The Poisoned Crown. Морис Дрюон

wished to tax the clergy; but the latter, arguing that the Holy See was vacant and that no decision could be made without a pope, refused; then, in negotiation, the bishops consented to help provided no precedent were created, and profited by the opportunity to get certain concessions, exonerations, and immunities which ultimately were to cost the Treasury more than the funds obtained.

      The mobilization of the army took place without difficulty, and was even conducted with a certain enthusiasm by the barons who, pretty bored at home, were delighted with the idea of donning their breastplates and setting off on an adventure.

      There was less enthusiasm among the people.

      ‘Isn’t it enough,’ they said, ‘that we should be half-starved without having to give our men and our money to the King’s war?’

      But the people were assured that every ill derived from the Flemings; the hope of loot and free days of rape and pillage were dangled before the soldiers; for many it was a way of easing the monotony of daily labour and the anxiety of finding enough to eat; no one wished to show himself a coward, and if there were recalcitrants, the sergeants of the King or of the great lords were numerous enough to maintain discipline by decorating the trees bordering the roads with a hanging or two. According to Philip the Fair’s Order in Council, which was still in force, no healthy man could, in theory, be exempted if he were more than eighteen and less than sixty, unless he bought himself out with a money contribution or exercised an indispensable trade.

      At that time mobilization was a matter of purely local organization. The knights were sworn men, and it was incumbent upon them to raise a force among their vassals, subjects or serfs. The knight, and even the squire, never went alone to war. They were accompanied by pages, sutlers, and footmen. They owned their own horses and arms and those of their men. The ordinary knight without a banneret held approximately the rank of a lieutenant; once his men were assembled and equipped, he reported to the knight of a superior grade, that is to say his immediate suzerain. The knights with pennons were approximately equivalent to captains, the knights banneret to colonels, and the knights with double banners approximated to generals who commanded the whole tactical force raised from the jurisdiction of their barony or their county.

      During the battle itself all the knights would upon occasion, leaving their footmen to one side, rally for the charge, often with the splendid results we know so well.

      The ‘banner’ of Count Philippe of Poitiers, the King’s brother, must have rallied something in the nature of an army corps, since it assembled all the troops from Poitou, together with those of the county of Burgundy of which Philippe was Count Palatine by marriage; moreover, ten knights banneret were administratively attached to it, among whom were the Count of Evreux, the King’s uncle, Count Jean de Beaumont, Miles des Noyers, Anseau de Joinville, son of the great Joinville, and even Gaucher de Châtillon who, even though Constable of France, that is to say Commander-in-Chief of the armies, had the troops from his fief incorporated into the enormous unit.

      Philip the Fair had had good reason for confiding to his second son, before he even reached the age of twenty-two, so important a military command, and for concentrating under his authority, as if to reinforce it, the men in whom he placed the greatest confidence.

      Under the ‘banner’ of Count Charles of Valois marched the troops from Maine, Anjou, and Valois, among whom was the old Chevalier d’Aunay, the father of Marguerite and Blanche of Burgundy’s two dead lovers.

      The cities were laid under contribution no less than the country. For this Flanders army, Paris had to furnish four hundred horsemen and two thousand footmen, whose maintenance was guaranteed by the merchants of the Cité, fortnight by fortnight, which showed that in the King’s opinion the war would not last long. The horses and wagons for the supply train were requisitioned from the monasteries.

      On July 24th, 1315, after some delay, as was always the case, Louis X received, at Saint-Denis, from the hands of the Abbot Egidus de Chambly, who was its ex-officio guardian, the Oriflamme of France, a long band of red silk embroidered with golden flames (from which its name derived), ending in a swallow-tail and attached to a staff of gilded brass. Beside the Oriflamme, which was venerated as might have been a relic, the two King’s banners were carried, one blue with fleurs-de-lys and the other with the white cross.

      The huge army set itself in motion with all the contingents that had arrived from the west, the south, and the southeast, the knights from Languedoc, troops from Normandy and Brittany. At Saint-Quentin it was joined by the ‘banners’ of the duchy of Burgundy and those of Champagne, Artois, and Picardy.

      That particular day was a rare one of sunshine in an appalling summer. The sun shone upon a thousand lances, on breastplates, and chain-mail, on brightly painted shields. The knights showed off to each other the latest fashions in armour, a new form of helm or bassinet giving greater protection to the face while affording a wider field of vision, or some larger form of ailette which, placed upon the shoulder, gave greater protection against the blows of maces or made sword-thrusts glance off.

      Several miles behind the soldiers followed the train of four-wheeled wagons which carried food, forges, supplies of bolts for crossbows, and a variety of traders who were authorized to follow in the army’s wake, as well as whores by the cartful under the control of the brothel-masters. The whole procession advanced in an extraordinary atmosphere which smacked at once of the heroic and the fairground.

      The next day rain began to fall once more, soaking, unceasing, flooding the roads, opening ruts, trickling down steel helmets, dripping from breastplates, plastering the horses’ coats. Every man weighed five pounds the heavier.

      And it was rain, continuous rain, throughout the following day.

      The army of Flanders never reached Courtrai. It stopped at Bonduis, near Lille, before the swollen river Lys, which barred its advance, flooded the fields, swamped the roads, and soaked the clay soil. As it was no longer possible to advance, the army encamped there in pouring rain.

       6

       The Muddy Army

      INSIDE THE VAST ROYAL TENT, embroidered with fleurs-de-lys, but where the mud was as elsewhere ankle-deep, Louis X, in company with his brother the Count de la Marche, his uncle Count Charles of Valois, and his chancellor, Etienne de Mornay, listened to the Constable Gaucher de Châtillon reporting on the situation. The report was not a happy one.

      Châtillon, Count of Porcien and Lord of Crèvecoeur, had been Constable since 1286, that is to say from the very beginning of Philip the Fair’s reign. He had seen the disaster of Courtrai, the victory of Mons-en-Pevèle, and many other battles on this threatened northern frontier. He was in Flanders for the sixth time in his life. He was now sixty-five years of age. He was a tall good-looking man, with a determined jaw; neither years nor fatigue seemed to have affected him; he seemed slow because he was reflective. His physical strength and his courage in battle earned him respect as much as his strategical abilities. He had seen too much of war to be enamoured of it any longer, and now merely regarded it as a political necessity. He neither minced his words nor hid his meaning behind vainglorious phrases.

      ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘food supplies are no longer reaching the army, the wagons are stuck in the mud fifteen miles away, and they’re breaking the traces trying to get them out. The men are hungry and beginning to grumble angrily; the companies who still have food are having to defend their reserves against those who have nothing left; the archers of Champagne came to blows with those of Perche a little while ago, and there is a danger that your troops will fight among themselves before ever they come face to face with the enemy. I shall have to hang some of them, which is not a thing I like doing. But erecting gibbets does not fill stomachs. We’ve already got more sick than the surgeon-barbers can attend to; it will soon be the chaplains who’ll have most work to do. There has been no sign of a break in the weather in the last four days.