Women of Mediaeval France Part 9

Her premonition was well founded; she was not to live to see Louis again.

Once more was Blanche de Castille regent of France, a heavy burden for one who had lived a life of no easy indulgence and who was now sixty years of age. Instead of peace and rest in her declining years--perchance she had hoped to retire to her own convent of Maubuisson--she must undertake the cares of government. Truly, Saint Louis was sacrificing his mother for an ambition, albeit not a vain or selfish ambition, and whatever service he may have rendered G.o.d by killing some hundreds of Mohammedans in Egypt, there is no question about the service Blanche was rendering to him and France.

To aid Blanche in her government, and also to collect an additional force for the crusade, Louis had left in France his brother, Alphonse de Poitiers, who was of real a.s.sistance to his mother. The other sons, however, Robert d'Artois and Charles d'Anjou, had sailed with the crusaders for Egypt. Blanche's first anxiety came from Henry III., who chose this opportunity to make warlike preparations, after he had refused to renew the truce with France, and who had been besieging Saint Louis with preposterous demands for the restoration of his lost provinces. But Henry contented himself with preparations, being perhaps held in check by fear of the Church, which threatened an interdict on all England if he ventured to attack France while the king was away fighting in her behalf. Relieved of this anxiety, Blanche was free to concentrate her efforts in procuring a.s.sistance for Saint Louis. But the worldly-minded Pope Innocent IV. was so busily engaged in his contest with the Emperor Frederick II. that he had little but prayers and blessings to bestow upon the crusading king; while Frederick was either unable or unwilling to contribute more than a mere pittance. At the close of the summer of 1249, Alphonse de Poitiers embarked on his voyage to lead to his brother the considerable army he had been able to collect. This was a new separation for Blanche, and one that involved her, almost at once, in the conduct of new and rather complex political problems.

Scarcely a month after the departure of Alphonse de Poitiers, his father-in-law, Count Raymond of Toulouse, died, leaving as his only heir his daughter's husband. Blanche immediately took steps to secure to her son the succession, even before she was requested to do so by a message from him. Under the terms of the treaty of 1229, she took possession of the estates of the count, and appointed commissioners to receive the homage of the va.s.sals on behalf of Alphonse.

Meanwhile, good news had come from Louis, who had landed in Egypt and had taken Damietta. Frequent letters pa.s.sed between the queen and her son; but letters were slow in reaching their destination, and the queen was still rejoicing over the good news when Saint Louis and his army were in desperate plight. At last came the letter telling of the disastrous battle of Mansourah,--a victory in name, but as costly in its consequences as a defeat,--February 8, 1250, and of the death of the impetuous Robert d'Artois. His army was reduced by disease and incessant skirmishes with the infidels and Saint Louis himself fell sick. There was no Blanche de Castille, no tender mother, no wife there to nurse him back to health.

We have mentioned the wife of Saint Louis, and it may be as well to complete here her part in this story. She had accompanied her husband on the crusade, but had been left behind in Damietta with a strong garrison when Louis marched on to Mansourah. When the king was captured by the infidels, Marguerite lay ill in Damietta, hourly expecting the birth of her child. When the first messengers came with the news of the captivity of her husband she refused to believe them, and, it is said, had the unfortunates hanged as the bearers of false news; but there was soon no doubt that disaster had overtaken the Christian arms. Marguerite was half crazed with pain and fear; even in her sleep she fancied that the room was full of Saracens bent on killing her, and she would cry out pitifully, "Help! help!" She made an old knight, over eighty years of age, keep guard at the foot of her bed. Before the birth of her child she called this old man to her, sending everyone else from the room, and threw herself on her knees before him, begging him to grant her one boon she would ask. "Sir knight," she said, "I enjoin you, by the faith you have sworn to me, that, if the Saracens should take this town you will cut off my head before they can capture me." And the good knight, with a sternness characteristic of the age, replied that he would surely do as she bid him, for he had already resolved to kill her rather than see her become a Saracen captive.

A son was born to the queen; in memory of the misery of these days she named him Jean Tristan. On the very day of the child's birth she learned that the Genoese and Pisan sailors, and some of the garrison, were preparing to abandon Damietta. It was a serious danger; for, the fleet once gone, what chance of rescue, or even of return to France, was there for the king and his army? In the midst of her pain Marguerite acted with a prompt.i.tude and decision far greater than one could have hoped for from the rather colorless, yielding woman who had so long submitted to the domination of her mother-in-law. She sent for the ringleaders, and besought them for G.o.d's sake not to imperil the safety of the king and the whole army: "Have pity, at least, upon this poor woman, lying here in pain, and wait but till she can get up again." Then, learning that they had just cause of complaint in that they could not get food, she took the responsibility of purchasing what provisions could be had and of feeding the sailors at the king's expense. Her prompt action saved the fleet for Louis. Even as it was, Damietta had to be evacuated, as one of the conditions of his being released, and Queen Marguerite was compelled to sail for Acre before she had entirely regained her health.

