The She Wolf of France (16 page)

Mahaut of Artois had arranged to be appointed godmother. In this capacity it was her duty to carry the new little King to the ceremony of presentation to the barons. Bouville had been certain, as had Madame de Bouville, that if the terrible Mahaut intended committing a crime; she would do so without hesitation during the ceremony, for it was the only occasion she would have of carrying the chil
d in her arms. Bouville and his
wife had therefore decided to hide the royal infant during those hours, and to substitute for him the wet-nurse's son, who was but a few days older. Under the state swaddling-clothes, no one would notice the substitution, for no one had as yet seen Queen Clemence's child, not even herself, for she was suffering from a serious fever and almost at the point of death.

`And indeed,'
said Bouville, `Countess Mahaut
smeared poison over the child's mouth and nos
e after I had handed him to her
, and he died in convulsions in the presence of the baro
ns. It was this innocent little
creature I delivered over to death. And the crime was accomplished so smoothly and so quickly, and I was so perturbed, that it never occurred to me to cry out at once, and in public; "This is a lie!" And then it was too late. How could I explain?'

The Pope was leaning forward a little, his hands clasped over his robe, losing not a word of the story.

`What happened to the other child, the little King, Bouville? What did you do with him?'

`He is alive, most Holy Father, he is alive! My late wife and I confided him to the wet-nurse. And, indeed, we had considerable difficulty. The unfortunate woman hated us both, as you can well imagine, and was groaning in her anguish. With mingled threats and appeals we made her swear on the Gospel to look after the little King as if he were her own child, and never to reveal what had happened to anyone at all even in the confessional.'

`Oh, oh,' murmured the Holy Father.

`And so little King John, the real King of France, is being brought up in a manor in the Ile-de-France, without his or anyone else's knowing who he really is, apart from the woman who passes for his mother and myself.'

`And who is this woman?
'

'She is Marie de Cressay, the woman the young Lombard,
Guccio Baglioni, was in love with.'

Everything was now clear to the Holy Father. `And does Baglioni know nothing about it?'

`Nothing, I'm sure of it, most Holy Father. For the Cressay
woman refused ever to see him again, as we had ordered her, so as to keep her oath. Besides, it all happened very quickly, and the boy set out at once for Italy. He thinks his son is still alive. He gets news of him from time to time through his uncle, the banker Tolomei.'

`But why, Bouville, since you had proof of the crime, and it should have been easy enough to bring it home to her, did you not denounce the Countess Mahaut? When I think,' added Pope John, `that she was sending her chancellor to me, at that very time, to try to persuade me to support her cause against h
er nephew Robert..
.'

It suddenly occurred to the Pope that Robert of Artois, the rowdy giant, the sower of discord, the assassin even - for it seemed more than likely he had had a hand in the murder of Marguerite of Burgundy at Chateau Gaillard - Robert of Artois, the great baron of France, the black sheep, was nevertheless more worthy perhaps, when all was said and done, than his cruel aunt, and that he possibly had some
right on his side in his fight
against her. What a world of wolves these sovereign Courts were. It was the same in every kingdom. And was it to govern, to pacify and to direct this sort of flock that God- had inspired him, a poor little burgess of Cahors, with the great ambition of attaining to the tiara which, indeed, he now wore and sometimes felt to be a trifle-heavy?

`I kept silent, Most Holy Father,' Bouville went on, `largely on the advice of my late wife. As I had let the opportune moment of confounding the murderess go by, my late wife pointed out with some truth that, if we revealed what had happened, Mahaut would turn furiously on the little King and on us too. Therefore, if we wanted to save him, and ourselves as well, we had to let her believe her crime had been successful. I therefore took the wet-nurse's child to the Abbey of Saint-Denis that he might be buried among the kings.'

The Pope was thinking.

`Therefore, the accusations made against Madame Mahaut in the lawsuit that took place the next year were well founded?' he asked.

