Whilst these things were going on at the foot of Mount Cassel, the Karls at its summit were holding council of war. The wisest of them would have waited until the Bruges burghers had had time to bring them help, others would have gone down under cover of night, and surprised the French in their tents, but Zannekin dismissed their words with disdain. ‘What,’ he cried, ‘with the French King before us, not fight! Shall we, then, who know not what fear is, tremble at this man’s fierce looks? Let us rather thank God that the foes we have so long waited for are now here, and profit by their confusion to slay them forthwith.’ ‘Ay, ay,’ answered a thousand voices, and the Karls made ready for battle. ‘They were brave men and free,’ notes Villani, ‘and they feared not to assail this most redoubtable host.’

The long summer’s day was mingling with night when the Karls went down into the French camp, and before any one was aware of their presence they were in the midst of the barons, who, ‘without armour and arrayed in gorgeous apparel, were going from tent to tent to gossip together of the day’s doings.’[29] Presently a knight, one Rénaud of Loire, came forth to upbraid them for thus ‘presuming to disturb the privacy of gentlemen.’ He had taken the intruders for a company of his own troops returning late to camp. In less than the twinkling of an eye Rénaud was a dead man. Some of his comrades had essayed to defend him, but they shared his fate, and the Flemings marched on, not far now from the object of their quest—the royal pavilion. Philippe, like his knights, had lately dined, and now, replete with rich dishes and strong drink, he was dozing in his tent. Suddenly his chaplain plucked his sleeve. ‘Mark ye, sir,’ he whispered, as he peeped through the curtains, ‘the Flemings are upon us.’ ‘A monk’s nightmare,’ muttered Philippe, and he was turning again to sleep when Miles of Noyers rushed in and confirmed the chaplain’s fears. In a moment Philippe had buckled on his mail, and almost alone, for the greater number of his attendants had fled, went out to face the foe. The first man he met was Zannekin. His battle-axe was raised to strike, and in another moment it would have split open the King’s skull had not Miles dexterously drawn Philippe aside. Then the tide of fortune turned, and soon all that was left of the Saxon host were three great heaps of corpses.

Zannekin was the last to fall, ‘and his death cry was mingled with the voices of the royal chaplains intoning the antiphon of St. Denis.’

Of the sixteen thousand Flemings slain not one had attempted flight, not one of them had budged an inch. Each man fell where he had stood at the beginning of the conflict. If courage could have given the Karls victory, the day would have been theirs, but so great were the odds against them, that from the first they had but one ground for hope—that panic inspired by the suddenness of their coming would fight for them. On this poor chance Zannekin had ventured his all, and he paid the price of his temerity.

If the townsmen of Flanders had been made of the stuff of their country cousins disaster might have yet been averted, but these latter were full-blooded Saxons, and in all the cities, save haply Furnes, the burghers’ power of resistance was in some measure rendered nugatory by their grandams’ Celtic nerves.

So was it at Ypres. When the news of the disaster reached them the burghers were for instant submission if only Philippe could be prevailed on to guarantee their lives and their limbs. One man alone kept cool, and strangely enough that man was a clerk. From the pulpit of his own church (he was parish priest of St. Michael’s) this sturdy representative of the Church Militant implored his fellow-citizens, ‘for God’s sake and the sake of the fatherland,’ to show fight. But it was too late. That very day Miles Noyers entered the town with an overwhelming force, and the handful of labouring men who had been moved by their priest’s appeal were cut to pieces.

So too was it at Bruges. When the news of the disaster reached them, the women went into hysterics and the men lost their heads, and in less than the twinkling of an eye, the lilies of France, run up by their own hands, were proudly floating over the belfry.

In spite of their pusillanimity, the reckoning which the burghers had to pay was a sufficiently onerous one: humiliation unspeakable, the city fathers on their knees suing for mercy in the dust of the Maele road, and worse—the charter of their liberties cancelled, their ramparts broken down, and a fine so heavy that they were never able to pay it; and worse still—not a few of their leading citizens, men of substance and renown, tortured to death, and all their wealth confiscated.

Amongst these note Lambert Bowine, captain of the Franc, and Willem de Deken, town burgomaster. His fate was the cruellest of all. He had fled to Brabant in the hope that the burghers there would protect him, but they showed themselves as craven as their fellows in Flanders. They handed him over to the French King, and poor Deken was carried to Paris, where he was mutilated, pilloried, put on the wheel, taken off again for fear he should die too soon, and bleeding, broken, in pitiable plight, but still alive, set in gaol till the morrow, when he was torn to pieces by wild horses. They gathered up the fragments of his poor mangled body and hung them on the great gibbet of Mont Faucen, by way of object lesson for the citizens of the capital.

These items made up the sum-total of the burghers’ bill of costs, and it was the same all over the country. Not a town save Ghent preserved its liberties intact, and even beloved Ghent saw not a few of her burghers driven into exile. In less than three months ten thousand Flemings were done to death.

The Abbot of St. Martin’s at Tournai explains how this came about. ‘Louis’s keen appetite for gold,’ he says, ‘increased in a marvellous manner his suspicions, and consequently the number of his victims. And the most galling part of it was that all this untarnished gold was squandered on harlots and on favourites, men too of mean estate some of them. His lackeys, his grooms, and even his barber were at Bruges installed in palaces which had once been the homes of honourable burghers.’ The city archives bear witness to it.

At last, after long years of waiting, salvation came from England, at first indirectly, and afterwards through the active co-operation of Edward III. with the communes of Flanders.

Of course England acted from self-interest. She had no more love for the down-trodden burghers of Flanders than they had for the comfortable yeomen on the other side of the channel; and even if her sympathy had been ever so great, she could not have raised a finger to help them unless she had been likewise impelled by some less ephemeral motive. Individuals may sometimes indulge in the luxury of pure benevolence; trustees, in justice to their clients, can rarely afford to do so. Occasionally the interests of the latter may go hand in hand with their own charitable inclinations, and then they may pose as philanthropists, and if the pit applaud their seeming generosity, so much the better.

In the case before us, however, no such protestations were made. The freedom of the Flemish communes was vital to the prosperity of England, and the motives which inspired the respective parties were avowedly motives of mutual accommodation. In those days the wool growers of the island kingdom had but one customer, the mammoth guilds of Flemish weavers, and they, in their turn, could nowhere find such famous wool as in the English market.

‘So fine was the breed of English sheep at this period,’ notes Green, ‘that the exportation of live rams for the improvement of foreign wool was forbidden by law, though a flock is said to have been smuggled out of the realm shortly after, and to have become the source of the famous merinos of Spain,’ and the magnitude of the wool trade between England and Flanders may be estimated from this fact. In a single year Edward received more than eighty thousand pounds from duties levied on wool alone.[30]

When, therefore, in the autumn of 1336, hostilities broke out between Edward III. and Philip of France, and Louis of Nevers, at the instigation of the latter, caused every Englishman in Flanders to be put under arrest, and Edward by way of reprisal forbade the exportation of English wool, all Flemish looms ceased work, and the towns were filled with misery. But the sheep-farmers of England suffered equally with the weavers of Bruges, and soon the English King was forced in the interests of his own subjects to attempt negotiations, first with Louis of Nevers, and when this failed, directly with the burghers.

