CHAPTER VIII

_The Birth of the Bourgeoisie and the English Occupation_

‘Servanti Civem querna corona datur.’ _Town Motto._[83]

Whilst the Cathedral was a-building, events had happened at Chartres which serve to indicate the importance of the position attained by the town in feudal France by virtue of the power of its Counts, the greatness of its Bishops and the prosperity of its commerce. The legate, Pierre Léon, who was afterwards to become the anti-pope Anaclete, held a council here and, in 1130, the legitimate Pope sought refuge at Chartres, where Henry the First of England came to prostrate himself before him. As to the Counts, their greatness had been increased by the inheritance of the County of Champagne. They were not chary of using their strength to advance their own importance. Thibault the Great, son of Adèle, Countess of Chartres and daughter of William the Conqueror, allied himself with the King of England and waged continual warfare with the King of France. When his foreign ally died, Thibault’s brother Stephen ascended the English throne, and he himself became Duke of Normandy.

His eldest son, Henry, was one of those who took the Cross when S. Bernard came to Chartres, preaching the Crusade of 1145. On that memorable occasion the Abbot of Clairvaux was elected, by acclaim in the Cathedral, Generalissimo of the Christian forces. But with the example of the disastrous leadership of Peter the Hermit before his eyes, S. Bernard wisely declined. ‘Who am I,’ he wrote to the Pope, ‘that I should order the lines of battle, and go out before the faces of armed men, or what is more remote from my profession?’ Count Henry gained great renown in the Holy Land, and when at last, after fifty years of opposition to his King, the old Count died, he left to his valorous eldest son the County of Champagne, and Chartres and Blois passed to his second son, Thibault, owing homage to Henry. This Thibault, surnamed Le Bon, aided the King against Henry Plantagenet, and was rewarded by being made Seneschal of France. The amicable relations which were now at last established between the race of Thibault and the throne were still further strengthened by the marriage of Louis-le-Jeune with Alice of Champagne, the sister of Thibault, and mother, by this marriage, of Philippe-Auguste. Thibault himself, through the good offices of the Queen, obtained the hand of the King’s daughter by his first wife. The alliance thus consolidated bore fruit for the King when he took the offensive against the King of England in 1167. For the troops of Chartres and of Champagne followed the royal standard on that occasion. A few years before, a younger brother of Count Thibault, William of the White Hands, had succeeded Robert-le-Breton as Bishop of Chartres, and he soon became the adviser of the princes whose relative he was. Philippe-Auguste used to speak of him as ‘the watchful eye of his Council.’ Together with Count Henry and the King, he received the exiled Thomas of Canterbury with open arms, and succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between him and the English King, whose imperious will he had thwarted. The reconciliation was hollow. Before long France was filled with horror at the news of the murder of À Becket. Louis demanded vengeance from the Pope: Count Thibault wrote to the Roman pontiff that the ‘dogs of the Court had spilled the blood of the just’; the Bishop of Chartres excommunicated all the Continental possessions of the King of England.

But it was not till three years later that hostilities broke out between France and England, when the three sons of Henry Plantagenet--Henry, Geoffrey and Richard Cœur-de-Lion--united with Louis and the Princes of Champagne against their father. That redoubtable coalition of Frenchmen, Chartrains, Champenois and Angevins was, however, no match for the English King. Beaten near Verneuil, Louis was obliged to make terms with his enemy in the following year (1174).

The blood of the martyred À Becket had sprinkled his friend and secretary, John of Salisbury. ‘By the grace of God and the merits of the martyr, S. Thomas,’ as he himself expresses it, he was called to succeed William _aux Blanches-Mains_ in the bishopric of Chartres. The life of the great writer was nearly over when he came there, bringing with him, as a gift to the treasure of the Cathedral, a phial containing some drops of the blood of the master whom he had so faithfully served at Canterbury and followed in exile, and the dagger with which that master had been murdered. But, short as was his tenure of the See, he left his mark upon the history of Chartres. He overthrew the exorbitant pretensions of the secular lords who claimed as _choses_ of their domain all serfs set free by the Church, and thus rendered illusory the enfranchisement of ecclesiastical serfs, and he obtained for clerks brought to justice that they should henceforth not be condemned to undergo trial by ordeal, whether of duel, hot iron, or hot or cold water.

