The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine

by Jean Plaidy

  The thought of the bloodshed which would inevitably ensue was too much for the besiegers. They decided to return to Jerusalem and ignobly retreated and when the people of Damascus saw that they were retreating—frightened at the mention of Nureddin’s name—they sent out cavalry to chase them away.

  And so ended the attempt to take Damascus.

  A feeling of lassitude spread through the ranks. What was left of the army had lost its enthusiasm for the crusade. The men were nostalgic for France. Of what use was it to stay in Jerusalem? They could not spend their days visiting shrines. How many times had they traversed the Via Dolorosa, halting where Jesus had halted with his cross, praying, singing hymns of praise. They had done it—and they wanted to go home.

  Many of them left, Conrad with them. He had lost his army and was nothing but a humble pilgrim now.

  I said to Louis: “It is time we left.”

  He nodded gravely, but he made no attempt to leave. Each day he was at the holy shrine; he said he found great contentment in prayer.

  I wondered whether he had no wish to return home because he would return defeated. Moreover he knew that I was waiting to take up the matter of our consanguinity. Perhaps he feared to return to a people who might despise him—a poor king who had lost an army and was on the point of losing a wife.

  Months were passing and still Louis would not go home. Few of those who had come out with him remained.

  I was relieved when letters came from Suger urging him to return, reminding him that he was a king with a kingdom to govern.

  I saw the letter he sent back to Suger. “I am under a bond,” he wrote, “not to leave the Holy Land save with glory and after doing somewhat for the cause of God and the kingdom of France.”

  “How,” I demanded, “are you going to achieve these feats of glory when you have no army now?”

  “I must do something. We should have taken Damascus.”

  “You should have taken Constantinople when you had a fine army. You could have done that with ease. But you did not see that and so . . . you have lost your army and what have you to show for all the expense paid for in taxes by the people of France and Aquitaine? Nothing! Nothing at all.”

  He covered his face with his hands and I knew by the way his lips were moving that he was praying.

  I wanted to castigate him with words, but somehow I could not do so. He was such a pathetic figure.

  Suger wrote again. “Dear Lord and King. I must cause you to hear the voice of your kingdom. After having suffered so much in the East and endured such evils, now that the barons and lords have returned to France, why do you persist in staying with the barbarians? There are those who would ravish your kingdom. We invoke your piety, your majesty and your goodness. I summon you in the name of the fealty I owe you to tarry no longer. If you do, you will be guilty in the eyes of God of a breach of that oath which you took when you received your crown.”

  I think that letter of the worthy Suger really shook Louis out of his complacency and brought home to him the fact that he must delay no longer and begin the journey home.

  He wrote to Suger: “I am coming now.”

  It was a relief to me to take some action at last. We had been more than a year in Jerusalem—a year since I had seen Raymond. I still thought of him constantly, remembering so much that was precious to me, reliving those enchanting moments, wondering if I should ever again set eyes on his dear face.

  Easter was celebrated with much ceremony in Jerusalem and when it was over we were ready to go. It was two years since we had left France—two years during which I had faced hardship such as I had never imagined, and ecstasy too. They were the strangest and most illuminating years of my life so far, and I was quite different from the young woman who had left France at the head of her Amazons, setting forth on the great adventure.

  I remembered that time when our depleted army had prepared to leave for Antioch. What had happened to those who did not sail? I could not bear to contemplate what the answer might be. But how tragic it was that now we needed only two ships, for there were no more than three hundred people left of that great assembly which had set out two years before.

  I chose which ship I should sail in and ordered that the baggage be put aboard. I had some beautiful Eastern silks and brocades. All the wonderful garments and jewels which Raymond had given me had been left behind when I had been abducted, and everything else had been picked up later. Some of the fashions interested me, and when I was in Jerusalem I had had to do something so I searched for attractive items.

  There was a question of how we should divide ourselves, and I told Louis that I refused to travel in the same ship with Thierry Galeran. I could not endure the man and he had shown me so clearly that he was my enemy. I knew that he would be close to Louis all the time, that Louis listened to him, took his advice and relied on him.

  “I do not wish to deprive you of your bodyguard,” I told him, “so I shall travel with my ladies in one ship and you and he may go in the other.”

  Rather to my surprise Louis made no objection. He knew that when we reached France my first concern would be to set negotiations for divorce in progress.

  So we set sail for Acre.

  I had not imagined that our troubles would be over. I had learned what an uncomfortable and dangerous venture sea-traveling could be. Nor was I wrong.

  There were the usual hazards of weather to contend with, but at least it was summer. There was one great danger which we suddenly realized. Manuel Comnenus was at war with Roger of Sicily, and ships of those two rulers roamed the Mediterranean in search of each other. Being neutral, we had not feared trouble from either, and it was an unpleasant surprise when we encountered ships of Manuel’s navy. They surrounded us and boarded us and we were told that we were prisoners of Manuel Comnenus and were ordered to follow them back to Constantinople.

  Once again I thought of Louis’s folly in not teaching Manuel a lesson when he had been in a position to do so. I wondered what he and his familiar, Galeran, were thinking now.