It was in consequence of Edward’s efforts to attach the communes to his interest that the Count of Flanders about this time entirely reversed his home policy, essaying by the largeness of his promises and concessions to induce the communes to side with France, and among the cities which most benefited by his changed humour Bruges stood first. She was permitted to deepen and widen her moats, to reconstruct her ramparts, and by a charter, dated April 14, 1337, all her ancient rights and liberties were re-established and confirmed.

This then was the first boon which Bruges received from England’s intervention—a boon, in truth, conferred indirectly, but no small one for all that.

Ghent was the only city which did not participate in Louis’s favours. Of the cause of this, of Louis’s relentless persecution of the town he had once held dear, of her heroic resistance and ultimate triumph, thanks to the patriot Van Artevelde and the support of Edward III., it is not here the place to treat in detail. These things belong to the story of Ghent. Suffice it to say that Bruges, which for a time had supported Philippe and Louis in a half-hearted way, at last, seeing how matters stood, and that Ghent was conquering all along the line, joined hands with her; that at a solemn assembly of the representatives of the city and the Liberty of Bruges, and the cities of Ypres and Ghent, held under the presidency of Van Artevelde at the Abbey of Eeckhout early in the spring of 1337, and only a few days after Louis’s re-establishment of the Bruges charter of rights, their alliance was solemnly proclaimed; that at this assembly it was furthermore enacted that each of the three bonnes villes—Ghent, Ypres and Bruges—should choose three deputies to watch over their interests and administer the country; that on the 29th of April a deputation from all the towns and communes of Flanders, headed by Jacob van Artevelde, waited on Louis at Maele, and there recounted to him all that had taken place; and that he, finding submission the only course open to him, consecrated the acts of the burghers with the seal of his approval, and, once more burthening his soul with perjury, solemnly swore to maintain intact all their rights and liberties. From that moment until his death Van Artevelde was ruler of Flanders. Essentially a man of peace, in face of the great conflict raging between England and France the main object of his policy was to keep Flanders out of the fray, and for some time his efforts were successful. So much so that he even accomplished the difficult task of negotiating treaties of commerce with each of the belligerents.

It was only the perfidy of the French King which at length drove him to take sides with England. Philippe and Louis had broken their most solemn engagement before he determined to seek out Edward III. at Bruxelles and in the name of the communes of Flanders solemnly recognize him as the successor of St. Louis.

During the nine years of Van Artevelde’s government Flanders prospered exceedingly, and during all that time, thanks to his consummate abilities and Edward’s generous support, she held her own. At length, when the fear of her enemies was taken away by too much prosperity and an overweening confidence, the besetting sin of the Flemish people wrecked all.

The country-side had grown jealous of the city, the lesser communes of the three bonnes villes. The canker had spread further still; town suspected town, guild was at loggerheads with guild, and even individual citizens began to cast evil eyes on one another; and, added to this, there was the hatred of rivals jealous of Artevelde’s great position; and Louis, who was now residing in France, through his agents blowing the fire.

Presently the crisis came. Early in July the representatives of the communes had met at Bruges for the purpose of electing a regent, and Sohier of Courtrai, Artevelde’s brother-in-law, with King Edward’s consent, had been chosen to fill the office. On his return to Ghent after this conference the great tribune was besieged in his house by a mob of small tradesmen and street roughs in the pay of his rivals and of Louis of Nevers.

He had been plotting, they said, to hand over Ghent to the tender mercies of the English, who were going to pillage the town; he would make the Prince of Wales Count; he had taken advantage of his position to heap up a vast fortune, and had sent his treasure to London. In vain Van Artevelde tried to appease them; the sound of his voice but increased their fury, and his servants, who knew the risk he was running, dragged him from the window and would have had him seek refuge by a back way in a neighbouring church. Too late; the mob had by this time broken into the house, and a cobbler felled him dead on his own threshold. Thus perished the noblest man of his century, and with him too fell the grand edifice he had reared. The besetting sin of his people had once more shattered the mansion of Freedom.

The Count of Flanders did not long survive his illustrious victim. When the English victory of Cressy gave feudalism its death-blow, he fell fighting for the French King, and note this fact—Philippe of Valois was the one man to whom Louis had ever been faithful.

CHAPTER XVIII

Louis of Maele

LOUIS OF MAELE, the eldest son of Louis of Nevers, so called from the place of his birth, was a beautiful stripling of sixteen years when the old Count died. He too had fought at Cressy, had received honourable wounds there, and had been knighted on the battlefield. But if he possessed his father’s courage, he was heir also to his inclination to crooked ways, as the communes of Flanders soon learnt to their cost. Immediately after the great defeat he had set out for Paris, where he did homage to Philippe of Valois, and from thence sent envoys to Halwyn to negotiate with the Flemish burghers, who, strangely enough, consented to accept him for their prince. Perhaps they thought that Louis’s youth would render him manageable, perhaps inherent jealousy prevented them from agreeing on anyone else, but for all that, the long-headed Flemings deemed it expedient to make their own conditions—conditions which, whatever they may have been, Louis seems to have had no hesitation in accepting, for, by the end of November, we find him installed at Bruges, and—presage of his future policy—surrounded by the Leliaert nobles who had been his father’s friends. Presently he publicly proclaimed the first part of his programme, and vehemently urged the communes to renounce their allegiance to Edward III. From this moment men had little doubt that the ultimate goal of his ambition was to crush the strength

of the towns. For generations the Kings of France had endeavoured to enslave them, and Philippe of Valois himself had broken his most solemn pledges, whilst the English monarchs, from time immemorial, had shown themselves their friends, and for fifteen years King Edward III. had backed fair promises with blood and sterling gold. Interest and inclination alike, then, resolved the burghers to stand by him, nay more, to draw the bonds of union closer by marrying his daughter to their Count. Louis, when the matter was first broached to him, refused to listen. He would never wed, he plainly told them, the daughter of his father’s murderer, but when the burghers persisted, no less dogged than they, he resolved to cut the knot in true Flemish fashion. Not strong enough to risk a contest at Bruges, the chief centre, for the moment, of nationalism, he feigned acquiescence, and presently, along with the city fathers, set out for Bergue, where Edward was holding his Court. The meeting took place towards the middle of February, at the Abbey of St. Winoc, and Edward received the Flemish Count with every token of affection, solemnly assuring him, as he took him by the hand, that he was a stranger to his father’s death, and presently Isabelle of England and Louis of Flanders mutually plighted their troth.

It had been arranged that the marriage should take place in the middle of April, and a fortnight previous to the appointed date Edward’s ambassadors waited on Louis, who had meanwhile returned to Bruges, and besought him to take command of the English forces.

Next day he planned for their entertainment a great hunting party in Maele Woods. No sooner had the hawks been loosed than, feigning great zest for the sport, he set off at full speed and was soon out of sight of his companions, nor did he rein in his horse until he had crossed the French frontier and reached Lille.

