The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [34]
“Something has to be done.”
He looked at me fearfully.
“We could march,” I said.
“March?”
“On Champagne.”
“You mean war?”
“What else is there to do? Sit meekly here and accept their insults?”
He was silent. I could see the fear of war in his face. I despised him. Raoul was a rogue, but at least he had courage to act as he wished and face up to the consequences.
“You will have to take up arms against him,” I insisted. “You cannot allow him to flout you in this way. People will laugh at you. They will say you are not worthy of the crown.”
“I shall pray that God will settle the matter for us.”
“He will expect you to do something about it, Louis. It is your affair . . . not His.”
“All matters are for God’s judgment.”
“I think God expects His servants to act for themselves. That is what you must do, Louis. In my mind, you have no alternative., You must take an army into Champagne. You must ravage the country. You must let him see that he is but a vassal of the King of France. If you do not act, he will be calling himself the King of France . . . for that is what the people will say he is.”
Louis was silent, grappling with his thoughts, trying to find some good reason why he should not go to war against the Count of Champagne.
He could find none.
And I knew that in time I should wear down his resistance.
Once I had made Louis see that war was inevitable, he began to grow enthusiastic about it. I reminded him again and again of how many times Thibault of Champagne had flouted him. He should take no more insults from him. Drastic action was necessary. Thibault had to be taught a lesson, and this was an opportunity to do so.
We discussed plans together and when Christmas was over he set off with an army for Champagne.
This was no Toulouse. The last thing Thibault had expected was war, and he was not ready as Alphonse-Jourdain had been. Marching through Champagne taking towns was an easy matter.
I was delighted by Louis’s victories. Champagne was fast falling into our hands.
Then there was to occur an event which scarred Louis’s conscience for the rest of his life and which I believe was responsible for widening the rift between us.
It happened at Vitry-sur-Marne.
Louis himself was never in the forefront of the battle, war being so alien to his nature. He loathed violence and it was only when spurred on by one of his violent rages that he was guilty of it. He knew that his soldiers had ravaged the towns through which they passed, taking provisions, burning what they thought fit, ill-treating the women. Knowing him, I realized that he would have grappled with his conscience telling himself that it was all part of war. It was the soldier’s reward for coming to the help of his lord. Why should they leave their homes, risk their lives, if not for the spoils of war, the warriors’ perquisites? It shocked Louis, but he realized it was inevitable. It was one of the reasons why he hated war.
Truly he should never have been a king. It was an unkind act of Fate to send that pig running wildly under his brother’s horse’s hoofs.
At Vitry Louis suffered the supreme horror. He was encamped on the La Fourche hills with a few men while the army went in to storm the town. He could see what was happening from his vantage point.
The people of the town were unprepared. There was no defense, and Louis’s soldiers went through the gates to the town with ease. Louis could hear the lamentation of the people, their cries for mercy. He covered his face with his hands because he could not bear to look. He had wanted to call a halt. I knew exactly how he felt for he told me afterward. In fact he could not stop talking of it. He talked at odd moments during the day and in his sleep he woke from nightmares shouting about it.
He saw the blazing town. He knew that people were suffering. But what upset him most was when he learned later that women and children and old people had crowded into the church for sanctuary and the rough soldiers had lighted the roof of the church with their torches and had flung others through the door