A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [297]
On October 30, clad in scarlet and ermine, Charles made his entry into the papal palace, where he was met by Clement and 26 cardinals, and attended a splendid banquet with all his party. He presented the Pope with a blue velvet cope embroidered in pearls in a design of angels, fleur-de-lys, and stars. Empty purse or not, “he wished to be spoken of even in foreign countries for the magnificence he displayed.”
With no footing except in French support, Clement’s papacy would have vanished like smoke, and the ruinous schism brought to an end, if the French had made that their object. But they did not. To admit error and cut losses is rare among individuals, unknown among states. States function only in terms of what those in control perceive as power or personal ambition, and both of these wear blinkers. To impose Clement on Italy by power politics or force of arms had never been feasible. It was Urban of Rome, crazy or not, and afterward his successor who had popular support as the true Pope. Ignoring the obvious, and the disparity between goal and means, the French pursued their aim with the blind persistence that amounts to frivolity.
In conferences with Clement, Charles VI and his counselors proposed to open his way to Rome and assist him to gain control of Italy by establishing Louis of Orléans in a revival of the cloudy Kingdom of Adria in the north, and Louis II of Anjou in the equally unattained Kingdom of Naples and Sicily in the south. To this end, Louis II, brought to Avignon by his tireless mother, was given a grand coronation as King of Naples and Sicily (including Jerusalem). Coucy, again chosen for grace and splendor on these occasions, performed the ceremony of serving the boy King on horseback, along with the Count of Geneva, brother of Pope Clement.
Hardly were these arrangements completed when news was received that the Roman Pope, Urban the terrible, had been dead for three weeks and his seat filled in haste and secrecy by the election of a Neapolitan cardinal, Piero Tomacelli, as Boniface IX. Rome no more than Avignon was prepared to give up its claim in favor of a negotiated solution. Given no chance to take advantage of Urban’s death, the French and Clement now agreed to pursue the problem of removing Boniface. Charles VI promised that on his return to France he would “give attention to no other thing until he had restored the Church to unity.”
Lighter-hearted activities engaged the King while these matters were being resolved. He and his brother Louis and young Amadeus of Savoy, son of the late Green Count, “being young and giddy,” spent every night in song and dance with the ladies of Avignon, who warmly praised the King for the many fine presents he lavished on them. The Pope’s brother acted as master of the revels. The most memorable of the entertainments was a literary competition on an issue of courtly love: whether fidelity or inconstancy brings the greater satisfaction. Embodied in a group of poems called the Cent Ballades, the symposium originated among four ardent young knights, including Boucicaut and Comte d’Eu, a cousin of the King, who had been thrown together while on a recent venture in the Holy Land. While temporarily imprisoned in Damascus, the four had passed the time by a debate in verse, and on returning via Venice in time to join the gathering at Avignon, had invited responses from noble friends and princes.
Louis d’Orléans contributed a ballad,