Once released and safe at Acre, Saint Louis was urged to return at once to France, whither the dreadful news of his disaster had already gone to distress Blanche de Castille; but he had left a large part of his followers prisoners in the hands of the infidels, and under such circ.u.mstances it was useless to urge this truly n.o.ble monarch to consider his own wishes, or his own interests. He called a counsel of his barons, and announced to them: "I have come to the conclusion that, if I stay, my kingdom is in no danger of going to destruction, for Madame the Queen has many men to defend it with." He had good reason to rely upon _Madame la reine_, who had kept his heritage for him when he could not have kept it for himself. Sending back to France his brothers, Alphonse de Poitiers and Charles d'Anjou, Saint Louis lingered on in Syria.

Blanche continued to rule France and to make every effort to succor her son in his perilous position. The death of Frederick II., in December, 1250, gave a momentary hope of obtaining a.s.sistance from the empire or from the Pope. But this hope was soon dashed, for Innocent IV. was bent on continuing his quarrel with Frederick's successor, Conrad. Blanche, moreover, was seriously ill in the early part of 1251 so ill that the Pope wrote to discourage her from attempting to journey to Lyons to see him. "Your life," he wrote, "is the safeguard of so many people that you should use every endeavor and take every care to preserve or to recover the health which means so much to all." With all the benedictions and affectionate solicitude contained in this letter, the Pope was not disposed to give material a.s.sistance to Saint Louis. On the contrary, he ordered the preaching of a crusade, even in Brabant and Flanders, against the Christian emperor who was his political rival, and promised greater rewards to those who would engage in it than to those who were fighting the infidels. Blanche called a council of her va.s.sals, who broke forth in violent wrath against the selfish and un-Christian conduct of the head of the Church. No doubt Blanche shared their resentment, and it is even reported that she ordered the confiscation of the goods of those who ventured to engage in the Pope's crusade against the emperor, saying: "Let those who are fighting for the Pope be maintained by the Pope, and go to return no more."

While the affairs of the Church were in this state a new and dangerous movement of the common people, a movement half religious in nature, came to disturb France. A strange man, of wonderful eloquence, and exercising a powerful influence upon the peasantry, made his appearance in northern France. In a few weeks he had gathered veritable armies of the peasants, the _pastoureaux_, as they were called, who marched about the country after their mysterious leader, known only by the name of "the Master of Hungary," proclaiming that they would go to the aid of their good king.

At first they committed no damage, but, growing bolder and becoming contaminated by a certain mixture of the more dangerous elements of the population, they began to manifest a peculiar unfriendliness toward priests, and soon pa.s.sed to actual acts of violence. The Master of Hungary arrogated to himself powers almost miraculous, and the people believed in him. At Amiens, the first large town entered by the Pastoureaux, people sought out this man and knelt before him as if he had been a holy personage. But the priests circulated all sorts of stories about him: he was a magician in league with the devil; he was an apostate Christian, an infidel, nay, an emissary of the sultan of Egypt, charged with delivering into the hands of the Saracens a host of Christian prisoners. But, impostor or no impostor, the people had faith in him, and it was in vain for the priests to repeat or to concoct tales of his being an infidel: the very people of the most Christian nation in Europe were sullenly murmuring against Christ Himself. When the begging friars asked for alms the people snarled a refusal at them and, calling the first poor person in sight, gave alms, saying: "Take that; in the name of Mohammed, who is greater than Christ."

The Master of Hungary and his satellites, preaching against the clergy and inciting to acts of violence, performing all the functions of priests and even claiming to perform miracles, advanced with their hordes of ignorant or vicious followers to Paris. What att.i.tude would Blanche take? She had always had a heart to feel for the woes of the common people, and she well knew that the priests were not by any means always the friends of the poor, for she was not so blinded by religiosity as to think that the clerical habit alone could make a mere man something more than a man. At this particular time, too, she had reason to feel vexed with the clergy; was it not the Church itself that was most n.i.g.g.ardly of funds to carry on the war in defence of the holy places? She was far too sensible a woman to look for any material help from this rabble which vowed to go to the rescue of the good king; but she was not disposed to interfere with them until she had definite proof of their wrongdoing. One can but suspect that she did not credit all that the priests reported to her of them; she herself had known and in some ways liked Raymond of Toulouse, whom the priests made out an arch fiend.

When the Pastoureaux approached Paris, therefore, she gave orders that they should not be interfered with. Sending for the Master of Hungary, she treated him with respect, asked him questions, and sent him back with some presents. The man lost his head with vainglory at this reception. Returning to his followers he announced that he had so thoroughly enchanted the queen and her people that she would approve of anything they did, and that they might kill priests with impunity. In episcopal robes, the mitre on his head, he preached in the church of St.

Eustace. Riots were precipitated by his followers, and the vast army moved on to the south, growing more and more outrageous every day.

