The King Without a Kingdom (12 page)

The Cardinal of Boulogne had presided over the previous negotiations; Innocent reappointed him to this office. King Edward of England had always been suspicious of Boulogne, as he had been of me, believing him too close to the interests of France. And yet, since the Treaty of Mantes and the flight of Charles the Bad, King John was also suspicious of him. Perhaps it was for that reason that Boulogne ran the meeting in Avignon far better than anticipated; he had nobody to mollycoddle. He got along well enough with the Bishops of London and of Norwich, and particularly well with the Duke of Lancaster, who is a fine military leader and veritable lord. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, I myself set about playing my part. Little Navarre must have got wind of …

Ah! Here come the coals! Brunet, slide the pan under my robes, would you? It is well sealed I trust, so that I don’t get burned! Yes, that is fine like that …

So, Charles of Navarre must have got wind of the fact that we were moving towards peace, which would certainly not have helped his cause, because one fine November day … just two years ago … there he was, suddenly, in Avignon, where nobody was expecting him.

This was when I saw him for the first time. Twenty-four years old, but with his diminutive stature not looking a day older than eighteen, really very short, the smallest of the kings of Europe; but so well proportioned, so upright in his posture, so agile, so quick-witted that no one dared dream of making him aware of this. Add to that a charming face that well sets off a nose a little on the large side, handsome fox-like eyes, with corners already creased into crow’s feet by shrewdness. His exterior is so affable, his manners at the same time so polite and light of touch, his speech so fluent, assured and spontaneous, quick to compliment, passing so nimbly from solemnity to bawdiness and from amusement to seriousness, and he appears so openly to offer his friendship to people it is easy to understand why women can’t resist him, and men fall prey to his schemes. No, really, I have never heard a more valiant gabber than that little king there! Listening to him, one tended to forget the wickedness that hid behind so much good grace, and that he was already a hardened liar, criminal and master of stratagems. The personal impression he leaves you with make you forgive the secret blackness of his soul.

When he made his appearance in Avignon, his situation was not of the best. He was insubordinate vis-à-vis the King of France, who went about seizing his castles, and he had seriously offended the King of England by signing the Treaty of Mantes without giving him the slightest warning. ‘Here is a man who calls upon my help, and offers me a clear passage through Normandy. I mobilize my troops in Brittany; I make ready even more for landing; and no sooner has he gained enough strength, through my support, to be able to intimidate his enemy, than he begins negotiations without a word to me … From now on, he may address whomever he sees fit; let him turn to the pope …’

Well, it was precisely to the pope that Charles of Navarre had come to speak. And in just one week, he had brought everyone around to his cause.

In the presence of the Holy Father, and before several cardinals of which I was one, he swore, putting all of his heart into it, that he wanted nothing more than to be reconciled with the King of France, and everyone believed him. With the delegates of John II, the Chancellor Pierre de La Forêt and the Duke of Bourbon, he went further still, leading them to believe that for the price of renewed friendship, that friendship he wished to restore with the king, he would raise an army in Navarre in order to attack the English in Brittany or on their own shores.

He pretended to leave the town with his escort, but over the following days, he came back several times at night, and in stealth, to confer with the Duke of Lancaster and the English emissaries. He chose to hold his secret meetings either at the residence of Pierre Bertrand, the Cardinal of Arras, or at the home of Guy of Boulogne himself. By the way, I later raised the matter with Boulogne, who was eating at every table. ‘I wanted to find out what they were up to,’ he replied. ‘By lending them my house I could have my spies listen in on them.’ His spies must have been stone deaf, as he was to find out nothing at all, or he simply pretended not to know the first thing about it. If they weren’t in league with each other, then it is the King of Navarre who must have pulled the rug right out from under him.

I was in the know. And would you like to know, my nephew, how Navarre went about winning over Lancaster? Well now! He proudly proposed to recognize King Edward of England as the rightful King of France. Nothing less than that. The two of them even went so far as to draw up a treaty of understanding between the two countries.

Firstly: Navarre would thus have recognized Edward as King of France. Secondly: they agreed to wage war together against King John. Thirdly: Edward acknowledged Charles of Navarre’s right to the duchies of Normandy, Champagne, Brie, Chartres, and also the Lieutenancy of Languedoc, in addition of course to his kingdom of Navarre and his county of Évreux. Suffice to say that they were dividing up France between them. I will spare you the rest.

How did I get to know of these plans? Ah! I can tell you that an account of them was noted down in person by the Bishop of London, who was travelling with Messire of Lancaster. But don’t ask me who passed on the information at a later date. You must remember that I am Canon of the Cathedral of York and that, as poorly looked upon as I am in court on the other side of the Channel, still I have maintained several informants.

I fear there is little need to assure you that if we had started out with several opportunities to work towards peace between France and England, they were all undermined by the incursion of the spirited little king.

How could the ambassadors have ever been able to consider any form of agreement when each party was obliged to go to war by the promises of Monseigneur of Navarre? In Bourbon he would say: ‘I speak to Lancaster, but I lie to him in order to serve your best interests.’ Then he would whisper in Lancaster’s ear: ‘Indeed I saw Bourbon, but to mislead him. I am your man.’ And one must admire him for being able to make both sides believe him.

So much so that when he finally left Avignon, to set out for the Pyrenees, people on both sides were all convinced, while taking great care to say nothing of the sort, that they were seeing off a friend.

Then it was the conference took an acrimonious turn; nothing more would be conceded. And the town fell into a slumber. For three weeks, the only concern had been Charles the Bad. The pope himself surprised us by becoming morose, sullen and moaning; the wicked charmer had entertained him for a while …

Ah! I am much warmer again now. Your turn, my nephew; pull the pan of embers towards you, and warm yourself up a little.

