The Poisoned Crown

by Maurice Druon

  11

  Who is to be Regent?

  LOUIS X, THE HUTIN, died during the night, a little after midnight.

  For the first time in three hundred and twenty-nine years, a King of France had died without leaving a male heir upon whom the crown might traditionally devolve.

  Monseigneur Charles of Valois, generally so anxious to organize royal ceremonies, whether of weddings or funerals, showed himself completely disinterested in the last honours due to be rendered to his nephew.

  He summoned the first Chamberlain, Mathieu de Trye, and for his only instruction said, ‘Do as was done last time!’

  He had other anxieties. He hastily summoned a Council during the course of the morning, not at Vincennes, where he would have been compelled to invite Queen Clémence, but in Paris at the Palace of the Cité.

  ‘We’ll leave our dear niece to her sorrow,’ he said, ‘and do nothing that could imperil the life of the precious burden she carries.’

  It was arranged that Bouville should represent the Queen. He was known to be manageable, not very quick on the uptake, and they thought they had nothing to fear from him.

  The Council assembled by Valois had at once something of both a family and a governmental assembly. Besides Bouville, there were Charles de la Marche, brother of the deceased, Louis de Clermont, Robert of Artois, Philippe of Valois, present upon his father’s orders, the Chancellor de Mornay, and the Archbishop of Sens and Paris, Jean de Marigny, because it was thought desirable to have a high ecclesiastical authority and because Jean de Marigny was in alliance with the Valois clan.

  They had not been able to avoid summoning the Countess Mahaut, who was, with Charles of Valois, the only peer of the Kingdom present in Paris.

  As for Count Louis of Evreux, whom Valois had informed of their nephew’s illness as tardily as possible, he had arrived from Normandy that very morning; he looked drawn and frequently passed his hand across his eyes.

  He said to Mahaut, ‘It’s much to be regretted that Philippe is not here.’

  Charles of Valois had taken his seat at the top of the table in the royal chair. Though he still managed to compose his features into an expression of sorrow, he appeared to savour his position.

  ‘Brother, Nephew, Madam, Messeigneurs,’ he began, ‘we are assembled in this time of sudden mourning to take urgent decisions: the appointment of the Curators of the Stomach whose duty it will be to watch over the pregnancy of Queen Clémence, and also the selection of a Regent for the Kingdom, for there can be no interruption in the exercise of the royal power. I ask your counsel.’

  He was already using a sovereign’s expressions. His attitude much displeased the Count of Evreux.

  ‘Poor Charles will never have any tact or judgement,’ he said to himself. ‘He still believes even at his age that authority emanates from the crown when it’s the head in control that matters.’

  He could not forgive him the Muddy Army, nor all the other disastrous ideas with which he had marred Louis’s short reign.

  As Valois, answering his own questions, was beginning to link the two propositions, and was proposing that the nomination of the Curators should be placed under the control of the Regent, Evreux interrupted him.

  ‘If you have summoned us, Brother, so that we may listen to you carrying on a monologue, we might just as well have remained at home. Let us get a word in too, when we’ve got something to say! The choice of a Regent is one thing, for which there are precedents and which is under the control of the Council of Peers. The choice of the Curators is another, which we can settle on the spot.’

  ‘Have you any name to put forward?’ asked Valois.

  Evreux passed his fingers across his eyelids.

  ‘No, Messeigneurs, I have no one to propose. I merely think that we should choose men of irreproachable antecedents, sufficiently mature to allow us to place complete confidence in their discretion, and who have given great proofs of loyalty and of devotion towards our family.’

  While he was speaking, all eyes were turning towards Bouville, who was sitting at the lower end of the table.

  ‘I would have suggested someone such as the Seneschal de Joinville,’ went on Louis of Evreux, ‘if his great age, which is now approaching a hundred, did not render him extremely infirm. But I see all eyes turning towards Messire de Bouville, who was first Chamberlain to the King our brother, and served him always with such loyalty as we cannot do other than applaud. Today he is representing the young Queen Clémence among us. In my view we could make no better choice.’