Blanche saw that it was time to act; she had made a mistake in supposing these people to be harmless, misguided peasants or religious enthusiasts. Orders were given to pursue and exterminate them. Scattered bands were overtaken here and there and dispersed, and the leaders were summarily hanged. But the final catastrophe was to take place at or near Bourges. The Pastoureaux having entered this town, engaged in looting and rapine, and the royal officers, thinking to confine them in the town, shut the gates; but the Pastoureaux broke these down, and poured out of the town, pursued by the enraged citizens. They were overtaken and brought to bay, and a veritable ma.s.sacre, rather than a battle, ensued, for most of the Pastoureaux were poorly armed. The Master of Hungary was slain and torn in pieces, while his forces were dispersed.

In a few weeks the country was quiet again. Only a few of the Pastoureaux really received the cross from those who had proper authority to give it, and went to the aid of Saint Louis.

During these years we find Queen Blanche acting very frequently in a judicial capacity, presiding over the court of Parliament and over the council; she seems to have continued to take an active part in all the affairs of her government. And, strange to say, we do not find the name of any one counsellor exalted above the others, as a greater favorite or as more relied on by the queen; she has her ministers, but so little part do they seem to play that France is really ruled by the queen, not by the ministers. We comment upon this because it is remarkable, especially when we remember that, even with great kings, the names of the ministers are not often utterly obscured.

The most interesting of the queen's activities at this time are those connected with the Church; there are numberless little quarrels in which she had to intervene and hold out for the rights of the crown, but the two examples that follow will suffice to show the sort of thing with which she had to contend. The clergy of France had accorded to Saint Louis a tax of one-tenth on their property, in view' of his crusade.

Though this tax had been long due, the Abbey of Cluni, one of the richest and one of the most favored by the royal family, allowed month after month to elapse without making any move to pay. At length, in the early part of 1252, while the abbot was away in England, the royal bailli of Ma'am seized the chateau of Lourdon, belonging to the Abbey of Cluni. There was a tremendous uproar in the clerical camp; the Pope himself wrote to protest against this outrage upon the servants of G.o.d, and demanded of Blanche the rest.i.tution of the sequestered chateau. At the same time he instructed the Archbishop of Bourges to launch an interdict against all those who continued to hold, to guard, or to inhabit the chateau of Lourdon, with special exception of the queen and her family. Blanche had not, it appears, given the bailli any orders with regard to the collection of the tax, but, since he had acted, she sustained him; there was no persuading her to return the property of the abbey until the abbot had satisfied her just claims. The Pope and the abbot were compelled to accept defeat for the present; but after Blanche was dead a claim was made for indemnity, which we can only hope Saint Louis did not grant.

Another instance in which Blanche intervened is even more to her credit, since it was pure humanity, not the jealous safeguarding of the rights of the crown, that moved her. The inhabitants of the villages of Orly, Chatenay, and some others were serfs of the canons of Notre Dame. Being unable to pay some tax imposed by their masters, the men of the villages--we mean not a few, but _all_ the able-bodied men--were seized and imprisoned in the chapter house. The horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta have been made familiar to all English readers; there are few who realize that jails as horrible, and jailers as inhuman, were not infrequent in many a period of the world's history. The condition of the prisons of France when the courageous and devoted philanthropist John Howard visited them, at the close of the eighteenth century, was such as to beggar description: how much worse must have been a prison of the thirteenth century! The unfortunate peasants, with insufficient food, water, and air, were so crowded in the prison that several of them died.

News of the affair coming to Queen Blanche, she humbly prayed the canons to release their victims, and said that she would investigate the matter. The canons replied that it was none of her affair, that she should not meddle with their serfs, "whom they could take and kill and do such justice on as seemed good to them." To emphasize these rights and to revenge themselves upon the talebearers who had reported to Queen Blanche, they seized the wives and children of their prisoners, and thrust them into the same overcrowded prison. The suffering was, of course, intensified; many of the miserable wretches died. The historian tells us that Blanche "felt great pity for the people, so tormented by those whose duty it was to protect them." We do not need to be told that; but Blanche was not of the milk-and-water kind that would have wasted time in _faineant_ compa.s.sion when there was suffering which her activity could relieve. She summoned a body of knights and citizens, gave them arms, marched straight to the prison, and ordered the doors to be broken down, herself striking the first blow, that all might see that she was not afraid to a.s.sume the responsibility for the act. Nor did her beneficent activity cease with the release of the prisoners; for she was determined that there should be no repet.i.tion of such tyranny if she could help it. She took the serfs under her special protection and confiscated the goods of the chapter of Notre Dame, which she held until such time as full satisfaction had been rendered. The serfs were enfranchised in consideration of an annual tax. But so far was she from wishing to wrong the canons, or even to interfere with their rights, if they had any, that she ordered the bishops of Paris, Orleans, and Auxerre to hold a special investigation to determine whether or not the people of Orly had owed the tax. With a woman of her character the canons vainly resorted to their favorite threat of excommunication. If they had excommunicated her, she would, in the light of history at least, have been given an absolution more purifying than any they could offer.