Philosopher and man of affairs, secretary of Archbishop Theobald, intimate friend of Nicholas Breakspear (the only Englishman who has ever filled the chair of S. Peter), and the devoted adherent of Thomas à Becket, John was born at Salisbury, but his enthusiasm for culture he owed to his training as a youth under Abelard at Paris, and in the school of Chartres. For that school still maintained the reputation which it had acquired under Fulbert. In his book _Metalogicus_, John, who has been termed the ‘central figure of English learning’ in his time, has left us a lively account of the method of teaching practised by Bernard Sylvester, ‘the old man of Chartres, the most fruitful source of letters in all France,’ and by his successors. The breadth of view, the sound common sense, and the lack of pedantry which characterise John of Salisbury’s contributions to logic and to political thought are due, we may believe, not only to his practical training in the Archbishop’s household at Canterbury, but also to the ‘humane’ teaching of Bernard and his school. John of Salisbury died in 1180, and was buried in the Monastery of S. Marie-de-Josaphat, now destroyed (_see_ p. 98). His books he left to the Cathedral library. He was succeeded by his friend Pierre, Abbot of Celles, and afterwards of S. Remy, at Reims, with whom he had passed a great part of his exile, when the exquisite _chevet_ there, one of the earliest bits of pointed architecture, was being built. This excellent bishop spent the two years of his episcopate in the execution of public works, the abolition of vexatious feudal customs, and the distribution of alms. At his own charges he constructed the town walls from the Porte des Épars to the Church of S. Foy, and repaved the streets. He obtained from the Count a modification in the exercise of the right of Banvin. For, according to usage, it was forbidden to sell wine during a period of time called the ban, in order to give the lord an opportunity of selling his wine without competition. Thibault consented to abolish this custom, whilst exacting a small toll from those who sold wine in inns during the ban. And the charity of Pierre de Celles was so abounding that, at his funeral, the crowd flung itself upon his coffin and embraced his corpse. His successor was Renaud de Mouçon, under whom the Cathedral was built. He, like Thibault, had taken the Cross in 1189, but, unlike the Count, returned home alive and well.

The thirteenth century saw yet another Count of Chartres lay down his life in battle with the Infidels. For Louis, who had been made King of Bithynia by the Emperor Baldwin after the sack of Constantinople (1204), was attacked by the Bulgarians before Andrinople and perished heroically. Jean de Friaize, seeing that he had been twice severely wounded, exhorted him to retire. ‘Nay,’ he cried. ‘Leave me to fight and die. God grant that I may never be reproached with having fled the battle!’ His son took part in the crusade against the Moors and also in that other holy war, more popular because less distant, which Simon de Montfort conducted. Following their Count and their Bishop, thousands marched south to massacre the Albigenses, because they entertained the heresy of the Manichæans, which admits the existence of two gods, identified with the principles of good and evil.

Meantime, whilst bishops and counts were warring against Turks, Moors and Albigenses, Chartres was left in the hands of the Countess Catherine, in whose name a marshal of her palace and a provost of the town administered justice. The jealousy between the Count’s men and the _protégés_ of the Chapter which was always smouldering broke out in a startling fashion about this time. The outbreak is worth mentioning, for it throws light upon the growing power and self-assertion of the people. Speaking generally, the tendency at this period was for the notable citizens of the town to become, under the title of _Avoués_, vassals or _protégés_ of the Chapter, but the trades and corporations, revolting against the oppression of the _Avoués_, who tried to exact from them all the taxes and impositions laid upon the town, strove to secure their liberties and customs by rallying to the Count. On the pretext, then, of some injury done to a serf of the Countess by the Dean William, the people burst suddenly into the cloister and laid siege to the house of the Dean.

The Chapter demanded the intervention of the marshal and the provost, but those officers, instead of stopping the riot, incited the mob to break down the doors and smash the windows of the house. The Dean from the first had wisely taken refuge in the Cathedral, but his retainers, barricading themselves, returned the assaults of the rioters with a rain of tiles and faggots. Maddened by this resistance, the mob procured a heavy waggon, and using it as a battering-ram burst open the main entrance and sacked the house, hurling all the furniture out of windows.

Next day the outraged Chapter excommunicated the town and _banlieue_. No services were held; the altar of Notre-Dame was stripped of its ornaments; and even the curfew bell was not allowed to ring. Every day from the top of the jubé a priest pronounced the terrible curse known as ‘the great excommunication, the anathema and fulmination.’ At this solemn moment the candles were lit and the bells rung confusedly, and, as the priest finished his malediction, all became silent again and the candles were extinguished. But this demonstration, usually so effective, was received with shouts of laughter and screams of abuse.

