A Distant Mirror (75 page)

The honor of France, in the eyes of the King and Council, could not allow Anjou to languish in failure nor give that much comfort to Pope Urban. In the spring of 1384, after truce was concluded with England, and after Burgundy, on the death of his father-in-law, entered into possession of Flanders, Coucy’s campaign of rescue was launched at last. It was already late to save Anjou, but Coucy was not a captain to fly before he had wings. In the duel of arms and wits he was about to wage in the heart of Italy, he showed himself adroit, responsible, and gifted with that magic faculty of emerging invincible from surrounding disaster.

In May before leaving, he founded, as he had before the Swiss campaign, a perpetual daily mass for himself and his successors, this
time at the Abbey of St. Médard near Soissons, assuring him double coverage. Toward the cost of his expedition, the crown supplied 78,000 francs, of which 8,000 were to be repaid by the Pope. Another 4,000 was given to Coucy in compensation for the non-payment of aids promised him in the preceding year. He assembled an army estimated at 1,500 lances, amounting with foot soldiers and archers to a total of about 9,000 men. Miles de Dormans, the former Chancellor, who had been eager to go for the past year, joined with 200 lances. The bulk of the force was evidently made up by mercenaries, partly recruited in Avignon, where Coucy went first for consultations with Clement.

In July he crossed the Alps by way of Mont Cenis bearing powers to conclude the marriage by proxy of Anjou’s son and Bernabò’s daughter. A message from Bernabò invited him to enter Milan with 200 of his highest-ranking companions, which Coucy, whether from pomp or caution, enlarged to 600. Welcomed “with much joy” by Bernabò outside the gates, they entered the city together, “but such was the great number of men that they broke the bridge.” This seems to have been Coucy’s only
faux-pas
and did not detract from opulent ceremonies and a daily parade of gifts during a visit that lasted two weeks.

Two weeks was not too long to chart a course through the labyrinthine rivalries of Italy. The interrelationships of Venice, Genoa, Milan, Piedmont, Florence, and assorted despots and communes of northern Italy were constantly shifting. As soon as one power joined another against a third for that season’s advantage, all alliances and feuds changed partners as if in a
trecento
square dance. Venice feuded with Genoa, Milan played off one against the other and feuded with Florence and the several principalities of Piedmont, Florence feuded with its neighbors, Siena, Pisa, and Lucca, and formed various leagues against Milan; papal politics kept the whole mass quivering.

Coucy’s first hazard lay underfoot in the mutual jealousy between Bernabò and his melancholy nephew
Gian Galeazzo, who now ruled in Pavia since the death of his father in 1378. Subtle, secretive, and deceptively mild, Gian Galeazzo cultivated a public repute for timidity and a hidden will as strong and unprincipled as Bernabò’s. In later years when he was better known, Francesco Carrara of Padua said of him, “I know Gian Galeazzo. Neither honor nor pity nor sworn faith ever yet inclined him to do a disinterested deed. If he ever seeks what is good, it is because his interest requires it, for he is without moral sense. Goodness, like hate or anger, is for him a matter of calculation.” As an opponent, Carrara’s opinion was naturally inimical but not
necessarily invalid; the character it ascribed to Gian Galeazzo anticipated by more than a century Machiavelli’s Prince.

Gian Galeazzo resented and feared Bernabò’s intrusion on his own prior relationship with the French royal family. “Bernabò is making fresh alliances with France,” warned his mother. “If he becomes related, he will seize upon your sovereignty.” With his one remaining child against Bernabò’s well-filled stable, Gian Galeazzo could not match his uncle in alliances. If he could not match him, he could remove him, a cold alternative that from this moment—as was later recognized—began to take shape in his mind.

Meanwhile, he quietly paid his share of the subsidy for Anjou and prepared to welcome Coucy to Pavia. It was ten years since their encounter at Montichiari which had so confirmed Gian Galeazzo’s distaste for battle that he had never again taken the field. But Coucy did not appear in Pavia to renew the acquaintance, probably because Bernabò did not wish his nephew and the French envoy to meet.