For the common people the great queen had always a tender heart. It was a rough and cruel age, especially for those in bondage. "And since this Queen," says an anonymous chronicler, "had great pity for such as were serfs, she ordered, in several places, that they be set free in consideration of the payment of some other dues. This she did partly because of the pity she felt for the girls in this condition, because people would not marry them, and many of them went to ruin thereby."

The last days of Blanche de Castille were drawing to a close amid sad and fruitless longing to see her son. Her health was failing; one after another of those dear to her fell ill or pa.s.sed away; the dearest of all lingered in the Holy Land, leading a forlorn hope and deaf to the entreaties of his mother that he would return. She was at Melun when, in November, 1252, she became so ill that she hastened to return to Paris.

She put her affairs in order and left instructions that those whom she had unwittingly wronged should be indemnified out of her private fortune. All worldly thoughts were now put aside, and she summoned the Bishop of Paris, took the Holy Communion, and was admitted, by the prelate's decree, into the Cistercian order, becoming a nun of her Abbey of Maubuisson. Clothed in the simple garments of the sisterhood, the n.o.ble queen pa.s.sed, not many days later, from the scene of her useful labors, murmuring in her last moments the words of the prayer for those in extremis: _Subvenite, saticti Dei_.

It was on November 26th or 27th, in her sixty-fourth year, that Blanche died. Over her nun's habit they placed her royal robes, and on her head the crown; thus clothed, and placed upon a bier ornamented with gold, she was borne by her sons and the great n.o.bles through the streets of Paris to the Abbey of Saint-Denis. The next day, after a ma.s.s for the dead, the body was carried in procession to Maubuisson, where another service was held. Here, in the choir of the chapel, the body of the queen was buried, and a tomb, bearing her effigy in nun's habit, was erected. The other convent founded by her wished to have the honor of guarding her heart, which, in March of the following year, was taken to Notre Dame du Lys by the abbess, Countess Alix de Macon.

Let us pause awhile by the tomb before we attempt to review the character of Blanche de Castille; and meanwhile we may see how the news of her death was received by Saint Louis. He was at Jaffa when, after a long delay, the intelligence reached him. At the very first ominous words of the papal legate who had come to break the tidings to him Saint Louis gave way to uncontrollable emotion. Consolation was unavailing; even the clergy seemed to realize that it would have been but an impertinent aggravation; and for two days no one ventured to speak to him. Then, rousing himself from the depths of his grief, he sent for that best and st.u.r.diest of his friends, the fearless, honest, blunt Sire de Joinville, Seneschal of Champagne, who leaves us an account of what followed. When Joinville came into the presence, the king rose, and, stretching out his arms to him, cried in simple grief: "Ah! Seneschal! I have lost my mother!" Joinville replied: "Sire, I do not marvel at it, for she had to die; but I do marvel that you, a wise man, should mourn so deeply; you know that in the words of Wisdom it is said that, whatever grief a man have at his heart, none of it should be seen in his countenance; for he who does so (_i. e._, shows his grief) rejoices the heart of his enemies and brings sorrow to his friends." As all consolation would have been inadequate to the magnitude of the loss, we do not know that anyone could have spoken better than Joinville. The Seneschal continues: "Madame Marie de Vertus, a very good and pious woman, came to tell me that Queen Marguerite, who had rejoined the king a little before, was in great grief, and prayed me to go to her and comfort her. When I arrived I saw that she was weeping, and I said to her that he spoke truth who maintained that one ought not to believe women; for she who is dead was the person in the world whom you most hated, and yet you display such grief for her. And she told me that it was not for the Queen that she wept, but for the suffering and the grief of the King, and for her little daughter, now left in the care of men."

There is no quality more to be admired in one who attempts to write a life of some great man or woman than fearless frankness; the pa.s.sages we have given are characteristic of the _Vie de Saint Louis_, by the Sire de Joinville, whose straightforward bluntness of speech is an amusing but also a valuable quality. We shall keep Joinville in mind while concluding, in brief, the story of Saint Louis's return and of the subsequent career of Marguerite.

More than a year of misery and futile battling intervened between the time when the news of his mother's death reached Louis and the time when he set sail for France. There was no hope of succor from Europe: there was no Queen Blanche to husband the resources of France that her son might continue his fight for the faith. On April 25, 1254, Saint Louis, accompanied by Marguerite, their little son Jean Tristan, and the remnant of the crusaders, embarked at Acre. The sea was rough, and when they were off the coast of Cyprus the vessel bearing the royal family ran on a sand bank. The nurses rushed frantically to arouse the queen, and asked her what they should do with the children. Marguerite, thinking all would be lost in the violence of the storm, said: "Neither waken them nor move them; let them go to G.o.d in their sleep." Saint Louis, urged to transfer himself and his family into another vessel, refused to do so, resolving to take the risk with those who had to remain and might be forced to land in Cyprus: "If I leave this vessel, there are on it five hundred men, each one of whom loves his life as much as I love mine, and who may have to stay in this island, and they may never return to their own country. That is why I had rather place in the hands of G.o.d my person, my wife, and my children, than cause such great suffering to the many people in this ship."