However, a fire which destroyed the lower streets on the banks of the Eure filled the rioters with fear. The revolutionists, thinking that they beheld the finger of God, were ready to submit, but the Dean and Chapter had already summoned the King, who came incontinent to Chartres, and after inquiry ordered the Count’s people to make _amende honorable_ and to pay for the damage they had done. But the bishop returning from abroad was not satisfied, and at his request Phillippe-Auguste ordered the offenders to pay a heavy fine and to make _amende honorable_ in full church, on a feast day, _nuds en chemise_, and bringing rods with which they were to be scourged before the altar of the Virgin. And this was actually done. Thus, says the chronicler, the Church by the aid of Heaven emerged from this tribulation.

But the quarrel between the two parties was not quenched. It broke out five years later, and was settled again to the disadvantage of the Counts. Later, in a collision between the _bourgeois_ and the men attached to the Cathedral, two of the latter were killed. The murderers were pursued by some canons and protected by others. One canon was assassinated by his brethren. A new excommunication was pronounced upon the town. The synod appointed to judge the matter, not thinking itself safe in the presence of the growing power of the Third Estate, removed to Mantes. The banishment of the murderers and the intervention of S. Louis succeeded in producing an apparent calm. But the storm soon broke out afresh, and the people plundered and the Chapter excommunicated as vigorously as ever.

Troublesome as these perpetual conflicts between the rival authorities were, it is to be observed that the liberty of the cloister and the privileges of the clergy, which were in dispute, were institutions which led to the emancipation of some Chartrain families formerly subject to the Counts. The ecclesiastical corporations, in fact, set an example in this matter of enfranchisement which the Counts were slow to follow. And it was probably due to this antagonism that the feudal lords of Chartres delayed for so long the grants of a communal charter to the town.

It was not till the King Philippe-le-Bel bought the County of Chartres from Jeanne, the widow of S. Louis’s son, Pierre de France, and gave it to his own brother, Charles de Valois (1293), that the dispute was finally closed. Three years later the town received its charter and the _Bourgeoisie_ began to come into its own. The granting of the charter was a business transaction. The need of money was great in France. The differences of the King with the Pope, with England and the Flemings, rendered it imperative that he should prepare for war. Under the new conditions, when the King’s domain included

two-thirds of all France and the days of feudalism had passed away, it was necessary both to maintain a fleet and to pay mercenaries. Philip, whose short-sighted methods of raising money had already got him into difficulties with Flanders and the Church, now sent his men through the ‘good towns of France’ to collect contributions. ‘But,’ says Souchet, the old historian of Chartres, ‘the people of Paris, Rouen, Orleans and other cities rose and slew the commissioners who prosecuted their charge with more violence than was needful,’ and the contemporary _Chronique de la Saint-Magloire_ records:--

‘En Normandie et en Chartrain De ce suis je trestot certain Que en France, que en Champaigne Il n’y a nul qui ne s’en plaigne Des coustumes qu’estoient levées Sur blé, sur vin et sur denrées.’

In these circumstances, therefore, Count Charles of Valois, when he wished to raise money in Chartres to aid his royal brother, found that there was only one way of doing it and that was by granting to the citizens, who, as we have seen, had long been restive because they were subject to all kinds of feudal charges and services of which the surrounding towns had been freed, a kind of Charter of _Commune_. For a cash consideration of 12,000 _livres tournois_, he confirmed several usages which were already by tacit consent practised, and he compounded for the annual tribute paid to the Counts by the town. It would be interesting to quote this document in full, but I must be content to give a summary of it. Shortly, it provided that the citizens should in future be exempt from paying the Count the annual tribute of £400, and exempt also, unless in cases of pressing necessity, from _Taille_, _Ost_ and _Chevauchée_; their horses were not to be impressed for the use of the Count, their personal liberty was to be respected and, for criminals, before their trial, bail allowed after a certain period of imprisonment. Lastly, the citizens were authorised to assemble and elect _Procureurs_ or Governors for the needs and necessities of the town after the form and manner of the citizens of Orléans. The Count also undertook to make good the use and custom of the town by which contracting parties in case of dispute were judged exclusively by local courts.

Charters usually promised more than they gave. In spite of remonstrances, the citizens did have to supply considerable sums in tribute from time to time in the ensuing centuries. Whether under the name of loans, or advances, or _octrois_, Kings like François I. and Henry IV. bled the merchants freely, and, if they protested too loudly, quickly brought them to their senses by the threat of force. But, in the meantime, whilst Charles de Valois, with the aid of the Chartrain contribution, was asserting the rights of his wife to the throne of Constantinople, or earning, at Florence, a place in Dante’s _Inferno_, the town of Chartres, profiting by his absence, was quietly organising and ameliorating its administration.

