• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1516 0

he was named to command a force of 300 lances including many former comrades of the Constable, who were ordered to march by five different roads and not to return without Clisson dead or alive. This does not seem to have been one of Burgundy’s more intelligent moves. Naturally warned by his friends in the party, Clisson escaped to his fortress of Josselin in Brittany, where on his own ground he could withstand attack. But his flight enabled Burgundy to use him as a scapegoat. He was tried in absentia, convicted as a “false and wicked traitor,” deposed as Constable, banished, and fined 100,000 marks. Louis d’Orléans refused to ratify the proceedings, but throughout the overturn he never dared openly challenge his uncles.

Once again the Constable’s sword was offered to Coucy, whom Burgundy was clearly anxious to have in his camp. If the post had not appealed to him in the last days of Charles V, it had even less attraction now, nor did he wish to become the beneficiary of his friend’s fall. He “refused positively” to accept it, “even if it meant that he should be forced to leave France.” The implied risk did not materialize. Finding Coucy adamant, the uncles gave the post to the young Comte d’Eu, reportedly so that he might become wealthy enough to marry Berry’s daughter.

Under the care of Coucy’s physician, the King seemed restored to sanity by the end of September. Escorted by Coucy, he made a pilgrimage of thanks to Notre Dame de Liesse, a little church near Laon commemorating the miracle of three crusaders from Picardy who, while captives of the Saracens, had converted the daughter of the Sultan to Christianity and given her a statue of the Virgin, upon which they were promptly transported by air, along with the princess, to their native land. Charles returned via Coucy-le-Château, where in company with the Duke of Burgundy he dined on October 4, and still escorted by Coucy worshiped at St. Denis on his way back to Paris. Under the new regime, Coucy remained a leading member of the Council, dividing his time between attendance at its sessions and his functions as Lieutenant-General of Auvergne.

To the distress of the court, the wise and ancient Harsigny, refusing all pleas and offers of riches to remain, insisted on returning to the quiet of his home at Laon. He was awarded 2,000 gold crowns and the privilege of using four horses from the royal stables free of charge whenever he might wish to revisit the court. He never did. Several months later he died, leaving a historic effigy.

Harsigny’s tomb was the first of its kind in the cult of death that was a legacy of the 14th century. His marble image does not show him in the pride of life at 33, as was customary in the hope of resurrection, when the chosen were expected to rise at the same age as Jesus Christ. Rather, following his specific instructions, the effigy is the visible image of the corpse inside the coffin. The recumbent body is shown exactly as it was in death, naked, in the extreme thinness of very old age with wrinkled skin stretched over the bones, hands crossed over the genitals, no drapery or covering of any kind, a stark confession of the nothingness of mortal life.

Before leaving his royal patient, Harsigny had advised against burdening him with the responsibilities of state. “I give him back to you in good health,” he had said, “but be careful not to worry or irritate him. His mind is not yet strong; little by little it will improve. Burden him with work as little as you can; pleasure and forgetfulness will be better for him than anything else.” This advice perfectly suited the Dukes. Sovereign in name only, Charles returned to Paris to dally with the ladies in the gardens of St. Pol and enjoy the amusements and festivities organized every night by his wife and brother. In relief from madness, frivolity abounded and the uncles did not interfere, “for so long as the Queen and the Duc d’Orléans danced, they were not dangerous nor even annoying.”

Court purveyors and moneylenders throve, mystery plays and magicians filled every hour, sorcerers and impostors