CHAPTER XLIII

THE PLAGUE OF FLORENCE

Not under circumstances the most joyous did King Edward reach England, after having baffled the ambition of Geoffrey de Chargny, and saved Calais from falling into the hands of Philip of Valois. Even while the tidings of his exploit on the morning of New Year's Day rang over England, and ministered to the national pride, Englishmen were in the utmost alarm at the approach of an enemy not so easily dealt with as the continental foe, so often trampled in the dust. Already that terrible pestilence, commonly known as "the plague of Florence," where, perhaps, its ravages were most terrible, had reached the shores no longer in danger from invaders in human form.

Never within the memory of man--never, perhaps, since the waters of the Flood subsided, and the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, and Noah and his sons came forth to repeople the earth, has Heaven so severely punished the sins of the nations as at the terrible period of which I write. From East to West an epidemic malady of unprecedented virulence ravaged the world, taking a wider range, and proving infinitely more destructive, than any calamity of the kind recorded in history, and spreading terror and desolation wherever it went.

It was in Asia, and in the year 1346, the year of Cressy, that this pestilence first appeared. But to Asia its ravages were not long confined. Entering Europe, it travelled rapidly westward, and, sweeping off Saracens, Jews, and Christians in its course, visited country after country and city after city. Already exhausted by war and humiliated by defeat, France suffered dreadful horrors. One-third of the inhabitants are said to have perished; and, in Paris alone, fifty thousand human beings fell victims.

Nor was victorious and prosperous England exempt from the visitation which fell so heavily on her vanquished and impoverished foe. Far different was the case. At first the pestilence made its presence felt on the coasts of Dorset and Devon; but on the coast it did not long linger. Finding its way, on the one hand, to Norwich, and, on the other, to Bristol and Gloucester--all three seats of the woollen manufactures, flourishing under Queen Philippa's patronage--it wrought terrible havoc in these hives of industry, and finally, taking possession of London, caused such mortality that the living could scarce bury the dead. In one churchyard--that of the Charter House--several hundred funerals took place daily.

All over Christendom there seemed to hang a curse. In many places the pestilence swept away a fourth of the population; in others a third disappeared during its prevalence; and, in several, not more than one inhabitant out of ten survived its inroads. Even the beasts of the field yielded to its influence. Sheep and cattle perished as well as human beings; and in some places the air was so polluted that it was all but impossible to inhale it without catching the infection. Under such circumstances every bond of attachment seemed to burst asunder. Servants fled from their masters, wives from their husbands, and children from their parents. Nothing could exceed the awe which was inspired by the invisible destroyer.

At length the calamity, after passing through various stages, reached the worst, and gradually a change took place, and men began to look around them, and once more breathe freely. Forthwith a great reaction took place: people said, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry"; and many who but lately, when their danger appeared imminent, had been calling on the rocks to fall on them and cover them, now hastened to break loose from all restraint, set all laws at defiance, rushed into excess without scruple, and fearlessly ate the bread of wickedness and drank the wine of violence.

At the same time, fanaticism, raising her head, sent forth her votaries, and the consequences were fatal and unfortunate in more ways than one.

A fierce persecution of the Jews at once commenced in France and other countries where they were to be found. Accused by the populace of having caused the plague by poisoning the rivers and fountains, the unhappy Hebrews were hunted, burnt, and massacred by thousands. Never has the multitude been animated by so savage a spirit as then urged them on to cruelty and bloodshed. Every Jew appeared to be marked out for destruction; and the spirit of persecution, spreading daily, became so fierce and general that the Jews, having no hope of escape elsewhere, crowded towards Avignon, and sought safety--nor in vain--in the territories of the Church and under the protection of the Pope.

Meanwhile it was prophesied that, for one hundred years, people with iron scourges were to come to destroy the Jews; and now there appeared, in Germany, a sect of enthusiasts, of both sexes, who carried the iron scourges, but who, instead of applying them to the backs of the Jews, applied them to their own. Finding their way from Germany into Flanders, and from Flanders into England, these men and women--known as Flagellants--travelled in companies, and set reason and decency at defiance. Believing, or pretending to believe, that their sufferings were agreeable to the Divinity, they appeared in the squares and public places of cities and towns, naked to the girdle, and, while chanting, in a piteous tone, canticles of the nativity and passion of the Redeemer of Mankind, scourged themselves with their iron hoops, to expiate, as they said, the sins of the world.

In the midst of all this confusion, and persecution, and fanaticism, an event occurred which produced consequences of importance. One August day that pale spectre, which visits the castles of kings as impartially as the cottages of the poor, appeared at Nogent-le-Roi, where Philip of Valois then was. In his palace at that town, which is situated on the Eure, five leagues from Chartres, Philip, at the age of fifty-eight, breathed his last. Immediately his eldest son, John, previously known as Duke of Normandy, was hailed as King of France, and a new scene opened.