XI.

CHAP. XI.

JOHN, TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNY.

1350-1360.

CHAP. THE monarchy of France achieved its two great objects in a surprisingly short space of time. These were the territorial expansion of the kingdom over the countries bounded by the ocean, the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean, and the Pyrenees; and the establishment of a central authority and absolute sovereignty over all. These aims, conceived in the imagination of Suger, at the beginning of the twelfth century, became developed into a policy in the hands of Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and Philip the Fair. At the commencement of the fourteenth century Philip of Valois ruled over a kingdom of France with frontiers very nearly identical with those of the realm to which Louis the Fourteenth succeeded. Nor was the authority of the great monarch of the seventeenth century over his subjects more complete or more uncontrolled, than that of Philip of Valois, or Philip the Fair.

But the goal thus reached so quickly had also been reached prematurely. What was obtained could not be kept, and that which had been momentarily and hastily accomplished, could not be consolidated. The absolute authority which Philip Augustus claimed, and which St. Louis sought to organise, was based altogether on the Byzantine principle, that either took no account of

XI.

a landed and hereditary aristocracy, with judicial and CHAP. political rights connected with the soil, or which, in recognising these rights temporarily, looked to nothing short of their abolition. In order to effect this, it would have been necessary to have planned and perfected far more than judicial reforms. The military organisation, which it was proposed to abolish, it would have been necessary to replace, whilst the basis of this, as well as of all other departments of administration. the fiscal system should have been so ordered as to be able to meet the pressure of war as well as the exigences of peace. The attempts to crush the aristocracy, set aside its influence, and nullify its power, whilst, at the same time, the crown was obliged to have recourse to it for the military defence of the State, was but achieving half a purpose, and ensuring the abrogation of what had been done by that which had been left undone.

It has always been found far more easy to establish despotism than to endow it with institutions or with a machinery that will make it permanently work. Despotism has indeed never done this. Its most perfect, we may say its only system, that of Imperial Rome, lived and flourished by the laws, the institutions, and the organisation which it inherited from the republic, and which the free and wise spirit of that republic exerted during many centuries, could alone have created. But the Roman or the Byzantine system only suited the ancient or civic society for which it was formed, ignoring the rustic world, and not having any conception of a local lord of the soil, with tenants and peasants looking up to and supporting him. This characteristic element of modern Europe, the same whether feudal in the middle ages, or gentle in our time, is quite incompatible with the Byzantine plan of a merely functionary noblesse and a sacrosanct autocrat. The history of France consists of a series of attempts to graft the one

CHAP.

XI.

upon the other, all most lamentably unsuccessful, and of which perhaps the last experiment is now making, whilst we write, in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The policy of establishing the absolute power of the monarch on the ruins or subjection of the feudal aristocracy ceased with Philip the Fair. In the reigns of his sons a reaction took place. The nobles reasserted their privileges: they insisted on enjoying once more their judicial power, their high and low justice, their rights of private war and trial by battle. Philip of Valois, considered the head of the aristocratic party and class, undertook to reconcile it with the crown, maintaining, at the same time, the crown's supremacy and uncontrolled authority,-no easy task. For this purpose, or rather from his character and nature, he surrounded his court and person with the noblesse, lived in a succession of fêtes, tournaments, ceremonies, and processions. The legists he reduced to the rank of subalterns; and if he at times consulted the good towns or their deputies, it was speedily to forget the promises made to them. In war he depended chiefly on his mailed knights, unequal as these had proved themselves to the defence of the kingdom. Philip seemed to think the safety of his crown depended on the fidelity of his noblesse; and he certainly had reason to know how fatal to him proved the defection of such nobles as Robert d'Artois and Geoffrey of Harcourt.

Philip and his son and successor, John, by no means pursued the policy best calculated to secure the attachment of their numerous nobles. Feeling it necessary to give back to them a considerable portion of their old privileges and independence, it would have been honest and expedient to have controlled them at the same time by feudal jurisdiction. No law punished treason more severely than the feudal. But the feudal law required, at the same time, a fair and open trial,-that by one's

peers. Instead of adopting any such fair course,
Philip of Valois, and indeed his father, Charles, set the
example of proceeding against enemies without even
the forms of law. Such trials and judgments as those
of the Templars were, indeed, but mockeries of justice;
and it is not to be wondered at, that sovereigns thought
it a small stretch of power to substitute summary
executions without form of trial, for a mock trial accom-
panied by torture and followed by a similar execution.
Philip of Valois seized the Breton and Norman nobles,
whom he suspected of infidelity to him, and ordered
their assassination. If he purposed thus to rule the
aristocracy by terror, he ought not to have restored to
them their privileges, their right of war, and their old
sense of independence. For with these, whenever they
were wronged, they had no justice to expect from the
king and his courts, and were driven, for very security,
to fly or rally to the national foe.
In the century

which ensues, the noblesse of France were often as
ready to betray their sovereign, or desert his cause, as
to stand up in his and the national defence. It was
only when English victory had defeated and disgraced
the French nobles, and when the monarchy found its
defenders amongst the lesser gentry and the townsfolk,
that these presented a firm front to the foe, and proved
as staunch in their loyalty as indomitable in their
courage.

Philip of Valois and his son, in making the defence of the country and fidelity to its interests dependent on personal attachment to themselves, found a formidable rival in Edward the Third. The latter was a prince of far greater abilities and far higher renown. He was as fond of the society of his nobles and their pastimes as Philip. His tournaments were even more splendid, and his habits more chivalrous, than the French kings. He had founded the order of the Garter, a kind of chivalrous fraternity, in common with his gentry

CHAP.

XI.

CHAP.

XI.

as well as his nobles; and the banquets of the knights took place at a round table, that form which peculiarly marks the equality of the guests.* When Edward claimed the crown of France, and by no mean right, holding Guienne and the Angoumois, maintaining Brittany in its independence, entrenched at Calais, and in alliance with the Flemings, many a French noble might hesitate, whether the Plantagenet was not preferable to the Valois.

This was the great anxiety of Philip at his death, and it was the first care of John, when he ascended the throne. John felt that the councillors and lieutenants, on whom he could most surely rely, were his relatives, and for all of these, Froissart says, he entertained the utmost affection. His first act as king, after his coronation, was to set at liberty the two sons of Robert of Artois, who had been fifteen years in captivity. Pierre, duke of Bourbon, and James, his brother, were also great friends and favourites of John. Several of the French nobles had been made prisoners during the war, either at the capture of Caen, the battle of Crecy, or in the Breton campaigns. These nobles, though captive, were always invited to Edward's festivities, and were not the less welcomed by the knights and the ladies who thronged the English court. Charles of Blois was one of these, and so was the constable, the Count of Eu and of Guisnes, "so fresh and handsome a cavalier," that he was always welcome wherever he went. John was jealous of this great favour enjoyed by the Count of Eu, of the family of Brienne; he did not like to continue to trust him in the office of constable. His desire, too was to confer this important office upon one of his

* John instituted the order of the Star in imitation of that of the Garter, but was unable to maintain even its respectability. The members of John's order were all princes

and grandees; those of Edward's order of the Garter were twelve of them plain knights. Froissart gives the lists of both.