the Court had gone on a pilgrimage to Amiens.

  Having walked through the mud, the procession had gone up the Cathedral nave on its knees; the pilgrims had meditated for a long time in an icy chapel before the relic of the Baptist which had been brought back from the Holy Land a century earlier by a certain Wallon de Sartou, who had been a Crusader in 1202, and had sought out pious remains in the Holy Land, bringing back in his baggage three pieces of inestimable value: the head of Saint Christopher, that of Saint George, and part of that of Saint John. The Amiens relic consisted only of the bones of the face; it was enshrined in a silver-gilt reliquary whose domed top was a substitute for the skull. This skeleton face, black beneath its crown of emeralds and sapphires, seemed to be laughing and was singularly terrifying. Above the left eye-socket there was a hole which, according to tradition, was the mark of a dagger-blow given it by Herodias when the head of the Baptist was presented to her. The whole reposed upon a golden charger. Clémence, lost in devotion, seemed to be unaware of the cold, and Louis X himself, a prey to religious fervour, succeeded in remaining still throughout the ceremony, his mind moving on a plane to which it was not normally accustomed. But fat Bouville acquired a cold in the chest which it took him nearly two months to get rid of.

  Good results from this pilgrimage did not fail to become manifest. Towards the end of March the Queen showed symptoms which seemed to be a direct answer to prayer; she recognized in them the results of a beneficent intercession on the part of Saint John the Baptist.

  None the less, the physicians and midwives who were keeping Clémence under observation could not as yet make any pronouncement, and declared that they needed a full month before they could be sure.

  As the time of waiting went on, the Queen’s mysticism seemed to affect her husband. To attract the divine blessing, The Hutin governed as if he had determined to be canonized.

  It must be acknowledged that it is in general a bad thing to try to alter people’s nature; it is better to leave the wicked to their wickedness than to transform them into sheep. Indeed, the King, thinking thereby to absolve himself of his sins, had undertaken to empty the prisons; as a result crime flourished in Paris, where one could no longer go out at night without running the risk of being robbed. There were more robberies, assaults, and murders than had been known for forty years, and the Watch had its work cut out. Since the prostitutes had been confined to the precise limits of the district which Saint Louis had assigned to them, clandestine prostitution had developed in the taverns, and particularly in the public baths, to the point at which an honest man could no longer go and take his warm bath without being exposed to overt temptations of the flesh.

  Charles of Valois felt himself outmatched; but having been the champion of religion and of ancient customs for his own purposes, he found it difficult to oppose measures taken in the name of morality.

  The Lombards, feeling that they were not in good odour, were more reluctant than ever to open their coffers for the need of the Court. In the meantime the old ministers of Philip the Fair, Raoul de Presles at their head, were forming an opposition party round the Count of Poitiers, and the Constable Gaucher de Châtillon had frankly declared himself to be on their side.

  Clémence had even gone so far as to ask Louis to take back from her Marigny’s lands, which he had given her, and restore them to the heirs of the late Rector of the Kingdom.

  ‘That, my dear, I cannot do,’ The Hutin had replied, ‘and I cannot alter my judgement on that point; the King can do no wrong. But I promise you, as soon as the state of the Treasury permits it, to give my godchild Louis de Marigny a pension that will amply compensate him.’

  In Artois the situation was growing no better. In spite of every agreement, all the proceedings and proposals, the Countess Mahaut remained undefeated. She complained that the barons had tried to take her castle by surprise.18 The treachery of two sergeants-at-arms, who were to deliver the place to the ‘allies’, had been discovered in time; and now two skeletons were hanging from the battlements of Hesdin as an example. Nevertheless, the Countess, obliged to submit to the King’s decision, had not returned to Artois since the arbitration at Vincennes, nor had any of the Hirsons. Moreover, there was great disorder in all the country about Arras, everyone joining whichever side he pleased; and fair words had no more effect on the barons than would milk flowing down their breastplates.

  ‘No bloodshed, my dear lord, no bloodshed!’ counselled Clémence. ‘Bring your people to reason through prayer.’

  This, however, did not prevent lawlessness upon the northern roads.

  The Hutin’s store of new-found patience was beginning to wear thin. He might perhaps have put more energy into solving the problem if, at the same time, round about Easter, his whole attention had not been absorbed by the situation in the capital.

  The summer of 1315 had been as disastrous for the harvest as it was for the war, and if the King had lost his victories in the mud, the people had lost their bread there. Moreover, taught by the experience of the previous year, the country people, however poor they might be, had not given up the little wheat gathered once the harvest was over. Famine left the provinces and settled upon the capital. Never had wheat been so dear and never the population so thin.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, let them be fed,’ said Queen Clémence, when she saw the starving crowds that dragged themselves as far as Vincennes to beg a pittance.

  So many came that soldiers had to be called out to forbid access to the castle. Clémence advised that there should be great processions of clergy through the streets and imposed upon the whole court after Easter the same fast as during Lent. Monseigneur of Valois agreed to this happily enough, and had the news spread throughout the population so as to let them know that their sufferings were being shared. But he himself was negotiating satisfactory deals in bread from his own county.

  Robert of Artois, when he had to go to Vincennes, first had a meal sufficient for four men served him by his faithful Lormet, and swallowed it down repeating one of his favourite maxims: ‘Live well and we’ll die fat.’ After which he was able to appear to be doing penance at the Queen’s table.

  In the middle of this disastrous spring, a comet passed across the sky of Paris, remaining visible for three nights. The
imagination stops at nothing in calamity. The population saw in it a sign of worse disasters, as if those it was undergoing were insufficient. The mob panicked and riots broke out in several places, though no one knew precisely against whom they were directed.

  The Chancellor advised the King to return to his capital, even if it were only for a few days, so as to show himself to the people. Therefore, at the moment when the woods about Vincennes were beginning to turn green once more and Clémence was recapturing her first delight in the place, the whole Court moved to the great Palace of the Cité which seemed to the Queen so hostile and so cold. It was there that the consultation between the physicians and the midwives, who were to pronounce upon her pregnancy, took place.

  The King was extremely anxious on the morning of the consultation and, to mask his impatience, had organized a game of lawn tennis in the garden of the Palace. The ground he was playing on gave into the Island of Jews. But in two years memories become blurred; and Louis felt no uneasiness, now that he was assured of redemption by conversion, in running after a leather ball at the very place he and his father, twenty-five months earlier, had heard themselves cursed from amid the flames.

  He was running with sweat and vaunting himself upon a point his gentlemen had permitted him to win, when Mathieu de Trye, his first Chamberlain, hurriedly approached. Louis interrupted the game and asked, ‘Is the Queen pregnant?’

  ‘It is not yet known, Sire, since the physicians have only just begun to consult on the matter. But Monseigneur of Poitiers wished you to join him urgently, if you please. He is closeted with your two brothers and Messire des Noyers.’

  ‘I don’t want to be bothered; I don’t feel like attending to business at the moment.’

  ‘The matter is grave, Sire, and Monseigneur of Poitiers has assured me that it concerns you closely. Things are to be discussed which you must hear with your own ears.’