The development of the municipality and the subsequent absorption of the domain of Chartres by the Crown by no means diminished the loyalty of its citizens. A worthy reception was given to Philippe-le-Bel when he came with his son, the boy Prince Charles, after his victory over the Flemish at Mons-en-Puelle, to render thanks and offer his armour at the shrine of the Vierge-Noire. The King also founded in commemoration of his victory a service in honour of Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire. Down to the year 1793 the martial ex-voto of the royal father and son was shown from the pulpit on each anniversary of the defeat of the Flemings. In that year, however, the rich armour was stripped of the precious metals with which it was adorned. The gold was sent to the mint in Paris. The remaining fragments, pieced together, may be seen in the town museum (_see_ p. 317). The example of Philippe-le-Bel was followed some years later by Philippe de Valois after his similar victory at Cassel. Fully armed, he rode into the Cathedral, knelt before the ancient statue, and left a thousand pounds to redeem the armour and steel which he had dedicated to the Virgin.

It was at this period that Chartres may be said to have reached the zenith of its prosperity. From this time forward we have to trace the process of its decay. For not only was Chartres, like all provincial towns, destined to suffer from the centralising tendency of the new era which succeeded that of feudalism, but it was also condemned by its position at the gates of Paris not to escape any of the catastrophes attendant upon the political and social developments of the day. Its history, however, becomes on that account more rather than less interesting. It was taken and retaken in the fifteenth century by the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the English and the French, twice besieged in the sixteenth century by the Huguenots of the Prince de Condé and of Henry IV., and torn asunder by the passions of the Fronde in the seventeenth.

With the fourteenth century France entered upon a period of disaster and defeat. To the terrible ravages of the Black Death were added the horrors of famine, and the shame and devastation of the Hundred Years’ War. The odds in that war, brought on by the continual intervention of the French King on behalf of Scotland and his obstinacy in the matter of Guienne, must have seemed at the first enormously in favour of France. But the vast superiority of the French in numbers and wealth was to prove useless in the face of the English yeomen. Crécy and Poitiers revealed the fact, bewildering to feudalism, that the superb bravery of French knighthood was futile when confronted with the English unmounted churl shooting his cloth-yard shaft. A cavalry charge in the face of those archers had no more chance of being successful than the charge of the Dervishes at Omdurman, or the later frontal attacks of our own infantry upon positions defended with magazine rifles. King John, taken prisoner at Poitiers, was carried captive to London, whilst in France, his routed soldiery turned into free companies of bandits, pillaged the country, and held the Chartrains prisoners for six months within their walls. The captive lords procured the sums needed for their ransom by extortion from the peasantry, who were driven by oppression and famine into frantic insurrection, butchering their lords and firing their castles. And Paris, impatient of the weakness and misrule of the Regency, rose in arms against the Crown.

Chartres in these days was compelled to strain every nerve to defend herself. A band of mercenaries was engaged to garrison the town. The Church of S. Saturnin, which was then in front of the Porte des Épars, and several convents, hospitals and mansions outside the walls, which might have given a foothold to the enemy, were destroyed. And in 1358 an order was issued that everyone should co-operate to fortify the town, ‘which is the safety and salvation of all the people within and without.’ Money for this purpose was raised by an extra tax upon beasts and skins. The ramparts of the town were now defended by a ditch and moat, and the gates, which had formerly been square and without ravelins, were modified and reconstructed in accordance with the more modern ideas of fortification, which the introduction of

gunpowder and artillery had developed. Cannons were mounted on the walls. The Porte Drouaise, Porte S. Michel and the Porte des Épars have disappeared, but the Porte Guillaume remains to show us what they were like. This gate, named after the Vîdame Guillaume de Ferrières (1182), has been referred to the tenth century by local enthusiasts. But that date is too ambitious, except perhaps for the foundations. The inside of the gate, on the town side, and part of the vaulting belong to the year 1182, when the enlargement of the town _enceinte_ took place and the perimeter of the walls and fortifications was extended, especially in the quarter between the Gates Châtelet, des Épars and S. Michel. But the outside of the Porte Guillaume, its façade very much as we have it now, was constructed after Poitiers. With its well-preserved crenellated parapet and machicoulis, and the openings for the play of the drawbridge, it presents a fine specimen of the military architecture of that period, and reminds one not a little of the contemporary towers of the Bastille at Paris (1369), a plan of which is in the town museum. The drawbridge used to connect the main towers of the gateway with an advanced fortification surrounded by the waters of the moat. The reader will gain a clear idea of the arrangement by referring to the old print reproduced on page 275. The strength of the Porte Guillaume was so great, that though dominated by the heights of S. Barthélémy and S. Chéron, it withstood all the assaults and batteries of besiegers, and the town was never taken from this side. Deservedly, therefore, it remains almost intact, though nearly all the rest of the fortifications of Chartres have been converted into boulevards and

