Some of Gerson’s sermons also suggest a growing perception of the queen as peacemaker. In “Ave Maria gracia plena,” preached at court on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1397, he works to arouse love for women by addressing the Virgin in terms that evoke the queen: as the mother of God, Mary “has authority and natural dominion over the lord of the whole world and by the strongest right over all that is subject to such a lord.” The hierarchy is natural, and thus “Notre Dame is called our advocate, our mediator, our queen.” Gerson complains of deplorable treatment of women in general, insisting that “the nature of the noble and royal heart” is to be compassionate toward the afflicted. The greatest “courtoisie” is to give, and there is no greater “vilenie” than to steal and plunder. He concludes the sermon by calling on the Virgin for salvation, by the “natural love” that must exist between brothers and sisters of the same blood and flesh.62
Gerson loathed political dispute. In October 1396, undone by the stress of navigating his way between the two dukes, he accepted the deanship of the chapter of Saint Donatian in Bruges, set up by Philip, and spent little time at court thereafter. Appointed chancellor of the University of Paris in 1395, when his mentor Pierre d’Ailly abandoned the position to become bishop of Puy, he also let that go in 1400, although he soon returned.63 In 1399 or 1400 he composed a letter complaining of having to please two rival masters whose names he need not mention.64 Why should he live in the midst of envious crowds who misinterpret his words?
Gerson’s lament about courtly backbiting is mirrored in Christine’s courtly verse. Lori Walters has strengthened the case for a close literary relationship between Gerson and Christine by showing that Christine’s “seulette” persona, that is, the name by which she refers to herself in numerous works, is borrowed from Gerson’s use of the term in his own work.65 It is not surprising, then, that Christine takes up Gerson’s discussion of the terrible treatment of women. But if Gerson does not explicitly point the finger, it is important to note that Christine often praises Louis for speaking well of women, something she never associates with Philip. In the Fais et bonnes meurs she writes that Louis was renowned for refusing to listen to injurious language, taking “care not to hear anyone speak dishonorably of women, nor slander against anyone, and did not easily believe the bad of others that was reported to him, following the example of the wise, and speaking these noteworthy words: ‘When someone tells me something bad about someone, I consider whether the person saying it has a grudge against the person he is speaking against or whether he speaks from envy.’”66
Louis of Orleans is depicted in Christine scholarship as greedy and lustful. I revisit the charge of greed in detail in chapter 3, showing that it stems from Burgundian propaganda. As for lust, the charge seems to derive from a much later myth of a love affair between Louis and the queen, now thoroughly debunked.67 What remains, then, of the charge? It is useful to return to the sources. First, Louis’s mistresses and illegitimate son are only typical among his peers, including Jean of Burgundy.68 Furthermore, Pintoin provides a contemporary impression of the duke’s sexual behavior, writing that, like all young men, Louis may have been somewhat inclined to vice when he was young, but that as a mature man he carefully avoided such self-indulgence.69 Given Pintoin’s generally critical opinion of the duke, the notion that Louis had a reputation as a great philanderer is difficult to justify.
On his presumed bad reputation more generally, even Louis’s contemporary detractors describe him as an attractive man of great intelligence and eloquence. Pintoin reports that Philip of Burgundy admitted that his nephew was “commendable for his affability and singular eloquence.”70 The monk further notes that Louis was the most fluent man of his day and that he had personally watched the duke out-orate even great orators, bested only by university doctors; in his manner he was extremely appealing, always genially responsive. A record of the arguments of the dukes of Bourbon, Orleans, Burgundy, and Berry regarding the Schism confirms Pintoin’s opinion. The Duke of Orleans, sworn in, places the Schism in its larger context, then captures his listeners’ benevolence by explaining that he agrees with his opponents in principle, that the “voie de cession,” that is, the resignation of both popes so that a new one can be elected, is the only solution to the Schism. He is eloquent and self-effacing, excusing himself for lacking the “prudence, sense and learning” required to speak well on the subject, but promises that he will speak his conscience, without bias or hatred.71 He then goes on to enumerate why he believes that withdrawing obedience from the Avignon pope will not result in the resignation of the two popes. His self-representation accords with Christine’s effusively positive view of the duke’s good nature and manners in the Fais et bonnes meurs, noted in chapter 1.
Historians take for granted that Louis was unpopular with the Parisians. But Paris was not monolithic. Werner Paravicini explains that the city was too large and the Burgundians’ power too fragmented to make Paris exclusively theirs, noting that Louis of Orleans, residing in the city permanently, had firm roots there.72 Arnaud Alexandre, too, remarks on the effect of the constant presence of the Duke of Orleans. Louis was visible in Paris, receiving in 1397 (in addition to the Hotel de Boheme near the Louvre, which he had been awarded in 1388) a residence right next to the Hotel Saint Pol, and fashioning himself as an extension of royal power.73 For Alexandre, Louis was too secure to need to create an Orleanist section of Paris similar to the Burgundian section.
Having begun in chapter 1 to question the common assumption that Christine supported Philip as regent, in the rest of this chapter I start to build the case that she supported Louis’s regency.
The Political Poet: Christine’s Courtly Lyrics
Christine’s courtly verse, like Gerson’s sermons, describes the strife-ridden court of the 1390s: even when the subject is romantic love, all texts are “in the last analysis political.”74 More specifically, Christine composes in a “cultural context where the discourse of love and friendship had long functioned to mediate political concerns,” as Elizabeth Elliott has noted about Machaut, where the “amatory” served as a “surrogate for the political.”75 Christine’s love poetry, with its narrator deprived of her leader or head (“chief”), jealous courtiers who delight in destroying reputations, married women waiting hopelessly for attention from busy lovers, men who feign love to seduce, jealous husbands, lovers unable to gauge the depth of a partner’s commitment, and promotion of Boethian resignation, transcodes the power dynamics that structured the courtly community for which she wrote, a leaderless community in which factions jockeyed for power. This love poetry, therefore, is an important source for gauging her attitude toward the feud. I argue that through it she attempts to shape opinion in favor of Louis of Orleans. But, equally important, the love poetry exposes the ideological contradictions of Christine’s community, in the form of what Fredric Jameson calls the “political unconscious.” In the conclusion to this chapter, I examine the contradiction between French support for the king and the need for a functioning government that is inherent in Christine’s proffered solution of Boethian resignation.
In this analysis,