A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [182]
Suspecting he was about to be betrayed, Coucy spoke to them softly, saying, “Sirs, you have taken my money and my gold for which I am deeply indebted to the King of France, and you are obliged by oath and by faith to acquit yourselves loyally in this enterprise. Otherwise I shall be the most dishonored man in the world.” But the companies refused to move, growling that the Rhine was too wide to be crossed without ships, they did not know the roads beyond, and “no one should take men-at-arms out of a good country as you have done.”
The Rhine, which makes a right angle turn at Basle, would not in fact have to be crossed to enter the Aargau, but it loomed large, if not precisely located, in common knowledge. To the mercenary, the world he traveled in was as vague in outline as the political purpose for which he was being used. Coucy tried to persuade them that once across the dark mountains they saw ahead they would find good land, but without avail. A message from Leopold at this point offered to grant Coucy one of the territories he had demanded, the county of Ferrette worth 20,000 francs a year, but the offer was rejected because Coucy and his advisers considered it too small.
In Froissart’s version, Coucy on discovering that the men would go no further was “greatly melancholy” and, “taking counsel with himself as a wise and far-seeing knight,” he considered that the mercenaries might well sell him to the Duke of Austria in lieu of promised wages, “and if he should be delivered over to the Germans he would never be freed.” After consulting with his friends, he decided he had better return to France. With only two companions he departed secretly at night “in disguise,” and had traveled two days’ journey out of danger before any but close associates knew he had gone. When he reached France, the King and his brothers were “greatly astonished because they thought him in Austria and it seemed to them that they saw three ghosts.” Asked to give an account of himself, Coucy had no trouble in explaining the affair, “for he was an eloquent speaker and had a true excuse.” He told the King and Dukes everything that had occurred “so that it might be seen that he was in the right and the companies to blame.”
The fact that nothing of the kind happened illustrates the problem of medieval records. Coucy and the companies did indeed go forward into the Aargau, leaving Alsace on St. Catherine’s Day, November 25, and marching to Basle, where they paraded around the city for three days in a display of strength, presumably to discourage any opposition to their advance over the Jura. The Bishop of Basle gave them free passage, it was said, out of hatred for Berne.
At close hand, the purple darkness of the Jura was seen to be pines covering a low range that did not rise above tree level. Riding along a stream that rushed toward France in the opposite direction, the hooded men-at-arms crossed over the crest, forced the passes at Hauenstein and Blasthal, descended among the valley hamlets, robbing and destroying as they went, until they came to the Aar, a wide tributary of the Rhine marking the frontier of the Aargau. Meeting little resistance, because lords of the region fled before the invaders to take refuge with Leopold, they seized castles and the ancient wooden bridge at Olten.
Urgently summoned by Leopold, the Bernese had advanced to meet the enemy, but seeing the nobles abandon the territory, they had turned in disgust and marched home. All Aargau in a fright abandoned arms and villages for refuge in the towns, leaving