Joinville narrates another accident during this voyage, one which will recall the instructions for extinguishing one's candle given in a previous chapter. It seems that one of the queen's ladies, having undressed her, carelessly threw over the little iron lantern in which the candle was burning an end of the cloth she had used to wrap up the queen's head. The cloth caught fire, and in its turn set fire to the bedding, which was all ablaze when the queen awoke. Jumping out of bed _toute nue_, she seized the blazing stuff and threw it overboard, and put out the little fire which had started in the wood of the bed. The cry of fire arose, however, and Joinville tells us that he went to keep the sailors quiet, and later asked Marguerite to go to the king, who had been disturbed and excited by the noise.

We hear little more of Marguerite after this crusade. In spite of his affection and respect for her, and in spite of his grat.i.tude for her conduct during his first crusade, Saint Louis did not think his wife capable of playing the role of Blanche de Castille, to which some say she unwisely aspired. When he was preparing for his second crusade, in 1270, he not only did not leave her the regency, although she was to remain in France, but he took unusual care to regulate her expenditures and to hedge about her prerogatives. He forbade her to receive any presents for herself or her children, to meddle with the administration of justice, or to choose any person for her service without the consent of the council of regents. That his precautions were not altogether without excuse, we see when we learn that Marguerite was already thinking about securing her position, in case of her husband's death, by making her son Philippe promise under oath that he would remain in tutelage until he was thirty years of age; that he would take no councillor without her approval; that he would inform her of all designs hostile to her influence; that he would make no treaty with his uncle, Charles d'Anjou; and that he would keep these engagements secret. The young Philippe had himself absolved from his oath by the Pope. The ambition of Marguerite, however, died with the husband whom she had loved and whom all Europe mourned. The good King Louis is a figure so heroic in some of its aspects that one must pause and take thought before venturing on any criticism: his motives cannot be impugned, and it were an ungrateful task to find fault with his deeds in any particular.

Marguerite lived on long after her husband in the convent she had founded in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, which she gave to the nuns in perpetuity, reserving only a life interest for her daughter, Blanche. It was here that she was living when she had the joy of hearing proclaimed the canonization of Louis IX., the saintly King of France. This was just before her death in 1295.

There are figures in history which have become woefully distorted in the disfiguring mists of centuries, and others which have been not less wronged by prejudice, partisanship, or conscious or unconscious misrepresentation. These--at least some of these--have been in part indemnified and set right before the world: Louis XI. in France, and his contemporary Richard III. in England; Cleopatra, Catherine de Medici, Mary of England, all these and a host of others, we are told now and then, have been misunderstood by the world; nay, in this century of universal charity, this century which is undertaking the task of righting all the wrongs acc.u.mulated from the past, one can find apologists for the enemy of mankind himself. The moral of this homily is--it may be apparent to some of my readers--that if you are either very good or very bad you get much talked about in history: there will be some to defend you no matter how bad you are, and some to denounce you no matter how good you are. But if you simply do your duty, without fear and without advertis.e.m.e.nt, little will be said of you; history, at least in traditions still partly ruling, does not dignify with the epithet "great" the steady day-laborers who go about their task and complete it in silence. This, I would imply, is partly the reason why Blanche de Castille has never been heralded as great, and why her work in the upbuilding of the French monarchy is taken as a matter of course, and not praised like, for example, the more brilliant exploits of the "Grande Monarque" who was to do so much to undermine the power of that monarchy.

The fame of the mother is eclipsed by the peculiar glory of the son; but would it not be fair to ask how much of the excellence of Louis the man, how much of the glory of Louis the king, was due to Blanche de Castille?

It cannot be questioned that she found France in a condition most perilous, threatened with the loss of all that two reigns had won for the royal power. A glance at the history of her career will show that she not only averted this danger, but that the crown was stronger when she began to relinquish her authority than it had been under Louis VIII.

She reduced her rebellious va.s.sals to submission; she more than held her own against England; she ended the war against Raymond of Toulouse, and reserved for France the control, immediate or ultimate, of the greater part of his dominions; and these things she accomplished, not merely by force, but by wise and patient policy. Louis IX. owed his crown to Blanche's care as regent; it is not improbable that he owed her as much during the years when he himself was on the throne and she but a counsellor. History is silent on many points in this connection, but it might be noted that it was through disregard of her earnest advice that he entered on the crusade which resulted so disastrously. She knew that, even if it had been successful from the point of view of the Church, it could but be dangerous, perhaps even ruinous, for France. This is one case in which we know Saint Louis rejected his mother's guidance, and what came of it is matter of history; might there not be many another act of his, more successful in its issue, for which the credit should go to Blanche?