`Indeed they were, Most Holy Father, indeed they were. Monseigneur Robert was able, through his cousin, Messire Jean de Fiennes, to lay his hands on a poisoner, a sorceress, named Isabelle de Feriennes, who had given to a lady-in-waiting of Countess Mahaut the poison she used to kill first King Louis, then the child who was presented to the barons. This Isabelle de
Feriennes, together with her son Jean, was brought to Paris to give evidence against Mahaut. You can imagine how this suited Monseigneur Robert's book! Their depositions were taken, and it clearly appeared that they had supplied the, Countess, for they had previously given her the philtre by which she boasted of having reconciled her daughter Jeanne to her son-in-law, the Count of Poitiers.'

`Magic and sorcery! You could have had the Countess burnt,' whispered the Pope.

`But not at that time, Most holy Father, not at that time. For the Count of Poitiers had become King and was giving Madame Mahaut such protection that, in my; heart of hearts, I am sure he had been her accomplice, at least in the second crime.'

The Pope's narrow face seemed to crumple even more beneath his furred skull-cap. These last words had pained him. For he had been fond of King Philippe V, to whom he owed his tiara, and with whom he had always been in perfect accord over all State matters.

`But God's punishment fell on them both,' Bouville went on, `for within a year they had both lost their sole male heir. The Countess' only son died at the age of seventeen. And young King,
Philippe lost his at only
a few months old, and he never had a
nother. But the Countess put up
a
clever defence against
the accusations brought against
her. She pleaded the irregularity of the procedure before Parliament; and the disqualification of her accusers, for, she maintained, her rank as a peer of France rendered her liable to be tried only by the Chamber of
Barons. However, to establish
her innocence, so she said, she besought her son-in-law - it was a fine scene of public hypocrisy - to have the inquiry continued so as to give her the opportunity of confounding her enemies. The Feriennes sorceress and her son were heard again, but after being put to the, question. They were in no very good state, and were covered in blood. They retracted completely, declared that their earlier accusations were lies and maintained t
hat they had been persuaded to
bring them by favours, prayers, promises and also by violence to their persons, instigated, according to the records of the clerk of the court, by a person whose name should not at present be mentioned; which was equivalent to naming Monseigneur Robert of Artois. Then King Phil
ippe the Long sat in the seat o
f justice himself and made all his family and relations and all the intimates of his late brother appear before him: the Count of Valois, the Count of Evreux, Monseigneur of Bourbon, Monseigneur Gaucher, the

Constable, Monseigneur de Beaumont, the Master of the Household, and Queen Clemence herself, asking them on their oath whether they knew or believed that King Louis and his son, Jean, had died any but a normal death. Since no proof could be produced, the hearing was being held in public, and the Countess Mahaut was sitting beside the King, everyone declared, though in many cases against their private convictions, that these deaths had been due to natural causes.'

`But, no doubt, you were summoned to appear yourself?'

Fat Bouville hung his head.

`I bore false witness, most Holy Father,' he said. `But what else could I do when the whole Court, the peers, the King's uncles, the privy servants, and the wido
wed Queen herself all certified
Madame Mahaut's innocence on oath? I should then have been accused of lying and perjury; and I should have been sent to swing at Montfaucon.'

He seemed so unhappy, so cast down, so sad, that one could suddenly see in that plump and fleshy face the features of the little boy he had been half a century before. The Pope was moved to compassion.

`Calm yourself, Bouville,' he said, leaning towards him and putting his hand on his shoulder. `And don't reproach yourself with having done wrong. God set you a problem that was a little heavy for you. I will take your secret on myself. Only the future can tell whether you did the right thing. You wanted to save a life that had been confided to you as part of the responsibilities of your position, and you saved it. You might have endangered many other lives had you spoken.'

`Oh, most Holy Father, indeed I
feel much calmer now,' said the ex-Chamberlain. `But what will happen to the little hidden King? What should be done about him?'

`Wait and do nothing. I'll think about it and let you know. Go in peace, Bouville. As for Monseigneur of Valois, he can have his hundred thousand livres, but not a florin more. And let him stop bothering me about his crusade, and come to an agreement with England.'

Bouville knelt, raised the Pope's hand effusively to his lips, got to his feet, and backed towards the door, since it appeared the audience was over.

The Pope recalled him with a gesture.