‘Its once grim bulwarks tamed to lover’s walks Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure.’

Close under it, in old days, was a chapel dedicated to S. Fiacre, whither pilgrims afflicted by the distressing complaint known as Mal de S. Fiacre used to come in hopes of healing. But this has long since disappeared.

The new defences of Chartres were soon shown to be needed. Charles-le-Mauvais, a third competitor to the throne of France, plotted, but in vain, to surprise the town. Nor were his English allies more successful. For no sooner had the ‘Jacquerie’[84] or peasant rising been crushed, than Edward again poured ravaging over the wasted lands of France, for the Dauphin refused to sanction the humiliating terms upon which the English King proposed to treat with the captive King John. The sufferings of the country around Chartres under the repeated ravages of the soldiery of all nations were now unspeakable. The enemy passed over the vineyards, the cornfields and the gardens of La Beauce like a storm, but they were only succeeded by the unpaid troops of the French. Plunder, indeed, was forbidden them, but plunder was their only means of living. ‘Damoiselle Picorée’ (Miss Plunder) ‘sold me this’ was the private soldier’s proverbial explanation as he helped to accomplish the ruin of those he was supposed to defend. And at the inn, when the bill was being prepared, he would lay his sword with a clatter on the table and exclaim with intention, ‘God send me no need of thee.’ Whether there was need or no would depend usually upon the landlord’s physical courage and capacity.

The bitter cry of France at this juncture is voiced by a document embodying a resolution of the canons.

‘The persecution of the Church,’ it is written, ‘can only be compared to that of Jerusalem; there are no friends left to us, and those entrusted with our affairs do us more harm than our enemies. None dare quit the city: our houses are sacked, our property in the country burnt, our retainers killed or imprisoned. Our debtors do not pay their debts, and the voice of the Church is of no avail. Justice is departed from the land with the captive King. There is no more confidence in the royal safe-conduct, and that of the English is abhorred by the nobles and the people. We, therefore, the canons of Notre-Dame met in general assembly, decree that the fruits and emoluments of the prebends shall be shared in common among all the canons in order that each may have a morsel of bread to break; that each resident canon shall provide himself with arms, and maintain two knights and an armed page to resist the assaults of the enemy.’

But an event was shortly to happen which relieved France, for a while at least, from the presence of a foreign enemy. The misery of the land at last bent Charles to submission, and Edward III., weary of constant warfare in a famished country, at last concluded a peace. The incident which induced him to sign the Treaty of Brétigny was regarded by all his contemporaries as miraculous. The part which ‘our Lady of Charters’ played in this affair is recorded in the fascinating chronicles of Sir John Froissart. ‘Edward,’ he tells us, ‘having put the realm of France into great tribulation, intended to lay siege to Paris after August and not to return again to England till he had France at his pleasure. Leaving garrisons, therefore, to make war in France, Champagne, Poictou, Ponthieu, Vexin, Normandy and all the realm of France, he came into “the good country of Beauce” with the idea of staying in Brittany till the vintage season. But he was led to change his mind.

