I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.'! \% Chap. _Dc>.3a„., UM3TED STATES OF A^IERtCA. ^ g'v^j:^Q5gs^ £^52^g::^QS)2^Q5Q^<^ ^ ) TO LAWRENCE WHO WAS BORN THE SAME WEEK THAT THIS BOOK WAS BEGUN Jt is ID^bicateb AT PRESENT WITHOUT PERMISSION BY THE AUTHOR CONTENTS. OHAPTEB PAGE I. Ancient Gaul 1 II. C^SAR IN Gaul (b.c. 58-51) 4 III. Gaul a Roman Proyince (b.c, 70-250 a.d.) 8 IV. Conquest of Gaul by the Franks (300 a,d.) 10 V. The Meroyingian Kings (481-687) 13 YI. The Mayors op the Palace (687-741) 18 YII. The Carloyingians (741-768) ,. 23 YIII. Charlemagne (771-814) 26 IX. Descendants of Charlemagne (814-843) 31 X. The Last Carlovingian Kings (843-987) 34 XI. Hugh Capet— Robert (987-1031) 39 XII. Henry I. (1031-1060) 43 XIII. Philip I. (1060-1108) 48 XIY. Louis YI. (1108-1137) 54 XY. Louis YIL (1137-1180) 57 XYL Philip U. (1180-1223) 64 XYII. Philip U.— continued (1180-1223) 70 XYin. Louis Yin. (1223-1226) ,. 77 XIX. Louis IX. (1226-1270) 79 XX. Philip m. (1270-1285) 86 XXL Philip IY. (1285-1314) 91 XXIL Louis X. (1314-1316) 98 XXIIL Philip Y. (1316-1322) 101 XXIY. Charles IY. (1322-1328) 105 XXY. Phh^ip YL (1328-1350) 107 XXYL John (1350-1364) , 115 XXYIL Charles Y. (1364-1380) 124 XXYIIL Charles YL (1380-1422) 129 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTEK PAGE XXIX. Charles Yl.— continued (1392-1422) 13-i XXX. Charlks VII. (1422-1461) 140 XXXI. Louis XI. (1461-1483) 150 XXXII. Charles VIII. (1483-1498) 15V XXXIII. Louis XIL (1498-1515) 162 XXXIV. Francis L (1515-1547) 166 XXXV. Francis I.— continued (1515-1547) 174 XXXVL Henry IL (1547-1559) 180 XXXVIL Francis IL (1559-1560) 187 XXXVIIL Charles IX. (1560-1574) 193 XXXIX. Henry IIL (1574-1589) 202 XL. Henry IV. (1589-1610) 211 XLL Henry W.— continued (1598-1610) 218 XLIL Louis Xm. (1610-1643) 226 XLIIL Louis XIV. (1643-1715) 236 XLIV. Louis XIY .—continued (1643-1715) 244 XLV. Louis XIY .—concluded (1643-1715) 252 XLVL Louis XV. (1715-1774) 262 XLVn. Louis XVL (1774-1792) 271 XLVm. The Revolution (1789-1792) 282 XLIX. The Revolution— cow^wiwec? (1792-1795) 295 L. Directory and Consulate (1795-1800) 304 LL The Emperor Napoleon (1804-1815) 314 Conclusion (1815-1880) 323 LIST OF MAPS. Gallia To fa The Empire op the Franks in 507 The Empire op Charlemagne France in the Eleventh Century France in the Thirteenth Century France in 1328-1461 France, 1589-1610 France, 1643-1715 Europe, 1811 PAOK ':e 1 14 32 44 72 108 216 236 314 LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Joan of Arc Frontispiece. Druidic Dolmen 9 Chateau de Chinon , 143 Joan of Arc in Battle To face 144 Charles VIII. Crossing the Alps " 162 Admiral Coligny " 184 Catherine de' Medici " 188 Charles IX " 194 Massacre op St. Bartholomew '^ 200 HenryIII " 202 Assassination of Henry, Duke op Guise " 210 Assassination of Henry III " 212 Henry IV.'s Reconciliation with Mayenne " 220 Cardinal Richelieu. 230 Barricades at the Porte St. Antoine 239 Louis XIY To face 242 Madame de Maintenon , 249 Louis XVI. as Locksmith To face 274 The Storming of the Bastile " 278 The Club-house of the Jacobin Club " 288 The Tuileries 290 The Temple, where Louis XVI. was Imprisoned To face 292 The Little Louis XVII. in Prison " 300 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Chapter I. ANCIENT GAUL. The country wlaicli we now call France was not always called so, nor were the people who live in it always called the French. When it is first mentioned, which is in old Latin books written more than 1800 years ago, it is called Gallia, or Gaul, and the people are spoken of as Gauls. Gaul was in some respects the same as France is now, and in some respects very different. It was the same, or nearly the same, in its mountains, rivers, and some of the chief towns ; it was different in its roads, fields, villages, and, more than all, in the people who lived in it. When I say that some of the towns were the same, I do not mean that they look the same now as they did then, but that the Gauls had towns in many of the places where the French now have them, and that they have lasted with almost the same names ever since. If you look at a map of Europe you will see that France is a country about three times as big as England ; it has the sea on two sides of it, the north and the west ; on the south are first a range of mountains called the Pyrenees, separating it from Spain, and farther along another sea called the Mediterranean ; on the east some more moun- tains called the Alps, and the countries of Germany and 2 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Belgium. Some way to the east of the eastern boundary you will see a river called the Rhine flowing from the south to the north, and ending in the German Ocean, Many of the rulers of France have wished and done their best to conquer the countries between France and the Rhine; but iu this they have never succeeded. There are in France four great rivers, and many smaller ones; they now flow through great cities and well-cultivat- ed fields, often bearing steamboats and barges, and supply- ing water to hundreds of villages, mills, and factories. In the time of the old G-auls they flowed through immense forests, which covered a great part of the country, and through swamps where no one lived but elks, beavers, and great wild bulls, larger and fiercer than any that are now to be seen. The Gauls themselves were wild and fierce ; they knew very little except about hunting and taking care of the flocks ; they had no clothes, but painted their bodies, and pricked patterns on their skins, which is called tattoo- ing, and which they thou^'ht a great ornament. Some- times hatchets and knives of stone which belonged to the old Gauls are found buried in the ground in France, or ar- rows pointed with sharp stones, or spears to hunt the boar, or long narrow shields, which they used in war, or some of their small boats made of willow and covered with the skin of some beast, usually of an ox, like the coracles of the old Britons, of which you have read. Gaul was in those days a colder country than France now is ; the winds were more violent, and the rivers were often covered with ice. By degrees the Gauls began to find out that their coun- try was fertile — that is, that whatever seed they sowed in the ground would grow up quickly and bear good fruit ; and some of them began to make it their business to sow seed, and cut down the grain when it grew up, and to work in the fields as our farmers do, so that the people might have something else to eat besides the animals that the hunters brought home. The Gauls invented ploughs and sieves, and other useful instruments. As time went on, they found that, besides being fertile, their country was rich in metals ; they dug mines and found copper, iron, lead, and even silver and gold. Ships came to Gaul from other countries, and ANCIENT GAUL. 3 brought useful and beautiful objects of all kinds, which they gave to the Gauls in return for some of the metal out of the mines. The Gauls grew rich, and spent their riches in mak- ing themselves more comfortable in many ways. Their food at this time was chiefly pork, and they kept great flocks of pigs in their forests and meadows ; they drank a sort of beer made of barley. In some parts of Gaul they had begun to grow grape-vines, which we find now all over the south of France, and from which the French get grapes to make their wine. The Gauls began to wear clothes and ornaments — rings and bracelets of gold or other metal — and they built them- selves houses of earth and wood, covered with straw or thatch. They made walls round their villages of beams of wood and blocks of stone, to protect them from their ene- mies, for they were still very much in the habit of going to war with one another, and they had other enemies besides, as we shall see. The Gauls, like the old Britons, were heathen, and be- lieved in many gods, who lived, as they thought, in the earth, the forests, the rocks, and the rivers. Their priests were called Druids, and were old and wise men, who had studied often for twenty years before they were considered wise enough to become " Men of the Oak," which was the name of the chief Druids. The Druids taught the young men, and gave them lessons in all kinds of natural history ; and they held a great meet- ing every year, at which they settled any question or dis- pute that might be brought for them to decide, and some- times they made laws for the country. But their chief business was to worship their gods, and teach the people how to worship them. Once every year the Druids went out to look for mistletoe, which they believed to be a sacred plant, and they thought it specially valuable when it grew upon the oak, which they considered the finest of trees. When the mistletoe was found upon an oak, the people came from all parts of the country and stood round the tree, while a Druid, dressed in white, climbed up with a golden sickle, and cut off the mistletoe, which the other Druids caught in a white cloth, and carried away as a pre- 4 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. cions treasure. They thought that gathering this mistletoe was pleasing to their gods, for the Gauls did not know of the one God in whom we believe, and who cares only that people should do right, and not that they should gather plants, however precious and rare, in his honor. But the Druids did worse than this, for they thought it was pleas- ing to their gods to kill men — usually prisoners taken in battle — at their altars. They also believed that by killing- one man they might persuade the gods to spare the life of another who might be ill or in danger. There were female Druids, called Druidesses, who usually lived by the sea-shore in some wild, lonely place, and were often to be seen by night waving torches and singing wild songs in the darkness. The people supposed them to have the power of raising or quieting the winds and waves by their song. Chapter II. C^SAE IN G-ATJL (b.O. 58-51). I SAID that the first books in which the Gauls are spoken of are Latin books. Latin was the language of the Romans, the most powerful nation that has ever existed. The people of Rome began by conquering the cities near them, till they were masters of all Italy, and they then made war upon the countries round Italy, among others upon Gaul. The Romans were wiser than the Gauls, and had better arms and better generals, and knew how to make roads from one place to another, and bridges across any rivers that might be in their way ; and they were soon masters of part of the south of France, where they built cities and settled them- selves. Some of the Gauls had fought against the Romans, and tried to prevent them from coming into the country, and these people the Romans treated harshly, making them obey the Roman governors and pay them great sums of money. Other Gauls had yielded to the Romans at once, and they were allowed to remain free, promising to help the Romans whenever they went to war. C^SAR IN GAUL. 5 Julius Caesar was a great Roman genera], who was sent by the consuls or chief rulers of Rome to govern the part of Gaul which had already been conquered, and to conquer the people of some of the farther part, who seemed inclined to rise up against the Romans. He had a great deal of 'hard fighting for eight years, for the Gauls resisted him very bravely ; and it often happened that in some part of the country which he had just conquered, and where he thought the people would remain faithful to their promises to him, they would rise up against him as soon as his back was turned, and all his work would have to be done over again. Csesar, in his accounts of these wars, often speaks of the Gauls as faithless and changeable, ready to believe the first person who spoke to them, especially any one who told them they were ill-treated, and advised them to rise up against the Romans, The Gauls sometimes asked for help from the Germans who lived on the other side of the Rhine, who were far more savage and wild than the Gauls had now become, and who liked fighting better than any other employment; so much so that, after helping the Gauls against the Romans, they would sometimes themselves turn against the Gauls, and take some of their land from them. Thus Caesar often had Gauls and Germans fighting together against him, but he was so wise and brave a general, and his soldiers obeyed him so well and showed such patience and courage, that all Gaul was at last conquered by the Romans, and was im- proved by them in many ways. I will now give an account of the siege of Alesia, that you may have some idea of the way in which the Gauls and Romans fought. I must first say that the people of Gaul were divided into tribes or separate bodies, living each in a special part of the country, and each tribe under chiefs or principal men of its own. Some tribes were much larger than others ; some of the larger had more than two hun- dred thousand members, while others had only a few hun- dred. The part of the country where each tribe lived was called after the name of the tribe, so that Gaul was broken up into divisions something like counties, but with the dif- ference that they had no one ruler over them. Each tribe 6 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. managed its own affairs for itself, and they often made war upon one another. It is clear that a country would not be likely to grow rich or strong w^hile its people were fighting among themselves. One 'of the great improvements that Caesar made in Gaul was to force the different tribes to live in peace. This gave them time to attend to working in their fields, improving their towns, and other peaceful and useful occupations. In course of time the different tribes became friendly, and their country was divided into prov- inces, which were afterwards formed into a kingdom with one king over them. The siege of Alesia, which I am going to describe, hap- pened toward the end of Cassar's wars in Gaul. All the Gaulish tribes had joined together to try and drive him out of the country, and at their head they had a brave leader named Vercingetorix, meaning general-in-chief. After hav- ing been defeated by Caesar in several battles, and having lost many great cities, Vercingetorix led his army to a town called Alesia, and set up his camp there. The town was on the top of a hill, with other hills round it, a plain in front, and a river flowing on each side. Caesar brought his army to the foot of the hill, and began to dig a deep ditch, called a trench, to protect his men from any sudden attack of the Gauls. When Vercingetorix saw' that Caesar meant to shut him and his army up in Alesia, and to oblige them to yield to him by not allowing any food to come in to them, he sent away a body of his soldiers to try and collect food for him in their own countries, and to make their way back with it through the army of the enemy. He kept with him eighty thousand of his best soldiers to help him to re- sist Caesar. Caesar built towers and a wall behind the trench ; behind these again two other trenches, then another wall with stakes like stags' horns sticking out from it to prevent the enemy from climbing up it, and with turrets all along the top. He made another small trench, at the bottom of which he stuck very sharp stakes hidden by branches of trees, so that who- ever got down into it should be run into by the stakes. These works went the whole way round the foot of the hill on which Alesia stood, a distance of eleven miles. The men C^SAR IN GAUL. Y in Alesia, finding that Caesar had made all these prepara- tions against them, and that their friends did not come back to bring them food, held a council, in which one of their chief men made a speech, proposing that all the old, weak, and useless people in the town should be put to death, and eaten by the others. Many of the Gauls said that this cruel plan was too horrible, and refused to listen to it. It was at last settled that these old and weak people should be sent away from the Gaulish camp, and try to make their way past the Romans and out into the country beyond ; but Csesar would not let them pass him, and they had to go back into the town. In the meantime the Gauls, who had been sent away to fetch food, came back with a store, and tried to make their way into the town, but the Romans came out to fight them, and drove them away. The Gauls in Alesia came out from the town shouting, to encourage their friends, but when they saw them drawing back before the Romans, they returned, disappointed, into the town. A few days later the Gauls made a fierce attack on the Roman camp, but in vain ; they went from one part to another throwing earth into the trenches so that they might pass safely even over those with stakes at the bottom, but everywhere they met the Roman soldiers, and Csesar stood on a high hill to watch his men, and send help to any of them who seemed to be in diflS- culty. At last, seeing that his soldiers were beginning to yield, he rushed down himself into the battle. The Ro- mans gave a shout, threw away the darts or javelins with which they had been fighting, drew their swords, and fol- lowed Csesar; some of the horse soldiers went round to surprise the Gauls at the back. The Gauls turned and fled. Csesar went on to the gates of the city, which was the next day given up to him. Yercingetorix assembled his soldiers in the town, and told them that he was ready to give himself up to Csesar if they wished it, or that, if they chose, they might kill him, as he thought that if he were dead, or Caesar's prisoner, Csesar might be willing to spare the lives of his soldiers. The Gauls settled that he should be given up to Caesar with the other chiefs. 8 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Caesar sat at the head of his soldiers, and all the Gaulish chieftains in turn were brought before him, and laid down their arms. Caesar took to Rome the general, Yercingeto- rix, who was afterwards put to death in prison ; he gave to each Roman soldier one Gaul for a slave, as a reward for their victory. Chapter III. GAUL A EOMAN PROVINCE (b.C. '70-250 A.D.) When Caesar was made consul, or chief ruler, in Rome, he had no more time to attend to the Gauls ; but many of the Romans stayed in Gaul, and built or conquered cities there, and lived under Roman laws. They taught the Gauls who lived near them to talk their own language, Latin ; and most of the words which the French use now are so much like Latin that a person knowing one of these languages finds it a great help in understanding the other. The Gauls improved in many ways ; they learned to dress like the Romans, to build their houses of stone and marble instead of wood and earth, and to make roads through their thick forests, so that it might be easy to go from one part of the country to another. Many schools and colleges were set up, and the Gauls learned to read Latin, and also studied law and science, and whatever else the Romans would teach them. Many Gauls changed their old names and took Ro- man ones. When the Gauls began going to the Roman colleges and reading Latin books, they left off caring to be taught by the Druids, for the Druids had no books, but learned everything by heart, and knew much less than the Romans. By de- grees the people left off believing in the Druids and their old gods altogether, and determined to worship the same gods as the Romans; the Roman priests took for themselves the riches of the Druids, and the Druids hid themselves in wild parts of the country, and were at last forgotten by the people. In some parts of England and Ireland and France may still be seen the circles of stones, or the curious piles GAUL A ROMAN PEOVINCE. of four stones, called cromlechs or dolmens, three stones standing round, and one lying on the top, which mark the places where the Druids sacrificed in old days. % ' -^ DRUIDIC DOLMEN, NAMED PIERRE LETEE, NEAR POITIERS, 13 FEET LONG, 3 FEET THICK. The Gauls lived thus peacefully for about three hundred years ; they came to be considered as Roman subjects, and the Romans helped them whenever they were attacked by any of the fierce German tribes who lived on the other side of the Rhine. These tribes were very wild and ignorant, loving nothing so well as war, and liking especially to come into Gaul and carry off anything they could find, food or goods or treasures, from the people. The most important thing that happened to the Gauls during this time was that many of them became Christians. Men came from Italy to teach them about the one God in whom we now believe, and many, both of the Romans and the Gauls, listened to them, believed what they said, and left off praying to idols and sacrificing to their gods. The other Gauls were at first angry at this change, drove the .Christians out of the towns, and put some of them to death ; but by degrees more and 10 FKENCH HISTORY FOE ENGLISH CHILDKEN. more of tliem began to believe tlie new teaching, till at last all the country became Christian. Each city had a bishop, the old Roman temples were turned into churches, and figures of the Apostles were set up instead of the statues of the old Roman emperors. By this time every one had left off speaking the Gallic lan- guage, and the Gauls used a kind of bad Latin, which at last became French, a good deal like what is now spoken in France. The Gauls, during all these years, seemed to be growing more and more wise and happy, and to be improv- ing in every way ; but the people were really not happy, for the Romans required them to pay great sums of money, which were spent, not in Gaul, but in Rome, for the Roman emperor to pay his army with, or to use in whatever way he chose. The Gauls knew that it would be of no use to refuse to pay the money, for the Romans were stronger than they; but when they paid it they had very little left for themselves, and this made them dislike the Romans, who were themselves growing poorer and weaker, and less brave and wise, every year. Another reason for the unhap- piness of the Gauls was that a great number of them were slaves, and were very badly treated by their masters, who often went away to amuse themselves at Rome or other great towns, leaving the poor slaves, with very little food and bad houses to live in, to work on their lands and make money for them to spend when they came back. Chapter IV. CONQUEST OF GAUL BY THE FEANKS (SOO A.D.) I SAID that the Romans were growing weaker and less wise than they had been ; the fierce tribes of Germany, on the other hand, were growing stronger and more powerful. Many of them left their own country, which was not so pleasant as Gaul or Italy, because the people had not taken any pains to improve it, and it was still covered with thick forests and swamps, and had no good roads, or corn-fields CONQUEST OF GAUL BY THE FRANKS. n or orchards, and was altogether dreary and poor; so the German tribes came in great numbers, some into Gaul and some into Italy. The Roman emperors sent soldiers, and sometimes went themselves, to help the Gauls to resist these enemies, but in vain ; there were so many of them that as soon as one army had been defeated another appeared. At one time Rome itself was taken by the Germans ; and, though they were afraid to stay there long, they did a great deal of harm, for they stole or destroyed most of what they found. Many of the Germans had passed through Gaul on their way to Rome, and had destroyed the harvests, the trees, and the flocks, besides taking the people for slaves. A writer of that time says : " Neither strong places sur- rounded by water, nor castles built upon steep rocks, could escape their furious attacks and cunning stratagems. If the whole ocean had flowed over the Gaulish lands, the ruin of Gaul would have been less complete." After nearly a hun- dred years of this trouble and disturbance, one of the Ro- man emperors made an agreement with the King of the Goths, one of the German nations, that he would give up to the Goths a third part of Gaul, keeping for Rome only one province in the south, which was nearer to Italy, and could be more easily defended than the others. The Gauls were in despair. After fighting against the Germans for more than' sixty years, and bearing bravely all kinds of want and suffering, they were to become the sub- jects, and probably the slaves, of their fierce enemies. They wrote in vain to the emperor, begging not to be delivered up to the Goths ; they then turned for help to the Greek emperor, who also refused to hear them ; they were at last forced to yield to the Goths. Two other German tribes had also made themselves masters of a part of Gaul : of these, the fiercest and most savage was that of the Franks, who, for some reason, were better liked by the Gauls, espe- cially by the Gaulish bishops, than the Goths or any other Germans. The King of the Franks died and left his crown to his young son Clovis, who showed himself, as he grew up, to be a wise and brave prince. He first attacked and con- 12 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. quered the Roman chief who was governing the part of the country which had been kept by Rome. Clovis took from him several provinces. He afterwards made war against a fierce tribe of Germans who were trying to force their way into Gaul and settle there, as the Goths, Burgundians, and Franks had done. Clovis at this time was, like the other Franks, a heathen, but his wife was a Christian, and had often tried to per- suade him to be the same. In a great battle against the Germans the Franks seemed likely to be defeated. Clovis called for help upon the God of his wife, and swore that if he conquered in this battle, he would become a Christian. The Franks were victorious, and Clovis was baptized with all his chief warriors. After this the Gaulish clergy took the side of the Franks more than ever ; the Goths were also Christians, but they believed some things which the clergy thought were untrue, while the Franks believed just what the Romans taught them. Clovis, however, though he was a Christian, was still horribly fierce and cruel. He killed many of his relations and the other princes of his tribe, so that there might be no one to try to become king instead of him. He conquered all the land of the Burgundians, and a great part of what belonged to the Goths, so that he became king of almost the whole of Gaul. The Franks settled themselves com- fortably in the country, and more and more Franks from Germany were constantly passing into Gaul and establish- ing themselves there. The Franks, like most" barbarous people, had a great dis- like to living in towns : the king, when he was not at war, went from one part of the country to another, hunting and amusing himself, and his chief warriors followed him. He gave them land for their own to reward their services to him. This land they kept for their lifetime, and sometimes left it to their sons, for the chiefs often grew as powerful as the king, so that when he washed to take back the land he was not able to do so. Sometimes, in war, the chiefs took land for themselves, and gave parts of it to their followers, without the king having anything to do with it. You see that it was very THE MEROVIXGIAN KIXGS. 