Agitation in northern Italy was intense at news of Coucy’s advent. Siena sent envoys secretly to Milan to bargain for support against Florence. Florence sent envoys to divert him from Tuscany by gracious words and protestations of friendship. Florentine diplomacy was conducted by the permanent chancellor, Coluccio Salutati, a cultivated scholar who could frame his foreign correspondence in elegant Latin rhetoric that reflected credit on the republic. The continuity of his office, which was equivalent to that of a chief administrator, gave him great influence, and the fact that his appointment was regularly renewed over a period of thirty years is evidence—given the turbulence of Florentine politics—of a man of remarkable political ability, not to say equanimity. His heart was in literature and the new humanism, but in the conduct of affairs he was efficient, diligent, learned, and genial, admired for his integrity and style. According to Gian Galeazzo,
a state paper by Salutati carried in the political scales the weight of a thousand horsemen. This was Coucy’s opponent.

In response to the Florentine greetings, Coucy was surpassingly gracious. “We met,” states the report probably written by Salutati, “with joyful embraces and greetings and he spoke reassuringly and peacefully to us. He called us not friends and brothers but his very fathers and masters.… Not only did he promise to abstain from hostility toward us, but he pledged to support us with his army in our own affairs.” Coucy had clearly learned the Italian manner. He assured the Florentines their fears were fanciful and promised to confine his passage to a strictly limited route. They accepted his assurances, perhaps less because they trusted them than because, with Hawkwood
absent in Naples, they did not have an armed force capable of barring his way. Neutral but suspicious, they raised a company of 4,000 peasants and commoners to guard the route.

Starting in August, Coucy crossed the Apennines and entered the land of the “Tuscan miracle” on the west. Cypress stood out against the rich blue sky, vineyards and silver olive trees clung to the slopes. Between hills topped by castle or village, slow white oxen moved through a landscape hand-tended for 2,000 years. The French army penetrated harshly in a progress that was not the peaceful one Coucy had promised. To their
stupor et dolor
(shock and grief), as the Florentines afterward complained bitterly to the King of France, they learned “he was not the same toward us in his heart as he outwardly feigned.” Partly as a form of intimidation to remind Florence to stay neutral, partly to pay and provision his mercenaries, Coucy exacted tribute from towns, looted villages, even seized castles. Florence sent more envoys crying, “Peace! Peace!” and offering rich gifts and further assurance of neutrality if he would bypass Florentine territory. Coucy continued to answer soothingly, but force once employed quickly became rapine, difficult to restrain.

“They not only stole geese and hens, robbed the dovecotes and made off with sheep, rams, and cattle,” according to the Florentine complaint, “they actually stormed our unarmed walls and undefended homes as if they were at war with us. They took people captive and tortured them and forced them to pay ransom. They killed men and women in cruel ways and set fire to their empty houses.”

As Coucy advanced, Florence learned with dismay that he was in communication with the exiled lords of Arezzo, an ancient and important hill town forty miles to the southeast which the Florentines had long coveted and were preparing to annex. Its history dated back to the Etruscans, its famous red glazed pottery to the Romans; from its cluster of towers with belvederes and balconies, St. Francis in Giotto’s painting exorcised flying demons. In the strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines, its ruling family, the Tarlati, lords of Pietramala, had been overthrown in 1380, and the winning side, too weak to maintain control, had called in the help of Charles of Durazzo. He or his agents treated Arezzo as a conquered city subject to the usual sack and fines of inhabitants, who in consequence looked more favorably on Florence. After complex bargaining, the Florentines had all but concluded an arrangement to buy the city from Durazzo when Coucy’s intervention threatened to wreck all their hopes. They learned that the exiled lords of Pietramala had offered to assist him in capturing the city and that he had concluded a treaty with them to that effect. Coucy’s object was to
gain a foothold for the Angevin cause and a position from which he could exert pressure on Florence for supplies. If he drew against himself Hawkwood’s company from Naples, the forces opposing Anjou would thereby be weakened.

Between Coucy and Florence a duel now began. Approaching his goal, Coucy made heavier demands and gave fewer reassurances. In reply to a renewed Florentine protest against pillaging by his soldiers, he blamed it on the resistance of the inhabitants, and with cool arrogance demanded a tribute of 25,000 florins from Florence and 20,000 from Siena. The Signoria met in anxiety; some argued for paying, some for refusing, some for a token payment to maintain the façade of friendship and prevent assault by Coucy’s men-at-arms. While sending forward envoys with various proposals, Florence warned Jacopo Carraciolo, the governor of Arezzo who was now in their pay, to fortify his walls, prepare to provision Florentine reinforcements when they should appear, and expect attack on September 18. With generous sums contributed by the bourgeois magnates, they began assembling an armed force.