Bouville, what about your absolution? Don't you want it?'

A moment later Pope John was alone and walking up and down his study with little tripping steps. The wind from the
Rhone was blowing under the doors and wailing through the fine new palace. The parakeets were chirping in the aviary. The embers in the brazier in the corner of the room had turned dull. John XXII was confronted with one of the most difficult problems he had
known since his election. The real K
ing of France was an unknown child, hidden away in the courtyard of a manor. Only two peo
ple in the world, or three now, knew of it. Fear
prevented the two first from talking. And now that he himself` knew, what was he to do about it, when two kings had already succeeded to the throne of France, two kings duly crowned and anointed with the holy oil, though they were in fact nothing but usurpers? Oh, yes
- indeed, it was a
grave matter, nearly as grave as the excommunication of the Emperor of Germany. What should he do? Reveal the whole affair? It would throw France and, in her wake, a great part; of Europe into the most
appalling dynastic tur
moil. Once again, here were the seeds of war.

There was also another consideration that decided him to keep silent, and it had to do with the memory of King Philippe the Long. Yes, John XXII had been very fond of that young man, and had helped him as much as he
could.
Indeed, he had been the only sovereign he had ever admired or to whom he was grateful. To tarnish his memory was to t
arnish John XXII at the same tim
e, for, without Philippe the Long, would he ever, have become Pope? And now dear Philippe was revealed to have been a criminal, or at least the accomplice of a crimi
nal. But was it for Pope
John, for Jacques Dueze, to throw the first stone? Did he not owe both his hat and his tiara to the grossest frauds? And suppose, to assure his election, he had
had
to allow a murder to be committed?

`Lord, Lord, I thank Thee for having spared me that temptation. But am I worthy of being charged with the care of Thy creatures? And suppose the wet-nurse talked one day, what would happen then? Could one ever trust a woman's tongue? Lord, it would be merciful, if Thou wouldst sometimes enlighten me! I have given Bouville absol
ution, but the penance is for m
e.'

He collapsed on to the green cushion of his prie-dieu and remained there a long time, his face hidden in his hands.

3.
The road to Paris

How
the
French
roads rang, out clear beneath the horses' hooves! What happy music the crunching gravel made! And the air she was breathing, the soft, sunlit morning air, how wonderfully scented it was, what a marvellous savour
it had! The buds were beginning
to open, and little, tender, green, crinkled leaves stretched out across the road to
caress the travellers
brows. No
doubt
the grass of the banks and fields of the Ile-de-France was not so thick or rich as English grass, but for Queen Isabella it was the grass of freedom and, indeed, of hope.

Her white-mare's mane swung to the rhythm of its paces. A litter, carried by two mules, was following a few yards behind. But the Queen was too happy and too impatient to t
olerate being enclosed in such
a conveyance. She preferred to ride her hack and to set a fast pace; she would have liked to jump the hedge and gallop away across the grass.

Boulogne, where she had been married fifteen years earlier in the Church of Notre-Dame, Montreuil, Abbeville and Beauvais had formed the stages of her journe
y. She had spent the preceding
night at Maubuisson, near Pontoise, in the royal manor
where she had seen her father,
Philip the Fair, for the last, ti
me. Her journey had been almost
a pilgrimage through the past. It was as if she were journeying back through the stages of her life, as if fifteen years were being abolished, so that she could make a new start.

`Your brother Charles would no doubt have taken her back,' Robert of Artois was saying, as he rode beside' Isabella. `And he would. have imposed her on us as Queen, so much did he regret her and so little could he make up his mind to find a new wife.'

Of whom was Robert talking? Oh
yes, of Blanche of Burgundy. Her memory had been, evoked by Maubuisson where,
a little while ago, a cavalcade
consisting of Henri de
Sully, Jean de Roye, the Earl
of Kent, Roger Mortimer and Robert of
Artois himself, together with
a whole company of lords, had come to greet the traveller. Isabella had felt considerable pleasure at being treated like a queen again.

`I really believe Charles derived a secret pleasure from contemplating the horns of cuckoldom she had set on his brow,'