Robert of Artois, who shrank from nothing, undertook to go to Vincennes and make it clear to Charles the Fair that his days were numbered and that certain arrangements must be made: the peers must be summoned at once, and Philippe of Valois recommended to them as Regent. Indeed, so as to make his selection inevitable, why should Charles not confide the administration of the kingdom to Philippe at once, delegating all powers to him?
‘We are all mortal, every one of us, my dear cousin,’ said Robert, who was himself bursting with health, as he entered the dying man’s room, shaking the bed with his heavy tread.
Charles IV was in no condition to argue; indeed, he was relieved that someone else should shoulder his responsibilities. His only concern was to cling on to life, and it was slipping between his fingers.
Thus Philippe of Valois was endued with the sovereign power and was able to summon the peers.
Robert of Artois began campaigning at once. He went first to his nephew of Evreux, a young man of twenty-one, who had great charm but lacked enterprise. He was married to the daughter of Marguerite of Burgundy, Jeanne la Petite, as she was still called, though she was now seventeen. She had been set aside from the succession to the throne of France at the death of the Hutin.
Indeed, the Salic Law had been promulgated on her account, and all the more readily adopted because her mother’s misconduct cast a serious doubt on her legitimacy. In compensation, and to appease the House of Burgundy, she had been recognized as heiress to the Kingdom of Navarre. There had, however, been no untoward haste in keeping this promise and the last two Kings of France had remained also Kings of Navarre.
Had Philippe of Evreux borne any resemblance to his uncle, Robert of Artois, he would have seized this splendid opportunity for chicanery on the largest possible scale by contesting the Law of Succession and claiming the two crowns in his wife’s name.
But Robert of Artois, who had a great ascendancy over him, would very soon have disabused him of pretensions to being a competitor.
‘You shall have Navarre which is your due, my dear nephew, as soon as my brother-in-law of Valois becomes Regent. I have insisted on it as a family matter and as a condition for giving Philippe my support. You shall be King of Navarre! It’s not a crown to be despised and, for my part, I advise you to put it on your head just as soon as you can, and before anyone else comes along to dispute it. Between ourselves, your wife would have a better claim to it if her mother had kept on the right side of the blanket. There’s going to be a scramble for power, and you had best make sure of support: you have ours. And don’t go listening to your uncle of Burgundy; he’ll simply persuade you to do something silly for his own ends. Philippe will be Regent; base your plans on that.’
In return for abandoning Navarre, Philippe of Valois could already therefore count on two votes.
Louis of Bourbon had been made a duke a few weeks before and had received the County of La Marche3 as an apanage. He was the eldest member of the family. If the question of the Regency became dangerously controversial, the fact that he was Saint Louis’ grandson might well enable him to sway several votes. In any case, his views were bound to carry weight with the Council of Peers. He was not only lame but a coward; and it would require more courage than he possessed to enter the lists against the powerful Valois clan. Moreover, his son had married a sister of Philippe of Valois.
Robert gave Louis of Bourbon to understand that the sooner he promised his support, the earlier would all the lands and titles he had accumulated as a time-server during the previous reigns be guaranteed to him. He now had three votes.
The Duke of Brittany had hardly arrived from Vannes, and his trunks were not yet unpacked, when Robert of Artois called on him.
‘You agree on Philippe, don’t you? He’s so pious and loyal, we can be sure he’ll make a good king – I mean a good regent!’
Jean of Brittany was bound to support Philippe of Valois. After all, he had married one of Philippe’s sisters, Isabella. It was true she was dead, but he could hardly do other than be loyal to her memory. To lend weight to his overtures, Robert brought along his mother, Blanche of Brittany, the Duke’s elder sister. She was very old and small and wrinkled; but though her mind was far from lucid, she invariably agreed with everything her giant of a son said. Jean of Brittany was more concerned with the affairs of his duchy than with those of France. Since everyone seemed so much in favour of Philippe, why not?
It became a campaign of brothers-in-law. Reinforcements were called up in the persons of Guy de Châtillon, Count of Blois, who was not a peer, and Count Guillaume of Hainaut, who was not even French, because they had both married sisters of Philippe. The great Valois connexion was already beginning to look like the true family of France.
Guillaume of Hainaut was at this very moment marrying off his daughter to the young King of England; there appeared to be no disadvantage in this. Indeed, it might well prove a useful match. But he had been well advised to be represented at the wedding by his brother Jean instead of going himself, for it was here, in Paris, that events of real importance were under way. Guillaume the Good had long desired the lands of Blaton, an inheritance of the Crown of France forming an enclave within his estates, to be ceded to him. If Philippe became Regent, he should have Blaton for some merely symbolic quid pro quo.
As for Guy of Blois, he was one of the last barons to have the right to mint his own coinage. Despite this right, he was disastrously short of money and crippled with debts.
‘My dear Guy, your right to mint will be bought back from you by the Regency. It shall be our first care.’
Robert had done some very sound work in a remarkably short time.
‘You see, Philippe,’ he said to his candidate, ‘how useful the marriages your father arranged are to us now. People say that a lot of girls are a misfortune to a family; but that wise man, may God keep him, knew very well how to use all your sisters.’
‘Yes, but we shall have to complete the payment of the dowries,’ Philippe replied. ‘Only a quarter of what is due has been paid on several of them.’
‘My dear wife Jeanne’s to start with,’ Robert of Artois reminded him. ‘But when we have control of the Treasury …’
The Count of Flanders, Louis of Nevers, was more difficult to win over. For he was not a brother-in-law and wanted something more than mere lands or money. His subjects had driven him out of his county and he demanded that it should be reconquered for him. The price of his support was a promise of war.
‘Louis, my cousin, Flanders shall be restored to you by force of arms, we give you our word!’
Upon which Robert, who thought of everything, hurried off to Vincennes once again in order to press Charles IV to make his will.
Charles was merely the shadow of a king now, and was coughing up what remained of his lungs.
Yet, dying though he was, his mind was obsessed by the thought of the crusade that his uncle, Charles of Valois, had put into his head. The crusade had been abandoned; and then Charles of Valois had died. Could it be that his disease and the pain he was suffering were a punishment for having failed to keep his oath? His red blood staining the sheets reminded him that he had not taken up the cross to deliver the land in which our Lord had suffered his Holy Passion.
In an attempt to win God’s mercy, Charles IV therefore insisted on recording his concern for the Holy Land in his will: ‘For my intention,’ he dictated, ‘is to go there during my lifetime and, if that proves impossible, fifty thousand livres shall be allotted to the first general expedition to set out.’
This was not at all what was required of him, nor indeed that he should encumber the royal finances, which were urgently needed for more pressing matters, with such a mortgage. Robert was furious. That fool Charles was being stubborn to the last!
Robert merely wanted him to leave three thousand livres each to Chancellor Jean de Cherchemont, Marshal de Trye and Messire de Noyers, the