Part 58 (2/2)
iv, p. 436. Abbe Lebeuf, _Histoire ecclesiastique d'Auxerre_, vol. ii, p. 51. Chardon, _Histoire de la ville d'Auxerre_, vol. ii, p. 259.]
This was not obedience, neither was it rebellion. Negotiations were begun; amba.s.sadors went from the town to the camp and from the camp to the town. Finally the confederates, who were not lacking in intelligence, proposed an acceptable compromise,--one that princes were constantly concluding with each other, to wit, a truce.
They said to the King: ”We entreat and request you to pa.s.s on, and we ask you to agree to refrain from fighting.” And, in order to secure their request being granted, they gave two thousand crowns to the Sire de la Tremouille, who, it is said, kept them without a blush.
Further, the townsfolk undertook to revictual the army in return for money down; and that was worth considering, for there was famine in the camp.[1377] This truce by no means pleased the men-at-arms, who thereby lost a fine opportunity for robbery and pillage. Murmurs arose; many lords and captains said that it would not be difficult to take the town, and that its capture should have been attempted. The Maid, who was always receiving promises of victory from her Voices, never ceased calling the soldiers to arms.[1378] Unaffected by any of these things, the King concluded the proposed truce; for he cared not by force of arms to obtain more than could be compa.s.sed by peaceful methods. Had he attacked the town he might have taken it and held it in his mercy; but it would have meant certain pillage, murder, burning, and ravis.h.i.+ng. On his heels would have come the Burgundians, and there would have been plundering, burning, ravis.h.i.+ng, ma.s.sacring over again. How many examples had there not been already of unhappy towns captured and then lost almost immediately, devastated by the French, devastated by the English and the Burgundians, when each citizen kept in his coffer a red cap and a white cap, which he wore in turns! Was there to be no end to these ma.s.sacres and abominations, resentment against which caused the Armagnacs to be cursed throughout l'ile de France, and which made it so hard for the lawful King to recover his town of Paris. The royal Council thought the time had come to put an end to these things. It was of opinion that Charles of Valois would the more easily reconquer his inheritance if, while manifesting his power, he showed himself lenient and exercised royal clemency, as in arms and yet pursuing peace, he continued his march to Reims.[1379]
[Footnote 1377: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 90. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 313. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 149. Monstrelet, vol.
iv, p. 336. Gilles de Roye, in _Collection des chroniques belges_, pp.
206, 207. Chardon, _Histoire de la ville d'Auxerre_, vol. ii, p. 260.]
[Footnote 1378: ”_De laquelle chose furent bien mal coutans aucuns seigneurs et cappitaines d'icellui ost et en parloient bien fort._”
Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 91.]
[Footnote 1379: In the following manner this march is described by a contemporary: ”On the said day (29th of June, 1429), after much discussion, the King set out and took his way for to go straight to the city of Troye in Champaigne, and, as he pa.s.sed, all the fortresses on the one hand and the other, rendered him allegiance.” Perceval de Cagny, p. 157.]
After having spent three days under the walls of the town, the army being refreshed, crossed the Yonne and came to the town of Saint-Florentin, which straightway submitted to the King.[1380] On the 4th of July, they reached the village of Saint-Phal, four hours'
journey from Troyes.[1381]
[Footnote 1380: Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 91.]
[Footnote 1381: J. Rogier, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 287. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 336. _Journal du siege_, p. 109. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 314. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 91. _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 264-265.]
In this strong town there was a garrison of between five and six hundred men at the most.[1382] A bailie, Messire Jean de Dinteville, two captains, the Sires de Rochefort and de Plancy, commanded in the town for King Henry and for the Duke of Burgundy.[1383] Troyes was a manufacturing town; the source of its wealth was the cloth manufacture. True, this industry had long been declining through compet.i.tion and the removal of markets; its ruin was being precipitated by the general poverty and the insecurity of the roads.
Nevertheless the cloth workers' guild maintained its importance and sent a number of magistrates to the Council.[1384]
[Footnote 1382: Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 91.]
[Footnote 1383: Th. Boutiot, _Histoire de la ville de Troyes et de la Champagne meridionale_, Paris, 1872 (5 vols. in 8vo), vol. ii, p. 482.
For the members of this Council see the most ancient register of its deliberations by A. Roserot, in _Collection des doc.u.ments inedits relatifs a la ville de Troyes_ (1886).]
[Footnote 1384: F. Bourquelot, _Les foires de Champagne_, Paris, 1865, vol. i, p. 65. Louis Batiffol, _Jean Jouvenel, prevot des marchands_, Paris, 1894, in 8vo.]
In 1420, these merchants had sworn to the treaty which promised the French crown to the House of Lancaster; they were then at the mercy of English and Burgundians. For the holding of those great fairs, to which they took their cloth, they must needs live at peace with their Burgundian neighbours, and if the _G.o.dons_ had closed the ports of the Seine against their bales, they would have died of hunger. Wherefore the notables of the town had turned English, which did not mean that they would always remain English. Within the last few weeks great changes had taken place in the kingdom; and the Gilles Laiguises, the Hennequins, the Jouvenels did not pride themselves on remaining unchanged amidst vicissitudes of fortune which were transferring the power from one side to the other. The French victories gave them food for reflection. Along the banks of the streams, which wound through the city, there were weavers, dyers, curriers who were Burgundian at heart.[1385] As for the Churchmen, if they were thrilled by no love for the Armagnacs, they felt none the less that King Charles was sent to them by a special dispensation of divine providence.
[Footnote 1385: J. Rogier, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 292.]
The Bishop of Troyes was my lord Jean Laiguise, son of Master Huet Laiguise, one of the first to swear to the treaty of 1420.[1386] The Chapter had elected him without waiting for the permission of the Regent, who declared against the election, not that he disliked the new pontiff; Messire Jean Laiguise had sucked hatred of the Armagnacs and respect for the Rose of Lancaster from his _alma mater_ of Paris.
But my Lord of Bedford could not forgive any slighting of his sovereign rights.
[Footnote 1386: _Gallia Christiana_, vol. xiii, cols. 514-516.
Courtalon-Delaistre, _Topographie historique du diocese de Troyes_ (Troyes, 1783, 3 vols. in 8vo), vol. i, p. 384. Th. Boutiot, _Histoire de la ville de Troyes_, vol. ii, pp. 477, 478. De Pange, _Le pays de Jeanne d'Arc, le fief et l'arriere-fief_, Paris, 1902, in 8vo, p. 33.]
Shortly afterwards he incurred the censure of the whole Church of France and was judged by the bishops worse than the cruellest tyrants of Scripture--Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Artaxerxes[1387]--who, when they chastised Israel had spared the Levites. More wicked than they and more sacrilegious, my Lord of Bedford threatened the privileges of the Gallican Church, when, on behalf of the Holy See, he robbed the bishops of their patronage, levied a double t.i.the on the French clergy, and commanded churchmen to surrender to him the contributions they had been receiving for forty years. That he was acting with the Pope's consent made his conduct none the less execrable in the eyes of the French bishops. The episcopal lords resolved to appeal from a Pope ill informed to one with wider knowledge; for they held the authority of the Bishop of Rome to be insignificant in comparison with the authority of the Council. They groaned: the abomination of desolation was laying waste Christian Gaul. In order to pacify the Church of France thus roused against him, my lord of Bedford convoked at Paris the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Sens, which included the dioceses of Paris, Troyes, Auxerre, Nevers, Meaux, Chartres, and Orleans.[1388]
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