A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [178]
Chapter 13
Coucy’s War
No peace treaty was reached at Bruges because the English were determined to retain their former possessions in France under their own sovereignty, while Charles V was equally determined to regain the sovereignty of Guienne yielded at Brétigny. His lawyers argued that the yielding of sovereignty had been invalid because it violated the sacred oath of homage, therefore the Black Prince and the King of England had been guilty of rebellion comparable to that of Lucifer against God. While this satisfied Charles’s life-long care to exhibit a lawful case, it failed to impress the English. To avoid total waste of the parley, which had been conducted at great expense and rival magnificence by the Dukes of Burgundy and Lancaster (Burgundy received 5,000 francs a month in expenses), a one year’s truce beginning in June 1375 was agreed upon, with an undertaking to resume negotiations in November.
Left unemployed by the truce, the companies in France reverted to plundering the people they had lately liberated. More than a year earlier, in January 1374, the royal government had attempted by a sweeping ordinance to bring the units under control. The ordinance provided for a system of authorized companies at fixed rates of pay under captains appointed by the crown who would be required to forswear pillage and be held responsible, under pain of stated penalties, for the conduct of their men. It was a conscientious effort, but the Free Companies proved too much a part of the military system to be either uprooted or domesticated. Their brigandage continued.
“Greatly troubled” by this situation, the King took counsel with his advisers on what he might do. They “bethought them of the Sire de Coucy.” He was to be a new Pied Piper who could lead the brigands out of France in a foreign war—his own.
Coucy’s case against the Dukes of Austria and his determination to pursue it were well known. He could serve France in this matter, unhindered by his ties to England. The proposal was put to him by Bureau de la Rivière and Jean le Mercier, the King’s Chamberlain and Treasurer, that if he would take into his service the companies of some 25 captains from many parts of France and lead them against the Hapsburg Dukes, the King would provide 60,000 livres toward their pay and the expenses of the compaign. Especially he was to remove the hard-bitten Bretons, followers of Du Guesclin and Clisson, who had been committing terrible ravages since the end of official war.
Coucy’s experience of mercenaries in Lombardy was enough to teach him the dangers and undependability of such a command, even though it promised him extraordinary aid toward his own purpose. He was now 35, rich enough to loan money in that year to the Duc de Berry but not to finance a campaign against the Hapsburgs out of his own resources. He agreed to undertake the great riddance.
Among the captains recruited to Coucy’s banner were the Constable’s brother, Olivier du Guesclin, who had been occupying and devastating the lands of the Duc de Berry, and his cousin Sylvestre Budes, chief of a Breton company which had been the bane of the Pope and the scourge of Avignon, where it plundered even the wheat sent by the King to relieve a famine in 1375. In vain the Pope had pleaded, negotiated, paid, excommunicated. He now paid the Bretons 5,000 francs and agreed to revoke the excommunication if they would go with Coucy. “Great terror” spread through Burgundy as they moved northward up the left bank of the Rhône; runners reported their advance, towns and villages sent out heralds to recruit help. Like fierce summer locusts, the Bretons, joined by other companies, swept