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Eager to hear all that had happened, King Charles questioned Bourbon and Coucy and the rest. Not the least discouraged by their accounts, he declared that as soon as peace could be made with England and within the Church, he would gladly go with a royal army to those parts “to exalt the Christian faith and confound the infidels.” Among the participants, memories of pain and futility faded, and when within a few years a new crusade was preached against the Turks, their attitude toward the foe was unchanged and their enthusiasm undeterred.

* Called “Africa” or “Auffrique” by the Europeans of the time, and sometimes confused by them with Carthage, the ancient Tunis.

† Saracen was a term used indiscriminately for all Moslems, whether Berbers, Arabs, Moors, or Turks.

Chapter 23

In a Dark Wood

Undiscouraged by the equivocal result in Barbary, the French King and Council moved without pause to a more formidable venture: ending the schism by force of arms. The plan for a march on Rome to oust Pope Boniface and install Pope Clement was called the Voie de Fait, or Way of the Deed—that is, of force—as opposed to the Way of Cession, or voluntary mutual abdication of the popes, as advocated by the University. To march through Italy and take Rome by force was no less an undertaking than the invasion of England—so recently proved beyond French powers—but the policy-makers showed no hesitation. The Council took the decision at the end of November within a few days of Coucy’s and Bourbon’s return from Tunisia.

The plan was presented to the King as a prelude to crusade. He could not in good conscience, his ministers told him, take the cross against the Turks until the Church was reunited. “We can envision nothing finer nor more reasonable for you than to go to Rome with the power of men-at-arms and destroy this anti-pope Boniface.… Nothing could better occupy you. We may hope that this anti-pope and his cardinals, when they realize that you are coming against them with a strong army, will surrender to your mercy.” After that grand consummation, the glowing prospect of continuing even to Jerusalem would be at hand.

When could he start? asked the King, immediately afire. He had been brought up under the ardent influence of Mézières, who had filled the court with his propaganda of crusade as France’s destiny and the saving of society. Charles’s advisers told him the campaign could begin at once, and plans were immediately set in motion. All the royal house were to be included; even the Duke of Brittany was invited because “they did not think it prudent to leave him behind.” He predicted unpleasantly that the enterprise would “end in words.”

A huge force of 12,000 lances was agreed upon, with departure set four months hence in March 1391 from a rendezvous at Lyon. The King and his brother were to lead 4,000 lances; Burgundy, Berry, and the Constable each 2,000; Bourbon and Coucy each 1,000; all to receive three months’ pay in advance. The taxes required to raise such an army and maintain it in the field seem to have been lightly considered; financing the venture was as unrealistic as the Way of Force itself. When the Council met to authorize the rates, the usual omen in the form of a fearful storm made them hesitate. Was it God’s signal against imposing new burdens on an already overburdened people?

The voice of the University spoke against the Voie de Fait more explicitly than lightning and thunder. In a stupendous twelve-hour sermon preached before the King and court on January 6, 1391, Jean Gerson, a young scholar already famed as a preacher, expressed the opposition. Twenty-seven years old and two years short of his doctorate in theology, Gerson was a protégé of the Chancellor Pierre d’Ailly, whom he was soon to succeed at the age of 31. As the struggle over the schism intensified, he was to become the foremost advocate of the supremacy of a Church Council over the Pope, and the most memorable French theologian