A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [371]
Coucy’s English marriage set him apart during twelve crucial years. After his repudiation of England, following the death of his father-in-law, he began to emerge as a leading figure in the Normandy campaign and could have succeeded Du Guesclin as Constable if he had wanted to, but no concept of national leadership attached to that post, no body of public opinion or cohort of colleagues was asking to be led. The moment of what-might-have-been passed with the death of Charles V, and under the self-serving rule of the uncles, national purpose was frittered away. Enguerrand did not innovate nor rise above his time; he went with it, served it better than most, and died of its values. It was reduced by his going. “This Enguerrand VII,” wrote the biographer of Boucicaut, “was esteemed the seigneur of most merit of his time.”
Coucy’s death was not known in Paris for two months. Robert d’Esne and, after him, Jacques de Willay learned of it in Venice on their way east. Still unaware on March 31, Louis d’Orléans in great solicitude sent a clerk of Coucy’s estate to Turkey with clothing, having learned of the prisoners’ impoverished condition. In April, Willay brought back the embalmed heart and body (or bones; whether the actual body was buried in France has been disputed). Only then was the Dame de Coucy notified that her husband was dead. According to the biographer of Boucicaut who tends normally to rhapsodize, she so bewailed her loss “that it seemed that heart and life would leave her, and never more did she wish to marry again, nor allow mourning to depart from her heart.” A funeral of impressive grandeur was conducted by the Bishops of Noyon and Laon, the body (or other remains) being buried in an imposing tomb at Nogent, and the heart at Ste. Trinité, marked by a plaque showing an engraved heart superimposed over the Coucy arms. Deschamps wrote a dirge as if for a national event, lamenting “the end and death of Enguerrand the baron … mourned by every noble heart.”
O St. Lambert, Coucy, La Fère,
Marie, Oisy and St. Gobain,
Weep for your lord, the good seigneur
Who served so well his sovereign
With prowess great in many lands …
Who for the faith in Turkey died.
Let us pray God to pardon him.
In his day bright and beautiful,
Wise, strong, and of great largesse,
A true knight of labor hard
And no repose; in his great house,
He welcomed knights from morn to eve
Who came to join his company.
Preux and bold in Lombardy was he,
He took Arezzo, city of renown,
Made tremble Pavia and Milan.
Let us pray God to pardon him.
Many a heart is sad for him
That none is left to bear his arms.…
The stanzas continue, but, given an erratic meter combined with a rigid chain of only three rhymes winding through 55 lines, the charm of this and other 14th century French poetry is limited, and English, in any case, can do it no justice.
Ransom for the remaining prisoners was finally arranged in June 1397 after prolonged negotiations by the Duke’s ambassadors at the Sultan’s court. The sum was fixed at 200,000 ducats or gold florins, approximately equal in value to French francs. Burgundy’s extravagant gifts misfired, it was said, convincing Bajazet that princes who could command such rare and precious things could pay very highly indeed. All the resources of the banking network were mobilized, chiefly under the direction of Burgundy’s chief purveyor and banker, Dino Rapondi, a native of Tuscany with headquarters in Paris and Bruges. So widespread was his commerce that his name was said to be known wherever there were merchants. Through him, the King and his uncles acquired precious books, silks, furs, tapestries, fine linen shirts and handkerchiefs, amber and unicorn’s horn and other curiosities. Rapondi advised raising the ransom