13 different being king of the Franks from being king of any of the countries of Europe at the present day. If an Eng- lishman conquers land now, it belongs to England ; if a Frenchman conquers it, to the French Republic ; if a Ger- man, it belongs to Germany. But the king in those days was not much more than the general of his tribe, having very little power over them in times of peace ; and he was obliged to allow the chiefs to keep the land they had won, because he could not prevent them from doing so. We do not know muck of the state of the Gauls at this time. Probably they were rather better off at first under the Franks than they had been under the Romans, because the Franks were not accustomed to have slaves, and did not expect such large sums of money from the Gauls as the Ro- mans had done ; but the country soon fell into all kinds of disturbance and confusion, and the Gauls were worse off than they had ever been before. Chapter Y. THE MEEOYINGIAN KINGS (481-687). When Clovis died he left four sons. It was a custom amono' the Franks that the sons of a kino* should divide among themselves the country that their father had gov- erned. In most of the countries of Europe, at the present time, the eldest son becomes king of the whole kingdom on the death of his father, and the younger sons are made dukes, and have money given to them, but no part of the country to govern, which is a much better plan ; for w4ien there are different rulers of equal power in the same coun- try they are almost sure to go to war with each other, and no country can be prosperous while one part of its people is fighting against another part. The sons of Clovis divided their father's kingdom into four parts, and drew lots to set- tle which division should belong to each of them. One had Paris and the country around, and was called King of Paris ; another was King of Orleans ; a third, King 14 FEENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. of Soissons ; and tlie fourth, who reigned over that part of Gaul which was nearest to Germany and to the river Rhine, was King of Metz. The Franks then began to attack the wild neighbors who lived to the south and east of them, and were usually successful in their wars. In a battle against the Burgundians the King of Orleans was killed. He left three sons, still children, who were under the care of their grandmother. Their uncles, the kings of Paris and of Soissons, seized the children and carried them away. They then sent to the grandmother a pair of scissors and a sword, with a mes- sage, saying, " We await thy wishes as to the three chil- dren ; shall they be slain or shorn ?" that is, shall they be killed, or shall they have their hair cut off and be turned into monks^— men who live shut up from every one in a building called a monastery, and do nothing but pray and sing hymns, and never come out into the world again. When the poor old grandmother got this message, " Shall they be slain or shorn ?" she was in such despair at the idea of the children being shut up all their lives in a monastery that she cried out, " Slain rather than shorn." When the cruel uncles heard this they seized up in their arms first the eldest boy and then the second, and killed them by dashing them against the floor ; but some one who was standing- near caught up the third boy, carried him out, and escaped with him. The child was put into a monastery, and lived and died a monk. After his death he was worshipped as a saint, and St. Cloud, a village near Paris, where many of the French kings have lived, was named after him. The lands of the King of Orleans were divided between the kings of Soissons and of Paris, and when the King of Paris died soon after, the King of Soissons became ruler of the whole. The King of Metz, meanwhile, had died, and left his kingdom to his son, a brave prince, who made many expe- ditions against the Germans, and tried to govern wisely with the help of a Gaulish friend, who taught him much that he himself had learned from the Romans. The King of Soissons at last seized his land also, and so became the only king of the Franks. He died soon afterward, saying, THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 15 " Oh ! how great must be the King of Heaven if he can thus kill so mighty a king as I." I have not mentioned the names of the four sons of Clo- vis, because they are long, hard, and so much like one an- other that it is confusing to try to remember them ; and, as they lived so long ago, and we know so little about them, their names are not very important to us. It is more use- ful to know the names of their chief cities, as that gives us some idea what part of the country that is now France belonged to the Franks at the time of which I am writ- ing. Paris, Orleans, Soissons, and Metz — the four towns after which these four kings were called — are all near together, and all in the same part of France. If the whole of France were divided into three horizontal strips, that is, strips run- ning from east to west, Paris, Soissons, and Metz would all be in the topmost or most northern strip, and Orleans close to the top of the next strip. This northern part of the country, where the Franks had settled, was called after them, Francia, and all the country that the Franks con- quered was also called Francia, till at last that name be- longed to all that had been Gaul, and it was but a small change to pronounce Francia as we now do France. The King of Soissons died, and, like his father, left four sons. One became King of Paris, another King of Sois- sons, another King of Burgundy, and the fourth, who gov- erned the same country that had before belonged to the King of Metz, was now called King of Austrasia, a word meaning east kingdom. Burgundy was a country which had been conquered by the last king of Orleans ; it was south of Francia, and on the east side of France. The King of Paris died, and the King of Soissons, whose name was Hilperik, seized upon his lands, joined them to his own, and called the whole Neustria, or west kingdom. Prankish Gaul was now divided into three parts — Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy. Neustria was the country which is now the north of France ; the country which was Aus- trasia is now, part of it, the northeast corner of France; part of it Belgium, and part of it the western side of Ger- many. The Neustrians and Austrasians were usually at 16 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. war witL eacli other ; the Burgnndians took the side some- times of one, sometimes of the other. The kings of Neiistria and of Austrasia had each the mis- fortune, or the folly, to have a horribly wicked wife : they are almost the worst women of whom we ever hear. The Queen of Neustria was called Fredegond, the Queen of Aus- trasia Brunehild, and it w^ould be hard to say which of the two was the worse. Fredegond was at first the slave of the King of Neustria, who had a young and amiable wife ; Fredegond murdered the wife, and persuaded Hilperik, the king, to marry her instead. The king was a weak and bad man; having married her, he let her do all the bad things she chose, and sometimes helped her in them. She had two of her stepsons murdered ; she murdered a bishop who had displeased her ; she murdered the King of Austrasia, who had conquered her husband in battle, and had just been declared King of Neustria, as well as of Austrasia ; at last she murdered her husband. She then governed, and governed well, the kingdom of Neustria for her son, who was still a child, and when she died she left him firmly settled on the throne. Brunehild, Queen of Austrasia, was a bitter enemy of Fredegond, for which she had good reason, as the queen whom Fredegond had murdered, in order to become queen herself, was Brune- hild's sister. Brunehild persuaded her husband, who was by nature a peaceful man, to make war on the Neustrian king: he was successful, as I said before, and had just been declared King of Neustria when two pages sent by Frede- gond appeared before him, pretended to have business to do with him, and while he was talking to them murdered him. Brunehild was taken prisoner, but managed to escape, and went back to Austrasia, where she governed the coun- try for her son, who was a child like the King of Neustria. She built churches, made roads, and was great and prosper- ous, till she quarrelled with the chiefs of the country, and murdered several of them. They rose against her, and drove her into Burgundy. She made war upon them, and in later years murdered her grandson with his children be- cause he took part against her. At last she was taken THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 17 prisoner by the Austrasians, and put to death with great cruelty. After the death of Brunehild, Fredegond's son became king of all the Franks, and in Neustria every one obeyed him ; but in Austrasia he found two sets of enemies, the great chiefs and the bishops. The bishops had by this time become rich and powerful ; they had a great deal of land, for people who were dying, and had no children to whom to leave their land, often left it to the Church, and even those who had children often thought it right to leave to the Church some of their land or some money. The clergy, by which I mean all the clergymen in the country — bishops, deans, village priests, spoken of together — had separate courts of justice. If a clergyman did any- thing wrong, he was not tried like other men in the court belonging to the king, or to one of the great lords of the country, but he was tried in the court of the clergy, judged by the clergy, and punished less severely than he would have been if tried in the other courts. The bishops in Austrasia thought themselves too great to obey the king in everything he chose to command, so they and the great Austrasian chiefs joined together to resist the king if he did anything to displease them. The clergy had one power which the king never tried to take from them ; it was that of sheltering and protecting people who came for safety into the churches. Any man who was pursued by an enemy, or who wanted to escape from any danger, might go into a sanctuary, which was either some particular church or the chapel of some mon- astery, or the place where some saint or good man was buried. When a person was in a sanctuary he was safe ; no one might come in after him to take him away, and so long as he stayed there his enemies could not get at him. It was no matter whether he was good or bad, whether he was trying to escape from wicked enemies, or from honest people wishing to punish him for some harm that he had done ; any one who had gone into the sanctuary to hurt him there, or to drag him out of it by force, would have done what was thought to be a most wicked deed, and would probably have been killed by the priests on his way. 18 FEENCH HISTOEY FOE ENGLISH CHILDEEN. When any great person, siicii as a prince or noble, was in sanctuary, his servants were allowed to go in and wait upon him ; and the clergy of the place provided food and w^hatever else they might want for those who were poor. One of the people whom Fredegond tried to murder, her own stepson, stayed in sanctuary for some time, while the soldiers of the king, his father, watched to take him prisoner when he should come out. He got tired of the sanctuary at last, left it secretly, and was soon afterward caught and murdered. This power of the clergy was, on the whole, useful to the country, as the Franks were still fierce and cruel, and the strong often ill-treated the weak, and found no one to pre- vent them. When there were no fixed laws by which it could be settled what people might and might not do, and very few wise judges to determine whether any particular person had done wrong or not, it was very likely that people would be punished unjustly, and it was a good thing that there should be means by which innocent people could escape, even though people who were not innocent sometimes made use of them. Chapter VL THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE (687-741). When Clothaire, son of Fredegond, died, he left two sons. They did not, as their uncles and great-uncles had done, divide the land into two parts and each reign over "one ; but one of them, whose name was Dagobert, gathered to- gether an army and made himself master of both Neustria and Austrasia. He gave to his brother land in the south part of the country, a part which no Frankish king had ever before even visited, so that the people felt great pride and pleasure in having a king to themselves. Dagobert took Paris for his chief town ; he made himself a splendid court, took journeys through the country doing justice to his sub- jects, and made presents of lands and goods to the people THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 19 whom he wished to have for friends. " His coming struck terror into bishops and chiefs, but filled the poor with joy." He encouraged the building of churches, and had copies of the old Frankish laws written out and sent about the king- dom. After ten years he died, leaving two sons, one eight and the other four years old. The elder had already been made King of Austrasia, for the Austrasiahs had wished for a king to themselves, and Dagobert had sent them his elder son ; the younger was King of Neustria. Of course, while they were children these kings had no power, but they did not gain more as they grew up. There followed three more kings in Neustria and four in Austrasia, none of w'hom could make themselves obeyed, or were considered as of any importance in the kingdom. In both countries the chief man next to the king was called the Mayor of the Palace ; he had the chief command in time of war, and sometimes had to hold a court and do justice. The Mayor of the Palace was chosen by the chiefs, and in Austrasia always took their side against the king ; in Neustria he usually took the side of the king against the chiefs. As the kings' power grew less, that of the chiefs increased ; the kings came to be known as Faineant or Do-nothing kings, and the really important person was the Mayor of the Palace. All the kings who had descended from Clovis were called Merwing or Merovingian kings, from the name of the chief family among the Frankish tribes. After the death of Dag- obert there was no other Merovingian king of any power or importance. All the Merovingian kings had long yellow hair, which was never cut, but w^hich fell round tBeir shoul- ders ; and when they lost all power in the State this was their only distinction, and they used to be driven about Paris in carriages drawn by oxen, looking very splendid, but despised by every one w^ho saw them, because they had no powder and did nothing useful to any one, and so had no right to be kings. The Faineant kings settled nothing for themselves, but sat on their throne and pretended to rule, answering to the people who came to speak with them on business exactly 20 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN". what they had been told beforehand to say by the Mayor of the Palace. This went on for nearly a hundred years, and one particular family became more famous in Austrasia than any other, so that the Mayor of the Palace was always chosen from it. The men in this family were all wise, brave, and vigorous. At the time when Dagobert's little son became King of Austrasia, the Mayor of the Palace was named Pepin ; and all through the reign of that king, and of seve- ral others who came after him, Pepin had more power in Austrasia than any one else, and both there and in Neustria behaved as if he were himself the king. He made war when he chose and against whom he chose, chiefly against the Germans who lived on the other side of the Rhine, and who were very wild and fierce, and sometimes attacked his land. Pepin tried to keep them quiet in two ways ; sometimes he marched against them with an army, sometimes he sent a body of monks to try and teach them to be Christians. When Pepin died, his son Karl took for himself all that had belonged to his father. The Neustrians tried to escape from his power, but he was too strong for them, and they were obliged to obey him as they had obeyed Pepin. Karl was poor, and soon saw that he would have to carry on great wars against the enemies of the Franks. He wanted money with which to make presents to the great chiefs, that they might like him, and be willing to fight in his battles. In those days there was no regular army. When the king wanted to make war he called upon all his chiefs to go with him. Some of the chiefs to whom he had given land had promised in return that they would go out and 'fight his battles with a certain number of men whenever he wished it, and sometimes these chiefs had given part of their laud to some of their friends in return for the same promise, so that a king could usually count upon a certain number of men when he went to war. Others of the chiefs had taken land for themselves, and made no promise to any one ; but they were usually willing to help the king, because war was a great amusement to them, and because they were anxious to keep enemies away from their country, and because they hoped to have some THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 21 share in the goods and money which might be taken from the enemy. But Karl was not a king, the chiefs had made no promise to him, and it was all the more -necessary for him to have some reward to offer to the soldiers who should fight for him. Clovis had given land to his chiefs, but now all the land already belonged to some one, and Karl did not dare to take any away from the great chiefs, who would have turned against him and become dangerous enemies. But the bishops and clergy had great riches, and Karl thought that they did very little to deserve them, for as they grew rich they became selfish and idle, and did not think about teach- ing the people and doing their duty, but only how to make themselves grand and comfortable, so that no one respected them. Karl took away from them the rich lands that be- longed to the Church, and gave them to his warriors. Of course the clergy were very angry, and in many old books we may read all the bad things that they say of Karl ; but the chiefs were pleased, and the men to whom the lands were given fought with Karl bravely against all their ene- mies. They had first to fight the Saxons, a race of Germans who lived on the further side of the Rhine, some of whom had before this time gone to Britain and established them- selves there as you have read in English histories. The Saxons were defeated, and Karl next prepared to defend himself against the Arabs, who came from Spain over the Pyrenees to try and make themselves masters of France. The Arabs lived in Arabia, which is in Asia, on the east side of the Red Sea, and for many hundred years they had been poor people, living in tribes, never leaving their coun- try, spending their time in hunting and taking care of their flocks, scarcely noticed at all by any other nation. A hundred and fifty years before the time of which I am speaking, an Arabian merchant appeared among his coun- trymen and taught them a religion. It was not the Chris- tian reHgion, for he was not a Christian himself, nor was it the religion of any other nation. He taught them his own ideas about God, and they believed that he was a prophet or a man sent by God on purpose to teach them. He believed it hiiY:self, and as his name was Mohammed, they called the 3 22 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. religion he taught them Mohammedanism and themselves Mohammedans, as the people who believe what Jesus Christ taught call themselves Christians. When they had learned what they believed to be true, they determined to make all the rest of the world believe it as well. They left their own country and began to make war on the people around them. The mild, ignorant shepherds had turned into fierce soldiers; they conquered Persia, Egypt, part of Africa, and Spain. Whenever they conquered a country, they asked the people whether or not they would become Mohammedans. If they said Yes, the Arabs treated them well, gave them good governors,,and ruled them kind- ly. If they said No, the Mohammedans used them as slaves, made them pay tribute, or sums of money, and sometimes put them to death. Many of the nations conquered by the Arabs were too much afraid of them not to pretend to agree with them whether they really did so or not. The Arabs had in this way become masters of Spain, and now they wished to conquer France ; but when they had passed the Pyrenees and begun their march against a French town, they found Karl with his army ready to resist them. There was a great battle between the two armies, called the battle of Tours, and in the end Karl conquered the Mohammedans, killed, some say, three hundred thousand Arabs, and drove the rest out of France. He has been called Karl the Hammer, or, in French, Charles Martel, in memory of the blows which he gave his enemies on this occasion. The rest of his life he passed in fighting, sometimes against the Saxons, sometimes against the people in the south of France. He was called Dake of the Franks. When he died he left his dukedom to be divided between his two sons. THE CARLOVINGIANS. 23 Chapter YII. THE CAELOVINGIANS (741-768). At this time the bishops and other clergy had grown idle and selfish, and taught the people nothing. The chief teachers of the people were the monks. These were men who shut themselves up in a house by themselves, called a monastery, and spent most of their time in praying. They were not allowed to marry, and they never saw their friends, or went to shows or amusements of any kind. They wore a plain dress, usually brown or black, hanging loose round their feet, and their hair was shaven. In each monastery there was a chief man chosen by the monks from among themselves, and called an abbot, whom they all obeyed. These monks did not always live in the monastery ; some- times the abbot would send out one or two to preach in a particular town, or in some savage country, such as Saxony^ where the people had not yet learned to be Christians. In the east of Europe the monks often joined in disturbances that arose in the cities, and excited the people to join to- gether against some emperor or pope ; but the western monks were far more quiet and peaceable, and taught the people only to know and to do what was right, according to their own ideas. Many of the monks who did not go out to teach the heathen, but stayed in the convent, studied, read books or wrote them, and copied out books that had been written, or old songs ; for as neither printing nor paper had at that time been invented, anything that people wanted their children and grandchildren to remember had to be written down on parchment and kept in a great roll; and as the writing it down was often a long business, and the monks had plenty of time to spare, copying out writings of all kinds came to be one of their chief employments. They did it very beautifully, with little pictures or patterns. 24 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. called illuminations, at the beginnings and ends of lines and chapters. The monks were very much respected because of their knowledge, their virtue, and their industry. Men who were tired of their life, who had been disappointed or defeated, or who repented of wrong things they had don6, often made themselves monks. Sometimes children were put into monasteries by their relations to prevent them from becoming kings or chiefs, or great men in any way, for no monk could ever come out into the world again. Some- times, also, men who had led good and happy lives thought that they should be better and happier in a monastery than in their homes or kingdoms. In the time of Charles Martel several kings became monks. An English monk named Winfrid had been sent by the Pope and by Charles Martel to preach to the Saxons. He persuaded thousands of them to be baptized, and the king, as a reward, made him a bishop, and afterwards an archbishop. But Winfrid would not be satisfied while there were still ignorant people to be taught; he gave his bishopric to a friend, and went to teach in a wild part of the country, where many people were persuaded by him to agree to be baptized. On the morning when they were all assembled for the baptism, a body of heathen attacked them, and killed Winfrid, with the whole assembly. W^in- frid is also called Boniface, and you may sometimes hear him spoken of as St. Boniface. There was one person in Europe whom all the monks and abbots considered as their head in whatever country they lived, and whom they all obeyed absolutely, and that was the Bishop of Rome, called the Pope. As Rome had been the most powerful city in the world, and even at this time was one of the most important, so the Bishop of Rome had more power than the bishop of any other city, and was called pope, or father. Many of the other bishops obeyed him and imitated him in all that he did ; all monks and abbots obeyed him, and even kings and princes always tried to please him, because it was considered that he could give subjects leave to disobey their kings, or to turn them out of their king- doms ; so they all wished to have the Pope for their friend. THE CARLO VINGIANS. 