Edward was furious when he learned what had happened, and Isabelle cut to the quick. She was in sooth, she said, Countess of Flanders, and until the day of her death she continued to wear the Flemish arms embroidered on her gown. As to the burghers, they at once took up arms, and it was only the mutual jealousy of Ghent and Bruges that saved the truant Count. His policy was to favour the latter town, in order that he might thereby hold in check alike her great rival and the other cities of Flanders.

Throughout his long and tumultuous reign of well-nigh forty years, by his lying, his meanness and his chicanery, Louis of Maele showed himself the worthy son of Louis of Nevers.

He made Bruges the seat of his government and his chief place of residence, and here he squandered in riotous living the gold which he everywhere extorted throughout the rest of his domains.

Embellished by splendid monuments, enriched by the presence of a lavish and luxurious Court, her trade fostered by privileges innumerable and concessions without end, the city on the Roya prospered marvellously during the reign of Louis of Maele. Advancing from day to day in comeliness and wealth and renown, she, during this period, attained the acme of her greatness. Merchants from every country in Europe bought and sold in her markets, ships from all parts of the world brought rich cargoes to her wharves. No less than twenty foreign Consuls occupied palaces within her bounds, and her population is said to have numbered two hundred and fifty thousand souls. But if Bruges now shone resplendent in a golden halo of magnificence, the moral squalor of her citizens equalled only the meanness of spirit of the man who had done such great things for her. Fickle, selfish, cowardly they had ever been, and they now only showed themselves grateful to their benefactor so long as it was in his power to help them, and, when they had gone over to the national party, only supported their new friends whilst their star was in the ascendant.

In 1379 Louis of Maele had granted them permission to construct a canal for the purpose of bringing the waters of the Lys to Bruges, doubtless with the object of preventing, by means of a greater flow of water, the silting up of the Zwyn, which even at this early period had already commenced. During four months, from the 19th of March to the 23rd of July, the men of Bruges were busy at this undertaking, and then a great army of Ghenters, fearing for their own commerce, went out and put them to flight. Louis was unable to afford protection, and the burghers threw open their gates and made common cause with his enemies.

Presently they prepared a sumptuous banquet in honour of their new friends. Among the guests who sat down to it was the Ghent leader, Jean Yoens, dean of the great guild of watermen. That night he died mysteriously of a malady which no physician could diagnose, and the gossips on ‘Change shrugged their shoulders and whispered poison.

But though Bruges had allied herself to the city on the Lys, and a great army of Ghenters was, with her consent, encamped in her midst, her soul was rent with envy, and on May 13, 1380, her citizens surprised and slew no small number of them in the Friday Market, and then these sturdy burghers, still smoking with the blood of their guests, went and sought out Louis of Maele, and demanded from him fresh privileges by way of recompense for their devotion. Just two years later, on May 3, 1382, retribution followed.

For years past Louis had oppressed and persecuted the men of Ghent ‘even as Pharaoh of old had persecuted the children of Israel’; of late fortune had singularly favoured his efforts; he had cut off all their supplies, and the town was sick with hunger. Such was the misery of the people that for a fortnight—we have it on the testimony of Philip van Artevelde—thirty thousand of them had not tasted bread. At length, driven to it by wretchedness, they determined to go forth and beard the lion in his den, and presently Philip van Artevelde and a handful of half-starved burghers set out for Bruges. He had called to his standard all men who were able to take the field, but a bare five thousand of them had answered his summons—to such pitiable plight had famine reduced the strength of the city of Ghent, one of the most populous towns in Europe.

When they reached Oedelem, in the neighbourhood of Maele Castle, Philippe sent envoys to Bruges to make one last effort to negotiate an honourable peace, but the guildsmen remembered their bloody triumph of two years ago, and boasted that in less than an hour they could easily cut to pieces this puny band of Ghenters; and presently Louis, at the head of eight hundred knights and forty thousand tradesmen—tailors, butchers, fishmongers and the like—unarmed and half drunk, in spite of his better judgment was compelled to go forth to battle. With such an auxiliary force behind him the issue was a foregone conclusion. At the first discharge of their opponents’ artillery, the drunken rabble made for Bruges. The Ghenters gave chase, and ran so swiftly that they reached the city gates almost at the same moment as the men they were pursuing; one of the foremost of them was in time to thrust his pike between the doors at the moment the Bruges men were closing them, and soon Van Artevelde and his comrades were thronging into the city.

Louis, who had been unhorsed at the commencement of the stampede, had somehow or other managed to remount, and along with some thirty or forty knights had the good fortune to reach his palace in safety. From thence he sent out heralds to summon all his burghers under pain of death to assemble in the market-place. Hardly had he done so when Robert Maerschalck, the husband of one of his natural daughters, came in hot haste to the palace with tidings that Van Artevelde was now in the heart of the city. Night had already set in, and his counsellors, trembling for the safety of his person, would have had him remain indoors, but Louis refused, and accompanied by a handful of serving men, and crying, ’Flandre au comte au lion,’ rushed out into the darkness. When he reached the Grande Place he knew that his cause was lost. It was filled indeed with armed men, but it was not the burghers of Bruges who had assembled there. Flaunting over the seething throng, he could distinguish the banner of Ghent. ‘Put out your lights,’ hissed the Count to his lackeys, ‘and let each man think of himself.’ Alone, under cover of the darkness and a buttress of St. Amand’s Church—long since demolished—he unbuckled his coat of mail and put on the clothes of one of his serving-men.

About midnight he summoned up courage to knock at the door of a wretched hovel hard-by, and recognizing in the person who opened it a poor widow to whom he had often given alms, appealed to her generosity. ‘Woman,’ he whispered, ‘save me; I am the Count of Flanders.’ She pointed to a rickety ladder, and bade him go up to the garret. There, under a heap of straw, he lay all that night and all the next day. When darkness had again set in he made his way out of the city, and, after a host of hairbreadth adventures, presently reached Lille. ‘Now mark,’ comments wise old Froissart, ‘all ye who hear this tale, consider what marvellous changes of fortune God in His good pleasure bringeth about. In the morning the Count of Flanders had thought himself one of the mightiest princes in Christendom, and in the evening he found it convenient to hide himself in the mean home of a poverty-stricken woman.’

As for Van Artevelde, he treated the conquered town with no little generosity. By the small hours of the morning he had completely gained the upper hand, and his first act was to forbid further slaughter, and all looting, and every kind of outrage under penalty of death. He next summoned the burghers of Bruges to a conference in the Grande Place. Hardly had they assembled than a member of Van Artevelde’s own family was led bound into his presence. He had been taken red-handed in some act of violence. ‘What,’ exclaimed the great tribune, ‘you, who should have been a pattern of obedience, the first to break my commands!’ and he ordered that he should be flung headlong from one of the windows of the belfry. As he fell some men-at-arms caught him on the points of their spears, and a cruel shout of approbation welled from the throats of the Bruges men—‘Behold a just judge, a man cut out for captain of Flanders!’ and they swore that henceforth the burghers of Bruges would live in brotherly love with the burghers of Ghent.