As a queen, Blanche de Castille was more than capable; it is only the absence of great battles, great social, religious, and economic movements, during her ascendency, that hinders our calling her, without reservation, a great queen. When we look at Blanche the woman, we are confronted with a like difficulty. Shall we say she was a saint? Her son, the son whom she bore, whom she reared with unexampled care, whom she watched over all her life, has been called a saint, and there is no one to say him nay. Shall we say that the mother of a saint is, _ex officio_, or even by courtesy, also a saint? We cannot claim sanct.i.ty for Queen Blanche: there was in her a touch of the temper of her grand-mother, Eleanor of Guienne of wicked memory, or mayhap a trace of the Plantagenet. It is interesting to note that the best qualities of the vigorous Henry II. tempered the woman's nature of this daughter of Spain and gave her the stamina, the unconquerable spirit, which alone could save her. This Plantagenet temper is under excellent control in Queen Blanche; so excellent, indeed, that under some circ.u.mstances she seems cold. She is not cold, she is cool, a very different thing; no danger, no excitement, no sudden gust of resentment at an insult, can make her lose her head and act rashly. She is a thorough politician, making her feelings, her emotions, subservient to her will, and even, as we have hinted, playing the lover for the sake of controlling an amorous and uncertain va.s.sal. Danger nerves her to action, and she acts with prompt.i.tude and firmness. At the defects in her character we have already hinted in part; the fundamental one, when we consider Blanche the woman, was her love of power. Ambitious she was; and yet, when we say this, we must not forget that she sought power not for herself, but for her son. How quietly she relinquishes her authority, and how ready she is, even when that authority is at its height, to tell Thibaud de Champagne that he owes his preservation to "the great goodness of my son, the King, who came to your aid"! But it was her jealousy of Marguerite de Provence that was the great blemish on Blanche's character. It was a meanness unworthy of a nature so generous and so faithful; we can attempt no defence, we can only express regret. Her personality exerted a powerful influence over those with whom she came in contact, and from all the best men of her time she received due meed of praise. Compare her with other women of her day, and there is none who can be placed beside Blanche _la bonne reine_, or Blanche _la bonne mere_.

CHAPTER VII

THE ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY AND LOVE

BESIDE such a figure as that of Blanche de Castille, the women of whom we might next speak would seem pale ghosts, mere masks and shadows; and, even then, not always pleasing ones. There are, in fact, no immediate successors of Blanche and her daughter-in-law in the history of France; there is an interregnum, so to speak, of good, great, even of notorious women; in this inter-regnum, therefore, let us see how chivalry and literature were treating woman, what was the ideal, and what was the real woman in the artistic world at this time.

Between the tenth and the sixteenth centuries Europe saw the birth, the growth, the culmination, the decay, and finally the displacement of those ideals and those customs which we a.s.sociate with the word "chivalry." The subject of chivalry, interesting in itself, is also one of peculiar interest for us, since chivalry affected in no small degree the condition of women; but with its primal origin we shall not attempt to deal: we shall dig up no roots, but only do our best to describe the glorious tree itself and the soil in which it flourished. We shall find that chivalry, like all other earthly things, has its leprous spots, which one must keep out of sight if one would pour forth genuine and unchecked enthusiasm; yet the good and the bad alike must be understood if we would have a just conception of the whole.

We have seen in the case of the troubadours something of the nature of the extravagant amorous devotion avowed for his lady by the knightly poet. Though this exaggerated pa.s.sion and romance is one of the concomitants, it is not the fundamental idea or the best part of chivalry. Originally, perhaps, a mere a.s.sociation for mutual defence and support, the order of knighthood soon came to have a deeper and a better purpose, a wider significance; it a.s.sumed the sanct.i.ty of a religious inst.i.tution, for which long years of careful preparation were deemed necessary, and which imposed serious duties.

To defend the weak and the oppressed was what the soldier of G.o.d swore to do; and first in the list of those needing his defence were women.

The knight was not only the sworn defender of woman from all physical wrong and oppression, but he must guard the honor of her name. Courteous and gentle he must be toward women himself, and from others less gentle he must compel at least outward respect. In the statutes of many an order of knighthood we find provisions like those set forth by Louis de Bourbon when, in 1363, he established the order of the Golden Shield: "He enjoined (the knights) to abstain from swearing and blaspheming the name of G.o.d; above all, he enjoined them to honor _dames et damoiselles_, not submitting to hear ill spoken of them; because from them, after G.o.d, comes the honor men receive; so that speaking ill of women, who from the weakness of their s.e.x have no means of defending themselves, is losing all sense of honor, and shaming and dishonoring oneself." It was also about this time that Marshal Boucicaut established the order of the Knights of the Green Shield, fourteen in number, whose special purpose was the defence of women, and on whose shields was a blazon representing a woman clothed in white. This same sentiment we find persisting even in Brantome: "If an honest woman would maintain her firmness and constancy, her devoted servitor must not spare even his life to defend her if she runs the least risk in the world, whether of her honor or of evil-speaking; even as I have seen some who have stopped all the wicked tongues of the court when they came to speak ill of their ladies, whom, according to the devoirs of chivalry, we are bound to serve as champions in their affliction."

