11. Charles of Valois had been sent into Tuscany to `pacify' Florence, which at that time was torn by the dissensions between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.' In fact, having entered the town on November lst, 1301, Charles of Valois surrendered it to the vengeance of the partisans of the Pope. Pillage and massacre-continued for five days on end. They were followed by the decrees of banishment. Dante, a notorious Ghibelline and the inspirer of the resistance, had been a member, the preceding summer, of the Seigneurial Council; then, having been sent as Ambassador to Rome, he had been held there as a hostage. He was condemned by a Florentine Tribunal, on January 27, 1302, to two years' exile and five thousand pounds fine, on the false accusation of political deviation in the execution of his duties. On March 10th a new case was brought against him and he was this time condemned to be burnt alive. Luckily for him he was not in Florence nor in Rome from which he had managed to escape; but he was never to see his fatherland again. One can well understand that he preserved towards Charles of Valois and, by extension, all the French princes, a stubborn hostility. Moreover, it may be noted that there was a singular resemblance between the case brought against Dante and that brought against Enguerrand de Marigny on the instigation of Charles of Valois, thirteen years later. In the false accusations concerning financial dealings, two separate prosecutions and convictions for a multiplicity of crimes, the same type of proceedings can be discovered, and in them the hand of Charles of Valois may be recognized.
12. It is to be remembered (see The Iron King) that Jeanne of Burgundy, Countess of Poitiers, had not been convicted of adultery, but merely of complicity in the adultery of her cousin Marguerite and of her sister Blanche. While the two last had been imprisoned in Chateau-Gaillard, Jeanne of Poitiers had been placed; in the Chateau of Dourdan for an indeterminate period and was subjected to far less severe conditions. In modern terms, one might say that she had been shown the consideration of a political prisoner whereas Marguerite and Blanche had been subjected to a criminal's treatment.13. Born in 1118 in the village of Epinoy; which, was then in the Diocese of Tournai, and later in the Diocese of Arras, Saint Druon was born by a caesarian operation which was performed upon his mother who was already dead. From his earliest years he showed a singular disposition for piety, and the children of his own age used him cruelly by making him a butt and taunting him with being his mother's murderer. Believing himself to blame, he abandoned himself to every possible penitential practice, - hoping thereby to expiate his involuntary crime. At seventeen he gave away the considerable possessions he had inherited, and, engaged himself as a shepherd to a widow named Elisabeth Lehaire, in the village of Sebourg, in the County of Hainault, eight miles from Valenciennes. He loved animals so much and looked after them so well that all the inhabitants of the village asked him to mind their sheep as well as those of the widow Lehaire. It was at this time that the angels began to look after his flock while he himself was at Mass.Then he made a, pilgrimage to Rome, enjoyed the process, and thereafter made it nine times on foot.- But he had to give up travelling since he suffered from `a rupture of the intestines', an illness which he bore, so it appears, for forty years, firmly refusing all, treatment. In spites of the disgusting stench which emanated from him, his virtues attracted a very large number of penitents from the surrounding district. He demanded that a lodging should be built for him, against the church of Sebourg in such a position that he might be able to see the tabernacle, and he vowed that he would not issue forth from it till the end of his days. He faithfully carried out this vow, even upon the day that the church caught fire as did his hut; and since the fire spared him it was clear to all that he was indeed a saint.He died on April 16th, 1189. For many miles around the populace gathered in tears to kiss his feet and carry away some portion of his ragged clothing. His family, the lords of Epinoy, wished to remove his body to his natal village, but the wagon upon which the corpse had been placed came to a standstill upon leaving Sebourg, and all the horses that were brought to add strength to the team were incapable of advancing it by a single yard. The Saint's corpse was therefore necessarily left where he had died, and his relations had to be content with building a chapel at Carvin-Epinoy, where he is still honoured.He was much revered in Artois, in Cambraisis, and in Hainault, where several sanctuaries were dedicated to him; his celebrity was greatly increased by the cure of the Count of Hainault and Holland, who was suffering horribly from gravel and who, having hardly knelt before the tomb of Saint Druon in order to recite a prayer, ejected three stones each the size of a nut. -Saint Druon, by reason of the circumstances of his life, is particularly invoked for ruptures, hernias, and `for the happy deliverance of expectant mothers'; he is also frequently invoked to preserve livestock from epidemics.14. This son of Mahaut's, who was called Robert like