At the beginning of May, gallant old Gaucher de Châtillon died in his eightieth year. He had been born in the reign of Saint Louis, and had been Constable for twenty-seven years. His determined voice had often affected the results of battles and had frequently prevailed in the King’s Council.
On May 26th young King Edward III, having borrowed, as his father had done before him, five thousand livres from the Lombard bankers to cover the cost of the journey, took ship at Dover to come and render homage to his cousin of France.
Neither his mother Isabella nor Lord Mortimer accompanied him, for they were afraid the power might pass into other hands in their absence. The sixteen-year-old King, under the tutelage merely of two bishops, set out to confront the most imposing Court in the world.
For England was weak and divided, while France was a whole. There was no more puissant nation in Christendom; prosperous, populous, rich in industry and agriculture, governed by a powerful civil service and an active nobility, her lot seemed enviable indeed. While her makeshift king, who had now been reigning for a year during which he had achieved success after success, was the most envied of all the kings in the world.
HE WANTED NOT ONLY to show himself off but to see himself too. He wanted his beautiful wife, the Countess, his three sons, Jean, Jacques and Robert, of whom the eldest, who was now eight, already gave promise of growing into a tall, strong man, to admire him; and he wanted his equerries and his servants, all the staff he had brought from Paris with him, to see him in his splendour. But he wanted also to be able to admire himself with his own eyes.
For this purpose, he had sent for all the mirrors that happened to be in the baggage of his suite, mirrors of polished silver, circular as plates, hand-mirrors, mirrors of glass backed by tin-foil and set in octagonal frames of silver-gilt, and he had had them hung side by side on the tapestry in his room.7 The Bishop of Amiens would no doubt be delighted to find his fine figured tapestry torn by nails. But what did that matter? A peer of France could permit himself that much. Monseigneur Robert of Artois, Lord of Conches and Count of Beaumont-le-Roger, wanted to see himself wearing his peer’s robes for the first time.
He turned first one way and then the other, advanced and retreated a couple of steps, but could see his reflection only in fragments, split up into pieces like a figure in a church window: on the left, the gold hilt of his long sword and, a little higher to the right, part of his chest where his silk surcoat showed his embroidered arms; here the shoulder to which the great peer’s mantle was fastened with a glittering clasp, and there, near the ground, the fringe of the long mantle falling on the gold spurs; and then, crowning it all, the great peer’s coronet with eight identical fleurons, set with the rubies he had bought at the late Queen Clémence’s sale.
‘Well, I’m worthily apparelled,’ he said. ‘It would be a great pity if I were not a peer, for the mantle suits me well.’
The Countess of Beaumont, also wearing state robes, did not altogether seem to share her husband’s satisfaction.
‘Are you quite sure, Robert,’ she asked anxiously, ‘that this woman will arrive in time?’
‘Of course, of course,’ he replied. ‘Even if she doesn’t come this morning, I shall make my claim, and present the papers tomorrow.’
The only drawback to Robert’s costume was the heat of early summer. He was sweating under the cloth-of-gold, the velvet and the thick silk, and though he had taken a hot bath that morning he was beginning to give off a smell like a wild beast.
Through the window, which was open on to a bright and sunny sky, the cathedral bells could be heard ringing a full peal, drowning the clatter in the town of the trains of the five kings and their Courts.
For, indeed, on this June 6th, 1329, there were five kings in Amiens. No chancellor could remember such a gathering. To receive the homage of his young cousin of England, Philippe VI had invited his relations and allies, the Kings of Navarre, Bohemia and Majorca, as well as the Count of Hainaut, the Duke of Athens and all the peers, dukes, counts, bishops, barons and marshals.
There were six thousand French horsemen and six hundred English. Charles of Valois would not have disowned his son, nor indeed his son-in-law, Robert of Artois, had he been able to see such an assembly.
The new Constable, Raoul de Brienne, had had to organize the billeting as his first duty. He had done it well, but had lost half a stone in the process.
The King of France and his family were occupying the Bishop’s Palace, of which a wing had been allotted to Robert of Artois.
The King of England had been installed in the Malmaison,8 and the other kings in various burgesses’ houses. The servants slept in the passages, the grooms camped outside the town with the horses and baggage-trains.
An enormous crowd had come in from the immediate countryside, the neighbouring counties, and even from Paris. The less fortunate slept under porches.
While the chancellors of the two kingdoms were arguing once more about the terms of the homage, since even after so much negotiation no precise formula had yet been established, the whole nobility of Western Europe spent six consecutive days in jousting and tournament, being entertained by masks, jugglers and dances, and feasting spendidly from noon to starlight in the palace gardens.
Market-gardeners,9 punting their flat-bottomed boats through the narrow canals into Amiens, were bringing irises, buttercups, hyacinths and lilies to the water-market. These were spread in the streets, courtyards and halls through which the kings passed. The town was saturated with the scent of crushed flowers, of pollen sticking to men’s boots, and it mingled with the strong odours of the horses and the crowds.
And the food, the wine, the meat, the spices and the cakes! Pigs, sheep and bullocks were being driven in continuous procession to the slaughterhouses which were working night and day; trains of wagons brought the palace kitchens bucks, stags, wild boar, roe-deer, and hares; sturgeon, salmon and mullet from the sea; pike, bream, tench and crayfish from the rivers; and poultry and game of all kinds, fine capons, fat geese, resplendent pheasants, swans, pale herons and peacocks with tails full of eyes, Barrels of wine were on tap everywhere.
Anyone who wore a lord’s livery, down to the most junior lackey, put on an air of importance. The prostitutes were in a frenzy. The Italian merchants had gathered from the ends of the earth for this fabulous fair organized by the King. The façades of the houses were hidden by the silks, brocades and tapestries hanging gaily from the windows.
There were too many bells and fanfares, too much shouting, too many palfreys and dogs, too much food and drink, too many princes and pickpockets, too many whores, too much luxury, too much gold, and too many kings. It made one’s head spin.
The kingdom was intoxicated by the sight of its own power, as Robert of Artois was intoxicated by his reflection in the mirrors.
Lormet, his old valet, who in spite of a new livery was spending his time grumbling amid the general rejoicing – largely because Gillet de Nelle was becoming too important in the household and because there were too many new faces about his master – came in and murmured: ‘The lady you were expecting has arrived.’
Robert turned quickly.
‘Show her in,’ he said.
He winked meaningly at the Countess, and waving his arms drove everybody towards