But Van Artevelde, knowing the men he had to deal with, required something more tangible than their bare word, and the burghers were compelled to deliver into his hands a goodly number of hostages; to witness the destruction of three city gates:—the Porte Ste. Croix, the Porte Ste. Cathérine and the Porte de Gand, and thirty feet of wall around each of them; and lastly, to submit themselves to the two Ghent captains, Peter Van den Bossche and Peter de Wintere, whom Artevelde appointed governors of the town. For the rest he contented himself with requisitioning an ample supply of provisions for the famine-stricken town of Ghent, and for three whole days the high road from Bruges to that city was crowded with carts and waggons groaning under the weight of food stuffs.

At the expiration of that time, thanks to the energy and prudence of Van Artevelde, the markets were peacefully re-opened, and the town assumed its wonted aspect. During his short rule—it only lasted six months—trade revived, justice was rigorously administered, and peace reigned throughout Flanders. Then came the French invasion, the Flemish defeat at Rosebeke, and the great tribune’s untimely death (November 27, 1382). The conquerors found his mangled body on the battlefield amongst a heap of slain, and they hung it in chains on a lofty tree, and the birds of the air devoured it.

Never had Flanders suffered a defeat so disastrous. ‘Sixty thousand of her sons had perished,[31] the land was deluged with blood.’[32] A blow had been hurled at communal government from which it never really recovered.

Thanks to the intervention of Louis of Maele, and his son-in-law the Duke of Burgundy, backed by the support of certain great nobles whose goodwill the burghers had purchased with heavy bribes, Bruges suffered less at the hands of the French than the other communes of Flanders. She was not handed over to pillage, but the Breton mercenaries, disappointed of the rich booty which they thought to have obtained there, scoured the country round with fire and sword. ‘The French,’ says the monk of St. Denis, ‘cut the throats of all whom they met, sparing neither rank, nor age, nor sex, and thus it may be truly said of them that they slew the widow and the orphan, the youth and the maid, the old man and the suckling at its mother’s breast.’ As for Louis of Maele, he approved what he could not prevent. ‘Some people ask, most redoubtable lord,’ said he to King Charles VI., ‘how may best be crushed the turbulent spirit of this race—by sparing the land or by reducing it to a desert. As for me, I can only say: deal with the county of Flanders according to thy good pleasure, and whatsoever thou shalt deem fit to ordain I shall be contented.’ In truth Louis’s influence in the counsels of the French King was almost a thing of the past, and what little influence he still possessed was diminishing day by day. The campaign against Flanders had, indeed, been undertaken ostensibly for his behoof, but its real object was to deal a blow at England and to shatter the forlorn hope—the Flemish communes—of the restive communes of France; and when two years later (January 26, 1384) a truce was concluded between Richard II. and Charles VI., what Louis deemed his interests were wholly disregarded. In spite of his opposition—on this King Richard had insisted—the communes of Flanders, who had not even laid down their arms, were included in the truce of Lelinghem.

An exile from the rich land which he had once tyrannized over and exploited—for Louis no longer dared show his face in Flanders—without influence and without means, literally a homeless, impotent, poverty-stricken old man, dependent for his daily bread on alms which France begrudged him, so mean a creature did the once magnificent Louis appear in the eyes of the Duke of Berri that during the discussion of the terms of truce he had not hesitated to answer his vehement protest with insolent and contemptuous speech. Cousin, he said, si votre imprudence vous a couvert de maux et de honte, il est temps de renoncer à vos fureurs et de suivre de meilleurs conseils.

Cut to the quick by the insult, and powerless to resent it, Louis did not wait for the negotiations to be terminated, but withdrew in dudgeon to St. Omer, and here it was that he presently learned that the treaty in question had been signed. It was the last straw. The hand of death was upon him, and he knew it.

Louis was lodging in the great Benedictine Abbey where lay the bones of the founder of his house, Baldwin, Bras de Fer. Thither he summoned his companions in misfortune—the Dean of St. Donatian’s, the Lord of Gruthuise—founder of the Gruthuise Palace—John of Heusden, his physician, who was also Provost of Notre Dame, and Robert, his natural son, and in their presence he dictated his last will and testament. ‘Be it known to all,’ said the dying Count, ‘that I, mindful of the great honours, wealth and possessions, which Jesus Christ of His pure grace hath bestowed on me, unworthy, in this world, the which I have not used in His service and honour but for mine own vain glory, commend my poor sinful soul, as humbly as I may, to Him, to the Blessed Virgin, fount of mercy, and to all the saints in Paradise, whom I humbly beg to obtain for me forgiveness of my many and great sins.’ Then, with his own hands, he wrote to the Duke of Burgundy, conjuring him to repair the wrong which he had done to Flanders. He was sore grieved, he said, at the destruction of his people, who had been punished at his request.

On the night of the 30th of January 1384 a mighty hurricane swept over the land of Flanders. It was as though the four winds were blowing together, and yet neither tree nor steeple was touched by it, but the skeletons of Louis’s victims swayed to and fro on their gibbets and trembled in their chains. The spirits of darkness, said the people, were whirling his soul to hell.[33] ‘Ce dont plusieurs gens disoient ce que bon leur semblait,’ comments shrewd Juvenal des Ursins, which is as much as to say the wish was father to the thought.

A splendid specimen of civic architecture, perhaps the most perfect building of its kind in Northern Europe, still bears witness to poor Louis’s generosity to his beloved city Bruges. The present Hôtel de Ville

THE HÔTEL DE VILLE
THE HÔTEL DE VILLE

was his gift. He laid the foundation stone during the heyday of his magnificence, on January 14, 1376. In May 1379 the building must have been nearly completed, for about this time we find one Gilles de Man, a name still common in Bruges, busy gilding and colouring the statuary and niches of the façade, and the municipal accounts inform us that he received seven livres and fourteen escalins for his labour. Early in the following year the work was suspended on account of the trouble with Ghent, in all probability it was not resumed during Louis’s lifetime, and it was perhaps only completed in 1420.

Who the original architect may have been is a matter of conjecture. Monsieur Verschelde, the founder of the Archæological Society of Bruges, and for many years city architect, suggests Jean de Valenciennes, the artist whom we know designed and in great measure himself executed the sculpture which adorns the edifice. If this conjecture be warranted, Jean was, indeed, a creator of no ordinary talent, but of his story no vestige has come down to us, save only this: a man of the same name, perhaps his father, perhaps Jean himself, was vinder of the Bruges guild of painters in 1364.

It will be interesting to note that the façade of the Hôtel de Ville is the earliest structure in which appears an architectural arrangement which seems to have originated at Bruges, and which is perhaps the most distinguishing feature of its civic architecture. We allude to the long panels or arcades in which windows placed one over the other are frequently enclosed in such a manner as to give them the appearance of a series of long single windows ascending from the basement to the topmost storey.

Amongst the other remarkable structures of this period, note the nave and aisles and the upper portion of the transepts of the present cathedral, which replace work of an earlier date destroyed by fire on April 9, 1358, and were probably completed some two years later. If we can judge from the remnant still standing:—the choir ambulatory and the lower portion of the transepts, the old Church of St. Sauveur was far superior, both as regards design and execution, to the present edifice.