  What would have been our fate I have no idea but, as we were preparing to obey orders, several ships of the Sicilian navy came on the scene. Learning what had happened, they fought off the Greeks and soon Manuel’s ships were in retreat. The Sicilian sailors behaved most courteously toward us and eventually we were able to continue our journey.

  It had been an alarming experience. I wondered what would have become of me if I had been taken to Manuel Comnenus.

  Now there was the sea to face.

  We sailed on, never losing sight of the other ship and just as I was beginning to believe that we were nearing our destination and would soon be on the last lap home, we ran into a heavy mist. It lasted for a day and a night and when it lifted there was no sign of the ship in which Louis was sailing.

  The mist was followed by a storm which drove our ship along the coast of North Africa. We were forced to land and were given some hospitality by Berber chiefs and were able to stay while the ship was repaired and stores were loaded. Then we set sail again.

  I was beginning to feel that this ordeal would never end. We were becalmed for several days and I lost count of them. Food was running low and there was little water; and there we were motionless on a sea without a ripple to disturb its glassy surface. I began to think that this was the end.

  Then one day I was aware of movement. The blessed wind had come at last to relieve us. I heard the sailors shouting. We were indeed moving.

  Days passed. I was too ill, too tired, too listless to move, and still we sailed on. At last we were in sight of land, and that day we came to Palermo.

  It was fortunate that we had landed on friendly territory. King Roger, whose navy had saved us on the high seas, was now our host, and when he heard that my ship had put in at Palermo he sent word that I was to be royally entertained.

  What bliss to lie in a bed, to eat delicately presented food, to know the comfort of waking on land! I never wanted to be in a ship again
.

  There I learned that Louis’s ship was missing and that in France it was believed that we had both been lost at sea.

  For two weeks I lived quietly in the lodgings which King Roger had ordered should be put at my disposal. Most of my ladies were too ill to attend me, and there was nothing we wanted to do during those weeks but lie in the shade and watch the brilliant sunlight dancing on the water, which was now as benign as it had been malevolent when we were at its mercy.

  There was news. Louis’s ship had arrived in a port near Brindisi in Italy. I heard that he had been very anxious, fearing what might have happened to me, and that when he was told of my safe arrival at Palermo he was overjoyed.

  I must come to him, he said. The Bishop of Langres was very ill and he dared not move him.

  I was relieved to hear that he was safe. My feelings for Louis were so mixed that although I wanted to be rid of him, I would have been very sad to hear that he was dead. I knew he was a good man and that his motives were of the best, but he had failed me in all that I looked for in a husband and, having experienced love with Raymond, I could not live the rest of my life with such a travesty of a man as Louis.

  In due course I joined him in Calabria. He was delighted to see me and reiterated that his greatest concern had been for my safety, telling of his almost unbearable anxiety when the mist had lifted and he found that our ships were separated.

  I said I too had suffered anxieties on his account.

  He looked at me pleadingly and I knew he wanted me to say that we should forget our distressing talk of divorce and try once more to be content with each other. But I was unmoved and as determined to leave him as ever.

  There was no point in staying in Calabria. Now we must make our way home.

  “We should,” said Louis, “visit Roger who has done so much to help us. It would be most discourteous not to do so.”

  I agreed. I had heard that the Court of Roger, who called himself King of Sicily, was luxurious; and I felt I needed to rest a while in such surroundings before beginning the rest of my journey.

  Roger was at Potenza and he received us royally. He was gracious, and it was pleasant to be in the company of an attractive man who made no secret of the fact that he admired me.

  But it was at Potenza that I heard the tragic news which made me wish I had not survived.

  Soon after we left Antioch, Nureddin had attacked the city and Raymond had successfully routed the enemy’s armies. Nureddin would have accepted a truce which would promise Antioch freedom from harassment for a number of years. Raymond was a proud man, I knew that well. How he would have laughed at Louis’s retreat from the walls of Damascus at the mere mention of Nureddin’s name. Instead of a truce he decided on a further attack. I knew he was impetuous. He had not stopped to think, in his desire for me, what effect our relationship would have on Constance and Louis. He was like his father, I supposed. He had all the charm, all the good looks, everything that makes an ideal man . . . in peace time; but he could not have been a shrewd warrior otherwise he would not have gone forth to attack the mighty Nureddin with so small a contingent.

  It was King Roger himself who told me about it.

  “Of what could he have been thinking? To go out and attack such a man with a small force! Did he think he was going to frighten Nureddin and make him believe reinforcements were coming up? Nureddin is not the man to know fear, and there were no reinforcements. Raymond fought bravely, but he was doomed. He must have known it.”

  He was slain. I could imagine with what rejoicing the news must have been received in the enemy’s camp. He was the bravest of the Christians, their most respected leader. The Mussulmans respect bravery. They put his head in a silver box and carried it to Nureddin.

  I could scarcely bear to listen. I thought I was going to faint.

  “The Queen is overcome,” said Roger.

  “Raymond was her uncle,” explained Louis. “There was great affection between them.”