  Fat Bouville had lowered his head in some confusion.

  It is one of the advantages of mediocrity that people frequently decide unanimously upon your name. No one feared Bouville; and the function of the Curator, one largely legal in character, held only a secondary importance in Valois’s eyes. Louis of Evreux’s proposal was received with general assent.

  Bouville rose, much moved. This was the apogee of forty years of devotion to the Crown.

  ‘It is a great honour, a great honour, Messeigneurs,’ he said. ‘I swear to watch over the pregnancy of Madame Clémence, to protect her against every attack or assault, and to defend her with my life. But, since Monseigneur of Evreux has spoken of Messire de Joinville, I would wish that the Seneschal should also be nominated with me, or if he is not able, his son, so that the spirit of Monseigneur Saint Louis should be present in this guardianship in his servant, as the spirit of King Philip, my master, will be present in me, his servant.’

  Bouville had never uttered so many words together at a Council before, and what he wished to express was rather too subtle for him. The end of the speech was not altogether clear, but everyone understood his intention, which was approved, and the Count of Evreux thanked him sincerely.

  ‘Now,’ said Valois, ‘we can approach the matter of the Regency ...’

  He was interrupted once more, but this time by Bouville, who had risen to his feet again.

  ‘First, Monseigneur ...’

  ‘What’s the matter, Bouville?’ asked Valois in an indulgent voice.

  ‘First, Monseigneur, I must pray you with great humility to leave your particular seat, for it is the King’s, and for the moment there can be no King but in the womb of Madame Clémence.’

  In the silence that fell upon those present nothing could be heard but the knell tolled out by the bells of Paris.

  Valois gave Bouville a furious look, but he realized that he must obey and even pretend to do so with a good grace. ‘My God, what a set of fools,’ he said to himself as he changed his place, ‘and one’s a fool to put any trust in them. They have ideas no one else would think of.’

  Bouville walked round the table, pulled up a stool, and went and sat, his arms crossed, in an attitude of faithful guardianship, to the right of the empty seat which was to be the object of so much intrigue.

  Valois whispered something into the ear of Robert of Artois, who rose to put into execution the plan upon which they had already agreed.

  Robert said a few words which were far from tactful and which seemed, in short, to signify: ‘Enough of this foolishness, let’s get on to more serious things!’ Then he proposed, as if he were merely expressing a foregone conclusion, that the Regency should be confided to Charles of Valois.

  ‘One should not change horses in midstream,’ he said. ‘We all know very well that our cousin Charles has held the reins of government throughout the reign of poor Louis. And before that he was always a member of King Philip’s Council, from whom he averted more than one mistake and for whom he won many a battle. He is the eldest of the family and has nearly thirty years of experience in the work of kingship.’

  There were only two people at the long table who did not appear to approve his suggestion. Louis of Evreux was thinking of France; Mahaut of Artois was thinking of herself.

  ‘If Charles becomes Regent, he will certainly not remove the Marshal of Conflans from my county,’ said Mahaut to herself. ‘Perhaps I have moved too quic
kly; I should have awaited the return of my son-in-law. If I speak on his behalf, I may well run the risk of bringing down suspicion upon myself.’

  ‘Charles,’ asked Louis of Evreux, ‘if our brother, King Philip, had died while your nephew Louis was still an infant, who would have been Regent by right?’

  ‘Who else but me?’ replied Valois, thinking that grist was being brought to his mill.

  ‘Because you were the next brother! Therefore, should it not be, by right, our nephew, the Count of Poitiers, who should assume the Regency?’

  There followed a heated argument. Philippe of Valois having replied that the Count of Poitiers could not be in two places at the same time, both in the Conclave and in Paris, Louis of Evreux cried, ‘Lyons is not in the country of the Great Khan! One can travel back from there in a few days. We are not the proper quorum to decide so important a matter. Among the dozen people present I can see but two peers of the Kingdom.’

  ‘And what’s more, they aren’t in agreement,’ said Mahaut; ‘because I support your reasoning, cousin Louis, and not Charles’s.’