The great northern outer nave to the Church of Notre Dame dates also from this epoch (probably 1360). Here we have a striking example of the persistence of a feature rarely if ever met with in Gothic architecture either in England or in France, and which is, perhaps, so far as Northern Europe is concerned, at all events during the period in question, peculiar to Flanders—the semi-circular arch. The architects of Bruges seem never to have entirely abandoned it, and hence in that city its presence does not necessarily indicate that the building in which it is found is of Romanesque origin. Thus we find it in the tower of Notre Dame, which, as we have seen, dates from the close of the thirteenth century; in the northern transept of the cathedral of the same date; in the windows of the Porte de Gand, and of the Porte Ste. Croix of a century later; in the great porch of the hospital of St. John, and in the western façade of the Church of Notre Dame, and in domestic architecture of every period, over and over again. Sometimes it is used alone, sometimes in conjunction with the pointed arch. In the case of the northern nave of Notre Dame, it is employed for the vaulting, for the huge doorway at the western end, now bricked up, and for the five small bays of the outer arcade which connect it with the main building, whilst for the windows, for the bays of the inner arcade, and for the great opening at the east end which gives access to the tower, pointed arches are used.

For the rest, the building in question is characterised by its great height, the magnificent span of its vault, the grandeur of its proportions and the general simplicity

IV.—Genealogical Table of the Counts of Flanders from Guy de Dampierre to Marguerite of Maele.


IV.—Genealogical Table of the Counts of Flanders from Guy de Dampierre to Marguerite of Maele.

of its design. There is an unusual dearth of sculptured ornament, but what little there is, is happily conceived and delicately carried out.

As the building now stands, with its once glowing frescoes blotted out with white-wash, with its windows bereft of their painted glass and even of their tracery (this is now being replaced), with its cold, dismantled altars, and its chilling eighteenth-century pavement of marble, black and white, its general appearance is sufficiently bleak, and we were going to say sufficiently uninteresting, but that, no part of Notre Dame can ever be. The old church is too irregular, too picturesque, too mysterious. The incense of a thousand sweet memories still clings to its columns, the music of a thousand noble deeds still re-echoes in its vaulted roof, and in weird nooks and corners the red lamp of tragedy still burns. Something of its glory we have already noted, and we shall tell something more in its proper place.

Reader, make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame in the gloaming, and if thou art one of the initiated thou shalt haply learn the rest.

CHAPTER XIX

Bruges under the Princes of the House of Burgundy—Philip le Hardi and John Sans Peur—1385-1419

By this treaty Philip confirmed all the time-honoured rights and privileges and franchises of Ghent and of her allies; granted a general amnesty to all who had taken part in the recent rebellion; guaranteed the release of all prisoners of war, and the restitution of all confiscated property.

Had the communes remained united they would probably have been able to successfully withstand the craft and perseverance of their Burgundian chiefs, whose policy, no less than that of their predecessors, was to convert their limited rights over Flanders into a complete and absolute sovereignty. But if strife weakened the resisting power of the burghers, the terrific and magnificent princes who were striving to enslave them were deprived of one element of strength which was never lacking to the puny Lords of Nevers—the assistance and support of France. Harassed by England, rent by internal factions and with a lunatic for king, France was in no position to help anyone during the first half of the period we are now considering; and when, later on, under Louis XI., she had at last recruited her strength, the ambitious designs of the Dukes of Burgundy had forced her to become their bitterest foe. For not only would these men have welded into one vast independent state the conglomeration of fiefs in France and in Germany, which, by inheritance, by marriage, by conquest, by haggling they had gradually gathered into their maw, but their insatiable lust for dominion prompted them to meddle also with the private concerns of France—to essay to direct alike her domestic and foreign policy. Hence the memorable quarrel between the Dukes of Burgundy and the French princes—a quarrel which, notwithstanding the disasters it brought on their chiefs, was no little advantage to the Flemish race.

But there was another circumstance which in no small degree favoured the cause of freedom.

To carry out their vast enterprises the Dukes of Burgundy were constantly in need of the sinews of war. They wanted men to do battle for them, and they wanted money to further their political schemes. In each of these commodities Flanders was rich, and in spite of her recent enfeeblement, and in spite of internal divisions, she was still strong enough, and shrewd enough, to withhold her aid on each occasion that it was asked until she had first some substantial quid pro quo.

The necessity then of their Sovereigns was the burgher’s opportunity, and whenever they implored their assistance the answer, whether from Ypres or Bruges or Ghent, was invariably one—they were prepared to sell at a reasonable price, provided prepayment were made. Some grievance must first be redressed; some large charter of liberties granted; some obnoxious tax abolished, or some new treaty of commerce signed. But for all that the burghers knew very well that when their lords made concessions it was in spite of themselves, and when they curtailed their liberties, which they invariably did whenever they could safely do so, it was with a view later on to their total annihilation.

At the close of the reign of that magnificent ruffian, John the Fearless, the communes had thus achieved no small measure of success, whilst the progress which their rulers had made towards the goal of their ambition, at least so far as Flanders was concerned, was nil. For every two steps forward the exigencies of circumstances had forced them three steps back, so that, when John the Fearless died, Flanders was freer than she had ever been before.

This is all the more remarkable from the fact that Ghent, the mightiest of the Flemish cities, had of late shown herself but half hearted in support of the popular cause. It was the old story. Jealousy of her great rival, Bruges, and the national inability to withstand corruption. Philip the Rash and his morose son had alike favoured Ghent.

The vicissitudes of Bruges during the whole of this season were marvellous in the extreme—a continual alternation of peace and warfare, of merry-making and tumultuous frays, of luxury and pinching need, of honeyed speech and dire threats, for Philippe and John alike carried two faces under their hoods. When they wanted anything they could smile sweetly enough, and when they felt themselves independent they were wont to terrorize with fierce looks, and bloody deeds too, for the matter of that.

Hardly had the echo of the Carillon died away, which had swung out the joy of the burghers at the great pacification at the opening of Duke Philip’s rule, when hostilities broke out again. Philip was in no way sincere in signing that treaty which Ghent had so proudly negotiated with him, more like an independent sovereign state than a conquered rebel city, and presently he conceived a diabolical plot to slay all her burghers by means of Breton mercenaries whom he would secretly have brought into their midst. This fell design having been happily discovered, the agents who were to have accomplished it, disappointed of the rich booty they thought to have obtained at Ghent, turned their attention to Bruges, and soon began to break into the houses of sundry honourable burghers there, and to insult and molest their women. Whereupon tumult unspeakable, and in the midst of it all the Duke of Berri was descried riding towards the Pont des Carmes. This man was the most hated of all the French knights, for his hands were red, every burgher believed, with the blood of their favourite Louis of Maele. In a moment he was surrounded by the howling mob, unhorsed, wounded almost to death, and ‘if it had not been for the intervention of the Sire de Ghistelle—a man of weight, at Bruges—he would not have escaped with his life.’ Thus Froissart; and he adds, ‘Nor would a single knight or squire of France have been left alive in the town.’