‘All this season the Duke of Normandy was at Paris, and his two brethren and the Duke of Orléans, their uncle, and their Counsels. They imagined well the courage of the King of England, and how that he and his men brought the realm of France into great poverty, and saw well how the realm could not long endure in that case, for the rents of the lords and of the churches were nigh lost in every part. As then there was a sage and discreet person Chancellor of France, called Sir William of Montague, Bishop of Terouenne, by whose counsel much of France was ruled, and good cause why, for ever his counsel was good and true, and with him there were two other clerks of great prudence, the Abbot of Cluny and the master of the Friars Preachers, called Sir Simon of Langres, a master in divinity; these two clerks, at the desire of the Duke of Normandy and of the whole Council of France, departed from Paris with certain articles of peace, and Sir Hugh of Geneve, Lord of Autun, in their company, and they went to the King of England, who rode in Beauce towards Galardon. These two clerks and two knights spake with the King and began to fall in treaty for a peace, to be had of him and his allies; to the which treaty the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of March were called. This treaty was not as then concluded, for it was long a-driving and always the King went forward. These ambassadors would not so leave the King, but still sued and followed on their purpose, for they saw how the French King was in so poor estate that the realm was likely to be in a great jeopardy, if the war continued a summer longer. And on the other side, the King of England required so great things and so prejudicial to the realm of France, that the lords would not agree thereto for their honours, so that all their treaty (the which endured a seventeen days, still following the King) they sent ever their process daily to the Duke of Normandy, to the city of Paris, ever desiring to have again answer what they should do farther, the which process was secretly and sufficiently examined in the Regent’s chamber at Paris, and answer was sent again by writing to them what they should do and what they should offer; and so these ambassadors were oftentimes with the King, as he went forward toward the city of Chartres, as in other places, and great offers they made to come to a conclusion of the war and to have a peace. To the which offers the King of England was hard hearted to agree unto, for his intention was to be King of France and to die in that estate. For if the Duke of Lancaster, his cousin, had not counselled him to have peace he would not have agreed thereunto. But he said to the King, “Sir, this war that ye make in the realm of France is right marvellous and right favourable for you: your men win great riches and ye lose your time, all things considered, or ye come to your intent, ye may hap to make war all the days of your life. Sir, I would counsel you (sith ye may leave the war to your honour and profit) accept the offers that ben made unto you, for, sir, you might lose more in a day than we have won in twenty years.” Such fair and subtle words that the Duke of Lancaster said in good intention, and for weal of the King and all his subjects, converted the King by the grace of the Holy Ghost, who was chief worker in that case. For on a day, as the King was before Charters, there fell a case that greatly humbled the King’s courage. For while these ambassadors were treating for this peace and had none agreeable answer, there fell suddenly such a tempest of thunder, lightning, rain and hail in the King’s oost, that it seemed that the world should have ended: there fell from heaven such great stones that it slew men and horses, so that the most hardiest were abashed.

‘Then the King of England beheld the Church of our Lady of Charters, and avowed devoutly to our Lady to agree to the peace, and, as it was said, he was as then confessed, and lodged in a village near to Charters, called Brétigny. And there were made certain compositions of peace, upon certain articles after ordained; and, the more firmly to be concluded by their ambassadors, and by the King of England and his Council, there was ordained, by good deliberation and advice, a letter called the Charter of Peace’ (1360).

By this treaty the English King waived his claims on the crown of France and on the Duchy of Normandy; but, on the other hand, his Duchy of Aquitaine was not only restored to him, but freed from its obligations as a French fief, and granted in full sovereignty with Ponthieu, as well as Guisnes, and the new conquest of Calais.

The captive King, Jean-le-Bon, was ransomed and released, and he, like his captor Edward, and the Black Prince before him, made a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame, and passed piously beneath the Holy Chest, which it was deemed safe at last to bring forth from its hiding-place in the Chapel of S. Lubin.

A period of comparative quiet ensued under the administration of Charles the Wise, who summoned the States-General to meet at Chartres, and entrusted the patriotism of this and other principal towns with the task of raising forces to deal with the roving bands of freebooters which, under the name of _grandes compagnies_, swarmed over the country. The campaigns conducted by Duguesclin against the English in the south left Chartres undisturbed. She devoted herself to the restoration of order, the enforcement of law, and the strengthening of her wall. One little incident will show the progress which, in spite of war, and impositions of every sort, had been made since the high days of feudalism.

The house of one Guillaume Morhier, knight and seigneur of S. Piat, was forcibly entered by some bailiffs, who were charged to distrain upon him for the benefit of a horse-dealer. Morhier’s daughter, when the chief official was preparing to read his warrant to her, snatched the paper out of his hands, and for this offence was roughly seized and, in spite of her protests, dragged on her knees across the town, as though she had been a common thief or murderess, and committed to prison in the Tour-le-Roi. She was thrown into the cells used for women of loose life. It was with the utmost difficulty that the unfortunate girl regained her liberty, after two friends had appeared to go bail for her. Intense indignation was aroused by this high-handed behaviour on the part of the officials. For the Morhier family was one of the most important in the district. The bailiffs, after a formal investigation of the case, lasting over two years, were condemned to make full apology, and pay a heavy fine. But the mere fact that Morhier did not, without trial, hang then and there the servant of the law who had presumed to raise his hand against his high-born daughter is significant of the advance that had been made in the last two hundred years.