25 A pope died in Rome at the same time that Charles Martel, Duke of the Franks, died, and the chief clergy chose a new pope called Zacharias. The elder of Karl's two sons, after ruling well and pros- perously for six years over half of the land his father left, went into a monastery and made over all his lands to his younger brother Pepin. He joined an Italian monastery, and lived there peacefully for some years. But at that time many Frankish chiefs made journeys to Rome, and their road passed near the monastery of the Duke of the Franks, so that they thought it only proper to pay him a visit on their way ; till at last he was so much disturbed by the number of his visitors, and their talk about wars and bat- tles, and all the affairs of the kingdom, that he w^ent away to another monastery out of the reach of all travellers, and lived there in quiet and contentment for the rest of his life. When his elder brother became a monk, Pepin, the second son of Charles Martel, became the only duke of the Franks. He is known as Pepin le Bref, or the Short. He was not long duke, for by this time every one began to think it ab- surd that one set of men should have the name of kings, while another set had all the power. One Merovingian king after another had led the same lazy, useless life ; at this time there was one called Hilderik. Pepin asked the Pope whether he might make himself king and turn out Hilderik. Zacharias wished to make friends with Pepin, who was strong and warlike, and would, Zacharias hoped, help him against some of his enemies. So the answer of the Pope was : " He who has the power, ought also to have the name, of king." The Pope having agreed to this change, all the Franks did the same. Hilderik's long flowing locks, the sign of his being a king, were cut off, and he was shut up in a monastery. He died two years afterwards, and was the last of the Merovingian kings. Pepin was crowned by Winfrid, whom I mentioned be- fore, and he was the first of another line of kings called the Carlovingians, from Carolus, Latin for Charles, which was the name of 'Pepin's father, and of his still greater son. Pepin, who owed his crown to the Pope, did him good 26 FREXCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN". service in return for it. He marched into Italy to defend Rome and its bishop against some fierce Italian enemies called the Lombards. He drove back the Lombards, took from them some of the land which they had conquered from other enemies, and, though it was not his to give, made a present of it to the Pope, who till then had had no land. But from this time Pepin's gift was handed down from one Pope to another, and by degrees they conquered more, and became masters of a kingdom in Italy. Pepin had, like his father, to fight against the Saxons, but he was not able to conquer them, though he kept them out of France. He besieged a town in Southern Gaul be- longing to the Arabs for seven years, and at last took it, and drove the last remaining Arabs over the Pyrenees and back into Spain. Pepin reigned for sixteen years ; he then fell ill and died, dividino- his kino'dom between his two sons. Chapter VIII. CHAELEMAGNE (771-814). Pepin's two sons, Karl and Karloman, divided between them their father's kingdom. Karloman died three years later, and Karl became king of the whole. Karl is the German for Charles, and while some of Karl's subjects, who lived in Austrasia and spoke a language something like the present German, called him Karl, the Neustrians, who talked the language which has now become French, called him Charles, and when he became great and power- ful they added on to Charles a Latin word, magnus, mean- ing 2:reat, Charles-magnus, and he was written of in history and is to this day known as Charlemagne. Charlemagne was one of the wisest and most powerful kings that ever ruled over any country. His kingdom was very large ; it had in it almost all that is now Germany, and almost all of Italy. In Italy the Popes had asked him to help them against the Lombards, which he did, and, after some trouble, conquered that turbulent nation, had the CHARLEMAGNE. 27 king shut up in a monastery, and gave the high places in the State to Frankish chiefs instead of Lombards. He also made war on the Arabs in Spain, on the Aquitanians, who were the people living in the southwest part of France, and on other nations whose names I will not mention, except that of the Saxons, the old enemies of his father and grand- father, against whom Charlemagne fought for thirty-three years, at last succeeding in conquering them and forcing them to become Christians. Charlemagne led a life of war ; he went out to fight each summer, and came back to his own kingdom when the severe winter weather began. He was hardly ever defeated, for he was wise, warlike, and very active, moving his sol- diers about so quickly that he took his enemies by surprise, and was able with a small body of men to do them as much harm as a slower general would have done with a larger number. He held a council of war every Easter, at which all his great chiefs, counts, viscounts, barons, and even bish- ops, were present, and he then told them what wars he meant to undertake that year, and asked them if they agreed, which they always did. Charlemagne had made improvements in the armor and weapons of his soldiers. They wore helmets on their heads with visors or pieces of steel that could be pulled down to defend their faces while they were fighting, and put up when they were in no danger, and a long buckler or shield, instead of the round skin-covered shield of the old Gauls. The Franks fought with long-pointed, two-handed swords, and with heavy clubs, covered with iron knots, which must have killed their enemies in the most unpleasant way pos- sible. Charlemagne bought particularly strong horses, bred in the pastures of the Rhine, for his men, and he knew so much geography that, his army being thus prepared, he was able always to send his soldiers to the weakest parts of the country he wished to attack. He cared for other things, however, besides war ; he watched over the education of his subjects and the laws of the country ; he sent officers into the different provinces to see that the judges were doing justice honestly to the people ; he assembled all the chief men of the countrv twice 28- FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. every year to help him to make laws, and to tell him of any matter in which they or their neighbors had been ill-treated, and wanted help or advice. He was anxious to help, to watch over, and to protect the poor. Many of his laws about slaves are still remaining. At this time there were more slaves in Gaul than there had ever been before ; nine tenths of the people were in this state. The laborers on an estate, who were always slaves, were considered as part of the land, and if the estate w^as sold or given away, they went with it. The only way in which a slave could escape from slavery was by fleeing for help to a monastery ; and as they w^ere carefully watched by their masters' servants, this was very difficult. No one thought or cared about the slaves ; but Charlemagne, who was just and humane to all his subjects, made laws to pro- tect them as far as he could against unkind masters and the hardships they often had to suffer. Charlemagne was fond of study of all sorts ; he knew Latin and Greek, and studied grammar, astronomy, and music ; he improved the German language, which was his own, by inventing some of the words that were wanting in it, such as the seasons, months, and winds. He tried also to learn to write, but that was too hard for him. He liked to see the wisest men of his time at his court, and he re- ceived them well, and learned from them as much as possi- ble. There is a story about him which shows how much he cared that his subjects should be well taught and should learn to be industrious and wise. Some monks came to his court and asked leave to set up a school, which Charlemagne granted them, and came often to see how the boys were learning, and what progress they made. On one of these visits he was told that some of the boys, who were the sons of poor men, had worked very well, but that others, the sons of noblemen, who thought there would never be need for them to work for their bread, bad been idle and troublesome. Charlemagne called up all the boys before him, put the good ones on his right hand, and the bad on his left, and made them a speech, in which he thanked the poor boys for having done his bidding and CHARLEMAGNE. 29 their duty, and promised them monasteries, bishoprics, and all kinds of honors if they continued to do well, but severe- ly reproved the young noblemen, telling them that if they did not raahe up for their idleness by hard work, they would get no good from Karl, We are not told how the boys be- haved afterwards, but we must hope that they paid more at- tention to the king's lecture than they had done to those of their schoolmaster. Charlemagne was gay and cheerful, fond of hunting, feasting, joking, and all kinds of amusement. A monk who lived soon afterwards has left many stories about him. He tells us how the king once commanded a troop of courtiers, who were standing round him in all their silk, feathers, and fine clothes, to follow him to the chase as they were, through storm, mud, and brambles ; and how he made an unhappy chorister, who had forgotten his responses, imitate the others who were singing, by making a set of faces to look as if he were sin^ino; too. Charlemagne never had any illness till he was seventy years old, and to the end of his life he would have no more to do with doctors than he could help, saying they always advised him to eat boiled meat instead of roast, which he preferred. Charlemagne was always on friendly terms with the Pope, as his father, Pepin le Bref, had been. One of the popes, called Leo, had to fly from Rome because the Romans rose up against him, accused him of several wicked deeds, and tried to put out his eyes. He went for help to Charlemagne, who received him kindl}^, and after keeping him at his court for a year, took him back to Rome, overcame and punished his enemies, and established Leo as Pope again. Before Charlemagne left Rome a solemn meeting was held on Christmas-day in the year 800 a.d., at which the Pope crowned the Prankish king with a golden crown, poured holy oil upon his head, and declared him to be the Em- peror of the Romans. I must go back about eight hundred years to explain what was meant by emperor. Julius Caesar, the conqueror of the Gauls, had gone back to Rome when his work in Gaul was ended, and had been chosen dictator, which was the 30 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. name given to the person who had the chief power in Rome. Dictators usually kept their power for six months only, but he was made dictator for life. He was soon afterwards murdered by some of the Romans, who thought he had too much power ; but after his death such struggles, wars, and disturbances of all kinds took place among the different men who wanted to become rulers of the country, that the Romans determined to choose one ruler once for all, to call him emperor, and to allow him to leave the title to his son, or to any one he might choose to succeed him. From this time, for four hundred years, one emperor after another reigned over all the country belonging to the Ro- mans. At last the first Christian emperor, who found the people of Rome hard to govern, and inclined to rise up against him, and resist him in many ways, determined to leave Rome and build a new city for his capital. This he did, and called it after his own name, Constantinople. It is now the capital of Turkey, and, as may be seen in the map, is a long way from Rome. This emperor left two sons, one of whom ruled in Rome, and the other in Constantinople. The country which had made one empire was divided into two — the Western Em- pire, which had Rome for its capital, and the Eastern, which had Constantinople. Since the barbarians had taken Rome there had been no Emperor of the West ; the Pope had been the chief person in Rome, and it might have been sup- posed that the Pope would not wish to have an emperor over himself, but would rather continue to be the chief man in the city and in the country. But the Popes had enemies in Italy, and they wished to find some nation to fight their battles, be their soldiers, and protect them in all difficulties. Pope Leo thought that by making Charlemagne emperor, which was supposed to give him power over all Italy and all other countries be- longing to the Romans, he should make sure of always hav- ing him for a friend ; and as Charlemagne was the best and bravest soldier in Europe, the Pope thought he would be the best possible friend to have. Charlemagne, therefore, became Emperor of France, of Germany, and of Italy. He himself was a German and not DESCENDANTS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 31 a Frenchman; he spoke German, and his dress, his habits, and his tastes were German. He felt himself growing old, and determined to divide his empire among his sons, of whom he had three. Two of them, however, died before their father. Louis, the third son, was the only one remaining at Charlemagne's death, and he became, like his father. Emperor of the West, and ruler over the whole of his father's enormous empire. Chapter IX. DESCENDANTS OF CHARLEMAGNE (814-843). The new emperor gained the name of Louis le Debonnaire from his gentleness and piety. He was a good but a weak man. He was anxious to do good to all his subjects and improve their condition, and while his father lived he gov- erned Aquitaine, a province in the south of France, wisely and well with the help of his wife. He could do nothing without the help of others ; he had many Churchmen about him, and he himself was at one time anxious to be a monk. He had three sons, and his reign is remarkable chiefly for the quarrels he had with them, and they with each other. After Louis had reigned for three years, he called to- gether an assembly of the Franks, and told them the ar- rangement he had made for the division of the empire at his death. His eldest son was to be emperor, to have Italy, most of France, and a great part of Germany ; his second son was to have a small part of France ; the third, a small part of Germany. The younger sons, although they were called kings, were to do nothing important without asking leave of their brother, the emperor. The younger sons were angry at this arrangement, as they had hoped that the em- pire would be equally divided, and that each would have complete power over his own share. They did not dare, however, to rebel against their father, and all went well till the wife of Louis died about two years later. Louis, in his sorrow, again thought of becoming a 32 FREXCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. monk, but liis chiefs persuaded him to remain on the throne and to choose another wife. Search was made for the most beautiful lady in the kingdom, and at last one was chosen, called Judith, beautiful, clever, but so ambitious or fond of power, as to cause great trouble to the emperor. She soon had a son called Charles, of whom the three sons of Louis became jealous. The emperor made another division of his empire, by which he took away a small part of the country that was to have belonged to one of the others to make a share for his fourth son Charles. The other brothers were angry at this, and rose up against their father. The nobles, the clergy, the soldiers, joined the sons, all havino- some reason for dislikino- Louis or Judith, and the emperor was taken prisoner and shut up in a convent, while his eldest son reigned in his name. Soon, however, some of the Germans returned to the side of Louis, brought him out of the convent, and restored him to power. From this time to the end of his life the poor emperor had no more quiet. Sometimes one, sometimes another, sometimes two of his sons at once, rebelled against him. He had not many wars with enemies outside the kingdom, but he had wars with his own subjects and children, which was much worse. At last he died on his way back from making war against his second son. One of the three elder sons had died, so that there were now only three altogether — Lothaire, Louis, and Charles. Lothaire tried to make himself emperor, as his father had been, and called upon his brothers to submit to him. They refused, and a great battle was fought at a place called Fontanet between Lothaire on one side, Louis and Charles on the other. The question was whether Charlemagne's empire should remain one country and be governed by one man, the kings of the different divisions being all less great than the emperor, and obliged to consult him in what they did ; or whether the different countries of Europe should be entirely separate from one another, and the king of each should govern as he chose. The battle was a terrible one ; it is said that forty thou- sand men were killed on each side. Louis and Charles were victorious, and drove Lothaire from the field. But still he DESCEXDANTS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 33 would not yield ; he collected more men, and again attacked his brothers, who were too strong for him, and drove him from one place to another. At last Lothaire yielded, and sent a message to his brothers, saying he would be content with a part of the empire, if they would allow him a larger share than their own, as he was still to be called emperor. They agreed, and a treaty of peace was made. Charles had France, Louis Germany, Lothaire Italy and a strip of land between France and Germany, part of which is still called Lorraine from its old name Lotharingia, meaning the land of Lothaire. This is the strip of land for which the French and the Germans have so often fought with one another. Lothaire, King of Italy, was called emperor, but had no power over the other two. One remarkable event happen- ed while the war was going on between Lothaire and his brothers. After the battle of Fontanet, Louis and Charles determined to take an oath of fidelity to each other before their two armies — that is, to promise solemnly that they would always be friends and faithful to one another. The soldiers were drawn up : Charles explained to his men, the Gallic Franks, and Louis to his followers, the Ger- mans, what the oath was which they were going to take ; then Charles took the oath in Frankish language, so that the Germans might understand, while Louis took it in the language spoken at that time in Charles's country, then called Francia, now known as France. The oaths were written down and kept, and that taken by Louis is the oldest piece of French writing that remains to us. It is like enough to the present French for people to be able to understand it now. It was a language which came from the mixing of the German spoken by the Franks when they first came into Gaul with the Latin which had been brought into the country and taught to the old Gauls by the Ro- mans, but there was much more of the Latin than of the German. From this time we may begin to use the word France, which has been the name of the country since the time of King Charles. 34 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Chapter X. THE LAST CAELOYINGIAN KINGS (843-98'7). Charles, who was known as Charles the Bald, was the first king who ruled over France alone : we saw that the old Merovingian kings were rulers over part only of the country ; and Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis le Debonnaire were rulers over other countries as well. From the time of Louis le Debonnaire, France and Ger- many have been completely different countries, and have never had the same ruler. Charles had no other country besides France to govern, and there was no other king be- sides him in France; but yet he ought not to be considered as a French king, for he had not power over the whole country. Three large provinces refused to obey him, the great lords did what they pleased without considering him, and the Normans came into many of the large towns to carry off whatever treasures they might find there. Charles himself was not a Frenchman, but a German, as his father, Louis le Debonnaire, and his grandfather, Charlemagne, had been. He could speak Latin, however, and his subjects were quickly losing all the German out of their language, and speaking only what was called Romance, a language made from the mingling of bad, incorrect Latin, such as was talked by the common people, with some remains of the language belonging to the old Gauls before they were in- vaded by the Romans. When the Emperor Lothaire died Charles wished to be made emperor, and was crowned King of Italy by the Pope. He afterwards made war on the sons of his other brother, Louis, King of Germany, but they defeated him and drove him back toward France. On his way across the moun- tain called Mont Cenis, he was taken ill, and died in a poor hut. One of the few remarkable events that happened in his reign was that, in order to please the nobles, and persuade THE LAST CARLO VINGIAN KINGS. 35 them to go and figlit with him against the sons of Louis, Charles made a law that the lands held by his chief nobles should become hereditary — that is, might be passed on from father to son, and not come back to the king at all. This had for some time been the custom, but it now became the law. After Charles, his son, Louis the Stammerer, became king, and reigned for two years; he was weak, foolish, and ready to obey the nobles, instead of making them obey him. When he died his kingdom was divided between his two elder sons, who were as weak as himself, and could not even defend the small part of the country which belonged to them. They both died, and the King of Germany, who was emperor, called himself King of France also ; but he was a foolish, helpless man, and could not defend the people against the Northmen, who invaded them at this time in great numbers. The state of France under these weak, foolish kings was miserable. The powerful people in the country were the great nobles and the Northmen. France was divided into many provinces, some of which had the same names that the French provinces have to this day, such as Champagne, Anjou, Brittany, Burgundy. Each of these provinces be- longed to a chief or nobleman, called sometimes duke, and sometimes count. They were the descendants, sons, grand- sons, or great-grandsons, of the chiefs to whom the first kings had given these pieces of land in reward for their ser- vices in battle, or who had conquered them for themselves when they first came into the country. Sometimes the prince of one of these provinces would die and leave no children, when the king would take the land for himself, and either keep it, or, more probably, give it to some other chief whom he wished to please or reward. About this time the chiefs, who had been called lendes, began to be known as barons — a name under which much is to be heard of them in the history of England. The barons, when first their lands were given to them by the king, had promised to do certain things in return for them : to follow him with a fixed number of men when he went to war, and to do other services of different kinds; 36 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. but their descendants often refused to perform what had been promised, and would hardly allow that the king was in any way greater than they. The great barons gave away part of their lands to other barons, less rich and less strona; than they, who were called their vassals, and the great bar- ons were the vassals of the king. Many of the barons were careless, idle men, who cared more for war and amusement than for work of any peace- ful kind. They were fond of fighting, hunting, and feast- ing, but could not bear to work in the field, to till the ground, or to take care of their flocks. They therefore bought or made prisoners great numbers of slaves, and left them to attend to the lands, while they themselves went to the court of the chief baron in the neighborhood, and made merry there, feasting and hunting. It may be imagined that the slaves, left to themselves, did not cultivate the lands as well as they might have done if they had been paid for their work and directed by their masters. Large parts of the country had been allowed to grow wild, and forests and sheepwalks covered the ground where cornfields and villages should have stood. In the forests were thieves, who lived upon what they could steal from travellers or from some peaceful household or monastery. Another misfortune which happened to the people was that their country was attacked by the Northmen, or Nor- mans, who lived in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They were fierce heathen, poor, brave, and active, who were always leaving their own barren land to look for some rich country from which they might steal food, goods, money — anything that came in their way. They could go to any place that could be reached by w^ater. They sailed along the coast of France and up all the rivers, burning, stealing, and destroy- ing as they went ; some of them went to England, some to Russia, others to Spain, Italy, Iceland, Greenland, and America. In England they were bravely resisted by King Alfred, who drove them out of the country many times, and at last allowed some of them to come and settle there on condition of their becoming Christians. The French kings and nobles were not so brave ; they could do nothing but give the THE LAST CARLO VINGI AN KINGS. 