his cousin, played only a very secondary role in history, since he died before he reached the age of eighteen, in 1317. First buried at the Cordeliers of Paris, his body was later transported to Saint-Denis where his tomb is still to be seen. This honour, paid to someone who died so young, and who was not particularly well known, can only have been due to a decision of his brother-in-law, King Philippe V.15. The exact date of Louis X's second marriage is controversial. Some historians have maintained that it was August 3rd, others the 13th, or even the 19th. The same is true of the date of the coronation, which varies in different authorities between the 19th, 21st, and August 24th.. The collection of the Orders in Council of the Kings of France, which was not printed' till the eighteenth century, and in which the chronology is far from certain, would tend to establish the fact that the King was at Rheims on August 3rd, at Soissons on the 6th and 7th, and at Arras on the 18th. However, given that Louis X received the Oriflamme at Saint-Denis on July 24th,-it would appear impossible, however short his expedition in Flanders, that he should have had time to return from the Muddy Army and reach the district of Champagne before August 10th.The chronicles of the period, however, assert that the marriage was celebrated at Saint-Lye, a little village some five miles to the north of Troyes where a, tower of the old castle still stands. The marriage took place-in the greatest haste and in the greatest simplicity, because the Treasury was empty and the King was in a hurry to go to Rheims to be crowned. Here we. have used the date of August 13th, given by Father Anselm, as the most likely, for, the Coronation having always to take place either on a Sunday or on some great religious feast day, we believe that Louis X was crowned either on August 15th or on Sunday 18th; it is also known that the rejoicings lasted several days, which may easily enough explain the discrepancies in the dates given.16. There still exist a great number, of inventories dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century. The one Mahaut of Artois had made, with the most minute description of her possessions and their value, after the sacking of her castle of Hesdin, for which she demanded compensation, is still preserved.17. Clemence of Hungary's fortune, in land and in jewels, consisting largely of the gifts of, Louis X, was enormous: During their marriage, whose short duration will become evident, 'Clemence of Hungary received no less than forty castles, among which were numbered some of the most important of the royal residences.When Clemence of Hungary died, in 1328, that is to say at the beginning of the reign of Philippe VI of Valois, her heir, who was her nephew, the Dauphin of Viennois, sold by auction all the jewels and plate, a sale which lasted several days The catalogue of the sale is something to dream of three gowns, bearing in all thirty-four rubies, eighty-two emeralds, and a hundred and sixty pearls; fourteen rings, fifty-four brooches and clasps; and this is only a small part of the treasure. Difficult though it is to establish equivalents in money, one may estimate without being far out that the total of the sale reached PS500,000 in today's currency.The biggest buyers were, on the one hand, King Philippe VI himself - who bought, among other things, the great reliquary containing a fragment of the. True Cross, and also the fork which is mentioned farther on in this book; and on the other hand, the Count of Beaumont, that is to say Robert of Artois.18. The barons of Artois succeeded in this enterprise in the following September, which was the occasion of the sacking mentioned in Note 16.19. I apologize for the grossness of the remark, but it is to be found textually in the deposition of the ex-Templar Everard, as it was taken down in extenso.20. The unicorn is a legendary animal which has never existed anywhere except in heraldry, but whose single horn nevertheless was considered to be a universal antidote to poison. What was sold under the name of the horn of a unicorn, at an extremely high price, was in fact the horn of the narwhal.21. All the tapestry manufactories which existed in Europeand notably in Italy and Hungary, at the end of the Middle Ages, had been founded by tapestry-makers who, had come from Flanders or Artois, while the town of Arras is considered to have been the centre of this growing industry at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Moreover, this prosperity is expressly attributed to the initiative of the Countess Mahaut and to the encouragement she gave to the industries which formed the wealth of her province.When the Paris tapestry-makers began to compete with the Artois manufactories, Mahaut showed no particular preference for one as against the other and she can be found giving orders to Paris. However, upon this period the documents, give very few details and only reveal the names of a few tapestry-makers without any description of their works. The inventory of the possessions of Queen Clemence is one of the first in which one finds mention of woollen tapestries `worked with parrots and compasses', and again, `eight tapestries with figures and trees, depicting a hunt'. Table of Contents
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