Meanwhile Philip’s affairs had prospered in France. He was now practically regent of the kingdom. His wife, ‘une creuse et haute dame,’ was installed at Paris, and had undertaken the administration of the Queen’s household. The King’s counsellors were in exile; the Bishop of Laon was dead—poisoned, it was thought by many—and others would have probably shared his fate had not Philip’s hand been restrained by a passing fear that the King’s reason was returning.

Things then were going well with the Duke of Burgundy. He had time to turn his attention to the taming of the Flemish burghers, and amongst other regulations and proceedings, in direct contravention of the treaty of Tournai, he began to fight against the popular conscience.

It was the time of the great schism. From Rome and Avignon rival claimants to the Papal throne were hurling anathemas at one another. All Europe was divided as to who was the rightful Pope, and since it suited Philip to support Clement, of course his burghers felt bound in conscience to acknowledge Urban. Thanks to a gift of sixty thousand francs, the Ghenters had obtained permission to remain neutral, but hardly had three months expired when the Bishop of Teruanne went over to the side of Avignon, and at the same time all Antwerp followed his example. A favourable moment, thought Philip, to commence proselytism, by corruption, by violence, by any means at hand; and presently he formally forbade any of his subjects to obey the Pope of Rome. Then throughout Flanders all public worship ceased. Here and there, in the chapel of some great castle protected by high walls and a double moat, a Clementine priest would occasionally say Mass, but the boldest of them would not celebrate in public. If they had ventured to do so, the people would have dragged them from the altar. Bruges was beside herself. From the pulpit of St. Walburge the curate proclaimed the curse of Heaven on all who should recognize the Pope of Avignon, and forthwith fled the country. So too the Abbot of St. Peter’s and the Abbot of Bandeloo, and a host of monks and burghers, not a few of whom took refuge in England, where they obeyed the Pope of Rome. One of these last was not so fortunate. Petrus van Roesclare, a civic dignitary of great wealth. He was arrested and carried to Lille, and there they cut off his head. John van der Capelle, the patriot whom Philip had appointed High Steward of Flanders, after the pacification of Tournai, was for the same motive deprived of his office. So too John of Heyle, whose good offices had greatly contributed to the settlement of Tournai. He was loaded with chains and cast into prison, where shortly afterwards he died. ‘Men called him a martyr, for during the two months previous to his death he had tasted no solid food, and all that time he had passed in prayer.’

Philip, who was not ignorant of the rebellious spirit which his religious policy had aroused, about this time came to Bruges, hoping that his presence would frighten the burghers into submission. He had brought with him the Clementine Bishop of Tournai. On the following Sunday an ordination took place at St. Sauveur’s, and the next day at Sluys, but on neither occasion was a single burgher present, nor would any of them avail themselves of the ministrations of the newly-ordained clergy.

But though the Bruges men grumbled and stayed away from Mass, their religious convictions were not sufficiently strong, or they were too much awed by the presence of Philip, to attempt any overt act of opposition. Not so the men of Ghent. As soon as the obnoxious edict had been published, a riot ensued which was only with difficulty calmed by the Urbanist clergy themselves. Whereupon Philip, perceiving that the burghers had made up their minds, permitted them to follow the dictates of conscience, and Ghent then became a place of pilgrimage throughout Flanders. It was the only town in the country where men could worship as they would, and all Bruges went out there at Easter-time to receive Holy Communion (1394).

The death of Duke Philip, ten years later, afforded no little consolation to his subjects, but the advent of a yet sterner ruler soon taught them to regret the old man’s decease, for if Philip had beaten the Flemings with rods, his son John scourged them with scorpions.

As is the wont of most men when first they are invested with authority, during the early days of his reign he had been all smiles and condescension. At Ghent he had sworn on the true cross to ‘respect the rights and liberties of the communes and to do by them all that a righteous Lord and Count of Flanders should do.’ When a deputation of huffy burghers from Bruges and the other bonnes villes came out to greet him at Menin and showed themselves more eager to make known their grievances than to bid him welcome, he smoothed their ruffled feathers with soft words. He was ready, he said, to do anything they wanted; and when, a few days later, a second deputation waited on him at Ghent to complain of the commercial depression caused by the war between England and France, his answer was all that could be desired. He had already done his utmost to effect a reconciliation, but was prepared to try again, for no one, he added, with a touch of humour, was more interested in the prosperity of Flanders than he, for the richer she was the more she could afford to give him.

It was not until John had been thwarted that he showed of what stuff he was made. Opposition first came from the burghers of Bruges, and the burghers of Bruges were the first to experience the sting of his lash. It happened thus.

When in 1414 an English fleet of a hundred vessels sailed up the Zwyn and was threatening the fortress of Sluys—evil reminiscence of the conquest of Charles VI.—the burghers of Bruges refused to defend it, notwithstanding their Sovereign’s earnest entreaties. ‘It did not behove them,’ they said by the mouth of their burgomaster, Lievin van Schotclaere, ‘to protect a citadel which threatened the English less than their own liberties,’ nor was it until the invaders had taken Sluys and burnt the castle that, at last, the Bruges men consented to arm, and perhaps even then there was some secret understanding between them, for the English retired at the approach of the burghers, ‘slowly and without any sign of disquietude, rather after the manner of friends and allies than foes.’

As for John, he withdrew to Ghent disgusted; made it known that henceforth he would reside in that city; with a lavish hand scattered gold there; succeeded in corrupting not a few of the leading burghers, and at length conciliated the goodwill of the whole town by concluding a commercial truce with England, which by putting an end to the mutual piracy of the belligerents was intended to pave the way for a regular commercial treaty. Being thus in a position to act without hindrance, he turned his attention to the truculent burghers of Bruges, and presently the watchers on the belfry—for then, as now, night and day, there were watchers on the belfry—descried slowly winding its way through the woods of Maele, like some huge silver snake, and drawing nearer and nearer to the city, a troop of armed men. In an instant the tocsin was swinging, but the signal had been given too late, and when the breathless citizens reached the market-place, they found it filled with the Duke’s guard, and there on the Halles balcony was John himself with a rod in his hand—symbol of coming chastisement. Sixteen great city officers were deprived of their appointments and condemned to exile or mulcted in heavy fines, and their places were given to certain obscure citizens on whose subservience John could rely. It was gall and wormwood to the burghers, but they bent their heads to the storm, nor did they refuse to set their seal of acceptance to the humiliating Kalfvel which the Duke imposed on them in place of their time-honoured charter, nor to thank him for it into the bargain, and that, though it wounded alike their pride and their pockets, curtailed their liberty, and imperilled their necks, by putting burthensome restrictions on the use of guild banners, by utterly suppressing the maenghelt, or monthly subsidy, which from time immemorial the corporation had granted to each of the trade guilds, and by making all kinds of vexatious enactments which were sanctioned by pain of death.