37 Northmen money to persuade them to go away, which of course made them come back again all the sooner. At last the Northmen made themselves masters of several cities in the north of France, and stayed there instead of going back to their own country. They had a leader named Rolf, or Rollo, under whom they lived, and the country which they had taken for theirs soon showed an example of peace and prosperity to all the country round. The king and the clergy thought it would be well to have these powerful neighbors for friends rather than for ene- mies, and as they could not be driven out of the country, the king sent to Rollo, offering him his daughter for a wife, and the country in which he had settled for himself and his sons forever, on condition of his acknowledging the French king as his lord, becoming a Christian, and living in peace witli the rest of the kingdom. Rollo agreed, became a Christian, married Gisela, the French princess, built towns and fine buildings, and ruled his country so well that in twenty years' time Normandy, the land of the Northmen, was the best-governed province in France. The Normans quickly learned the new French language, and by making laws and writing ballads in it, did much to settle it and bring it into common use. Among the other provinces or divisions of the country was one named France, which was gradually giving its name to the whole. Paris was the capital of this province, which was not at that time considered as in any way more impor- tant than the other provinces. It had a duke named Odo, one of the few rnen who had bravely resisted the Danes, and after the death of the son of Louis the Stammerer, when the only remaining Carlovingian prince was a child of five years old, the nobles chose Odo of Paris to be their king. His kingdom was a small one; he had no power beyond the duchy of France, and even in his own duchy the nobles were gaining more and more power, building strong castles, keeping bodies of soldiers, doing justice themselves, and defending from all enemies their servants and the poor people who lived in their villages. By degrees a village gathered round each castle, and every noble became like a king of a very small kingdom. This was a bad thing for 4 38 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. the power of the kings, but it was good for the poor, who in this way were protected from every one except their own master, who often used them badly enough. They were called serfs, and were something between slaves and ser- vants, but more like slaves, as they were paid for their work only by the houses and food which were given to them, and could never leave the estate of one lord to go away to an- other ; but if the estate were sold they were sold with it, as if they had been mere instruments or tools for work. Odo had been king for about six years when he was at- tacked by the Carlovingian prince, Charles the Simple, who was now growing up to be a man. Some of Odo's subjects took the side of Charles, others were faithful to Odo. Af- ter some fighting it was agreed that Odo should be king- while he lived, and Charles after him. This was done ; Odo died, Charles became king, and Robert, Odo's brother, was made duke of the duchy of France. Charles reigned for twenty-four years. He is called Charles the Simple out of politeness ; his nickname, Le Sot, really means the Fool, and as he seems to have done noth- ing all the twenty-four years of his reign, he probably deserved the name. The one important thing that hap- pened in his reign was the settlement of the Normans in France. Even in that matter Charles did only what he was advised to do by the clergy. The settlement of the Normans is a very important event, and makes the reign of Charles the Simple worth remem- bering. From that time the French had before them an example of good government and of a prosperous country, of courage, activity, and liberty ; and it was important for England also in a different way. At last Charles's nobles rose up against him and drove him from the country. He returned with an army, and tried to make himself king once more, but was taken pris- oner by one of his barons, and kept so till he died, seven years afterwards. His son Louis, who had been brought up in England, was then made king. He was a brave, spirited young man, and defended himself for some years against the German em- peror, who tried to become master of France ; and the HUGH CAPET— ROBERT. 39 King of Denmark, who attacked his country and at one time made him prisoner. Louis died from a fall received while hunting ; his son and grandson succeeded him, reign- ing, one for thirty-two years, the other for one year. The grandson had no children, and thus the family of the Car- lovingians, the descendants of Charlemagne, came to an end. Chapter XI. HUGH CAPET — EGBERT (987-1031). The brave Count Odo, who had been made king before the reign of Charles the Simple, had left a brother, called Robert, the Duke of France. Robert had a son, named Hugh the Great, who had more power than any one else in France through the reigns of the last Carlovingian kings, and who might have been king himself had he wished it. He was brave and wise, and might have made a good king, but he died Duke of France, leaving behind him a son, also named Hugh, who was made duke in his father's place. When the Carlovingians were all dead — except one who was an uncle of the last king, and lived at the court of the German emperor — the barons of northern France all joined in choosing Hugh, Duke of France, to be their king. They did not consider that this made him much more impor- tant or more powerful than themselves. He was solemnly crowned, and he managed to make friends, in the course of his reign, with many of the nobles, with the clergy, and the people of the towns. He made himself master, by de- grees, of several of the states where the barons had been ruling, each like a small king in his own country. From this time, for seven hundred years, the kings of France were constantly trying to gain one province after another from the great counts and dukes, who passed them down from father to son, as the kings of France did with the country. I have mentioned the names of some of the chief prov- inces — Anjon, Burgundy, Brittany, Normandy. There were 40 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. several others, but these were four of the most important. Normandy was conquered about 200 years later than the time of which I write ; Anjou and Burgundy were taken by the French king about 500 years later, their princes having died without children ; Brittany was won later still by a French king marrying the daughter of the last of the dukes. Thus it was only by very small degrees that France grew to its present size, and the early kings had but little power, for their barons were nearly as strong as they. The clergy were on the side of Hugh, for he had many abbeys and church lands belonging to him, and they wished to have him for a friend. Hugh also made friends with the Duke of Normandy, but some of the other barons joined together to try and drive him from the kingdom. Hugh was able to resist them. He fought against them for some years, in spite of some of the men whom he most trusted deserting him and going over to the other side. Hugh was success- ful at last ; his chief enemy died, and he continued king till his death, though not without many struggles. He was never master of any part of France south of the Loire. There was a strong duke there, and another in Nor- mandy. But they did not dispute Hugh's right to be king, or object to his son being so after him. Hugh was called Capet, either from a hood or cape which he used to wear instead of a crown, or from the size of his head — caput being the Latin for head. He was the first of the line of kings called Capetians, who reigned in France about twice as long as the Carlovingians had done. The next king was Robert, the son of Hugh. He had been crowned in his father's lifetime, and when Hugh died carried on the government by himself. Robert was a kind, gentle, humble man, but not a wise one, and so not fit to be a king. He was foolishly good-natured, letting people have everything they wanted, without considering whether or not it was right for them to have it. He once saw a man cutting off a gold ornament from his own royal robe ; he only laughed and let the thief take it. Another day he saw a priest steal a candlestick out of a church. He said, " My friend, run for your life to your home in Lorraine," and gave him money for his escape. A king who behaves HUGH CAPET— ROBERT. 41 to thieves in this way, as if what they were doing were quite right and proper, is not likely to have honest subjects. He was always followed about by twelve poor men, and as his wife did not like to see beggars at dinner with her and the king, he would sometimes hide one under the table and pass down to him food off his own plate. Robert had a wife named Bertha, of whom he was very fond. The Pope found out that she was the fourth cousin of the king, and told him that she must not remain his wife. It was supposed that the Pope had the right to settle such matters, but the king resisted for some time. The Pope then laid the country under a ban. Most of the bishops in all countries obeyed the Pope, and as time went on people of all kinds got more and more into the habit of obeying him, though in France both the clergy and the king were inclined to resist him, and declare that they could settle their own affairs without his advice. The Pope used sometimes to tell the subjects of a king that they need obey him no longer, and it was then considered that he had ceased to be king, and if he did not yield of himself, the friends of the Pope would sometimes rise up against him, and turn him out of the kingdom by force. The Pope had other powers ; he could excommunicate any one who displeased him. An excommunicated person vvas, as much as possible, cut off from every one else; no one was to speak to him, to wait upon him, to sell him food or anything else. He was never to be allowed to go into a church, and was considered by all who believed in the Pope as an enemy and an outlaw. Sometimes the Pope would put the whole kingdom under a ban or interdict, and then all the people in it were considered excommunicated, no services might be held in the country, and it was be- lieved that any one who died excommunicated would be shut out from heaven. When Robert refused to give up his wife, and the Pope laid the kingdom under a ban, the French bishops excom- municated Robert and Bertha. After a time Robert yielded, sent away his wife, and soon after married another, named Constance, who was beautiful and clever, but gave great trouble to the king by her bad temper and self-will. 42 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. At this time there arose an idea among' the people of Europe that the world was coming to an end. There have always been, and there still are, people who think they can find out what we are particularly told in the Bible that no one knows, when the world as it is now will come to an end, and men will live upon it no longer. There had for some time been an idea that the world would end one thou- sand years after the birth of Jesus Christ, and as the year came near, people became so much frightened that many of them gave up their lands, went into monasteries, or made journeys called pilgrimages to churches and holy places, all of which would, they thought, be pleasing to God, and make them more fit to die. They imagined that they saw signs and figures in the sky, and as in those days people knew nothing about comets, eclipses, meteors, or any of the curi- ous sights that are often to be seen by those who watch for them, it is very likely that they did see many w^onderful things in the sky which they could not explain, but which certainly did not mean that the world was coming to an end ; for it has gone on from that time to this, for more than eight hundred years, and, as far as we know, there is no reason why it should not go on for another eight hun- dred years, or longer still. The eldest son of King Robert and Constance was crowned while his father was still alive, but died soon after. The king then had his youngest son crowned, which dis- pleased Constance, who wished one of his elder brothers to be king. Robert had struggles with many of the great barons, the Duke of Anjou in particular; and twice in his reign there w^as a rising up against him in different parts of the country. Once some poor peasants tried vainly to resist their powerful lords, and again some men, who had a differ- ent religion from their neighbors, rose up and made some confusion and disturbance ; but Robert managed to over- come them all and remained king till his death, which hap- pened almost at the same time as the deaths of the two other great princes of France, the Duke of Normandy and the Duke of Aquitaine. HENRY I. 43 Chapter XIL HENEY I. (1031-1060). A SUBJECT of tlie Duke of Aujou, who naturally disliked King Robert as the enemy of his master, wrote in a history of his own time, " Robert we have ourselves seen reigning most slothfuUy ; his son, the present kinglet Henry, is not at all behind him in laziness." It is probably true that Robert was slothf al ; he does not seem to have done much in the thirty-five years of his reign ; the wonder is how so weak and foolish a man, with so many enemies, can have kept himself on the throne for so long a time. His son Henry was as weak as he had been. At the beginning of his reign he was attacked by his mother, Con- stance, and one of his brothers. It was, perhaps, as well for him that Constance died a few months later, and he was left to govern his kingdom as best he could. At this time many of his subjects were again disturbed by fears of the end of the world. They thought that as it had not come one thousand years after the birth of Jesus Christ, it might come one thousand years after his death. Some people felt so sure of this that they said it was of no use to sow grain, as they should be dead by the next year. They thus did what they could to make themselves die, for, of course, when the next year came, they had nothing to eat. There followed, one after another, three years in which the weather was so horrible that there was neither seedtime nor harvest. All over Europe there was famine, misery, and sickness. The poor people had nothing to eat but roots, grass, and clay, and they died by thousands. Some- times troops of wolves came out of the forests and de- voured every one whorn they met. But after these three dreadful years there came a time of great plenty, and the people took courage again. There 44 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. were fresli pilgrimages made to Jerusalem, and the bishops, seeing that the country was being ruined by the weakness of the king and the lawlessness of the people, thought that now was a good time to persuade the people to live quietly and peacefully, neither to fight with one another nor to hurt harmless passengers. The barons found it hard to give up their private wars ; but at last the bishops met together and determined that on certain days in every week, and on all days at certain times of the year, fighting should be entire- ly forbidden, and every one should be bound to keep what was called The Peace of God. This law answered very well. From Thursday evening to Monday morning in each week no one might fight at all, and this was a great stop to private wars — that is, to wars between one chief and another — while the rest of the coun- try was at peace. It obliged the barons to stay more at home in their castles and with their families than they had ever done before. This led them to take more interest in peaceful business, to keep their houses in better order, and to look after their lands and fields more carefully than in old times, when they could fight every day in the year. It was a great comfort to all travellers and peaceful people to have some days on which they could travel without any fear of meeting the fierce soldiers, who probably did not care much whether passers-by were friends or enemies, if there seemed a good chance that anything could be taken from them. It was in the reign of Henry I. that one of the dukes of Normandy died, leaving behind him a child named William, who was duke after him, and who, after showing himself to be a brave and wise warrior in his own country, was to lead his Normans to another, where he would become even more powerful than he had been in France. King Henry's first wife died, and he married the daugh- ter of the Duke of Russia, the most distant prince of whom he could hear, in order that there might be no fear of her being found to be his relation, as had happened to Robert with Bertha. They had a son named Philip, who when he was seven years old was crowned, as was then the custom, while his father was still alive. 4 2 IN THE 11th Century. Harper & Bro's, W.Y. HENRY I. 45 All this time the emperors of Germany were following one another on the throne ; but we have nothing to do with them, France and Germany were at this time distinct coun- tries, and though it might have happened that the French king should also be Emperor of Germany — and, in fact, the empire was once offered to King Robert — it never did hap- pen that the same sovereign ruled over the two countries. When the emperor died a fresh one was chosen by the people ; it was not always the son of the last emperor, but any one who seemed strong or wise, or able to govern well. In France, as you see, the son always succeeded his father. Henry I. was not a great man ; he took no part in any- thing that was going on in Europe; he behaved as if he were no greater than his own barons, and let the emperor conquer part of France without seeming to care at all, or interfering in any way. He died at last, and his son Philip became sole king of France. Philip I. seems to have been much the same kind of man as his father. He had a long reign, and many important things happened in different parts of Europe, but he took no share in them whatever. Soon after King Henry's death, William, Duke of Normandy, came to tell Philip that he had determined to go to England in the hope of making himself king there, and offering, if Philip would help him with men or money, to do homage to the King of France for any country he might conquer — that is, to acknowledge Philip to be his master, and to do nothing important with- out consulting him. But Philip would have nothing to do with William, refused him all help, and sent him away. William easily found other friends, and as many followers as he wanted ; he sailed to England, landed at Pevensey, defeated Harold, King of England, who was killed at the battle of Hastings, and reigned over England for many years as William the Conqueror, leaving his crown to his son. He owed no gratitude to the man who had refused to help him, and instead of being Philip's vassal, as he might have been if Philip had agreed to his offers, he was now a king much stronger and more pow^erful than Philip himself. Philip, like his grandfather Robert, had a quarrel with the Pope about his wife. This time it was clearly the king 46 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. who was in tlie wrong. Philip sent away his wife, and car- ried off the wife of the Duke of Anjou. The Pope told him to send away the Duke of Anjou's wife and to take back his own. He promised to do so, and broke his promises. The Pope excommunicated him, but was too busy with wars and troubles of his own to have much time to attend to Philip's evil doings. At this time there were great wars between the Emperor of Germany and the Pope. The popes were very anxious to have the kings of France on their side, and Philip was allowed to go on living his bad life in peace for some time. At last the Pope went over the Alps to hold a council in France. The country had again fallen into a miserable state. The barons grew more and more fierce, and disturbed all their more peaceful neighbors by their wars with one an- other. An old writer of those times says, " War was pre- ferred before peace by the princes of the earth, who quar- relled ceaselessly." The Pope had a proposal to make to the barons and people, which he hoped would make them stop quarrelling with one another, rid the country of some if not most of the fiercest of the barons, and bring honor and power to himself. When people believed the end of the world to be near, many of them made pilgrimages, or long journeys, to places which they thought holy, usually to the tomb of some good man. It was generally thought that the longer and more difficult the journey, the more good was to be had from the pilgrimage. The tomb most distant from the countries of Europe was also that which in itself was the most holy, the tomb supposed to be that of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. It is hard to believe that people in those days, when there were few and bad roads, no trains, no steamboats, scarcely any carriages, no comfortable inns by the way, or maps to show the road, can have made their way from France, Eng- land, or Ireland, to Jerusalem ; but it did happen again and again that pilgrims took the journey successfully, saw the sepulchre of Christ, and came home believing that every- thing they had done wrong was forgiven them, and that they had done what was more pleasing to God than any- thing else. HENRY I. 47 This had begun hundreds of years before the time of Philip I. The Romans used to tal^e the journey, which for them was not so long a one ; some of the old Latin writers used to try to turn away people from making this pilgrim- age ; they said that the journey was unnecessary, for that peo- ple who believed God to be everywhere present, might pray to him in their own homes as well as anywhere else. But people continued to go in great numbers ; the journey was interesting, there were new countries to be seen, exciting ad- ventures to be gone through, and valuable things to be bought cheaply in the East, and sold for a great price in Europe. Some people went for these reasons, but probably more went disliking the journey and thinking that what was so unpleasant must be right to do. Many people have an idea that it is right to do unpleasant things, not because of any reason for doing them, or of their being of any use to any one, but just because they are disagreeable. In those days any one who had done anything wrong was told by the priests to punish himself by doing something he did not like — going without food for a long time, giving away a great deal of money, or going on a pilgrimage. Arrangements were made in many countries for the con- venience of pilgrims. Charlemagne ordered that they should be provided with food and lodging all through his kingdom ; many of the monasteries were built partly as resting-places for them. The Mohammedans, who had conquered Jerusa- lem, treated them well, and allowed them to worship undis- turbed at the sepulchre ; but after a time the Mohammedans began to fight with one another, and the journey to Jerusa- lem became unsafe. At last the Turks conquered Jerusa- lem, and settled themselves there. They at once began to ill-treat the Christians, to take away what money they had, and to make them as uncomfortable as possible. When the Christians got back to Europe they told every one how badly they had been treated ; and, in particular, a monk called Peter the Hermit not only made the Pope very angry by his account of what he had seen, but travelled over all Europe describing the cruelty of the Turks in many dif- ferent countries, and trying to persuade his hearers to send protection and help. 48 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. With Peter the Hermit telling them the same things as their own friends, the people who heard him were easily- persuaded to believe what he said. The Pope meant to help him by making a speech on the same subject at the council which was to be held in France. He hoped to be able to persuade many of the barons and people in France to go in an army to the Holy Land, which w^as the name given to the country of which Jerusalem was the chief town, and force the Turks to behave well to the Christians, to give them leave to worship at the sepulchre, or at least to prom- ise not to ill-treat them on their way to Jerusalem. Chapter XHI. PHILIP I. (1060-1108). The Council was held at a place called Clermont, in the centre of France. The Pope had first to arrange several matters of business. Among other things he again excom- municated Philip I. of France; but little notice was taken of this, as every one was much more interested in the ques- tion about Jerusalem. The Pope made his great speech to a large meeting of people. He described the cruelties of the Turks, and the way in which they behaved at Jerusa- lem, and called upon every one who heard him to go to the defence of the Holy City and the sepulchre of Christ. He promised that all those who went should be forgiven every- thing wrong they had done, and if they died by the way, should go at once to heaven. None of the common people doubted that the popes had the power of saying whether they should go to heaven or not, and Pope TJrban's promise persuaded many men to take the journey who might otherwise have stayed at home. The Pope asked his hearers w^iether they would go, and they cried out, " Dieu la veut " — God wills it. The Pope then begged the bishops, who were going home to their different parts of the country, to preach to their people as he had done to them, and to try to persuade as many men as pos- PHILIP I. 49 sible to join an army which was soon to set out for Jerusa- lem. Some of the bishops promised eagerly ; " some wept, some doubted, some were disturbed;" but when they got back among their people and began to obey the Pope's commands, they found that the poor people, who had proba- bly heard some of the speeches of Peter the Hermit, were ready and eager to set out on the journey, and by degrees not men only, but women and children, came to declare themselves ready to follow Peter, or any one who would show them the way to the Holy Land. Several of the great barons also declared themselves ready to be leaders of the array. It was to set out in nine months ; but the poor people were too eager to wait so long. A band of serfs, monks, people who owed money and could not pay, with other bad men who wanted to escape from the country, all met together and set out with Peter the Hermit for a guide. They had only eight horsemen among them, and one soldier named Walter the Penniless. They managed to reach Asia after many wanderings, and were at once attacked by the Turks and entirely destroyed. When their friends who were following them arrived at the place, they found only a pyramid of whitened bones. Peter the Hermit, however, seems in some way or other to have es- caped. The Pope was anxious that this war against the Turks should be considered a specially holy one, and