For a week, while waiting the outcome of his demands, Coucy remained in the vicinity without advancing. Siena paid him 7,000 florins; Florence, without making refusal explicit, paid nothing. As if satisfied, Coucy resumed his march, but, instead of making for Arezzo, took the road southward toward Cortona. This diversion proved to be a ruse to relax the vigilance of Carraciolo. On the night of September 28–29, Coucy turned back toward Arezzo and, on reaching the city, divided his force in two groups. He sent one to assault the walls with great clamor and shouts, while he led the stronger section with his best knights silently around to the San Clemente gate on the other side. Crashing down the doors, the French poured through, crying, “Long live King Louis and the Sire de Coucy! Death to Guelfs and the Duke of Durazzo!” As Carraciolo’s men-at-arms rushed to meet them, battle cries and clang of blows filled the city, combat surged through every street and around the old Roman amphitheater until the defenders gave way before superior numbers and retreated to the citadel. The lords of Pietramala regained their homes in triumph, and while Arezzo again suffered rape and pillage, Coucy claimed the city in the name of King Louis of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem.

At that moment Louis of Anjou had been dead for nine days. For a year and a half he had rusted in the heel of Italy, with no kingship but the title, while his army wasted and dwindled and some who could afford it took ship for home. With control of Bari and other coast towns on the Adriatic, he could be provisioned by sea and may not
have been as entirely destitute as pictured by the monastic chroniclers who liked to enlarge on the theme of vainglory’s fall. But he was immobilized for lack of funds. His impoverished knights rode on donkeys or marched on foot “to hasten the day of combat” but could find nothing more than occasional skirmishes. In September 1384, Anjou caught a severe chill after overexerting himself against looters in his army. Fever developed, and recognizing death’s presence, the Duke, like his brother Charles V, completed his will on his last day. The dying seemed always to know when their hour was at hand, doubtless because cures were not expected and the onset of certain symptoms was recognized as fatal. How it happened that they were so often in condition at the end to dictate last wills or codicils is harder to explain, unless it was because dying was an organized ritual with many attendants to assist the process.

With passion for conquest undiminished, Anjou called in his will on Pope Clement to ensure that his son, Louis II, should succeed to the Kingdom of Naples, and on Charles VI to “brandish the sword of his incomparable power” to avenge Queen Joanna. He appointed Coucy as his viceroy to carry on the campaign, with a provision that he could not be removed except by order of the Duchesse d’Anjou confirmed by the King, Burgundy, and Berry. He died on September 20 in the castle of Bari in a room overlooking the sea. While his body in a lead coffin was shipped back to France for burial, and his forces disintegrated, Charles of Durazzo held funeral services suitable to his late rival’s rank, and clothed his court in mourning.

Anjou’s death was not yet known on the Arno when Florence was stunned to learn of Coucy’s capture of Arezzo. The Balia or Council of Ten, appointed in times of crisis, hastily assembled. Letters and ambassadors were dispatched to Genoa, Bologna, Padua, Perugia, Verona, Naples, even to Milan, urging all to join Florence in a league against the invader whose presence was said to endanger all Italy. Hawkwood’s company was summoned from Naples and Pope Urban was asked to levy a special tithe on the clergy for funds to drive the “schismatics” out of Italy and thwart the triumph of the Anti-Pope. In the midst of the furor, news arrived by way of Venice that the French claimant to Naples was dead. Florence rejoiced and redoubled her preparations to surround Coucy in Arezzo.

Unaware both of the storm rising around him and of Anjou’s death, Coucy took pleasure in informing the Signoria of his capture of Arezzo, not doubting, he wrote smoothly, that they would be delighted by an event so happy for the partisans of King Louis. With even greater pleasure, the Signoria wrote back to the “illustrious lord
and dearest friend” to inform him with “a great sting of grief” that Anjou had died and that several of his chief companions had already appeared in Venice on their way home. Coucy naturally did not believe it, suspecting a Florentine trick intended to discourage him.