Note amongst the banished, Nicholas Barbesaen, erst burgomaster and city treasurer, who had been in former days a devoted adherent of Louis of Maele, and on more than one occasion, as he himself recounts in a memoir still extant amongst the archives of Lille, had risked his life to save him. He was also a man of much public spirit, and at his own cost had rebuilt the town gates which had been destroyed by the Ghenters in 1382. Two of them, the Porte Ste. Croix and the Porte de Gand, are still standing. ‘I showed great diligence,’ he says, in the document above referred to, ‘anent the public buildings of the town, such as bridges, fountains, gates, towers and the like, the greater number of which were rebuilt during the time that I was burgomaster and treasurer of this city.’

THE PORTE DE GAND
THE PORTE DE GAND

But the meed of John’s vengeance was not yet complete. Emboldened by the ease with which he had obtained the burghers’ acceptance of the Kalfvel, he imposed by means of the new corporation a host of onerous taxes which had never been heard of before, notably a heavy duty on wheat, and obtained from his subservient magistrates a legal decision that the seventh denier in all town revenues belonged by right to the Sovereign.

To every honest burgher submission meant sorrow and bitterness of heart, but with their town in the hands of foreign mercenaries, Ghent bound hand and foot with golden fetters, sycophants and traitors in their own camp, they could but lie low and wait, and they waited for four years, and then their hour of triumph came.

It was the fall of the year 1411. The strife between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs was at its height. John was encamped in the plain of Montdidier waiting for Orléans to give battle. With him was an army of Flemings recruited from all the towns in the county. Their services, for a limited period, had been purchased by means of concessions—according to one account at the cost of a commercial union with England consecrated by an acknowledgment of the suzerainty of Henry IV. Each city was to fight under its own banner and be commanded by its own elected chiefs; on these conditions only had the burghers consented to leave their homes, and so eager was John for their services that he had made no protest even in the case of the Bruges men who had chosen Lieven van Schotclaere the burgomaster, whom he himself had deposed in 1407.

Presently the allotted term expired, the French had made no sign, and John could only prevail on the burghers to remain with him one week more by granting them fresh favours ‘on account of the good, agreeable and notable services which they have rendered us, do render us, and will, we hope, continue to render us.’ But when the week had passed and still Orléans tarried, neither prayers nor promises could induce them to further prolong their soldiering. At daybreak a mighty roar went up from the Flemish camp—Go go, wapens wapers, te Vlaendren waert, and they went. John rode out to confront them, and, with his hat off and his hands clasped, very humbly begged them to remain only four days longer; they were his brothers, he said, his comrades, the dearest friends he had; he was ready to renounce in their favour all the taxes of Flanders. But they were deaf to all his prayers; their only answer was to show the letter which limited the duration of the expedition, and to point to the ducal seal with which it was stamped.

Perceiving that it was useless to insist further, John the Fearless accompanied the Flemings as far as Péronne, where, having thanked them for their services and commissioned the Duke of Brabant to conduct them to the frontier, he bade them farewell, and almost alone set out for Paris. Thus ended the famous expedition to Montdidier, and thus did Bruges obtain her first instalment of vengeance. She had wrung from John undoubted favours, refused the only boon he asked, and received from him into the bargain a sufficiently humble acknowledgment for the ‘good, agreeable and notable services which she had daily rendered,’ but the hated Kalfvel was still in force; she was still governed by the creatures of the man who had wronged her, and of both the one and the other she was determined to be rid.

On the evening of the 6th of October, 1411, the Bruges men with Schotclaere at their head, and accompanied by the soldiery of eleven other towns, reached the great plain of Ten Belle, three leagues from home. Here they encamped for the night, here too they took counsel together, and next morning when Baldwin de Voss came out to greet them and to learn the hour of their arrival at Bruges, they replied that the Kalfvel must first be cancelled, and all grievances redressed. Whereupon the wily burgomaster with much plausible speech essayed negotiation. He would make known their wishes to the Duke, who would doubtless give favourable ear to them, but meanwhile they must lay down their arms and return peaceably to their homes. Sils ne veulent perdre, he added, la bonne grâce de mon dit seigneur, en lequelle ils estoient sur tous autres qui l’avoient suivi de son pays de Flandres.

These specious words deceived no man, and De Voss tried again. There were three points which it was beyond his power to concede. The Duke alone could repeal the gabelle, and the edicts anent confiscation, and the use of guild banners; for the rest, he was prepared to do all they wanted, but the burghers were adamant; they would never disarm, they averred, until they had obtained full satisfaction. At last, after much parleying, messengers were dispatched to the Duke, who by the advice of his Council conceded every point. The obnoxious taxes were repealed, the Kalfvel was torn up, and the officers appointed in 1407 were thrust out of the city. Thus after four years’ servitude Bruges was once more free.

The causes of the enmity between John the Fearless and his cousin Philippe of Orléans are intricate and multiple and do not come within the scope of this book, nor would the tragedy in which it culminated be here alluded to were it not that some of the chief actors were either Bruges men, or intimately connected with Bruges, notably John Gerson, the famous theologian of the Council of Pisa, and perhaps the most brilliant scholar of his day. The following are the main outlines of the story. Towards the fall of the year 1407 the Duke of Burgundy set out for Paris, determined to rid himself forever of his powerful enemy and rival the Duke of Orléans. When, however, he reached the French capital, to the surprise of all men, for all men were well aware of his morose and sullen temper, he gave favourable ear to the words of King Charles, consented to a reconciliation, had an interview with Orléans at his house, the Château de Beauté, and on the following Sunday (November 20), by way of sealing their friendship, received Holy Communion with him at the Chapel of the Augustinian Friars.

Three days after, when Orléans was at the Queen’s palace, a messenger arrived from the King to summon him to his presence. Attended by two esquires and four or five lackeys bearing torches, for the night was dark, he mounted his mule and set out for the royal abode.

Hardly had the little cavalcade left the palace gates when a band of armed men sprang out at them, crying, ‘Death, death!’ ‘Hold,’ shouted the prince, ‘je suis le Duc d’Orléans.’ ‘C’est ce que nous voulons’, was the reply, and they slashed him to death with their axes.

At that moment a tall man, with his face concealed by a red slouch hat turned down over his eyes, rushed out from Burgundy’s house and cut off the dead Duke’s hand, and with a club smashed in his skull.

The only one of his attendants who had made any show at resistance was a Flemish page called Jacques de Mene. This youth interposed his own body to receive the blows intended for his master until he fell dead by his side. The rest took flight.

When the Orléanists heard what had happened next morning, they were filled with consternation, and all kinds of rumours were abroad as to the identity of the murderer, but strangely enough no one suspected the Duke of Burgundy. He had attended the funeral, which took place in due course, attired in deep mourning, and had there exhibited every outward manifestation of grief, but it was afterwards remembered that during the ceremony he had laid his hand on the coffin, and that, as he did so, blood had spurted out from his victim’s wounds.

