Charles the Bold Part 16

Duke Charles was shorter and stouter than Duke Philip, but well formed, strong in arm and thigh. His shoulders were rather thick-set and a trifle stooping, but his body was well adapted to activity.

The contour of his face was rounder than that of his father, his complexion brunette. His eyes were black and laughing, angelically clear. When he was sunk in thought it seemed as though his father looked out of them. Like his father's mouth was his, full and red. His nose was p.r.o.nounced, his beard brown, and his hair black. His forehead was fine, his neck white and well set, though always bent as he walked. He certainly was not as straight as Philip, but nevertheless he was a fine prince with a fair outer man.

When he began to speak he often found difficulty in expressing himself, but once started his speech became fluent, even eloquent.

His voice was fine and clear, but he could not sing, although he had studied the technique and was fond of music. In conversation he was more logical than his father, but very tenacious of his own opinion and vehement in its expression, although, at the bottom, he was just to all men.

In council he was keen, subtle, and ready. He listened to others'

arguments judicially and gave them due weight before his own concluded the discussion. He was attentive to his own business to a fault, for he was rather more industrious than became a prince. Economical of his own time, he demanded conscience of his subordinates and worked them very hard. He was fond of his servants and fairly affable, though occasionally sharp in his words. His memory was long and his anger dangerous. As a rule, good sense swayed him, but being naturally impetuous there was often a struggle between impulse and reason.

He was a G.o.d-fearing prince, was devoted to the Virgin Mary, rigid in his fasts, lavish in charity. He was determined to avoid death and to hold on to his own, tooth and nail, and was his father's peer in valour. Like his father, he dressed richly; unlike him, he cared more for silver than for jewels. He lived more chastely than is usual to princes and was always master of himself. He drank little wine, though he liked it, because he found that it engendered fever in him. His only beverage was water just coloured with wine. He was inclined to no indulgence or wantonness. "At the hour in which I write his taste for hard labour is excessive, but in other respects his good sense has dominated him, at least thus far. It is to be hoped that as his reign grows older he will curb his over-strenuous industry."

As to the duke's sympathies, Chastellain regrets that circ.u.mstances have turned him towards England. Naturally he belonged to the French, and it was a pity that the machinations of the king, "whose crooked ways are well known to G.o.d, have forced him into self-defence. Yet on his forehead he wears the fleur-de-lys."

Chastellain acknowledges that Charles is accused of avarice, but defends him on the ground that he has been driven into collecting a large army. "A penny in the chest is worth three in the purse of another." "To take precautions in advance is a way to save honour and property," prudently adds the historian, who evidently flourishes his maxims to strengthen his own appreciation of the duke's economy, which, quite as evidently, is not pleasing to him. "I have seen him the very opposite of miserly, open-handed and liberal, rejoicing in largesse. When he came into his seigniory his nature did not change."

It was simply the exigencies of his critical position that forced him to restrain his natural propensities and thus to gain the undeserved reputation for parsimony.

It was also said that he was a very hard taskmaster, but as a matter of fact he demanded nothing of his soldiers that he was not ready to undertake himself. Like a true duke, he was his own commander, drew up his own troops himself in battle array, and then pa.s.sed from one end of the line to the other, encouraging the men individually with cheery words, promising them glory and profit, and pledging himself to share their dangers. In victory he was restrained and showed more mercy than cruelty.

After expatiating on the points where Charles was like his father--conventional princely qualities --Chastellain adds: "In some respects they differed. The one was cold and the other boiling with ardour; the one slow and p.r.o.ne to delay, the other strenuous in his promptness; the elder negligent of his own concerns, the younger diligent and alert. They differed in the amount of time consumed at meals and in the number of guests whom they entertained. They differed more or less in their voluptuousness and in their expenditures and in the way in which they took solace and amus.e.m.e.nt." But in all other respects, "in life they marched side by side as equals and if it please G.o.d He will be their conductor in glory everlasting" is the final a.s.surance of their eulogist.

Yet, lavish as the Burgundian poet is in his adjectives about his patron, there is considerable discrimination between his summaries of the two dukes. It is very evident that from his accession Charles was less of a favourite than his father. While endeavouring to be as complimentary as possible, distrust of his capacities creeps out between the lines. Chastellain died in 1475, and thus never saw Charles's final disaster. But the violence of his character had inspired lack of confidence in his power of achievement, a violence that made people dislike him as Philip with all his faults was never disliked.

[Footnote 1: Du Clercq, iv., 302 _et seq_. Erasmus was born in this year, 1467.]

