The King Without a Kingdom (26 page)

The Holy Father granted me audience in his chapel, which he hardly ever leaves, a small, five-sided apse, adjoining the great audience chamber, because he does in fact need an audience chamber, he realized, and which he had decorated by an image-maker from Viterbo, Matteo Giova something or other, Giovanotto, Giovanelli, Giovannetti … it is blue, it is pale; it would belong very well in a nunnery; I personally don’t like it at all; not enough red, not enough gold. Bright colours don’t cost any more than the others. And the noise, my nephew! Evidently, the apse is the calmest room in all of the palace, and that is why the Holy Father withdraws there! Saws grate in the stone, hammers bang against chisels, hoists squeal, cartage roll, beams bounce, workers call out to each other or quarrel, shouting. Dealing with serious matters in such a racket is purgatory. I understand that he suffers headaches, the Holy Father! ‘You see, my venerable brother,’ he tells me, ‘I spend a great deal of money and cause myself a great deal of bother to build up around me the appearance of poverty. And then I still have to keep up the huge palace opposite. I can’t just let it crumble.’

He touches my heart, Pope Aubert, when he laughs at himself so sadly, and seems to recognize his mistakes, to mollify me.

He was sitting on a wretched curule chair
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that I wouldn’t have had for a seat even in my first bishop’s palace; as usual, he remained stooped throughout the meeting. A large hooked nose, in the continuation of his forehead, big nostrils, big eyebrows raised very high, big ears, the lobes sticking out from under his white cap, the corners of his mouth turned down into his curly beard. His body is powerfully built, and one is surprised that his health is so fragile. A stone sculptor is working on fixing his likeness, for his tomb’s recumbent statue. Because he doesn’t want a standing effigy: ostentation. But he does, all the same, allow the need for a tomb.

One day he was lamenting his fate. He went on: ‘Each pope, my brother, must live, in his own way, the passion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. My own way has been in the failure of all of my undertakings. Since God’s will hoisted me up to the summit of the Church, I feel my hands are nailed down. What have I accomplished, what have I done right during these three and a half years?’

God’s will, certainly, certainly; but we have to admit that it chose to express itself a little through my modest person. Which allows me a certain freedom with the Holy Father. But there are things, in spite of everything, that I cannot tell him. I can’t tell him, for example, that men who find themselves invested with supreme authority should not use it to justify their elevation by changing the world. With the humble great there is an insidious form of pride that is often the cause of their failings.

Pope Innocent’s projects, his high undertakings, I know them well. There are three, which are dependent upon each other. The most ambitious one: reunite the Latin and Greek Churches, under the authority of the Catholic Church, of course; bring together East and West, re-establish unity in the Christian world. It has been the dream of every pope for the last thousand years. And I had, with Clement VI, moved matters along considerably, further along than they had ever been before, and, in any case, than they are at present. Innocent took up the project once more in his own name and as if the idea had come to him, brand new, by visitation of the Holy Spirit. Let’s not argue.

To achieve this, second undertaking, and a prerequisite to the first: re-establish the papacy in Rome, because the authority of the pope over the Christians of the East would only be accepted if it were expressed from the height of Saint Peter’s throne. Constantinople, though at present in a state of bankruptcy, could yield only to the authority of Rome, not Avignon, without losing honour. On that point, as you know, my opinion differs entirely. Such reasoning would be true provided that the person of the pope himself should not, in Rome, be exposed as being even weaker than he is in Provence.

Now, to return to Rome, first it was necessary, as a third project, to make up with the emperor. Which was undertaken as a matter of priority. Let’s see where we stand regarding these fine projects. We rushed, against my advice, to crown Emperor Charles, elected eight years ago, and over whom we had an advantage so long as we held out on his coronation. Today, we are powerless against him. He thanked us with his Bulla Aurea, that we were forced to swallow, thus losing all of our authority not only over the empire’s elections, but also over the Church’s finances within the empire. This is no reconciliation, it is a capitulation. In return, the emperor has generously left our hands free in Italy, that is to say he has honoured us with the chance to plunge them into a veritable hornets’ nest.

To Italy the Holy Father sent the Cardinal Álvarez d’Albornoz, who is more of a captain than a cardinal, in order to prepare the return to Rome. Albornoz began by pegging himself to Cola di Rienzi, who for a while held sway over Rome. Born in a Trastevere inn, this Rienzo was one of those men of the people with the face of Caesar who spring up from time to time over there, and who captivate the Romans by reminding them that their forefathers used to hold command over the entire universe. Furthermore, he passed himself off as the son of an emperor, having found himself out to be the bastard of Henry VII of Luxembourg, but he remained alone in this opinion. He chose the title of tribune, wore a purple toga, sat in state atop the Capitoline Hill, on the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter. My friend Petrarch welcomed him as the restorer of Italy’s former greatness. This Rienzo could have been used as a pawn on our chessboard, to be advanced discerningly, but not by placing all our hopes on him. He was murdered two years ago by the Colonnas, because Albornoz took too long in sending him assistance, notwithstanding his attachment. Now we must start everything all over again; and we have never been further from returning to Rome, where anarchy reigns even more so than in the past. One should always dream of Rome, but never return there.