The devotion to woman which we find becoming the dominant feature of the chivalrous ideal rises at times to sheer extravagance, mere moonshine madness. A knight vows devotion to his lady-love; to prove that he is the truest lover in the world and she the fairest dame, he wears a patch over one eye and engages in mortal combat with anyone who ventures to smile at this absurdity. Another takes his station on the highway and compels every pa.s.sing knight to joust with him, because he has vowed to break three hundred lances in thirty days in the honor of his lady. Or there is Geoffrey Rudel, who falls in love with the Countess of Tripoli on hearsay; they say she is the most beautiful and lovable woman in the world; therefore he loves her, and therefore he goes on a crusade that he may see the lady. On the voyage he falls ill, and lands in Tripoli sick nigh unto death. The lovely countess, touched by the tales of his devotion, comes to his bedside; at once the glow of health returns to the dying lover, who praises G.o.d for preserving his life long enough to permit him to see his lady. When he died, soon after,--for the sight of the lady did not effect a permanent cure,--the countess had him buried in the church of the Templars, while she herself took the veil.

But if there is moonshine madness in the ideals of chivalry, there are also better things. Devotion to woman rises to the point of adoration; why should it not, when at its base is really the fervor of worship, the mystic worship of her whom the Middle Ages delighted to honor, Mary, the Mother of G.o.d? Let us content ourselves here with what Lecky has so well said in his _History of European Morals_: "Whatever may be thought of its theological propriety, there can be little doubt that the Catholic reverence for the Virgin has done much to elevate and purify the ideal of woman, and to soften the manners of men. It has had an influence which the worship of the Pagan G.o.ddesses could never possess, for these had been almost dest.i.tute of moral beauty, and especially of that kind of moral beauty which is peculiarly feminine. It supplied in a great measure the redeeming and enn.o.bling element in that strange amalgam of religious, licentious, and military feeling which was formed around women in the age of chivalry, and which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed."

The fact that this love of the Virgin finally became a recognized force is a proof of how much stronger are love and romance than theology and dogma; for the strict religious theory of the Church had always been opposed to the elevation of women to a very high plane of adoration.

While the Fathers of the Church praised and practised chast.i.ty as the highest virtue, and in consequence honored virgins above all others, they never forgot that it was the sin of woman which had "brought death into the world and all our woe"; they never forgot to twit the daughters of Eve with this fact, and to call them _vas infirmius_--"the weaker vessel." All through the ages when Christianity was struggling to maintain its own, the saints and martyrs, the holy hermits, in whom the Church delighted, fled the very sight of woman, and shuddered at her touch as at a contamination. Yet, in spite of this, or along with this, there was growing the adoration of a woman, the mother of Him whom the world called the Son of G.o.d. Little was known about her; so much the better for the pious hagiologists, who thought they did no wrong in piecing out scant fact with abundant legend. A regular cult of the Virgin arose, reaching such proportions that the Church had to do something to recognize it. Numerous festivals were established in her honor, some with the sanction of the Church, some without that sanction, some celebrated throughout Christendom, some only locally: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Purification, the a.s.sumption.

The mystic worship, the tendency to find hidden meanings in things of the most ordinary appearance to the lay eye, the extravagant symbolism, were at their height in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The scholastic theologians and sermon writers applied their fantastic methods to all phases of the religious life; so we must not be surprised to find them treating even the Virgin in this way. One of the extraordinary instances which we can give occurs in a sermon delivered in Paris by the Chancellor of the university, Stephen Langton, later Archbishop of Canterbury. His name, by the way, is Latinized for us as _Stepha.n.u.s de Langeduna_, whence it was easy and flattering to deduce _Stepha.n.u.s Linguae tonantis_. As a text the preacher takes nothing more nor less than a popular song, _Bele Aalis main se leva_, of which the following is the sense: "Sweet Alice arose in the early morn, dressed herself and adorned her fair body, and went into the garden. There she found five flowrets, of which she made a chaplet covered with roses. By my faith, therein has she betrayed thee, thou who lovest not." It is a little love song; and the author, whoever he may be,--probably some forgotten strolling minstrel who saw the girl go into the garden and wrought the incident to suit his fancy,--certainly had no religious intent. But Stephen Langton endeavors to make a mystic application of the song to the Virgin, and, as he says, "thus to turn evil into good."

Let me quote a few lines of the sermon to show how this _tour de force_ was accomplished. _"Videamus quae sit_ Bele Aeliz.... Cele est bele Aeliz _de qua sic dicitur: Speciosa ut gemma splendida ut luna et clara ut sol, rutilans quasi Lucifer inter sidera_, etc.... _Hoc nomen Aeliz dicitur ab a quod est sine et lis litis, quasi sine lite, sine reprehensione, sine mundana faece._" It may be of interest to translate this as a specimen of the sermon of the first quarter of the thirteenth century: "Let us now see who is Bele Aeliz.... She is bele Aeliz of whom it is said: Beautiful as a jewel, shining as the moon and brilliant as the sun, glistening as Lucifer among the stars, etc.... This name Aeliz is formed from a, which means without, and _lis, litis_, which is as much as to say without dispute, without blame, without mixture of the dregs of the world." The worthy theologian then proceeds to what is undoubtedly the most difficult problem of his interpretation to demonstrate the connection of the garden, the chaplet, and the five flowers with the Virgin. "Who are these flowers? Faith, hope, charity, humility, virginity. These flowers did the Holy Ghost find in the blessed Virgin Mary..." The closing verses are, he says, directed against pagans, heretics, blasphemers, whom he scripturally addresses thus: "Depart, ye accursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