  ‘And as for the family,’ went on Evreux, ‘not only is Philippe lacking, but also our niece Isabella of England, our aunt Agnes of France, and her son the Duke of Burgundy. If seniority is to gain the day, then Agnes, who is Saint Louis’s last surviving daughter, should have more to say in the matter than any of us.’

  They took up this name to oppose Louis of Evreux; Robert of Artois rushed to the support of the Valois. Agnes of France and her son, Eudes of Burgundy, were exactly the people they feared the most! Clémence’s child had still to be born, if one admitted for the moment that it would be, and one could only then know whether it was male or female. Eudes of Burgundy might very well claim the right to be Regent, because of his niece, the young Jeanne of Navarre, Marguerite’s daughter. And this must be avoided at all costs because everyone knew that the child was a bastard!

  ‘You know nothing of the sort, Robert!’ cried Louis of Evreux. ‘Assumptions are not certainties, and Marguerite has carried her secret to the grave you dug for her.’

  Evreux, when he said ‘you’, intended a general inclusiveness, which comprehended at once the midnight murder, the Valois, and Robert of Artois. But the latter, who had sound reason for believing that the accusation was aimed at himself alone, took it very ill.

  For a moment it looked as if the two brothers-in-law (for Louis of Evreux had married a sister of Robert’s who was now dead) would challenge each other and come to blows.

  Once more the scandal of the Tower of Nesle was dividing the family before partly destroying it, and with it the Kingdom.

  They hurled lies and insults in each other’s faces. Why had Jeanne of Poitiers been set free and not Blanche de la Marche? Why was Philippe of Valois so implacably opposed to the honour of the family of Burgundy when he had married Marguerite’s sister?

  The Archbishop and the Chancellor had entered the argument to support Valois with on the one hand the power of the Church and on the other the customs of France.

  ‘Anyway, I see,’ cried Charles of Valois, ‘that the Council is numerous enough to name the guardians of the Queen’s pregnancy but not numerous enough to nominate the regent of the Kingdom. It must therefore be my person that displeases it!’

  At that moment Mathieu de Trye entered the room and said that he had an important communication to make to the Council. He was asked to announce it.

  ‘While the King’s body was being embalmed,’ said Mathieu de Trye, ‘a dog which had entered the room unnoticed licked the bloody cloth which had been used during the extraction of the entrails.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Valois.

  ‘Is that your important communication?’

  ‘The fact is, Messeigneurs, that the dog immediately fell down in agony, whimpered and twisted in pain, and was clearly taken with the same sickness as the King; he may even be dead at this moment.’

  Once more, and for some seconds, nothing was to be heard in the room but the sound of the knell tolling. The Countess Mahaut had not moved a muscle, but she was a prey to appalling anxiety.

  ‘Am I to be betrayed by the gluttony of a dog?’ she said to herself.

  ‘Do you think, Mathieu, that it is a question of poison?’ asked Charles de la Marche.

  ‘A careful inquest must be held,’ said Robert of Artois, looking at his aunt.

  ‘Most certainly, Nephew, an inquest must be held,’ replied Mahaut as if she suspected him.

  Bouville who, throughout the discussion, had remained silent beside the royal chair, now rose.

  ‘Messeigneurs, if someone has made an attempt upon the King’s life, there is no reason to suppose that they will not do the same thing towards the child who is to be born. I demand a guard of six equerries and bachelors, armed and under my orders, to guard the Queen’s door night and day and bar entry to the criminal.’

  He was told to act upon his suggestion. And shortly afterwards the Council separated without having decided anything except that it was going to meet again on the following day. Current business would be dealt with as usual by Charles of Valois and the Chancellor.

  ‘Are you going to send a courier to Philippe?’ Mahaut asked the Count of Evreux in a low voice.

  ‘Yes, Cousin. I shall, and to Agnes too,’ he replied.

  ‘Very well, I’ll leave the matter in your hands, since we’re in complete agreement.’

  Bouville, as he left the meeting, found Spinello Tolomei waiting for him in the courtyard of the palace. Tolomei asked him for protection for his nephew.