As for Constantinople … Oh! We have made excellent progress in our talks. The Emperor Palaiologus is willing to recognize us; he has solemnly committed to it; he would even go so far as to kneel before us if only he could leave his cramped little empire. He made just one condition: that we send him an army to deliver him from his enemies. He has reached the point where he would happily recognize a country priest in exchange for five hundred knights and a thousand foot soldiers.

Ah! You too are astonished! If the unity of Christians, if the reuniting of the Churches depends only upon this, can’t we dispatch this little army to the Grecian Sea? Well no, my good Archambaud, we cannot. Because we have neither the material to equip it nor the money to pay the men’s wages. Because our fine policy has produced its results; because, to disarm our critics, we resolved to reform ourselves and return to the purity of the Church of our origins … Which origins? Most bold is the one who can claim to truly know them! What purity! No sooner were there twelve apostles than there was a traitor amongst them.

And to start by doing away with the commendams and benefices not contributing to the cure of souls. ‘The flock should be kept by a shepherd, not by a mercenary’, and to order that those who have amassed wealth should be excluded from the divine mysteries – ‘Let us make ourselves in the image of the poor’ – and to ban all tributes coming from prostitutes and games of dice … yes, we have indeed gone down deep into such details. Ah! It is because games of dice encourage the utterance of blasphemy; no impure money; let us not grow fat from sin, which, becoming ever cheaper, only grows and spreads.

The result of all these reformations is that the coffers are empty, as pure money flows in only the finest of streams; the malcontents have increased tenfold, and there are always false prophets, ‘visionaries’, to preach that the pope is a heretic.

Ah! If it is true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the dear Holy Father will have paved a good deal of the way!

‘My venerable brother, open up all of your thoughts to me; don’t hide anything from me, even if it is criticism that you have in mind.’

Can I tell him that if he were to read more attentively what the Creator has written for us in the heavens, he would see that the stars form poor conjunctions and sad quadratures over almost all of the thrones, including his own, on which he is seated precisely because the configuration is ill-fated, whereas, if it were favourable it would probably be me sitting there instead? Can I tell him that when one is in such a bleak sidereal position, that it is not the time to be rebuilding one’s house from top to bottom, but only to be holding it together as best one can, as it was handed down to us, and that it is not enough to turn up from the village of Pompadour in the Limousin, with the simple ways of a peasant, to be heeded by kings and to put right the injustices of the world. The tragedy of our time is that, of the great thrones, none is occupied by a man as great as his charge. Ah! The successors to these kings will not have an easy task!

He told me again, the day before my departure: ‘Would I be the pope who could have reunited all Christians but who failed to do so? I hear that the King of England is assembling in Southampton fifty vessels to transport near four hundred knights and archers and more than one thousand horses to the continent.’ I do indeed believe that he had heard as much; it was I who gave him the news. ‘It is half of what I would need to satisfy the Emperor Palaiologus. Couldn’t you, with the assistance of our brother the Cardinal Capocci, whom I know well does not have all of your qualities, and whom I cannot manage to love as much as I love you …’ flour, flour to send me to sleep … ‘but who in the eyes of King Edward is not seen as unworthy, couldn’t you together persuade him, instead of putting this expedition to use against France … Yes, I can see what you are thinking. King John has also called up his army; but he is open to feelings of chivalrous and Christian honour. You have power over him. If the two kings gave up the idea of fighting each other and both dispatched the entirety of their forces to Constantinople so that it could return to the fold of the only true Church, what glory wouldn’t they gain from such an act? Try to impress this upon them, my venerable brother; show them that instead of bloodying their kingdoms, and amassing suffering for their Christian peoples, they would make themselves worthy of the loyalty of the most valiant knights and saints.’

I replied: ‘Most Holy Father, what you wish for will be the easiest thing in the world to achieve, as soon as two conditions have been met: for King Edward, that he be recognized rightful King of France and crowned in Rheims; for King John, that King Edward relinquish his claims and that he pay homage to him. Once these two things are accomplished, I see no other obstacle.’

‘You are making fun of me, my brother; you have no faith.’

‘I have faith, Most Holy Father, but I do not feel myself capable of making the sun shine at night. That said, I believe with all my faith that if God wants a miracle, He can accomplish it without us.’

We remained a moment without talking, as a cart was unloading its cargo of rubble stones in a neighbouring courtyard and a team of carpenters were having a row with the cart drivers. The pope lowered his big nose, his big nostrils, his big beard. Finally, he says: ‘At least, get from them a new truce. Tell them that I forbid them to resume hostilities against each other. Should any prelate or cleric oppose your peace efforts, you will deprive him of all of his ecclesiastical benefices. And remember, if the two kings persist in warmongering, you can go so far as to excommunicate them; this is written in your instructions. Excommunication and interdict.’

Further to this reminder of my powers, I was very much in need of the benediction he gave me. Because, can you see me, Archambaud, in the state in which Europe finds itself, excommunicating the kings of France and England? Edward would have immediately released his Church from all obedience to the Holy See, and John would have sent his constable to lay Avignon to siege. And Innocent, what would he have done, in your opinion? I am going to tell you. He would have disavowed me, and lifted the excommunications. All of that was just words.

So the following day, we left.

Three days earlier, on the eighteenth of June, the Duke of Lancaster’s troops had landed in La Hague.