that every one who went on it should be respected by his neighbors, so that others might be led to follow his example. He gave crosses to all the soldiers who set out on the journey to the Holy Land ; they were sometimes small metal ornaments, or more often linen or cloth cut into the shape of a cross. These men with the cross were called Crusaders, from a Latin word meaning cross, and the war was called a Cru- sade. The barons, counts, and dukes assembled their men slow- ly. They formed three great armies ; one was from Lor- raine, the country between France and Germany, of which the people were German rather than French ; they were led by one of the bravest soldiers of that time, Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon. The second army was entirely French, and had 50 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN". at its head, Hugh, the brother of Philip I. ; Robert, Date of Normandy, the brother of the Enghsh king, WilHam Rufus ; and the Duke of Brittany. The third army was made up of Aquitanians and other men from the south of France, and was led by the chief man of those parts, the Count of Toulouse. These three armies went different ways through Europe, and were a great trouble to the countries through which they had to pass, especially to the Emperor of Constanti- nople, who had to let them stay in his city while they were waiting to cross over into Asia. They all met in Asia at last, and marched towards Jerusalem. They came to a city named Antioch, and after a long siege took it, and made one of their chiefs prince there. Many thousands of the Crusaders had been killed in the journey to Antioch and the siege. There had been about six hundred thousand of them ; there were now only forty thousand, and Jerusalem was defended by a large Turkish array. But the Crusaders had gone too far to turn back ; they attacked Jerusalem, and after a siege of five weeks and a great struggle, the Christians became masters of it, exactly two years and eleven months after the day fixed for the setting-out of the Cru- sade. Godfrey of Bouillon was made King of Jerusalem ; two other leaders made themselves princes of two of the other chief towns ; many of the Crusaders, among them Peter the Hermit, went home to Europe ; and others stayed to help rule the new kingdom. The Turks waited their time. Soon after the end of the first Crusade Philip had his eldest son crowned, and they reigned together for eight years, at the end of which time Philip died, and his son Louis be- came sole king;. Many great changes came to the French people in conse- quence of the Crusades. Some of these were changes for the better, and some changes for the worse. One of the worst changes was, that people became accustomed to think it right to fight with any one whose religion was different from their own. They had been taught that a crusade was a holy war, and that it was right and noble to undertake it ; and they were next taught that every war was a crusade PHILIP I. 51 which was ordered by the Pope, or was against people who did not believe in the religion he taught. The Crusades — for there were many others after the first one — besides accustoming people to wars about religion, had the bad consequence of wasting the lives of great num- bers of men. More than five hundred thousand men died on the way from France to Antioch, and, of course, the Mohammedans were killed also in great numbers. The Christians died in vain, for they could not drive the Sara- cens out of the Holy Land, nor even keep Jerusalem long. Another change that came at this time was, that the Pope became even more powerful than he had been before, because all the Crusaders looked to him as their head. He was able to get rid of any one who displeased or resist- ed him by a command to take the cross, as it was called ; which means to go on a crusade, where very likely the cru- sader would be killed, or, if not, he would be away for many years, and would probably have to spend so much money in making ready for the expedition that he would come home poor and weak, and not in a state to give trouble to the Pope. The Crusades were a change for the better for the serfs and men who were not nobles. According; to the laws of that time, no one could be both a soldier and a slave ; so that, if a serf became a Crusader, he ceased to be a slave, and it would have been thought so wicked to take a man away from the army and make him a serf again, that no master dared do it. A serf sometimes, without going on the Crusade, bought his freedom from his master, who was only too glad to find anything to sell. The nobles who were going on a crusade, and wanted money with which to prepare for their journey, were glad also to sell some part of their lands to any one who would give them money in return. The people who had money to spare were the burghers, as they were called ; that is, men who lived in a bourg, or town, but had no estate of their own, and were not nobles. A law was made that whoever, with the consent of the king, bought an estate from a noble, should himself become a noble. Thus a new set of nobles was formed, richer than the old nobles, though less powerful, and more inclined to submit to the 52 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. king, who liad made the law by which they became no- bles. To the king, also, these changes brought more power than had belonged to the old kings, as some of the nobles sold their lands to him instead of to the bm'ghe'fs, and he was able to give them away to any one he liked, and to put into power those who would be most obedient to him. Other nobles gave their lands to monasteries, and the monks and clergy grew rich like so many of their neighbors. But all the riches which came to the king, pope, burgh- ers, and monasteries were lost by the nobles, and this made a great change in the state of the country. The nobles, who had lived as small kings, each in his own castle, with his serfs around him, and had refused to obey even the king of the country, became, by the end of the Crusades, so weak that they were obliged to be obedient, while the burghers and other common people had grown so strong that the nobles did not dare ill-treat them as of old. At the end of the first Crusade, however, the nobles were still powerful, and when they made Godfrey de Bouillon King of Jerusalem, and had to settle laws by which he might govern his kingdom, they were made as like as pos- sible to the laws and customs which were common in Europe. The barons, and even the burghers, had slaves, and the land was held on feudal tenure ; this means that the kings gave land to their chief subjects on condition of their doing cer- tain things in return for it ; in particular, of their going out to fight with a certain number of followers when the king wanted soldiers. The men who held the land were called the vassals of the king, and they, in their turn, gave part of their land to oth- er men, who became their vassals, and made them the same promises that the barons had made to the king. The kings of Jerusalem governed well, and kept their vassals in good order, and the pilgrims from Europe were surprised to see the difference between the order at Jerusalem and the dis- order and confusion of their own countries. At this time there were many brave and good soldiers who had no land or money, but fought well, and were much respected by their friends and feared by their ene- PHILIP I. 53 mies. Most of these were knights, great numbers of whom distinguished themselves in the Crusades. The knights, to begin with, were usually the sons of the great barons. The land of a baron almost always went, at his death, to his eldest son. The younger sons of the chief were often sent to the castle of some other baron or chief, to be taught all the exercises which it was proper for a gentleman of those days to understand. They were first made pages, and learned to wait upon the lady of the castle. AVhen the page grew older, he was taught to ride and use the sword or spear. He then be- came a squire, received a sword and belt from the priest, and followed his lord to war. He held his master's horse, carried his armor, guarded his prisoners, or watched his banner. At the age of twenty-one, if he had been brave and faith- ful as a squire, he was considered fit to be made a knight. This was a serious and important event. The young man who was to become a knight kept watch in a chapel all the night before, praying and fasting. In the morning an ad- dress was made to him by a priest, who explained the du- ties of a knight — to serve his king, to defend his country, to punish any one whom he found doing wrong, to help the weak and oppressed, in particular to help all women, and to do justice and judgment. He took an oath to keep the laws ; a new suit of armor was then put upon him, and he knelt down before his lord, who dubbed him a knight ; that is, tapped him on the shoulder wdth the flat of his sword, saying. Rise up. Sir John, or Sir James, or whatever his name might be. After this he was a knight, or, in French, a chevalier; meaning a man who rides on horse- back, for the common people always went on foot. His chief business was to fight ; his chief duty was to keep the oaths which he had taken when he became a knight ; to defend the weak and innocent against the strong and cruel, ladies against their enemies, and all Christians against hea- then men or Mohammedans. In a peaceful and well-ordered country, a knight would not find much to do. People of the present day have laws, judges, and policemen to defend the weak from the strong, the good from the bad, and even 5 54 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. a man on horseback is not allowed to interfere with them ; but in those times France was not a peaceful or well-ordered country, and there was plenty to be done by any strong man who cared for order and justice. But it was in the Holy Land, as Crusaders, that the knights chiefly distinguished themselves. All the bravest soldiers were knights, kings were always knighted, and if a man who was not a knight did anything specially brave he was often knighted, as a reward, upon the battle-field. There is a word which was used in those times to express the qualities which a good knight ought to have, and which is still used to express the same qualities ; chivalrous meant brave, polite, unselfish, truthful, and the time of chivalry means the time in which those virtues were supposed to belong to the best soldiers. Probably, however, there were never more than a few knights who really kept their vows as they should have been kept, and there were bad as well as good men among them, as in every other body of people. Chapter XIY. LOnS VI. (1108-1137). Philip I. was succeeded by his son, Louis VL, called sometimes le Batailleur, the Fighter ; sometimes I'Eveille, the Wide-awake. Both these names seem to show that he was an active, warlike king ; and, indeed, it was under his reign that the French kings first came to be considered as important people, and as decidedly more powerful than their great vassals. When Louis first became sole king, on the death of his father, he found his vassals oppressing the merchants and poor people in their lands, and very disobe- dient to him. He had, happily, a genius for war, and was at the head of a body of soldiers made up of brave young men who were sent to Paris by the great vassals. The clergy were friendly to him, and the common people respected and loved him, because he showed himself a lover of justice and a defender of the weak. The great vassals LOUIS VI. 55 had taken land close to the walls of Paris, and the first care of Louis was to drive them back to a respectful distance, which he did with the help of a small army. He then at- tacked and defeated two counts, who were disturbing the churches of Rheims and of Orleans, and he carried on many other small wars with his different vassals, in which he was usually the conqueror, till at last they were all brought into good order, and made to submit to him. He did justice upon all wicked men, calling them before Lis court, giving them a fair trial, and punishing them if they w^ere found guilty of ill-treating their neighbors or do- ing any other harm. " Louis went to war with the Normans, but they were too strong for him, and he was obliged to go back to his own kingdom, and spend a few years of quiet. But soon afterward the King of England and the Em- peror of Germany made a plan together to attack the east- ern side of France, and take one of Louis's chief cities from him. Louis called upon his vassals to come to his help, and they, who were by this time accustomed to obey him, came together in great numbers. Louis brought out the oriflamme, the royal standard or flag, which was considered especially sacred, was usually kept on the altar of the church at St. Denis, and was used only on great occasions. It was of flame-red silk, with three points on its low'er side, tipped with green. Louis collected so large an army that the German em- peror did not dare come into France ; he gave up his plan, and Louis made peace with the King of England. Soon after this he had to march against the Duke of Aquitaine, one of his most powerful vassals, who ruled over most of the south of France. The duke, like so many others of the king's enemies, submitted when he saw Louis come against him, and their dispute was settled as the king wished. The next expedi- tion was against the people of Flanders, some of whom had murdered their count. The king here put many people to death with horrible cruelty, made a new count, and went home again. Louis was now growing old, and, as was the custom with the kings of France, he had his eldest son Philip crowned 56 FKENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. and made king along with him, to help him in performing his duties as king, though, as Philip was only fourteen when he was crowned, he can hardly have been of much use to his father. But he was a very intelligent and prom- ising boy, and his father was deeply grieved when two years afterwards his son met with an accident of which he died. The young prince was riding through the streets of Paris' when a pig ran between the legs of his horse, which fell over with the prince upon it, hurting him so much that he died that night. His younger brother, Louis, called the Young, was then crowned king with his father. Louis lived after this for about six years. Before he died he arranged a marriage between his son Louis and the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, a young lady who would have the greater part of the south of France for her own on the death of her father. The Duke of Aquitaine proposed the marriage, and Louis was very much pleased at it, thinking that Aquitaine, which had hitherto obeyed only its own duke, and treated the French king with very little respect, would now become a part of the French king- dom. The bride and bridegroom were both children, but they were married at Bordeaux, and the bride, whose name was Eleanor, was crowned Queen of France. Eleanor was to have many adventures, and most of them unpleasant ones, in the course of her life. She was to be the wife of two kings, the mother of two, to reign both in France and Eng- land, and to pass some years in prison. The two fathers of Louis and Eleanor were both ill at the time of the mar- riage, and died shortly afterward. The Duke of Aqui- taine never returned from a pilgrimage which he had been making, and Eleanor became mistress of Aquitaine. Louis VL died at Paris, and his son, the young Louis, became sole king. In these days a king is not usually admired because he has fought a great number of battles. It is considered so great a misfortune to have to go to war, that in thinking of the best and greatest kind of king we usually imagine one who keeps his country in peace. But in those times no king of France could have made himself respected or LOUIS VII. 57 obeyed without conquering his great vassals, who at the be- ginning of his reign were almost as powerful as himself. Louis VI. did conquer many of them, and even when he fail- ed, as in his war with the Duke of Normandy, he showed courage and energy which made his weaker enemies afraid of him. His wars prepared more peaceful reigns for his son and grandson. From this time the King of France was not only the chief man in France, but was respected and looked upon as an important person in all Europe. Louis was much beloved by all his subjects. He was just and generous, "and so mirthful that some even reckoned him a simpleton." In his reign lived several great men, of Avhom I shall mention two in particular. One was an abbot named Suger, the dearest friend of Louis, whose life he wrote, and whose son, Louis VIL, he helped in the govern- ment of the kingdom. The other was also an abbot, named Bernard, called afterward St. Bernard, a great friend of the pope, and one of the most eloquent men that ever lived, which means that he could speak well, and persuade his hearers to believe as he did, and to do as he wished. Both Suger and St. Bernard, however, though they became famous in the reign of Louis VI., have more to do with the reign of his son, Louis VIL, and therefore I will leave what more is to be said of them for another chapter. Louis VI. is usually known as Louis le Gros, or the Fat, because in his old age he became fat from illness. The more active names which he won when he was young, give a better idea of his nature. Chapter XV. LOUIS VII. (1137-1180). Louis VII. succeeded, or came after, his father, Louis VI. This king was still called Le Jeune (the Young), and it is the name by which he is known in history. All the kings of that time had names given them from something special about their look or behavior, and not only kings, but pri- 58 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. vate people were distinguished in the same way, as many people were then without surnames, and a nickname of that sort was necessary to know apart two Johns, two Ed- wards, or any two people with the same Christian name. The custom was used for the kings, and certainly must have been necessary for them also, when a father and son had the same name and were ruling together. Louis had been brought up under the care of the Abbot Suger. He had seen a great deal of monks and Church- men, and was inclined to look up to them and obey them in everything, more than it is fitting for a king to do. Suger, however, was the best adviser he could have had, and his reign began well. He and Eleanor were crowned, and every one was pleased to see the north and south of France bound together by this marriage. Louis soon found, however, that the men of Aquitaine were not yet much inclined to submit to him. He had a quarrel with them, another with the King of England, and a third with the Pope, before he had been king for more than a year or two. He wished to persuade one of the nobles, who was his friend, to marry the sister of his own wife, Eleanor of Aqui- taine, in order that some lands which were hers might be- long to a friend of the king. The difficulty was that the noble who was to have married this lady had already a wife to whom he had been married for some years. Louis persuaded him to send aAvay his wife and marry Eleanor's sister. Some of the bishops of France who were friends of the nobleman gave him leave to do this, and it was considered at that time that the clergy had the power of settling whether or not a marriage should be broken off, if either the husband or wife wished it to be so. The brother of the poor lady who was thus sent away was a great nobleman, called the Count of Champagne, and he, as may be imagined, was very angry at the way in which his sister was treated. He called upon the Pope to take her side, and the Pope, who had already quarrelled with Louis, excommunicated the faithless husband and the bish- ops who had given him leave to send away his wife. Louis attacked the Count of Champagne, and there was war be- LOyiS VII. 59 tween them for some months. At last Louis attacked and took a place called Yitry, which he burned down. The flames destroyed a church into which thirteen hundred men, women, and children had gone for safety. They were all burned, and the kino; was near enouo-h to hear their cries. Whether or not he had intended that they should be burn- ed we do not know, but he afterwards repented deeply of his cruelty, and made a peace with the Count of Cham- pagne and with the Pope. The Pope had put France under an interdict, forbidding any church service to be held in any city where the king might be. A new pope, who was chosen just at this time, on the death of the other, took off the interdict, and France was again at peace. About this time news came to Europe that the kingdom of Jerusalem, which the Christians had set up in the East, was in danger. The Turks had watched their time, and had seen that the barons in the Holy Land were growing- proud and turbulent, disobedient to their king, and not able to govern the people who should have been their subjects. One of the kings of Jerusalem had been killed by a fall from his horse, and had left his crowm to a child of twelve years old, called Baldwin IIL The Turks made use of the opportunity, suddenly attacked a large town named Edessa, killed many of the people who lived in it, and took away all their riches. The Christians were afraid that the Mo- hammedans might go on to other cities, and at last take from them all the country they had conquered in the reign of King Philip I. They called upon the Christians of the West to help them. The Pope was anxious for another Crusade ; his friend St. Bernard went from one town of France to another, preaching, as Peter the Hermit had done, of the craelties of the Turks and the misery of the Christians, and calling upon all good servants of the pope to take the cross and set out for the Holy Land. Louis, who was young and fond of adventure, was easily persuaded to lead an army to Jerusalem. The Pope said as before, that the Crusaders should be forgiven for all their sins, and Louis hoped in this way to gain pardon for burning the church at Vitry, for which he still felt deep remorse. His faithful adviser 60 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Snger told him that his duty as a king was to stay at home and manage the affairs of his kingdom, but Louis would not listen to this; and he ordered that a great meeting should be held at a place called Vezelay, where St. Bernard should address the people, and persuade as many as possible of them to take the cross. The meeting was held on Easter Day. Immense crowds of people gathered together and listened to Bernard's elo- quent speech. Before he had gone far a cry rose of " Crosses ! crosses !" St. Bernard and the king, who was with him, gave away as many crosses as they had with them, and were even obliged to tear up some of their clothes to find stuff for more. After this Bernard went to Geimany, and though he spoke Latin, so that the Germans could not understand what he said, his voice and his manner had such an effect upon them that the Emperor Conrad and many of his chief noblemen took the cross at once. Some of the Crusaders washed Bernard to lead the Cru- sade, but he remembered how Peter the Hermit had failed, and refused to do so. Louis, by the advice of the bishops and chief noblemen, made Suger legent, or ruler of the kingdom while he should be away, and set off for the Holy Land a few months after the meeting of Yezelay ; the Em- peror Conrad having gone on a short time before him. This Crusade, which seemed to promise great success, caused the death of many thousands of people, but was of no use whatever. The Crusaders began to quarrel with the people of the countries through which they passed before they were out of Europe. The kings had made arrange- ments for having food supplied to their armies, but there were difficulties about finding enough for all, and the Cru- saders, if they were not satisfied, took by force whatever they wanted from the people. When they reached Asia, their troubles grew w^orse. The German army, which was 'in front, lost its way, was attacked by the Turks, was com- pletely defeated, and almost destroyed. The French king went on more carefully, but was also obliged to fight the Turks, and lost many of his best soldiers. The leaders of the army then found that they did not know their way, and their guides deserted them from fear of the Turks. The LOUIS VII. 61 army was much hindered by the crowds of women and children, who had insisted on going with their husbands and fathers to Jerusalem. At last a man was found who knew his way through the country. He was a simple French knight, named Gilbert, and to him was given full power over the whole army. He guided them safely, without being attacked by the Turks, to a town called Satalia, where there were some Christian soldiers, and where they could buy food. He then went back to his duties as a common soldier, and nothing more is known of him-. At Satalia the king was persuaded to desert his army and subjects. He left them to wander on as best they might on foot to Jerusalem, and himself, with his queen and some of his chief nobles, embarked in a few ships which they found there, and sailed to Antioch, from which town they travelled easily to Jerusalem. There Louis went to the chief church, prayed for pardon at the altar of the sepulchre, and turned homeward, believing that he had done a great and good deed. The poor pilgrims left at Satalia had been meanwhile in a state of the greatest misery. They had tried to make their way to Jerusalem, but found it impossible, as they were without food, and the Turks were in wait for them. The governor of Satalia would not allow them to come into the town, and many of them died of hunger; others had food given them by their enemies the Turks, who were moved to pity for them, and treated them more charitably than did their fellow -Christians. More than three thou- sand young m^n were persuaded by the Turks to become Mohammedans ; most of the others died at last from illness, or misery, or in battle. Louis, on his way home, attacked a Turkish town named Damascus, and besieged it for some weeks, but then found that he was