The enthusiasm of the clergy in behalf of the Virgin was matched by that of the people. Nothing was more popular than the hymn to the Virgin, scarcely distinguishable, in the ardor of some specimens preserved to us, from the contemporary love songs to women of flesh and blood. Clerks and laymen composed these songs, vying with each other in the fervor of the sentiments they expressed, writing in Latin, in French, in mixed Latin and French, praising the mere physical beauty and grace of her whom they called _rose des roses et fleur des fleurs_. One can read these things without shock only when one remembers that there was nothing but devotion of a purely spiritual kind intended by them, a fact of which it is sometimes hard to persuade oneself. As an example, and not an extreme one, it might do to subst.i.tute merely the name _Marie_ for that of _Aalis_ in the song used for Langton's sermon.

Besides these songs there were plays representing miracles ascribed to the Virgin, and legends without end grew up in which she was the intercessor for poor mortality. She becomes almost identified with the attribute of Mercy a.s.signed to the G.o.dhead, and some of the souls alleged to have been saved by her are not always worth the saving, according to modern standards of morality. A legend, repeated in many forms, tells us, for example, of a clerk of Chartres (presumably a clerk in the cathedral), "proud, vain, rude, and so worldly and licentious in his habits that he could not be restrained." With all his rakish ways, however, there was one thing that this man of G.o.d never omitted to do: "He would never pa.s.s before the image of Our Lady... without kneeling;"

and once on his knees, "his face wet with tears, he saluted her many times most humbly, and beat his breast." Now the clerk was killed by an enemy of his, and then the world began to speak ill of him, and, on account of his notorious bad habits, they buried his body in a ditch outside Chartres. Thirty days, or nights, afterward, "she from whom springs all pity, all mildness and sweetness and love, and who never forgets her servants," appeared in a dream to one of the other clerks and reproached him bitterly for the dishonor done her servitor, of whose piety she then told him. The clergy of the city marched out to the grave of the clerk; and when it was opened they found "a flower in his mouth, so fresh and full of bloom that it seemed as if it had just blown there"; while the tongue with which he used to praise the Virgin was preserved from corruption, "as clear as is a rose in May." The moral of this story, one would think, would be anything but salutary; it is only when one recognizes the simple, unsophisticated piety which inspired it, and reflects upon its teaching of greater gentleness, greater charity in judging others, that one can admire it.

To the mediaeval mind, indeed, the Virgin was not very unlike a heroine of romance, and it was no disrespect to deck her out in fancy as gorgeously as some fair Elaine or Iseut. The story of this latter heroine, whose name no two will spell alike,--Iseut, Ysoult, Isolde, Isout, Ysolt,--is one typical of the age of romance and chivalry, and one which we shall give, despite its familiarity. By way of preface it may be well to remark that the story has been told so often that the variations introduced by this or that reviser are not to be distinguished from the original.

The mother of Tristan was Isabelle, sister of King Mark of Cornwall, who, dying when her son was born, asked that he be called Tristan, or Tristram, "that is as much as to say, sorrowful birth." The boy was hated by his uncle, King Mark, who tried to make away with him; but the youth escaped to France, where he won the love of King Faramond's daughter, and was in consequence compelled to flee again to Cornwall, where a temporary reconciliation with Mark was effected. Then there came out of Ireland a knight, Sir Morhoult, to claim tribute due to the Irish king by King Mark. Tristan fought with the stranger, wounded him unto death, and was himself wounded by the poisoned lance of his adversary.

Only in the country where the poison was brewed was there hope of succor for the wounded hero; and accordingly Tristan set out for Ireland, in a boat without sails and without rudder, albeit well victualled. The helpless boat, however, bore its precious burden safely to Ireland.

The wounded knight, who concealed his real name, was kindly received by the Irish king, who gave him into the charge of his wife and his daughter, La Belle Iseut, both skilled leeches. The latter, fair and golden-haired, altogether lovely, became the special attendant of the wounded knight: "And when she had searched his wound, she found in the bottom of his wound that there was poison, and within a little while she healed him, and therefore Tristan cast great love to la Belle Iseut, for she was at that time the fairest lady in the world, and then Sir Tristan taught her to harp, and she began to have a great fantasy unto Sir Tristan." Unfortunately the mother of Iseut discovered by chance that Tristan was the slayer of her brother, Sir Morhoult. Tristan must leave, and nothing but the love of Iseut and the honor of the king saved him from the wrath of the queen and enabled him to escape unmolested.