  ‘Oh, the dear boy, dear Guccio!’ replied Bouville. ‘Listen, Tolomei, he’s exactly the sort of lad I want to watch at the Queen’s door. He is alert of mind and quick to act. Madame Clémence was very fond of him. It’s a pity that he is neither a bachelor nor an equerry. But, after all, there are occasions when personal qualities are more valuable than blue blood.’

  ‘That’s exactly what the girl who wanted to marry him thought,’ said Tolomei.

  ‘What, you mean to say he’s married?’

  The banker tried to explain Guccio’s adventure as briefly as he could. But Bouville was barely listening. He was in a hurry. He had to return to Vincennes at once and held to his idea of enlisting Guccio in the Queen’s Guard. Tolomei wanted a less prominent and more distant post for his nephew. He would have liked him placed under cover with some high ecclesiastical dignitary, a Cardinal perhaps.

  ‘Very well, my friend, let’s send him to Monseigneur Duèze! Tell Guccio to come and see me at Vincennes, where I shall have to remain permanently for some time. He can tell me his story. But wait a moment! He can do me a considerable service. Tell him to hurry; I shall be waiting for him.’

  A few hours later three couriers were galloping towards Lyons by three different roads.

  The first courier, going ‘by the great road’ as it was called at that time, that is to say by Essonnes, Montargis, and Nevers, wore upon his jerkin the arms of France. He carried a letter from the Count of Valois to the Count of Poitiers, announcing in the first place the King’s death and in the second that he, Valois, had been elected Regent by a vote of the Council.

  The second courier, wearing the insignia of the Count of Evreux and taking ‘the pleasant road’, by Provins and Troyes, was to make a halt at Dijon at the Duke of Burgundy’s; his message was not altogether synonymous with the first.

  And the third, dressed in the livery of the Comte de Bouville, took ‘the short road’ by Orléans, Bourges, and Roanne, and he was Guccio Baglioni. Officially he had been dispatched to Cardinal Duèze. But he was to warn the Count of Poitiers orally that there was a suspicion of poison about his brother’s death, and that it was necessary to take steps to protect the Queen.

  The destinies of France were upon those three roads.

  Footnotes

  Prologue

  fn1 The end of Philip the Fair’s reign and the beginning of Louis X’s are dealt with in the two first volumes
of The Accursed Kings: The Iron King and The Strangled Queen.

  1. Farewell to Naples

  fn2 The numbers in the text refer to historical notes at the end of the book.

  fn3 ‘Look how beautiful she is!’

  ‘Goodbye, Madam Clémence! Be happy!’

  ‘May God bless our princess!’

  ‘Don’t forget us!’

  4. Portents of Disaster

  fn4 For the first encounter between Bouville and Cardinal Duèze see The Strangled Queen.

  3. The Midnight Marriage

  fn5 Ignoble! How ignoble your words are! They could only be uttered by someone who does not know Marie!

  8. The Monk is Dead

  fn6 That’s a terrible blow!

  Historical Notes

  1. Charles, Count of Anjou and of Maine, son of Louis VIII and seventh brother of Saint Louis, had married in 1246 the Countess Beatrix who brought him, as Dante expressed it, ‘the great dowry of Provence’. Chosen by the Holy See as Champion of the Church in Italy, he was crowned King of Sicily at Saint John Lateran in 1255.

  This was the origin of the southern branch of the Capet family, known by the name of Anjou-Sicily, whose power extended over southern France and southern Italy.

  The son of Charles I of Anjou, Charles II, called the Lame, King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, Duke of Apulia, Prince of Salerno, Capua, and Taranto, married Marie of Hungary, the sister and heiress of Ladislas, King of Hungary. From this union were born:

  Charles Martel, titular King of Hungary, who died in 1295.

  Saint Louis of Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse, who died in 1298.

  Robert, King of Naples.

  Philippe, Prince of Taranto.

  Raymond Bérenger, Count of Provence, Piedmont, and Andrea.

  Jean, who entered Holy Orders.

  Pierre, Count of Eboli and Gravinia.