Be this as it may, when, after the completion of the funeral ceremonies, the Provost of Paris entered the royal chamber and demanded permission to extend his inquiries ‘even into the palaces of princes,’ the Duke, who was present, turned pale, and drawing the Duke of Berri aside, avowed to him that he was the author of the crime. ‘The devil,’ he said, ‘had beguiled him.’[34]

Berri for the moment held his tongue, but next day at the house of the Lord of Nesle, the Duke of Burgundy made public confession of his guilt. ‘In order that no man may be wrongfully accused of the death of the Duke of Orléans, I avow that I myself and no other am the author of that which has taken place.’ Immediately afterwards he fled the city, never halting until at half-past twelve in the afternoon he reached Bapaume. The number of his confederates must have been considerable, for relays of horses were awaiting him at successive stages, and the Admiral of France and a handful of knights, who almost immediately gave chase, found all the bridges over which he had passed entirely demolished.

In memory of the peril which John had so successfully evaded, he gave orders that henceforth the great town bell should be daily rung at half-past twelve, and for years afterwards the Duke’s Angelus, as the citizens called it, kept alive the memory of his escape.

Presently John was at Ghent, endeavouring by the mouth of Chancellor Saulk to justify his conduct in the eyes of the communes, for he had convoked the estates of Flanders to meet him there. Presently he was at Amiens, guarded by three thousand men-at-arms, making conditions with the royal envoys whom Charles had sent to dissuade him from joining hands with England; closeted with Friar Petit, whom he had summoned from Paris ‘to advise him anent certain secret matters greatly touching his honour’; doing anything and everything to safeguard his person and his interests, and to further his ambitious schemes. At last he deemed it safe to return to the French capital.

The sudden death of the Duke of Orléans had sown terror and confusion in the ranks of his supporters, whilst so mighty was the name of Burgundy that his friends among the roughs of Paris had feared not to insult the remains of his victim as they were being solemnly carried to the place of burial. True the King had promised the Duchess of Orléans vengeance, but it was a promise beyond his power to keep; the influence of Jean Sans Peur was increasing day by day, and when early in March he once more returned to the French capital, he was hailed as the saviour of the realm. The Duke of Berri made a banquet in his honour in the very house in which he had first avowed his guilt. ‘Maître’ Jean Petit, who was not only a persona grata at Court, but a divinity professor at the Sorbonne, whose opinions were not without weight in the world of the learned, did not hesitate to avow in the presence of the Dauphin and the royal princes that it was lawful to slay tyrants, and that those who did so deserved no punishment, but ought rather to receive reward.

In a solemn assembly, at which were present the King of Sicily, and the Dukes of Guienne, of Berri, of Lorraine and Bretagne, not a few counts and several bishops, John ratified all that Master Petit had said anent the laudable motives which had inspired his action, and soon his speech, reproduced by a host of scribes, was echoing all over France, ‘like a triumphal pæan in the midst of the stupefied silence of the Orléanists,’ and to crown all, the King himself published letters of approval. ‘Seeing that our very dear and well-beloved cousin has explained that it was with a view to our own safety and the preservation of our line, for the utility and welfare of our realm, and to keep with us that faith and loyalty by which he is bound, that he has caused to be put out of the world our very dear and well-beloved brother the Duke of Orléans, whom God forgive, we make known, and will, that the aforesaid Duke of Burgundy is, and remains, in our singular love even as he was before.’

Thus ended the first scene of the tragedy, and twelve years passed by, replete with strife and turmoil, which concerns not these pages; then came the grand finale.

‘Joab,’ had thundered John Petit in his famous glorification of the Duke of Burgundy, ‘Joab a répandu le sang de la guerre au milieu de la paix: sa viellesse ne descendra pas paisiblement dans la tombe,’ and in the light of after events the words of the notorious friar seem almost prophetic. On the 10th of September 1419, some twelve years after the murder of the Duke of Orléans, John the Fearless was himself slain on French soil. It happened thus. About a month previous to this date, John had requested an interview with the Dauphin, who was now chief of the Orléanist party, with a view to concluding peace. After some hesitation, the latter had consented, and on the 14th of August, on the bridge of Montereau-Faut-Yonne, the meeting took place. During the discussion which ensued, words ran high, and presently the spectators on either bank of the Seine observed that the men on the bridge were struggling. For a moment they suspected foul play, and a cry went up that the Dauphin had been slain, but it was not the Dauphin but John himself whom the crowd had seen hurled to the ground, and the figure bending over him, and perhaps essaying to staunch his wounds, was no other than that of Guillaume le Bouteille, once servant to Philippe d’Orléans. ‘As thou didst serve my master,’ muttered the old man, as he hacked off the dead Duke’s hand, ‘as thou didst serve my master even so do I now serve thee.’ But the crowd on the banks heard not his words, and wist not what he was doing.

Was John the victim of his cousin’s treachery, or had he at length been taken in his own net? In a word, was he slain by the Dauphin in self-defence? Such the latter averred to be the case, and there is this much in favour of his assertion—Juvenal des Ursins, the most reliable and impartial historian of his century, gives credence to it. So too Olivier of Dixmude, who relates the following anecdote:—

One night, towards the hour of matins, about a month after Philippe’s murder, whilst the Duke of Burgundy was staying at Ypres, a strange and lurid light appeared in the air over the cloister of St. Martin, where he was lodged. Thither ran a host of citizens from all quarters of the town, thinking that the place was on fire, but they soon perceived the true cause thereof—a dragon hovering over the Duke’s chamber, which suddenly turned his flaming dart on himself and so disappeared, and, Olivier adds, even thus did John the Fearless die—in a plot of his own hatching.

When in the year 1408 Duke John the Fearless, glorying in the crime he had committed, and vaunting it as an act of virtue, was heaping wealth and favours on the shameless friar who, as he cynically avowed, for gold and the hope of more gold had made himself his apologist, there was one man who ventured to lift up his voice in protest; this man was Jean de Gerson, erst chaplain to Philip the Hardy, and since 1394 Dean of the great Collegiate Church of St. Donatian’s at Bruges.

Burning with indignation at the bloody deed and at the sophistry of the priest who had dared to defend it, he publicly proclaimed Petit’s doctrine anent tyrannicide to be false, scandalous and heretical, and never rested until he had prevailed on the Bishop of Paris to condemn it as such. The Duke of Burgundy was furious, and gave orders for Gerson’s arrest, but the Dean had received timely warning, and when the pursuivants came to seize him they found their quarry flown. He had eluded pursuit by concealing himself among the rafters between the vault and the roof of Notre Dame. Presently he succeeded in leaving Paris, and in due course, after many hairbreadth adventures, reached German soil. Whereupon John declared him legitimately dispossessed of his deanery (May 27, 1411), and appealed to Pope John XXIII., one of the three claimants to the Papal throne, who, after having appointed a commission to examine the case, quashed the Paris decision. But the intrepid Dean of Bruges would not suffer the matter to rest here; he, in his turn, appealed to the Council of Constance, and with such good effect that ‘Master’ Petit’s theories were unanimously condemned, and though the Duke of Burgundy had sufficient credit with the assembled fathers to prevent the name of his favourite from appearing in the condemnation, all those who obstinately maintained his opinions were declared to be heretics, and ordered to be dealt with as such in accordance with Canon law.