not strong enough to take it ; and, as he re- ceived letters from Suger in France, begging him to hasten home as fast as possible, he at last left the Holy Land and sailed for J2urope. His subjects in France, who had heard how he had deserted the Crusaders, and how he was com- ing home without having taken any fresh towns or done 62 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. anything to help the Christians in the East, were very an- gry with him. Some of them had wished to make his brother king instead of him, and would perhaps have done so but for the courage of the faithful Suger, who, with the help of St. Bernard and of letters from the Pope, had put an end to all disturbance by the time the king reached France. Louis had left his country with a hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims ; he brought back two or three hun- dred knights. I know of only one good thing which came to the French from this Crusade. As the German army had been almost entirely destroyed, the few soldiers who remained out of it had joined the army of Louis, and the French had learned to look upon Louis as a king as great as the em- peror, and had begun to feel themselves to be a nation apart from the Germans or any other people. Louis found his kingdom in a state better than that in which he had left it. Suger had brought all the affairs of the country into good order, and had even paid debts of the king's with money of his own. AVhen Louis came back Suger left the government altogether, and went to live pri- vately at his own home, first giving the king some good advice, which Louis would have done w^ell to follow. One piece of advice was not to quarrel with his wife Eleanor. Eleanor seems to have been an active, interfering woman, and she was probably very much vexed to see her husband begin so much and perform so little. She used to say that he was more a monk than a king, and they had lived an unhappy life together even before the Crusade. Eleanor went wdth Louis to Jerusalem, but when tlfey came back she said that she wished to be separated from him. Suger wished the king to do all in his power to prevent this ; but Louis gave way, and said he would do whatever might be settled by a council of the clergy which was to meet and consider the question. It was decided that the king and queen should be separated, and Eleanor left the French court and went to Aquitaine, the country which had belonged to her, and which, by her marriage with the French king, had become part of his kingdom, but was now his no longer. She very soon afterward married Henry, Count of Anjou. LOUIS VII. 63 This Henry was the grandson of an English king, Henry I. His mother, Matilda, had wished to be Queen of Eng- land, and had had a war with her cousin Stephen, which had ended in an agreement that Stephen should be King of England while he lived, and that the next king should be not his own son, but Matilda's son, Henry, who had now married Eleanor of Aquitaine. A year or two afterwards Stephen died, and Henry became King of England. El- eanor was thus for the second time the wife of a 'king-. Henry was still vassal of the French king for the duch- ies and counties which he held in France, Anjou, Aqui- taine, and several others, for he constantly went over to France and conquered more provinces from the weak Louis. In later years Louis found a mean way of revenging him- self upon Henry by helping Henry's sons to rebel against their father. He invited the eldest to the French court, and encouraged him to resist Henry. It was perhaps some kind of excuse for him that the young prince had married his daughter. Louis married another wife after Eleanor had left him, and, when she died, a third. It was not till he had been married for thirty years that he at last had a son, at whose birth the whole French nation was so much delighted that he was called Dieudonne, or, given by God. At the age of fifteen this son Philip was crowned, like so man}^ of the , early French kings, in his father's lifetime. A few months later Louis VII. died. He had reigned for forty -three years, and had done very little for his people. An old writer says, " Louis was pious toward God, mild to his subjects, full of respect for the clergy, but more simple than was fitting for a king. He trusted too much to the advice of his nobles, who cared nothing for honesty or jus- tice, and so was guilty of more than one serious fault, in spite of the goodness of his disposition." Under his reign, however, were seen the good results of his father's victories. The barons were more obedient than they had been to former kings, the whole country was grow- ing more orderly, and the people were being freed from the tyranny of the nobles. Louis made aofreements with some of the chief towns 64 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. that they should not belong to any nobleman or bishop as they had all done before, but that they should govern them- selves, make laws for themselves, choose then- judges and other officers, and have other powers which they had never before enjoyed. In return, they were to pay the king sums of money from time to time, and to send men to his ar- mies, like his great vassals, when he went to war. Such an arrangement made with a tow^n was called a commune, and many towns wished to have communes given to them. After a time the town itself came to be called a commune, as well as the arrangement making it so. Louis VI. had given a few communes, but Louis VII. gave many more ; and this was one of the ways in which the kings and the common people came to be of more importance, and the nobles of less importance, in France, as both the money which the communes now paid to the king, and the powers which the king gave to the communes, had before belonged to the nobles, so that they were left poorer and weaker, less able to resist the king or to oppress the people. Chapter XVI. PHILIP II. (1180-1223). The next king was Philip II., son of Louis. He grew up a wise and a strong king, though he was not in all re- spects a good man, and he did more to make France a great and powerful country than any of the kings before him had done. He was only fifteen at the death of his father, but he already cared more about his own greatness and that of his country than Louis had ever done. While he was still quite young, some of his courtiers, seeing him one day gnawing a green bough and looking much excited, asked him what he was thinking about. He answered, " I am wondering whether G-od will give me grace to raise France once more to the height she reached in the days of Charlemagne." He did not succeed in conquering such an empire as Charlemagne's, and it was well for hira PHILIP II. 65 that he did not, for it could not have lasted for more than a few years ; but he did what was better, he made France strong enough to defend herself against Germany and all her other enemies, and made the people who lived in the different parts of France feel that they all belonged to the same country, and were subjects of the same king. The first act of his reign was one which we should now consider a bad one. He drove all the Jews out of the country and took away their money, which he kept for himself. At that time many people thought there was no harm in ill-treating any one who was not a Christian, and there were even found men among the clergy of the king- dom to praise the king for dishonestly taking money which belonged to his subjects. He also put to death some other people who, though not Jews, did not believe in the Christian religion, and tried to make changes in what was usually taught to the people. All such men were called heretics ; and the Pope and many of the clergy taught their hearers that heretics ought not to be allowed to live, that all true Christians should be their enemies, that it was right to make war upon them, and do them any kind of harm, only because they were heretics ; and, worst of all, that if you made a promise to a man who was a heretic you were not bound to keep it. Philip had been brought up by priests, and from his treatment of his heretic subjects it seems as if his teachers must have taught him all these cruel and, as we now think, wicked ideas. Philip, before he became king, found for himself a wife, Isabella, niece of the Count of Flanders. She suited him well in age, being only thirteen, and the two children were married and crowned together when Philip became king. Philip hoped by this marriage to make the Count of Flan- ders his friend ; but they soon quarrelled, and the count, per- suading some of the other counts to join him, raised an army against Philip. Henry H. of England and his sons came to the help of Philip, and managed to arrange a peace. After this there were many quarrels and disputes between Philip and the king and princes of England. These young princes sometimes attacked Philip, and sometimes joined him in attackinoj their own father. One of them, Richard, QQ FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. wlio was afterward King of England, and known as Coeur de Lion, became so great a friend of Philip that they slept in the same bed, ate at the same table, and even used the same plate. When the English and French kings wanted to make an agreement or discuss any question together, they usually met under a great elm that stood just on the boundary where the lands of the two kings met. It was called the elm of conference or discussion. One day the English ar- rived there first, and as they sat comfortably in the shade, mocked at the French as they saw them marching through the burning plain in their hot armor. The French were so angry that they fell upon the English, drove them away, and then cut down the elm, Philip "swearing by all the saints of France that there should never more be held a conference in that place." Philip had to fight with several of his great vassals, who perhaps thought that he would be easy to conquer because of his youth ; but he got the better of them all, and man- aged either to conquer them or to make them his friends. Philip was able to attend to other matters besides war. He had the chief streets of Paris paved, which was a very great improvement to the town, as the streets had before been piled up with mud and dirt of all kinds, so that carts could hardl}^ pass along them, and there was always a bad and unwholesome smell. He built colleges, hospitals, and waterworks, and walls round part of the city to defend it. He also began to build the Louvre, the palace of the kings of France for many hundred years. After Philip had been king for about seven years, bad news came from Jerusalem. The Christians had been grow- ing weaker and weaker, and the Mohammedans, under a brave and wise leader named Saladin, had taken from them many of the chief places which they had won in the Holy Land, and had at last besieged and taken Jerusalem itself, and made prisoner the King of Jerusalem and many other of the chief European princes. When the news reached Europe, all the knights, barons, and men of war in the country were eager to go at once to the help of the Chris- tians in Asia. Philip and Henry of England, who were at war, made PHILIP II. • 67 peace and took the cross. The Emperor of Germany and a crowd of German princes and barons did the same. Before they could set out, however, Henry II. died, and his son Richard became Kino- of Eno-land. Richard was a brave, warUke prince, and delighted in the idea of fighting against Saladin ; he sold many of his lands to obtain money for the expedition, and was soon ready to set out. Philip was less fiery and more prudent. He was sorry to leave his kingdom, and made careful arrangements as to how it was to be governed while he was away. His young wife died just at this time, and he left the chief power to his mother and uncle. Philip and Richard made an agreement by which they solemnly promised that they would always de- fend one another, and treat one another as brothers in arms. We shall see how Philip kept this promise. Richard and Philip set off at the same time, by different roads, for the Holy Land. They were both obliged to spend the winter in the island of Sicily, where they passed the time in feasts and amusements, and, when they were tired of gayety, in quarrelling. In the spring they went on to the Holy Land and took a city called Acre, but not till after a long siege. Philip soon grew tired of the Crusade, and as there seemed to be very little chance of winning back Jeru- salem, and the quarrels between himself and Richard grew more and more common, he resolved at last to leave the Holy Land and to go back to his own kingdom. Before he did so he took a solemn oath that he would not attack any of Richard's lands or subjects, but that he would de- fend them against all enemies as he would his own town of Paris. Richard was angry at his going, but could not stop him, though he would not himself leave the Holy Land till he had tried every means of winning back Jerusalem. When Philip arrived in Europe he went to visit the Pope, and asked him for leave to break the solemn promise which he had given not to attack Richard's lands. It was thought that if the Pope said a promise might be broken, there was no harm in breaking it ; but the Pope refused, and even said that he should excommunicate Philip if he raised his hand against Richard's land. Philip, therefore, went on into France, and as he could not take what belonged to Richard, 68 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. made plans for making himself as strong as possible in other ways before Richard should come back to prevent him. About a year after this,. Richard found that there was no use in his staying longer in the Holy Land, for that he should never be able to take Jerusalem. He made a truce with Saladin, by which it was settled that the Christians should be allowed to go to Jerusalem to worship undis- turbed, though the town should belong to Saladin. A truce means a peace which is to last only for a fixed time. This truce was to last for three years, three months, three weeks, and three days. Richard then turned homeward, and reached Europe safely ; but as he was travelling through Germany he was made prisoner by the Archduke of Austria, an old enemy with whom he had quarrelled during the Crusade. The Archduke gave him up to the emperor, who kept him in prison for some time. Philip was much pleased at Richard's imprisonment, and at once attacked Normandy, which be- longed to Richard, as it had done to his father, Henry 11. John, Richard's brother, who ought to have defended his country for him, was base enough to join Philip and help him as much as possible. At last Richard was set free, and at once came to Normandy and began to defend his lands against Philip. There was a new pope, named Innocent HI., one of the greatest popes there has ever been, who commanded Rich- ard and Philip to make peace with one another. A truce for five years was agreed upon ; and Richard soon after went to attack the castle of one of his vassals, where he was told that a great treasure had been found, which the vassal refused to give up to him, as, according to law, he ought to have done. While Richard was one day making arrange- ments for an attack, an arrow shot from the castle wounded him, and he died ten days afterward. The next King of England and Normandy was his base and cowardly brother John, and Philip was glad of the change, thinking that with so weak a man to resist him, he should be able to have his own way in Normandy. John had become King of England, but some people thought that he was not the right person to be king, be- PHILIP II. 69 cause there still lived the son of one of his elder brothers, who had died some time before. This son, however, was quite a child, and as people always wish to have for their king a man who can think and decide for himself rather than a child, who must be governed by some one else, most of the English wished to have John instead of his little nephew Arthur. Arthur had been born and brought up in Brittany, one of the provinces of France close to Normandy, and the peo- ple of Brittany and of the provinces round were fond of him, and wished to have him for their king. They asked Philip to help them and Arthur, and protect them against John, which Philip was glad to do, as he thought it would give him a chance of becoming king himself of some part of the country, and it always vexed him very much that part of France should belong to the kings of England, as Normandy had done ever since the time of William the Conqueror, "who, as you remember, was only Duke of Nor- mandy to begin with, but had made himself King of Eng- land as well. The story of Arthur is a sad one. Three years after this time, John took him prisoner and shut him up in the Tower of Rouen. There he disappeared ; no one ever knew exact- ly what had happened to him, but every one supposed that John had murdered him, and the common idea was that John had taken him out in a boat on the Seine, a river close to the tower of Rouen, thrown him overboard, and drowned him. Arthur's barons and vassals called upon Philip to help them. He at once marched into Normandy. He attacked a great castle which Richard Coeur de Lion had built to pre- vent any enemy from coming to Rouen, the chief city of Normandy, and took it after a siege of five months. When he had taken it, all the chief Norman towns, Rouen among the others, opened their gates to him. It would have been of no use for them to resist, for John did not care to help them. He stayed for some time in Rouen, amusing him- self with feasting, gambling, drinking, and lying in bed till dinner-time after his great banquets, and if anv one spoke 6 70 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. to him of Philip and of the towns which Philip was taking from him, he answered, " Let him do as he likes. I shall be able to take back in a day all that he takes from me." When Philip came near to Rouen, John was frightened, and fled away into England, leaving all Normandy at Philip's mercy. Thus the province of Normandy was conquered by the French king, and it has belonged to the kings of France ever since, and had no more dukes of its own. Brittany and the other provinces of France which had belonged to John all gave themselves up to Philip. Philip called upon John to appear before a court of French nobles, that the question whether he had murdered Arthur might be fairly tried. John thought it wiser not to trust himself in France. The question was then considered without him, and Philip and his chief lords decided that John had been guilty of murder, and that all his land in France should be taken away from him. As Philip had already taken all this land, it did not make much difference to John what might be the reasons he gave for doing so ; but Philip was glad to find a good excuse for what he had done, though, had John been the best king that ever reigned, Philip would probably have still managed to make himself master of Normandy, if the English king had not been strong enough to prevent it. There is so much to be said about Philip's reign that the rest must be left for another chapter. He was king for forty-three years, and of these only twenty-three had passed at the time of Arthur's death. Chapter XVII. PHILIP II. — continued (118O-1223). You may perhaps have known already a good deal of what is told in the last chapter, and I may have seemed in it to be writing the history of England, as well as that of France. It is true that it is impossible to give an account PHILIP II. 71 of what happened in one country without mentioning often what was happening at the same time in the countries near at hand. The more rich and strong and powerful a coun- try becomes, the more it has to do with its neighbors. While it is weak and poor, its governors have enough to do to manage their own affairs, and their great hope is that their neighbors will not take any notice of them, as they know they could not resist any attack that might be made upon them. But as they grow strong, they begin to wish to be stronger still, to conquer the countries near them, to give their opinion about all that their neighbors do, to pre- vent anything being done by any other king which they think might be dangerous to them or their subjects ; and so, the farther we go on with the history of any country, the more we have to learn about what was happening in other countries at the same time. This is especially true about France. France being close to Germany, to Spain, to Belgium, not far from Italy, and nearer to England than any other country on the Continent, has had to do with the histories of all these nations; and any .one who really knew the history of France well would know a good deal of what had happened in almost all the other countries of Europe. But there is a particular reason why, in the reigns of Richard and John, the history of France and the history of England should have a great deal to do with each other. These two English kings and their father, Henry 11. , were Frenchmen rather than Englishmen. Henry II. had been Duke of Anjou before he was King of England, and he and his sons spoke French, and followed French laws and cus- toms. Richard I. was King of England for nine years and a half, and he did not pass above six manths of that time in England, owing to the Crusades and to his wars with Philip in Normandy. He had been brought up in France, cared more about his French than his English dominions, and considered Rouen the capital of his kingdom. After Philip took Normandy, the kings of England no longer considered themselves Norman and French, but took Lon- don for their chief town, and soon became as much Eng- lishmen as the greater number of their subjects. 72 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Philip was usually a very good friend of the clergy and of the Pope. He was the sort of king they admired. He was prudent, fond of peace rather than war, respectful to the clergy, and cruel to heretics, which, sad to say, they thought a virtue. But he had one quarrel with the Pope, and as had happened with some of the other kings of France, the quarrel was about his wife. He had married a daugh- ter of the Danish king, named Ingeburga, who seemed to every one gentle, good, and beautiful. The morning after her marriage, while she was being crowned queen, Philip looked at her, turned pale, and shuddered. He afterwards explained that he had taken a dislike to her, and could not have her for his wife. He wished to send her back to Den- mark, but she in great distress refused to go, and appealed to the Pope — that is, said that she wished the Pope to settle the question of what was to become of her. Philip meanwhile persuaded some of the French clergy to say that the marriage was broken off, but the Pope took the side of Ingeburga, commanded the king to take her back, and when he refused, laid the kingdom under an in- terdict — that is, forbade that any churches should be qpen, or any services held throughout the country. No marriages might be performed, no funeral services read, no bells rung, no one could go into the churches. It was a horrible thing, that because the Pope was angry with the king, thousands of poor people who had done no harm, and knew nothing of the quarrel, should be shut out from what was the only comfort which some of them had in their hard lives. An excommunication would have pun- ished the king himself, and so far would not have been un- just. But this interdict on the whole kingdom was unjust and cruel, punishing thousands of people for the fault of one. The Pope hoped that the king would find his sub- jects growing so angry with him that he would be obliged to submit at last ; and he was right. Philip gave way, took back his wife, and though it is to be feared that he never treated her very kindly, she lived with him as his wife from that time. The interdict, of course, was taken off. At this time there was a great and terrible war in the south of France, in which the king himself did not take Harytr & Bra's, :N',Y. PHILIP II. IS much part, but which ended at last in his grandson becom- ing master of the large province of Toulouse at the south- east corner of the kingdom. The count who ruled over this province was the richest ^d most powerful ruler in France. He lived like a king, and had never been conquer- ed by the kings of France. His subjects were very differ- ent from the people of the other parts of France ; they were all rich like their count, the cities seemed prosperous, and the citizens industrious ; the nobles wrote poetry, had gay feasts, and enjoyed themselves in every possible way. But they were a cruel and violent people, and, when angry, revenged themselves without pity for any harm done to them. Many of the people of this land were heretics ; which means, as I have already explained, people who either did not believe in the Christian religion at all, or who, though Christians, did not agree with all that was taught by the Pope. No one knows exactly what was believed by the people who lived in Toulouse, or Languedoc, as it was usually called at this time; or, rather, so many different things were believed by different people that it is impos- sible to find out any set of doctrines which was believed by all of them, but very few were obedient servants of the Pope. Pope Innocent sent some monks to Languedoc to try and make the people believe rightly; but in vain. The monks preached, but no one listened, and at last one of the Pope's messengers was murdered. Upon this Innocent ex- communicated Raymond, the Count of Toulouse, and then called upon all faithful Christians to go and make war upon him, saying that a war with Raymond would be as much a crusade as a war with the Saracens in the Holy Land, and promising that the sins of the crusaders should be forgiven. Count Raymond was frightened, forsook his subjects, and was forced by the Pope himself to lead an army against them ; but he afterwards went back to them, and did what he could to help them. Soldiers from all the provinces of France joined in a large army to attack Languedoc. They attacked and took a town called Beziers, which they burned, and murdered 74 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. every one in it. They