[Footnote 2: II., 49.]

[Footnote 3: "Non par armes attachees a espingles."]

[Footnote 4: _Oeuvres_, vii., 213.]

CHAPTER IX

THE UNJOYOUS ENTRY

1467

After the dauphin was crowned at Rheims, he was monarch over all his domains. Charles of Burgundy, on the other hand, had a series of ceremonies to perform before he was properly invested with the various t.i.tles worn by his father. Each duchy, counts.h.i.+p, seigniory had to be taken in turn. Ghent was the first capital visited. Then he had to exchange pledges of fidelity with his Flemish subjects before receiving recognition as Count of Flanders.

According to the custom of his predecessors, Charles stayed at the little village of Swynaerde, near Ghent, the night before he made his "joyous entry" into that city. It had chanced that the day selected by Charles for the event was St. Lievin's Day and a favourite holiday of the workers of Ghent. The saint's bones, enclosed conveniently in a portable shrine, rested in the cathedral church, whence they were carried once a year by the fifty-two gilds in solemn procession to the little village of Houthem, where the blessed saint had suffered martyrdom in the seventh century. All day and all night the saint's devotees, the Fools of St. Lievin, as they were called, remained at this spot. Merry did the festival become as the hours wore on, for good cheer was carried thither as well as the sacred shrine.

Now the magistrates were a little apprehensive about the rival claims of the new count of Flanders and the old saint of Ghent. They knew that they could not cut short the time-honoured celebration for the sake of the sovereign's inauguration, so they decided to prolong the former, and directed that the saint should leave town on Sat.u.r.day and not return until Monday. This left Sunday free for the young count's entry. It probably seemed a very convenient conjunction of events to the city fathers, because the more turbulent portion of the citizens was sure to follow the saint.

Accordingly, Charles made a very quiet and dignified entrance,[1]

having paused at the gates to listen to the fair words of Master Mathys de Groothuse as he extolled the virtues of the late Count of Flanders, and requested G.o.d to receive the present one, when he, too, was forced to leave earth, as graciously as Ghent was receiving him that day. All pa.s.sed well; oaths of fealty were duly taken and given at the church of St. John the Baptist. Charles himself pulled the bell rope according to the ancient Flemish custom, and the Count of Flanders was in possession. This all took place in the morning of June 28th. At the close of the ceremonies Charles withdrew to his hotel and the magistrates to their dwellings.

The devotees of St. Lievin prolonged their holiday until Monday afternoon. It was five o'clock[2] when the revellers returned to Ghent. Many of the saint's followers were, by that time, more or less under the influence of the contents of the casks which had formed part of the outward-bound burden. The protracted holiday-making had its natural sequence. There was, however, too much method in the next proceedings for it to be attributed wholly to emotional inebriety.

The procession pa.s.sed through the city gate and entered a narrow street near the corn market, where stood a little house used as headquarters for the collection of the _cueillotte_, a tax on every article brought into the city for sale, and one particularly obnoxious to the people. Suddenly a cry was raised and echoed from rank to rank of St. Lievin's escort, "Down with the _cueillotte_."

Then with the ingenious humour of a Celtic crowd, quick to take a fantastic advantage of a situation, a second cry was heard: "St.

Lievin must go through the house. Lievin is a saint who never turns aside from his route."

Delightful thought, followed by speedy action. Axes were produced and wielded to good effect.

Down came the miniature customs-house in a flash. Little pieces of the ruin were elevated on sticks and carried by some of the rabble as standards with the cry "I have it--I have it." As they marched the procession was constantly augmented and the cries become more decidedly revolutionary: "Kill, kill these craven spoilers of G.o.d and of the world.[2] Where are they? Let us seek them out and slay them in their houses, those who have flourished at our pitiable expense."

This was rank rebellion. Even under cover of St. Lievin's mantle, resistance to regularly inst.i.tuted customs could hardly be described by any other name. Excited by their own temerity, the crowd now surged on to the great market-place in front of the Hotel de Ville, where the Friday market is held, instead of returning the saint promptly to his safe abiding-place as was meet.

There the lawless deeds--lawless to the duke's mind certainly--became more audacious. Counterparts of the very banners whose prohibition had been part of the sentence in 1453 were unfurled,[4] and their possession alone proved insurrectionary premeditation on the part of the gild leaders. Ghent was in open revolt, and the young duke in their midst felt it was an open insult to him as sovereign count.

