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By Root 1345 0

if he was in good company. The Count de St. Pol, the Sire de Hangest, Guillaume de Bordes, bearer of the Oriflamme at Bourbourg, and other great knights and distinguished servitors of the late King were among the “skinheads.” Less fortunate were the cheveux reboursés—that is, those with little hair who carried combs and mirrors to keep their few strands combed over the bald spot. What is puzzling is that uncovered heads, a sign of shame, could have at any time become a fad—unless they were adopted as a kind of anti-chic by the dandies of the time in their craving, complained of by the preacher John Bromyard, “to devise some new piece of foppery to make men gaze at them in wonderment anew.”

Deschamps was concerned with men as they are, not as they should be. Pimps, sorcerers, monks, scolds, lawyers, tax-collectors, prostitutes, prelates, rascals, female procurers, and a variety of repugnant hags populate his verses. As he grew older, his vision grew sourer, perhaps owing to the number of his ailments, including toothache, “the cruellest of sufferings.” For a regimen of good health he advised drinking light red wine mixed with running water, abstaining from spiced drinks, cabbage, strong meats, fruits, chestnuts, butter and cream, and sauces of onion and garlic, dressing warmly in winter and lightly in summer, taking exercise, and never sleeping on the stomach.

Though he never lost his indignation at social injustice, Deschamps looked with a satiric eye on the human species, which though endowed with reason, prefers folly. The sins of the age he most condemned were impiety causing disobedience to God, pride that generates all other vices, sodomy the “unnatural” sin, sorcery, and love of money. In the new reign, though he held a post as maître d’hôtel to Louis d’Orléans, he felt himself displaced at court by frivolous and over-dressed young men of doubtful courage, equivocal habits, and uncertain faith. His complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.

After fifty years, the purpose of the war had faded and men could hardly remember its cause. Although the Duke of Gloucester and the “boars” of England were as bellicose as ever, they could not raise the funds for another expedition. In France, the aborted invasion of England had drained desire for aggression. Anti-war sentiment was growing, even if, in the case of Mézières, it was in the interest of turning hostility against the infidel. “All Christendom has been disturbed for fifty years by your ambition to gain a little ground. The rights and wrongs of the matter have long been obscured and all Christians must now be held responsible for the shedding of so much Christian blood.” To bring Christians together for a crusade was not seen by a man like Mézières as war but as the use of the sword for the glory of God.

After six months’ parley, a three years’ truce, but still no definitive settlement, was concluded in June 1389, with intricate provisions for negotiating each transfer of territory or sovereignty in case of dispute. With communication restored, Coucy was now able to send a messenger to Philippa in England “from his great desire to know certainly of her welfare.” He was appointed Captain of Guienne to supervise the truce in the south and to guard and defend the country from Dordogne to the sea, including Auvergne and Limousin.

The news of peace was received by the common people, in at least one case, with skepticism and a curious revival of the prophecy once attributed to Coucy about the King and his spade. The citizens of Bois-Gribaut in the Limousin fell to discussing the news of the truce brought by a bourgeois of their village on his return from Paris. Some were unimpressed, saying they would soon be assembling against England again. A poor witless shepherd named Marcial le Vérit, who was said to have been