then took prisoner the Viscount of Beziers, the chief leader of the Languedocians, a brave young man, only tvs^enty-four years old, whom they per- suaded to come to their caflhp by a promise that he should be allowed to go away again in safety. They thought there was no need to keep this promise made to a heretic, and threw him into prison, where he died soon after. Many people believed him to have been poisoned. The great lords of the south then submitted. The towns that had been conquered were given to one of the French lords, Simon, Count of Montfort, who had been one of the leaders of the crusade, and the crusading army left the country. Raymond tried to make peace with the Pope, but in vain. The Pope would give him peace only upon such shameful conditions that Raymond found it impossible to accept them. Two years after the end of the first, there was a second crusade against Languedoc. Several towns were taken by the crusaders, and the inhabitants either put to death by the soldiers, or solemnly burned as heretics. Simon de Montfort was the leader of the crusaders, and showed him- self to be a skilful and brave soldier, and a kind and thoughtful general to his army ; but to the people of Lan- guedoc a most cruel and treacherous enemy. It is worth while to remember that he was the father of the De Mont- fort who was the leader of the people against Henry HI., as we read in English history. Count Raymond and his son, also called Raymond, came to the help of the unhappy Languedocians, but as they brought no army, they w^ere not able to do them much good. The King of Arragon, one of the provinces of Spain, came with a large army across the Pyrenees to help the men of the south, but in his first great battle his army was de- feated, and he himself was killed. After this the Languedocians were too much discouraged to go on fighting ; they submitted to the counts and princes from the north of France, who divided the countr}'^ between them and reigned over it. The archbishops and bishops found themselves lands and bishoprics, and Simon de Mont- fort was made Count of Toulouse. The country was al- PHILIP II. 75 most deserted ; it was covered with empty castles, ruins black with flames, and towns half destroyed. No one was allowed to live in the country who would not say he was a Catholic — that is, a man who believes what is taught by the Pope. But this kind of peace did not last long. Two years later Raymond and his son came again to the country, and made themselves masters of Toulouse, the chief city of Lan- guedoc, while Simon de Montfort was away in another part of the province. Montfort came quickly back and besieged Toulouse for nine months. At the end of that time, as he was watching an attack on the town, he was hit by a stone thrown from the walls — it is said by a woman — and was killed on the spot. All the men of the south at once rose up against the cru- saders, and Simon's son tried in vain to take Toulouse. From that time the crusaders began gradually to be driven out from their towns and castles by the Languedocians un- der the young Raymond, who was now Raymond VIL, Count of Toulouse, as the old count had died. The Pope tried to stir up another crusade, but in vain. The son of De Montfort was still called Count of Toulouse by the French, but had less and less power every day. The young Ray- mond was called Count of Toulouse by his friends, and he gained what De Montfort lost. The Languedocians were, however, defeated at last, and made subject, like the rest of France, to the French king ; but this did not happen till twelve years later. This crusade, called from the name of a town in Lan- guedoc the Albigensian Crusade, lasted ten years, and was one of the most cruel and unjust wars of which we read in history. Philip II. had himself taken no part in the war, although toward its end he had allowed his eldest son ta go to the help of the De Montforts. He was growing old, and did not care to conquer any fresh lands. But before he died he won a victory which delighted the French more than anything else which had happened in his reign. There was a war going on in Germany between two men, each of whom wished to be emperor. One of them, whose name was Otho, 76 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. was helped by Kino- John, and against him Philip fought a battle, called the battle of Bou vines, which he won with some difficulty, as there were English soldiers fighting with Otho, whom it was very hard to beat. They were not driven backward- till both their generals had been taken prisoners. The soldiers sent bv the communes of France fouo-ht for the first time at this battle, and did good service. This was the first real French victory, and, after gaining it, Philip w^as the most powerful and most famous prince in Christen- dom. Toward the end of Philip's reign there had been troubles in England, where the people hated King John so much that they asked Louis, Philip's eldest son, to come and be their king instead of him. Louis went to England, marched to London, and promised solemnly to keep the good laws of the country. Some of the people took his side, others that of John ; but soon after Louis had arrived in England, John died of a fever, and his son Henry, a child of ten years old, became king. The lords and barons had no quarrel with Henry, and they were beginning to dislike Louis, who did not keep his promises to them, but gave everything to his French followers. They all turned against Louis ; the city of London alone remained faithful to him. A great battle was fought at Lincoln, and the French army was defeated. Louis then went back to France, and Henry IH. became King of Eug-land. A few years afterward Philip fell ill of a fever, and he soon felt that he should not recover. He made his will and died at a place called Mantes, as he was taking a journey for his health. He was fifty-eight years old, and had been king for forty-three years. He is often spoken of as Philip Auguste, or Augustus, a name which was given him because he was born in August. LOUIS VIII. 77 Chapter XVIII. LOUIS VIII. (1223-1226). Louis VIIL, the son of Philip Augustus, was a very dif- ferent kind of man from his father, but he had so short a reign that he was not able to do much either of harm or good to his country. He was weak in body and in mind, and easily persuaded by the people about him, particularly by the priests, to do whatever they wished. He had an active, ambitious wife named Blanche of Castile, and it was she who had persuaded him to go to England when he was invited by the barons to try to make himself king there. He was the first King of France since Hugh Capet who had not been crowned king while his father was still alive. This shows that people had by this time become so much accustomed to the son of a kino- succeedino; him — that is, becoming king after him — that there was no more need for a father to see his son crov^^ned before his death. The people of France had great rejoicings when Louis became king, which was a sign that they were becoming loyal, or fond and proud of their kings. The citizens of Paris gave him a beautiful cup, musicians played in the streets of Paris, minstrels sang songs, and a certain number of serfs were made free men by their lords. Many prisoners, too, were let out of prison. The minstrels who sang in the streets were the poets of that time. They could not, as a poet does in these days, make poems into a book, and sell it to any one who likes to buy it ; for at that time there were no books, and very few people who could write or read. The poets wandered about from one town to another, or from one baron's castle to another, singing their songs for any one who passed to hear. Their poetry was always sung, and was often an ac- count of the great deeds of the king or the nobles, or stories about the heroes of old days, in particular of Charlemagne, 78 FEENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. who was the favorite liero of these poems, as King Arthur of the Round Table was of the English minstrels at about the same time. The poets were called trouveres in the north, troubadours in the south. The troubadours sang songs about beautiful ladies, and brave knights who wanted to have them for their wives, while the trouveres sang of wars and adventures. Louis VIII. had two wars, one with the King of England, and another with Count Raymond of Toulouse. In the war with the English king he was successful. He took away some of the few French provinces which still belonged to Henry, and left him only one in the south of France. His war with the Count of Toulouse did not end so well for him. I have said how there were two Counts of Toulouse at the same time, one Raymond, the son of the old Ray- mond, and one the son of Simon de Montfort. De Mont- fort's son found that he was not strong enough to conquer the country for himself ; so he gave up all that he had already conquered to King Louis, and said he might have all the rest of Raymond's land if he could conquer it. The Pope was also an enemy to Raymond, and tried to persuade Louis to fight with him. At last Louis marched with an immense army into Languedoc, and besieged a town called Avignon. This town was very well defended, with high towers, a double wall round it, large ditches full of water ; plenty of food inside, and brave men to defend it. The poor people of the country round about had been made so poor and miserable by all the wars that had gone on in their province for so many years, that they had no heart left to go on fight- ing. They yielded to the King of France, though they all loved Raymond in their hearts, and were rejoiced at every success that he won. Raymond had laid waste most of the country round Avignon, hoping that if Louis could find no food for his army, he would be obliged to go away ; and the French soldiers fell ill in great numbers from want of food and from the unhealthiness of the country. But the men of Avignon gave way first. After a siege of three months, the town was taken. Louis then turned toward France, hoping to come back the next year and finish the war by taking Toulouse, the LOUIS IX. 79 chief town of Languedoc, but he had caught the fever of which so many of his soldiers had died, and a few days after he had left Avignon he died himself, making his no- bles promise that his little son should be king after him, and that his wife Blanche should take care of the country while his son was a child. Chapter XIX. LOUIS IX. (1226-1270). The son of Louis VIII. was Louis IX., afterwards called Saint Louis, in memory of his goodness and of all he did for France. He was twelve years old when he became king, and his mother, Blanche of Castile, managed all the busi- ness of the country for him till he was old enough to gov- ern for himself. She gave him good tutors, and brought him up to be both a wise and a good man. She had many troubles and difficulties while he was still young in resisting the chief nobles of the country, who thought this would be a good opportunity for winning back some of the power that they had lost in the two last reigns. Some of them refused to be present when the king was crowned, and afterwards went so far as to try to take Louis prisoner and have him brought up by one of his uncles who was their friend, instead of by Blanche. But Blanche managed to make the more powerful nobles her friends, and the people stood by her and their young king, so that she was able to resist all her enemies. She had another great friend called the Legate, a name given to the ambassadors or messengers of the Pope, from a Latin word meaning messenger. The Pope, who liked to know about all that was going on in all the countries of Europe, often sent a Legate to live at the court of any king with whom he was friendly, to send him accounts of what was going on, to give the king good advice, and in particu- lar to see that he did not ill-treat any clergyman, or take for himself any of the power which it was thought in those 80 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. times ought to belong to the Pope. Louis was brought up chiefly by churchmen, and he was taught to be respectful and obedient to the Pope, and to do as much as he could to please him and to make the Church great and powerful. On the whole, it was at that time a good thing that the Pope should have a good deal of power, as he was more likely to use it well than the fierce ignorant barons, or the people of the towns, who were nearly as. fierce, and quite as ignorant about many things. But it sometimes hap^ pened that the churchmen wanted something which would have been bad for the other subjects of Louis, and have brought the country into trouble, and then Louis knew the true duty of a king well enough to refuse to give it tothera. But Louis himself sometimes made mistakes, though he was one of the best men who ever were kings of France, and some of his mistakes brought great trouble and diffi- culty upon his country. All the time that Louis was a child the barons continued to make disturbances in the country. They asked Henry IIL of England to come and help them ; but though he brought an army into France and marched about from one place to another, he did nothing important. When Louis became a man he made peace with all his enemies. He gave lands to some, and bought their lands from others who were willing to part with them in return for a sum of money. He made an arrangement with Raymond, the Count of Toulouse, that his daughter should marry one of the broth- ers of Louis, and that all his lands should go to this brother when Raymond died. Louis loved peace and justice. He always settled a ques- tion fairly, without considering whether he himself should gain or lose by what he decided. Other kings and princes knew this so well that they sometimes asked him to decide disputes in other countries with which he had nothing to do ; but it was in France, and among his own subjects, that his virtues were best known. He cared for all his subjects, the poor as well as the rich, which may not seem wonder- ful in these days when many rich people think a great deal about the safety and comfort of the poor, but which was very unusual then, especially for a king. The rich and LOUIS IX. 81 strong were apt in those times to consider the poor as things rather than people, as animals useful for digging the ^'round and doing other hard work, rather than as men with feelings and thoughts like themselves. Louis used to sit under a great oak-tree at a place near Paris called Vincennes, and any one, however poor or shab- by, who had a complaint to make, might come and make it before the king, who inquired into the matter, and settled it as he thought right and just. He would give advice also to those who wished for it, and help to any honest person in distress. But though the king loved his people, he did not fully un- derstand what was his duty to them, or at least he did not think about it as we do at this day. It is now considered that the great duty of a king is to think of what will be good for his subjects. Louis thought less of their good than of pleasing God by doing something which he thought right, but which it was no part of his duty as king to do, and which he could not do without neglecting his people. Europe had been attacked by a fierce band of savages, called Tartars ; they came from mountains in the north of Asia, and are described by the people of the Holy Land (the place where they first showed themselves) as something- very wild and terrible. The Saracens, who were first at- tacked, sent messengers to the French court asking for help against the Tartars, and saying that they would certainly at- tack Europe if they were not stopped in Asia. The mes- sengers described them as men with enormous heads, eating the raw skins of animals, and even of men. A writer of those times says, speaking of the Tartars, " They are skilful in drawing the bow, and good sailors ; they carry with them leather boats, in which they pass the rivers ; they speak a language that no other people understand ; their horses feed on leaves and the bark of trees, and are so swift that they can go as far in one day as the horses of Europe can in three." These Tartars took several towns and provinces in Asia, and at last made themselves masters of Judasa ; took Jerusalem, and murdered all the Christians who could not escape. Even before Louis heard this news, he had determined that he would at some time or other go upon a Crusade. 82 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. He tad once liad an illness so severe that he at one time seemed to be dead. One of the ladies of his court thought that he was dead, another declared that he was still alive. While they were disputing Louis opened his eyes and asked for the cross ; they put it on his bed, and from that time he recovered. The cross on his bed was a sign that he con- sidered himself a Crusader, and would at some time go on a Crusade. Many of his brothers and great lords had taken the cross at the same time. When they heard of the Tartars having conquered Jeru- salem, they determined to set out at once, and when Louis had been king for just twenty years, the Crusade began. The king determined this time to go to Egypt, a country in the north part of Africa, and to fight the Saracens there, instead of in the Holy Land. He felt no fears about the safety of his kingdom, for he left his mother there to govern for him, as she had done for so many years while he was a child. On his way to Egypt he stopped at the island of Cyprus, where stores of food, wine, money, and such other things as his army would be likely to want, had been made ready for him. We read in a book about King Louis, of which I will speak presently, that the barrels of wine, set up in piles in the fields, looked from a little distance like great houses, and heaps of grain of different kinds had been piled up so high as to look like mountains. The king had with him between two and three thousand knights, and each knight had brought with him a larger or smaller body of men, so that the piles of food must have been a welcome sight. Leaving Cyprus, the French army went on to Egypt, and there they took the first town that came in their way, Damietta ; for the Saracen army, which was waiting on the shore, tried in vain to prevent them from landing. But having settled themselves at Damietta, there was a great difficulty to know what to do next. As usual in the Crusades, no one knew the way about the country. The Crusaders stayed near Damietta for many weeks ; when they tried to go farther, they were attacked by the Saracens. Many of them, among others one of the brothers of the king, were killed. After this there were several days of fiofhtinsc. The Saracens had a machine which threw out LOUIS IX. 83 what was called Greek fire ; the Christians could never find out how it was made, but it looked like a blazing ball of fire as it flew through the air, and did great hurt to the soldiers when it came to the ground among them. The Crusaders fell ill from bad food and the heat of the weather ; and at last, when they were once more attacked by the Saracens, they could resist no longer. Louis and great numbers of the chief men were taken prisoners, and the common people were, for the most part, put to death. The king and his chief nobles had been kept alive in order that the Saracens might receive a ransom from them. A ransom means the sum of money which a prisoner pays in order to be set free. In those days a person who took a prisoner was allowed to have, for his own, whatever ransom the prisoner gave ; indeed, he might fix the sum himself, and refuse to let the man go till he had paid it. The king of the Saracens, who was called, not king, but sultan, fixed a very large sum for the ransom of Louis and his nobles. Louis at once agreed to pay it, and a truce for ten years was agreed upon. Still the king would not go home, though many of his barons advised him to do so ; he thought of all his soldiers who had been made prisoners, and of the other Christians who were prisoners in towns belonging to the Saracens in Asia. He knew that if he went back to Europe there would be no hope for them of ever being set free, so he went to fight in Asia, where he had no special success ; but though he never succeeded in reaching Jerusalem, he was able, by making friends with some of the Saracens, to persuade them to give up to him several hundred Christians whom they were keeping prisoners, and a number of Christian children who had been taken from their friends when they were very young, and were being brought up as Mo- hammedans. All this time Queen Blanche was governing France, and governing it wisely and well. So long as she was there, the king felt no fear for the safety of his king- dom ; but when at last news reached him that she was dead, he left the Holy Land at once and set sail for France. He arrived safely, but sad at not having seen Jerusalem after all his troubles, and at thinking of all the confusion and 84 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. unhappiness whicli the Crusade had brought upon so many of his subjects. Louis spent sixteen years in his country, ruling, on the whole, wisely and well. Peace and justice were still the two things which he chiefly valued. When he wanted for any reason to be master of land belonging to another prince, instead of going to war with him and trying to take it by force, or thinking of some excuse for saying it was his al- ready, and trying to get in by a kind of trick, Louis IX. would say honestly that he wanted it, and offer some other piece of land in exchange. He did this with the King of England, Henry HL Henry had always complained that some land had been taken from him unjustly by the grandfather of Louis IX. Louis offered him some other provinces instead of those which he had lost. Henry took them and was quite satisfied, but the nobles of France were vexed at their king- having parted with the provinces, and asked him why he had done it, as there had been no real reason why Henry should have them rather than he. Louis said that he knew the King of England had no right to the land, but that he had given it in order that there might be love and friendship between himself and Henry. This would have been a good answer if Louis had made Henry some present which be- longed only to himself, but he did not consider what the people of those provinces would think at being made sub- jects of King Henry. Henry governed very badly, and his subjects were not happy, so that the people who had lived happily under Louis IX. were very angry at having^ to live under a king whom they liked so much less. They were so angry that when, after his death, the Pope said that he was to be considered a saint, to be called St. Louis, and to have one day in the year kept in honor of him, the people of those provinces would never take any notice of his day, nor pay him honor of any kind. No doubt King Louis did wrong about this, and I think that he acted foolishly in going on the Crusade, which did really no good ; for though he set free some Christian pris- oners, yet many more Christians were killed in the battles he fought ; I think there can be no doubt that he would have done his duty better by staying at home, and attend- LOUIS IX. 85 ing to his own work of governing France, unless he had foand it necessary to march against the Tartars; who, as it was, might have attacked his country while he was away, and have done a great deal of harm there, if they had not been stopped by the Emperor of Germany. But, on the whole, Louis governed better than almost any other king who has reigned in France. He improved the laws ; he made arrangements about money, how it was to be made and how much each piece of money was to be worth ; he en- couraged people to make beautiful buildings of all kinds, par- ticularly churches ; he made many plans by which bad people might be found out and punished, and good people be pro- tected. One of his plans was to send some of his servants, whom he knew he could trust, to different parts of the country to see what went on there, and to bring him back word. One of the things he was very anxious to prevent, was a plan people had in those days for finding out wheth- er a man had or had not done any bad thing which some one else thought he might hav^e done. In these days there would be what is called a trial. The man Avho was supposed to have done wrong would be brought before a man called a judge, whose duty it is to know what are the laws of the country, and any one who knew anything about what had happened would be obliged to come and say what he knew, and the judge would ask ques- tions of all the people who had seen what really did happen. If some people said one thing, and some another, twelve men who are sitting by on purpose, and who had listened to all that was said, would settle among themselves which story they thought was really true, and would tell the judge, and he would say how the man was to be punished if it were settled that he had done wrong, and would say he was to be set free and go away to his own home again if it were settled that he had done no harm. This is a very long bus- iness, but it is likely that the truth will be found out at last. In the time of King Louis there was a much shorter plan. If one man said another had done wrong, and the second man said it was not true, the two fought together, and whichever won -was considered to have been right. This was a quick but a very unjust way of settling the question. 