The next thing of importance that happened at Chartres was the curious episode of the _Paix Fourrée_. A terrible crime plunged France into all the horrors of civil war. The Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, jealous of the popularity of the Duke of Orléans, caused him to be assassinated (1407) at Paris. A year of struggle and recrimination passed before Charles VI. could bring the murderer and the son of his victim to make even a pretence of reconciliation. The Duke of Burgundy demanded, without desiring, pardon, which the Duke of Orléans, without forgiving, granted. Each swore aloud to live henceforth in peace with his cousin, and swore beneath his breath to slay him. The ceremony took place in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Armed men in battle array stood at the porches of the church, and within, seated on a throne near the crucifix, with the Queen and Dauphin, the Kings of Sicily and Navarre, dukes, cardinals, and other nobles and officials near at hand, Charles waited the arrival of John the Fearless, who had left Gallardon that morning with six hundred men-at-arms.

Amidst profoundest silence the cruel conqueror of the Liégeois advanced down the nave and made his submission to the imbecile King, who had so feebly forgiven the murderer of his brother. Then again advancing towards his ‘dear cousins,’ the children of the murdered duke, he formally besought them to banish from their hearts all hatred and feelings of revenge, and to live in amity with him. At these words, and at the sight of their father’s murderer, the young princes burst into tears. The Queen and Dauphin approached them, and begged them to forgive, and, at the command of the King, the young duke and his brother repeated the prescribed words of the treaty, and they and the Duke of Burgundy, and all the princes of royal blood, swore upon the Cross and the Gospels to obey the behest of the King in this matter. This done, John the Fearless, without taking bite or sup in Chartres, mounted his horse and rode away. Little wonder that John of Montagu, brother of the former Bishop of Chartres, in registering this pact, wrote beneath it these significant words, ‘Pax, Pax; et non est Pax’ (Peace, Peace; and it is not peace). So also thought the excellent Fool of the Duke of Burgundy, who, wrapping an ecclesiastical paten (_paix d’église_) in his fur mantle (_fourrure_), remarked that it was but a patched-up peace (Paix Fourrée).

The Fool’s verdict was soon justified. John the Fearless went to Paris, and curried favour with the people of the market-place. His popularity and democratic tendencies provoked the displeasure of the Orleanists, who represented the old feudal party. In the civil war which ensued between the Armagnacs, as the Orleanists were called, and the Burgundians, Chartres, lying very much in the centre of the operations, suffered almost equally from both sides.

The spirit of patriotism and the sense of unity were as yet scarce born in France. The example and exigencies of civil war were not calculated to promote their growth. Maddened by the assassination of the Duke of Burgundy in the very presence of the Dauphin, with whom he had come to confer, the Burgundians threw themselves into the hands of the English. After the Battle of Agincourt, where, against still greater odds, the English archers had inflicted a still more overwhelming defeat upon the French knighthood than at Crécy and Poitiers, Henry V. had been steadily reducing the province of Normandy. Now, by the aid of his new allies, he concluded with the maniac Charles VI. the Treaty of Troyes (1420), which handed over to England the crown of France and the whole kingdom. Chartres had been taken in 1417[85] by John the Fearless, and converted into his capital. Every citizen suspected of favouring the Armagnacs had been expelled from the city. The capital of the Burgundians was therefore not unnaturally one of the first towns to recognise Henry V. in his new _rôle_ of heir to the French crown. The Dauphin, indeed, marched from Blois to take vengeance upon the rebellious city, but he promptly raised the siege when Henry, leaving Paris, advanced to relieve it.

Henry took Dreux, and remained there a month. Then he returned to Chartres as a pilgrim, with bare feet, and a candle in his hand. Rich gifts were bestowed upon Notre-Dame by the English soldiery, amongst which is mentioned a magnificent _ostensoir_ that disappeared during the Revolution. The high bourgeoisie and clergy, captivated by the favours of the English King, were now all addicted to _Anglescherie_ (Anglomania), a fault which they, with the rest of Europe, have since managed to correct. Thus, whereas formerly a Bishop of Chartres had equipped himself as a knight and gone to die at Agincourt in battle with the enemy, the Bishop now could only maintain his See by devoting himself to the English cause. This Jean de Frétigny did with success. As a rival of Orléans and Châteaudun also, Chartres naturally favoured Henry in days when centralisation and patriotism, that higher form of selfishness, were almost unknown, as the tragic history of the Maid of Orléans was shortly to show. Her brother, we may mention, was for a while captain of Chartres.