H
OW RIGHT YOU
are, how right you are, Archambaud, and I feel the same way. We have only been gone from Périgueux ten days, and yet it seems that we have already been travelling for a month. Travel makes time go by more slowly. Tonight we will sleep at Châteauroux. I make no secret of the fact that I would not be unhappy to reach Bourges tomorrow, God willing, and to rest there at least three whole days, maybe even four. I am beginning to tire of these abbeys where we are served poor fare and where my bed is scarcely warmed, deliberately, so that I am made aware how the war has brought them to ruin. They should not think, these little abbots, that it is by starving me and having me sleep in a draught that they will save themselves from paying their dues! And my escort too needs to rest, to dry off their clothes and to repair the harnesses. Because this rain doesn’t make their life any easier. Listening to my gentlemen sneeze on all sides of my palanquin, I wager that more than one of them will spend his stay in Bourges getting treated with cinnamon, cloves and mulled wine. As for me, I will hardly have time to dawdle. Going through the correspondence from Avignon, dictating my missives by way of reply …

Perhaps you will be surprised, Archambaud, by the impatient words that I let slip sometimes regarding the Holy Father. It is true that I can be quick-tempered and show my vexation a little too much. It is because he gives me much to chew on. But you must believe me that I have no hesitation in showing him his foolishness. And more than once I have said to him: ‘May the grace of God, most Holy Father, enlighten you on the blunder you have just made.’

Ah! If only the French cardinals hadn’t suddenly dug their heels in over the idea that a man of such good birth would be unsuited for the office … humility, one needed to be born into humility … and if only, in addition to this, the Italian cardinals, Capocci and the others, had been less stubborn on the return of the Holy See to Rome … All they can think of are their Italian states; and Rome, Rome! The Capitol blocks their view of God.

What annoys me the most about our Innocent is his policy towards the emperor. With Pierre Roger, I mean Clement VI, we pushed six years long to prevent the emperor from being crowned. That he was elected was all very well. That he may govern, we give our consent. But we had to keep his crowning in reserve so long as he hadn’t subscribed to the causes we wanted him to. I knew all too well that that emperor, no sooner anointed, would bring us bad luck.

Then our Aubert puts on the tiara and begins to sing: ‘Reconciliation, reconciliation.’ And in the spring of last year, he achieved his aims. ‘The Emperor Charles IV will be crowned; that is an order!’ he ended up telling me. Pope Innocent is one of those sovereigns who can muster energy only to beat a hasty retreat. We have any number of such people. He imagined he had pulled off a great victory as the emperor had accepted the condition that he enter Rome only on the morning of his coronation and leave again that same evening, not sleeping in the city. Mere trifles! The Cardinal Bertrand of Colombiers … ‘You see, I am appointing a Frenchman; you should be satisfied …’ was sent to place the crown of Charlemagne upon the brow of the Bohemian. Six months later, in return for this kindness, Charles IV honoured us with the Bulla Aurea, according to which the papacy no longer has the slightest say nor vote in the imperial election.

From now on, the Empire is to be formally organized by an electoral college of seven Germans so as to confederate their states … or put another way, would turn their beautiful anarchy into a permanent state of affairs. However, nothing has been settled for Italy and no one really knows by whom nor in what way the country will be governed. The most serious thing about the Bulla, something Innocent hadn’t appreciated, is that it separates temporal and spiritual power and sets in stone the independence of nations vis-à-vis the papacy. It is the end, it is the eradication of the principle of the universal monarchy as exercised by the successor of Saint Peter, in the name of Our Lord God Almighty. God is thus sent back to heaven, and we are left to do whatever we please here on earth. They call this ‘the modern mentality’, and they make a show of it. I choose to call it, forgive me, my nephew, having shit in one’s eyes.

There is no such thing as an ancient mentality or a modern mentality. There is just the mind on the one hand, and stupidity on the other. And what did our pope do? Did he rant and rail? Did he excommunicate? He sent the emperor the softest and friendliest of missives replete with his blessings … Oh! No, oh! No, I didn’t draft it. But I am the one who, at the Diet of Metz, will have to hear them solemnly proclaim this Bulla that renounces the supreme power of the Holy See and can only bring turmoil, unrest and misfortune to all Europe. It is indeed a bitter pill that I have to swallow, and with good grace to boot, since now that Germany has pulled away from us, we need more than ever to work to save France, otherwise there will be nothing left, for God will have nothing left. Ah! The future may well curse this year 1355! We haven’t finished harvesting its prickly fruit.

And the Navarrese during all this time? Well now! He, the little king, was in Navarre, absolutely delighted to learn that in addition to all the mayhem and quarrelling he had started, came yet more troubles from the imperial front.

Firstly, he waited for the return of his man Friquet of Fricamps, who had left for England with the Duke of Lancaster, and who was coming back with one of his chamberlains, bearer of the opinions of King Edward on the project of a treaty drawn up in Avignon. And the chamberlain was to return to London, this time accompanied by Colin Doublel, one of his equerries and one of the murderers of Monsieur of Spain, who was to present the observations of his master.

Charles of Navarre is the exact opposite of King John. He is better than a notary at fighting over every article, every full stop, every comma of an agreement. And invoking this and anticipating that. And using such and such a custom that is deemed authoritative, and always looking to grind his own obligations down a little while increasing the other party’s … And, in taking his time to bake his bread with the Englishman, he gave himself the luxury of keeping an eye on what was cooking over in France.