  My uncle! My lover! And the most handsome, the most perfect man in the world. And they had killed him. Why did they wage their senseless wars? Why must they always kill what was good and fine in life?

  I said I would retire to my apartment. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to remember every moment of our time together.

  Raymond, my love, so alive, so different, the one I had been waiting for all my life—and now he was dead.

  In spite of my sorrow, I was more determined than ever to leave Louis. I should never see Raymond again; my hopes of returning to Antioch and living there in luxury, Duchess of Aquitaine and beloved of Raymond, had gone forever. Raymond had died and Louis, in spite of all the hazards he had faced in the last two years, still lived.

  I said to him: “Louis, I must have a divorce.”

  “You have not given enough thought to what this would mean,” he replied.

  “I have thought of little else . . . for months.”

  “Your lover is now dead and you could not have married him had he lived even if he planned to divorce his wife on some trumped-up charge.”

  “This is a matter between ourselves,” I said firmly. “I want a divorce.”

  “We are in Italy,” said Louis. “We should not leave without visiting the Pope.”

  I considered this. If I were to get my divorce, I would need the help of the Pope. It seemed to me a good idea to have a meeting and if possible discover what his attitude would be.

  When I was presented to Eugenius, my hopes were raised, for he was benign to both of us. True, he treated Louis with especial respect. He said he had found favor in the sight of God for all he had endured and, although the result had not stored up treasures on Earth, it certainly had in Heaven.

  Louis was delighted and there were plenty of opportunities for prayer.

  When Eugenius heard that it was our matrimonial difficulties we wished to discuss with him, he was mildly perturbed. But he was one of those men who believe himself equal to any situation and for that reason almost always was.

  He said that in such matters there were usually two sides, and it would be an advantage to all, he was sure, if he heard us separately.

  I thought that was good sense, for there was much I would not want to say in the presence of Louis. I looked forward to our interview but I knew it was no good trying to explain to a celibate such as Eugenius was—or should be—how I could no longer endure Louis’s inadequacies.

  Eugenius had already talked to Louis, and he received me with a show of great kindness as though telling me that, although he disapproved of divorce, he was ready to listen to what I had to say.

  First he told me that Louis did not want a divorce, that he loved me as dearly as he had on the day he married me and that he was ready to forget all differences between us and would try to make the marriage the success it had been in the beginning.

  I had thought about this a great deal ever since I had known I was to have this meeting with Eugenius.

  I knew that it was useless to say that my nature was such that I could no longer endure to be married to a man who lived like a monk. Louis had presumably most gallantly refrained from mentioning my adultery with Raymond, which I am sure the Pope would have deplored and perhaps most certainly then might have agreed to the annulment. I was not sure that I wanted it on those grounds as I wondered that, if it were and I were condemned, would my possessions have been in jeopardy? I was not sure on that point; but I thought it would be unwise to bring up the matter. I had to admit that Louis was not the man to take advantage of such a situation. But perhaps he thought that if my affair with Raymond was brought to light it would reflect unfavorably on him. How could I be sure what was the reason for his silence; but I did believe that Louis would always be an honorable man.

  I decided to use the line most likely to win approval from the Pope and at the same time protect myself from scandal.

  “Holy Father,” I said. “I have been anxious for some time about my close relationship with the King. We are thi
rd cousins and as you know through all the years of our marriage we have been blessed with only one girl. It is the only time I have conceived, and I ask myself, is this due to God’s displeasure because of that close relationship forbidden by Him?”

  Eugenius was thoughtful. “The relationship . . .” he murmured. “Yes, there is a degree of consanguinity.” It was the right course to take.

  “But,” went on the Pope, “I do not think it insurmountable. There could be a dispensation. It would give me great joy to see you and the King living in harmony.”

  “I should always be concerned regarding this closeness between us.”

  Inwardly I was smiling. I thought of that entirely intimate relationship with one who was indeed close to me in every way . . . my own uncle. But I dared not think of him now. I had to try to forget him, for thinking of him could only bring me sorrow.

  I could see that Eugenius was a little impressed by my suggestion. It was extraordinary that a youngish and fertile woman should have failed to conceive during so many years, and when she did to produce a girl when the country needed a male heir for in France a girl could not inherit the throne. Any other point which I could have brought forward would have carried no weight, I could see. On consanguinity my hopes rested.

  Eugenius was thoughtful. “You need children,” he said. “You need a son who will be heir to France. France needs an heir.”

  “That is true, Holy Father. You will understand, I know, that my husband is a man who spends more time in prayer and religious contemplation than most men.”

  “He is a good man of the Church.”

  “But it needs more to be a good King of France. Holy Father, I need children. I need to give France its heir. Yet how can I when my husband is hardly ever in my bed?”

  “It is of course necessary for him to be there . . . on occasion.”

  “He has no desire to be.”

  Eugenius looked grave. “I must ponder this matter,” he said.

  I bowed my head and left him.

  There was something innocent about Eugenius; I honestly believed he wished us both well and that he had a great regard for Louis was obvious. Louis was at heart a churchman such as Eugenius himself.