One year after Joan of Arc, the patriot before her time, had been put to death by a judicial murder at Rouen without one word of protest from her countrymen or the Church, Chartres was retaken by the French. The manner of its taking was on this wise.

Two merchants of the town, Guillaume Bouffineau and Jean Lesueur by name, who traded in salt, wine and corn with the people of Blois and Orléans, were won over by the governor of the latter city to the side of the French King, Charles VII. At his instigation they prepared a plan for surprising the town, which took effect on the 11th of April. On that day Bouffineau and Lesueur, accompanied by some soldiers disguised as waggoners, arrived early in the morning at the gate S. Michel with several loads of what they said was salt. They demanded admittance; and as they had the reputation of being the best possible of citizens, the guards lowered the drawbridge. Two waggons passed safely in; the third was purposely upset on the bridge. Profiting from the confusion caused by this accident, the conspirators attacked the guards, slew them, and rushed into the town shouting, ‘La Paix, Ville Gagnée!’ Two strong French detachments, commanded by Longueville, Dunois, Boussicault and La Hire,[86] who had been lying in ambush near at hand, now arrived, reinforced the assailants, and occupied the principal thoroughfares. The English party was taken completely unawares, and was slow to rally; for not only were the cries of the assailants confusing, but the eloquence of a confederate monk was enthralling. He had assembled the people at the other end of the town to hear him preach, and their interest in his sermon prevented them from realising their danger till too late.

The Anglicising Bishop Frétigny, however, when he heard of the affair, rushed to arms and fell fighting at the head of his men. The town was taken. The conspiring bourgeois were rewarded with money and office. Charles VII. achieved the pacification of Chartres with letters of pardon and confirmation. A strong force of French troops garrisoned it against any attempt of the English to retake it, and used it as a convenient spot from which to make marauding expeditions against the neighbouring English territory. It was, indeed, for a while a frontier fort, guarding the French marches. Night and day, from the towers of Notre-Dame, men watched the plains of La Beauce, ready to give the alarm when the English, moving from their quarters in Normandy, threatened this district. In 1491 the Chartrain garrison moved out and laid siege to Gallardon, which was still held by the English. Talbot, marching on the Ile-de-France, relieved his fellow-countrymen. But next year Gallardon fell into the hands of the Chartrains. Gradually the English were driven out of France, and the people of Chartres began to make a desperate effort to restore their ruined commerce by developing the

navigation of their river Eure. Thereby they involved themselves in continual and expensive litigation with the owners of riparian rights and the jealous merchants of neighbouring towns.

Relieved from the pressure of a foreign enemy, the quarrels between the Bishop and the Chapter broke out with renewed vigour. The disgraceful and ridiculous scenes of the last century were repeated. Then the esteem in which the clergy were held had been damaged by the exhibition of the Bishop and the Chapter quarrelling over the question of authority, excommunicating each other and continuing to say Mass. Apart from deeds of violence--and these were not few--it was a sufficiently deplorable object-lesson for the people. Canons in the Cathedral made such a clatter with their chairs that the proclamations of the Bishop could not be heard. Now, the Chapter, who refused to recognise the right of mandamus claimed by the Bishop, was involved in a similar quarrel with Miles d’Illiers. When he endeavoured to enforce his episcopal jurisdiction upon the canons of the cloister, they declared that he was violating the rights of the Holy See, to which alone they were responsible, and forthwith excommunicated him. Nothing daunted, he appeared in the choir of Notre-Dame. The canons rose from their stalls and made for the doors, as if to avoid all contact with a man who had been excommunicated. The Bishop, treating the matter as a jest, pronounced his blessing on the fugitives, ‘to absolve them from the excommunication which they were afraid of sharing with him.’ Then he ordered his chaplains to continue divine service without the canons. The violent and imperious temper of Miles d’Illiers brought him into conflict, not only with the Chapter of the Cathedral, but also with the abbeys and the town. He was usually in the wrong. Louis XI., who divided his time between Chartres, where his devotion held him, and Paris, whither the administration of his kingdom summoned him, invariably decided against him when the cases of his aggression were submitted to him. These affairs, endless litigation with reference to the navigation of the river, the plague, and benefactions from the King to the Cathedral, made up the history of Chartres till the end of the fifteenth century.