His messenger failed to return from the market-place. His master became impatient and followed him to the scene of action with a small escort. As they drew near, the crowd thickened and hedged them in. The n.o.bles became alarmed and urged the duke to return, but cries from the crowd promised safety to his person. To the steps of the Hotel de Ville rode the duke, his face dark, menacing with suppressed wrath.[5]

As he dismounted, he turned towards a man whom he thought he saw egging on a disturbance and struck him with his riding whip, saying, "I know you." The man was quick enough to realise the value of the duke's violence at that moment and cried, "Strike again," but the Seigneur Groothuse, who had already tried to check Charles's anger and to curb the popular turbulence, exclaimed, "For the love of G.o.d do not strike again!" The wiser burgher at once understood the unstable temper of the mob, which had been fairly civil to the duke up to this moment. There were ugly murmurs to be heard that the blow would cost him dear.

"Indeed," says the courtly Chastellain, "the mischief was so imminent that G.o.d alone averted it, and there was not an archer or n.o.ble or man so full of a.s.surance that he did not tremble with fear, nor one who would not have preferred to be in India for his own safety. Especially were they in terror for their young prince, who, they thought, was exposed to a dolorous death."

It was Groothuse alone who averted disaster:

"Do you not see that your life and ours hang on a silken thread?

Do you think you can coerce a rabble like this by threats and hard words--a rabble who at this moment do not value you more than the least of us? They are beside themselves, they have neither reason nor understanding.[6]... If you are ready to die, I am not, except in spite of myself. You must try quite a different method--appease them by sweetness and save your house and your life.

"What could you do alone? How the G.o.ds would laugh! Your courage is out of place here unless it enables you to calm yourself and give an example to those poor sheep, wretched misled people whom you must soothe. Go down in G.o.d's name. [They were within the town hall.] Show yourself and you will make an impression by your good sense and all will go well."

To this eminently sound advice the young duke yielded. He appeared on a balcony or on the upper steps of the town hall and stood ready to harangue his unruly and turbulent subjects. A moment sufficed to still the turmoil and the silence showed a readiness to hear him speak.

Charles was not perfectly at ease in Flemish, but he was wise enough to use that tongue. One trait of the Ghenters was respect for the person of their overlord. When that overlord showed any disposition to meet them half-way the response was usually immediate. So it was now.

The crowd which had been attending to St. Lievin, and not to the duke's joyous entry, suddenly remembered that his welcome had been strangely ignored. Their grumblings changed to greetings. "Take heart, Monseigneur. Have no fear. For you we will live and die and none shall be so audacious as to harm you. If there be evil fellows with no b.u.mp of reverence, endure it for the moment. Later you shall be avenged. No time now for fear."

This sounded better. Charles was sufficiently appeased to address the crowd as "My children," and to a.s.sure them that if they would but meet him in peaceful conference, their grievances should be redressed.

"Welcome, welcome! we are indeed your children and recognise your goodness."

Then Groothuse followed with a longer speech than was possible either to Charles's Flemish or to his mood. This address was equally well received, and matters were in train for the appointment of a conference between popular representatives and the new Count of Flanders, when suddenly a tall, rude fellow climbed up to the balcony from the square. Using an iron gauntlet as a gavel to strike on the wall, he commanded attention and turned gravely to address the audience as though he were on the accredited list of speakers:

"My brothers, down there a.s.sembled to set your complaints before your prince, your first wish--is it not?--is to punish the ill governors of this town and those who have defrauded you and him alike."

"Yes, yes," was the quick answer of the fickle crowd.--"You desire the suppression of the _cueillotte_, do you not?"--"Yes, yes."--"You want all your gates opened again, your banners restored, and your privileges reinforced as of yore?"--"Yes, yes." The self-appointed envoy turned calmly to Charles and said:

"Monseigneur, this is what the citizens have come together to ask you.

This is your task. I have said it in their behalf, and, as you hear, they make my words their own."

Noteworthy is Chastellain's pious and horrified e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n over the extraordinary insolence of this big villain, who thus audaciously a.s.sociated himself with his betters: "O glorious Majesty of G.o.d, think of such an outrageous and intolerable piece of villainy being committed before the eyes of a prince! For a low man to venture to come and stand side by side with such a gentleman as our seigneur, and to proffer words inimical to his authority--words the poorest n.o.ble in the world would hardly have endured! And yet it was necessary for this n.o.ble prince to endure and to tolerate it for the moment, and needful that he should let pa.s.s as a pleasantry what was enough to kill him with grief."