7 86 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. It made people wLo could fight well able to say what they liked about their weaker neighbors, aud to get them punish- ed for what they had never done. King Louis did a great deal to prevent this habit, and to make people who had dis- putes come before a judge and have a trial, something like what I have described. He also prevented the barons from making war upon one another when any two of them had a quarrel ; which they still did very often at the beginning of his reign. But all this time Louis was meaning to go, whenever it was possible, on another Crusade. Nothing could turn him away from this, and at last, when he was fifty -three years old, though he was so ill that he could hardly stand, he called all his barons together, arid took the cross in spite of all that the wisest of them could say to prevent him. He sail- ed three years afterwards, and landed in Africa ; but before he had had time for anything further, he was seized with a se- vere illness, and died at the age of fifty-six, having been king for forty-four years. Most of what we know about St. Louis is told us by one of his barons, who was his faithful friend and servant all through his life, and who went with him on the first Cru- sade. His name was Baron de Joinville ; and when you are old enough to read his book, you will find many stories about the things which that good and great king did and said, which I have not room to tell here, but which will amuse and interest all my readers very much. Chapter XX. PHILIP III. (1270-1285). When Louis IX. died in Africa, he had with him his eld- est son Philip, to whom he gave much good advice during his last illness. As soon as he was dead Philip went back to Europe, taking with him the bodies of five of his re- lations, who had all died during the few weeks that they had been in Egypt. These were, his father, his wife, his little PHILIP III. 87 baby, bis uncle, and his aunt. It was a gloomy end to the Crusade ; and not only to that Crusade, but to all those that there had been before, for there never was another. After this time people became too busy with their own affairs to care to go away and fight in a country with which they had really nothing to do. Philip was not a wise or a great man, though he seems to have had a good disposition, and his reign was a dull, gloomy one — not a particularly happy time for France. The barons, who had been growing less and less powerful for a long time, now became less important than ever, be- cause the king began to say that he had a right to make any one whom he pleased a nobleman. He also made a law that men who were not noblemen might hold fiefs — that is, be his vassals and masters of an estate ; so the old nobles found that quite common people, whom they thought much less good than themselves, were beginning to be masters of estates as they were, and also that these common people, whether they had estates or not, were made noblemen like themselves. As the kings grew stronger, they took away more and more of the pov,'er which had belonged to their barons. The barons no longer held courts where they be- haved as little kings ; they gave up their feasts and enter- tainments ; and this made the whole country quiet and dull. The people of the towns were gradually getting more power ; but they were not yet very strong, so that everything was in a mournful, dull state, which lasted all through this reign. Philip has been called " Le Hardi," meaning the Bold ; but at the time he was king he did only one thing which could be called bold, and most people would rather have called it hasty or rash. There was a dispute in Spain be- tween an uncle and his young nephews as to who should inherit the throne. The nephews were too young to care themselves about reigning, but their mother was very anxious that one of her children should be king. She was the sis- ter of Philip of France, and she asked him to help her. Philip at once called together an army, and himself set off at the head of it to attack his sister's enemy ; but almost before he had reached Spain he found that he had come without making enough preparation. He had no food left, 88 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. nnd not enough arms for his soldiers. It was of no use for him to go farther, and he was glad to hear that one of his generals, who had been lighting in Spain in another quarrel, had just made peace with the king whom Philip was going to attack. This gave him an excuse for not going farther, and his subjects did not know how hasty and foolish he had been ; they only saw how quickly he had marched to the help of his sister, and called him " The Bold." The uncle of Philip, who had died in the Holy Land, was the prince who had become master of all the land belonging to Count Raymond of Toulouse, in Languedoc. He left no child, and Languedoc passed on to Philip, and was ever af- terwards a regular part of the French kingdom. Another great baron called the Count of Champagne died at about the same time, leaving an only daughter ; and Philip gained leave from the Pope to marry her to one of his sons, so that France became larger by two provinces under the reign of this weak and unimportant king. Philip had a barber named Peter la Brosse, of whom he was very fond. He used to talk to this man about all his most important affairs, and take his advice as to everything he did. The great barons and advisers of the king were often vexed when they had just settled with the king that some particular thing which they wished should be done, to find that Philip had talked the matter over with La Brosse and changed his mind about it completely. La Brosse also persuaded the king to give honors to him and to his re- lations ; his brother-in-law was made a bishop, his children were married to rich lords and ladies. At last the people who had to do with the king found that the best plan was to get La Brosse on their side to begin with, as what he wished was sure to be done ; so evevj one tried to please him, and he became one of the most powerful men in the country. But at last La Brosse quarrelled with the queen. Philip's first wife had died in the Holy Land, leaving four sons. Philip had married a second wife, a wise and beautiful princess, named Marie of Brabant. She also had children ; and after she had been married two years one of her step- sons, the eldest son of the king, died suddenly. Some people thought he had been poisoned ; and La PHILIP III. 89 Brosse, who wanted to make the king dislike the queen, tried to persuade him that she had done this wicked deed, and would try to kill all her other step-sons in order that her own son might be king. Few persons believed this horrible story, and there was no reason for believing it. Instead of doubting his wife, Philip began to doubt the honesty of La Brosse. But he still went on treating him as a great person and his best friend for two years longer. At the end of that time a messenger who was carrying some private letters to La Brosse fell ill at a mon- astery by the way,- and died there, giving the letters he was carrying to the monks of the abbey, and making them promise him on his deathbed to give them to nobody but the King of France. This the monks promised and per- formed. Philip read the letters secretly with a few trusted barons, and no one else ever knew what had been in them ; but Pierre la Brosse was suddenly carried away from his home and shut up in a strong tower, where, after a few days, he was brought before four or five barons, condemned to die, and hanged the next morning. No one ever knew what he had done, and the people of France thought that, whatever it w^as, he ought to have had a fair trial, and were angry at his death. It is said that the king was very unwilling to agree to it, and that he was only with some difficulty persuaded to it by the barons. A king should never be persuaded by any one to do what is forbidden by the laws of the country ; and it is forbidden by law of all civilized countries to put a man to death without openly saying why you are doing so, and giving him an opportunity of defending himself, what- ever he may have done. Philip had an uncle who was a very different kind of man from himself. His name was Charles of Anjon. He was fierce and active ; fond of war, power, and adventure ; and always looking about for one or other of these amusements. He was king of an island named Sicily, which is to the south of Italy ; and he treated the people so badly that they hated him and all the French, and made up their minds to get rid of them all out of the island as soon as possible. They, had made friends with one of the Spanish kings, who 90 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. promised to help them ; and all was ready for a rising-up against the French, when one Sunday a quarrel rose be- tween a French soldier and a Sicilian who were walking in a public garden when the vesper or evening bells were ringing. All the Sicilians gathered round to help their countryman, and the French soldiers to help the French- man, till there was a general fight all through the city. Then the Sicilians rose up in other parts of the island and attacked all the French soldiers who lived near them, till there was scarcely one Frenchman left alive in the whole of Sicily. Charles of Anjou, who was not in the island at the time, did all in his power to make himself master of it once more, but he never could do so, and died without having succeeded. This rising-up of the Sicilians against the French is called the Sicilian Vespers, because it happened just at vesper-tide, or evening time, and it was a terrible thing for the French people. A sad accident happened at about this time in Philip's own family. His youngest brother had been made a knight, and a tournament was to be held in his honor. A tourna- ment was an amusement which was coming very much into fashion at this time. It was a kind of sham fight, in which knights rode against one another, attacked each other with swords and spears that were blunt, so as not to do any real harm, and tried to knock one another off their horses. The young prince, who had so lately become a knight, joined in the tournament, and was so much hurt by the blows he re- ceived, and confused by the heat and dust and the weight of his armor, that he became an idiot and never recovered his senses. However, he found a young lady to marry him, and his descendants for some hundred years were called Bour- bons, and some of them came to be kings at last, as we shall see. I told you that one of the Spanish kings had helped the Sicilians in their rising-up against Charles of Anjou. There were several different provinces in Spain, and each province had a king of its own. One of the most important was called Arragon, and the friend of the Sicilians was Peter, King of Arragon. The Pope at this time was the friend of PHILIP IV. 91 Charles of Anjon, and was very angry with Peter of Arragon for having helped Charles's subjects to fight against him. He declared that Peter should be king no longer, and told Philip that he might have the kingdom of Arragon for one of his sons if he could conquer it from Peter. Philip at once set off across the Pyrenees to attack Arragon. He besieged a town named Gerona, and there he had to stay for two months and a half, for the people resisted him most bravely ; but at last, after many of his men had died from heat and illness, the town gave itself up to him. He and his army were too much worn out to go any farther ; they turned toward home, but on their way back through the Pyrenees Philip fell ill, and he died at the first French town they reached. A week after his death Gerona was taken back from the French by Peter of Arragon. Chapter XXI. PHILIP lY. (1285-1314). The son of Philip HI. was Philip IV., called Le Bel be- cause he was very handsome. He was never liked by the people, for which they had many and good reasons. When he became king, he was only seventeen years old, but he never behaved like a young man. He did not care for pleasures of any sort, for hunting, or tournaments, or the company of his barons and courtiers ; but he liked to be shut up all day with lawyers, who were inventing ways to give to the kings of France more power than they had already, and to get Philip plenty of money from his subjects, which they did without at all considering how unpleasant it might be for the subjects to do without their'riches. He had a wife of whom horrible stories are told. One was that she used to sit up in a tower in Paris, looking out upon the people who went by, and when she saw any of them whose looks she liked, she' called to them to come in and pay her a visit ; and if they came, she made them stay till night, and then took them to the top of her tower, and 92 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. pushed tliem into the river which flowed underneath and drowned them. Of course this story is not true. It is a legend or wild tale told about a particular castle near the river Seine in Paris ; and it is not always told about the same person. Sometimes it is about one of the wives of Philip's sons ; but it shows how the people hated all this family, and were ready to listen to horrible stories about any of them. A few years after Philip became king there was a war between him and Edward III. of England. I have told you already of many wars in France, but till now they have nearly all, except the Crusades, been wars of the same kind — that is, wars between a king and one of his great vassals. Even when Philip Augustus fought with Henry, King of England, and his sons, it was a war between a sovereign and his vassals, because Henry and his sons, though they were kings of England and had no one over them, there were vassals of the French king for the land which they had in France. In the reign of Philip IV. the English kings were still vassals for one or two French provinces, but they were now completely Englishmen, and as kings of England had grown so strong that, when they fought, the war was be- tween one king and another, one country and another, be- tween England and France, instead of between a sovereign and his vassal. The sovereign was the name of the king, duke, or count who gave the land on conditions to the vas- sal, as I have explained before. Sovereign has now come to mean merely the chief ruler of a country. The sailors of Edward HI. and the people who lived on the sea-coast of France often met and quarrelled. Edward had some land of his own in France, the part which St. Louis had given to his father, that there might be peace and friendship between them. His subjects helped the English seamen against Philip's subjects, and at last the quarrel became a regular war, in which, however, neither of the kings took much part. Philip was busy with his law- yers in Paris, and Edward was fighting the Welsh and Scotch, and had no time to think about his affairs in France. Philip was much more cunning than Edward. He watched his opportunity, and managed in rather a deceitful way to PHILIP lY. 93 make himself master of Aquitaine, the part of France which had belonged to the English king, and to keep it, which Edward allowed him to do, being too much taken up with other matters to care much about it. Philip had many disputes with the Pope of those days, Boniface VIII. The story of their quarrels is not a very amusing one, and I will not tell it here. It is enough to know that the beginning of the quarrel was about the ques- tion whether or not the clergy of France should pay taxes to the king, as the rest of the people did. Taxes are the money which people pay to their rulers, to be spent in the expenses of governing the country. It had always been a question whether or not the clergy in the country should pay taxes. Many of them were very rich, and the kings said that as the clergy had as much good as other people from the soldiers, the sailors, and the judges of the coun- tries, they ought to be willing to take their share in paying for it. The Pope always said that the clergy in all the dif- ferent countries of Europe were his subjects, and were to think more of his commands than of the laws of the king in whose country they lived. He was very angry, there- fore, at the king wishing to make them pay taxes. The quarrel began about this question, and it lasted all through the lifetime of the Pope. The king was the conqueror at last. Philip was a very severe king. He made all his subjects do whatever he liked, without allowing them to say whether they wished for anything different. Among other things, he made them pay him great quantities of money. It is said that by doing this he made himself as odious to his people as Louis IX. had been dear to them. He made laws about everything, and every one who broke his laws was to pay him a fine. Some of these were wise and useful laws, such as those in which were arranged who should judge the people, and where they should meet together for any one who had been ill-treated to complain of it, and arrangements about communes and the people who lived in them. But others of much less importance were very unpleas- ant to the people. Philip made laws as to how many suits of clothes each person might have — a prince so many, 94 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. a count or a duke so many, a knight so many. The great- est number allowed was fom* ; the ladies were to have no more than their husbands. Boys were to have two suits of clothes a year, but King Philip seems to have made no law for girls. He also settled how many dishes people were to have for dinner, and how their food was to be prepared. The people naturally disliked extremely having these rules, and having to pay for breaking them. But there were some of his subjects to whom Philip be- haved with especial cruelty, and among these were the Jews. This unfortunate nation has no country of its own ; the Jews wander from one country to another, each particular family settling itself in any place where it sees an oppor- tunitv of makino- monev and settino' up a comfortable home. The Jews settled in France were among the richest of Philip's subjects, for they understood more about how to do busi- ness, and how to get together a great deal of money, than any other people of that time. Philip protected them when first he became king, and when they had had time to grow rich, turned upon them, seized all their goods, and then drove them all out of the country. The unhappy Jews had before this been treated in the same way by Edward I. of England. Philip had many wars with the Count of Flanders. Flan- ders was the country which is now Belgium, at the north- east corner of France. It was at that time part of France, but like so many other provinces, was ruled by a count of its own, who was always ready to resist the king. When Edward of England w^anted to find some one to help him against Philip, he made friends with the Count of Flanders, who gave him much useful help against the King of France. When Philip made peace wdth Edward, he still went on fighting -with Guy of Flanders; and when he found that he could not conquer him in open war, he persuaded Guy by false promises to come to his court with his eldest sons and some of his chief lords, and to give up to him the keys of his chief city, and of all the fortresses that were still his ; for Philip had already taken away many of them. The promise was that if Guy would do this he should afterwards be sent back to Flanders with all his old powers, and be dis- PHILIP IVo 95 turbed no more ; but as soon as Philip bad all be wanted, Guy, with bis sons and great lords, was tbrown into prison, and Philip took Flanders as bis own, and sent one of bis officers to rule it for him. Guy bad not ruled his people well, and they had no great love for him. Philip made them many promises of good government, and they made no resistance to him, but re- ceived him splendidly when be went to visit Flanders in the same year in which Guy bad been made prisoner. The people came out of the cities dressed in their best clothes, which were made of very fine and beautifully colored cloth, and made processions and feasts of all kinds to do honor to King Philip. The French lords were vexed to see so many common people wearing such rich clothes, and Philip's wife, Jane of Navarre, said, " Till now I thought I was the only queen, but here I see more than six hundred others." The friendship between Philip and the Flemings did not last long. The French governor set over the people ill-treated them till they rose against him, and turned him out of the city where he lived, and formed themselves into an army with which to march against Philip. One of Guy's sons, who had been fighting in distant countries, came home when be beard of the rising-up in Flanders, to put him- self at the head of it. The Flemish had made up a large army, and in a battle at a place called Courtrai, in Flan- ders, defeated the French soldiers as they had scarcely ever been defeated before. Great numbers of noblemen w^ere killed, others fled from the field ; the Flemings went to their tents and took from them great quantities of arms and rich clothes. It was thought very disgraceful that so many nobles should have been defeated by com- mon citizens, such as most of the soldiers in the Flemish army were. After this Philip could never make himself master in Flanders again. Two years later, after two more great bat- tles, be found that they would never submit to him peace- ably, and at last, tired of fighting, be agreed to set free the sons of Guy, whom he bad been keeping prisoners, and to allow the eldest of them to be count, as his father had been. The old Count Guy had died in France. 96 FREN^CH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. This war was important, because it was owing partly to it that Philip spent so much money, and had to find so many ways of getting more, which was very unpleasant to his subjects ; though, even allowing for all he had to spend, it is difiicult to find out what became of all the immense sums of money he received in one way or another from his peo- ple. He certainly seemed to be always contriving new ways of making himself rich, and yet always to be in need of money. Pope Boniface, who, as I said before, had a quarrel with Philip as -to whether or not the clergy were to pay taxes, died just at the time when another quarrel was going on fiercely between them. The question this time was whether the Pope had any power over the king ; whether the king was in all things to do as he pleased, or whether he was, in certain cases, to obey the Pope, The Pope wished the king to submit to him in questions about clergymen and churches and monasteries, and all that had to do with Church ser- vices, and settling who was to be archbishop, bishop, or ab- bot, and what the people were to be taught. Many of the kings said the Pope ought to have no power in their king- doms, and Philip IV. was one of these, so long as the Pope displeased him, but if the Pope did as he wished, Philip told all his subjects to obey him. The Pope who came after Boniface was a friend of Philip's, and did whatever he wished. Philip, after all he had taken from his subjects, had still left some of them very rich, and there was one body of men from whom he had never yet taken anything. These were the Templars. The first Templars were a few brave knights who joined together in the Holy Land into a little army to fight for the Temple at Jerusalem. They were very brave and. virtuous, so that other men admired them, and wished to become Templars also, and by degrees the " Order," as it was called, grew larger and larger. An Order means a body of men with a particular set of rules as to how they are to behave. The Order of Templars increased, till, in the time of Philip le Bel, there were as many as 15,000 of them in different parts of the world. While the Crusades lasted, they spent most of their time fighting in the Holy Land, PHILIP IV. 97 and when the Crusades were at an end the Templars came back to Europe, and went to live in the different countries to which they belonged. They were partly monks as well as soldiers ; they made a vow to remain unmarried, and to give up their lives to fight- ing in the East, and to protecting the Christians there, and to follow certain rules which were made for them by St. Bernard, who, as you have already heard, lived in the reign of Louis yil. They did not obey any king or the Pope. One among them was chosen by the others to be their chief, and was called the Grand Master, and him they all obeyed. When the Order grew large there was a Grand Master in each country. Philip could not bear that any of his subjects should re- fuse to obey him in everything, and he wished to be mas- ter of the riches of the Templars, which were very great, so he determined to destroy the Order, with the help of the Pope, who was afraid to refuse him anything. On a par- ticular day all the Templars in France were thrown into prison. The king sent out a notice, saying they had been put in prison because they were horribly wicked, and gave an account of some of the bad things which he supposed them to have done and to believe. He said that they were not really Christians, that they wished the Saracens to con- quer Europe, that they did all kinds of wicked things in secret, of which nobody knew. It was very hard to tell whether what the king said was true or not. Nobody is sure even now whether the Templars had become wicked, and had done bad things in secret. Many of the knights said that the king's story was entirely untrue ; others said that it was partly true ; and some of them, who had been kept in prison a long time, and then tortured to make them say what the king wished, said that his story was true. But many of these, when they came out of prison, unsaid all they had said, declaring they would have done anything to escape from the horrible tortures. Whatever the Templars had done, they could hardly have deserved what happened to them. Many of them were kept in prison for their lives, and several of them were burned alive. The Grand Master of France was burned, with one 98 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. of his chief friends. All the wealth that had belonged to them was taken by Philip, Of all the bad things done by Philip IV., this is what I think the worst. He died very soon after the death of the Grand Master and his friend. Pope Clement died at about the same time. Philip died at Fontaineblean, the place where he had been born, giving much wise and good advice to his eldest son, who was to be king after him, and who, it might be feared, would be at least as likely to follow the example of his father's life as the good advice which Philip gave only on his death-bed. Chapter XXIL LOTJIS X. (1314-131 6). Philip IV. left three sons, of whom the eldest was made king at his death. This young man, whose name was Louis, was twenty-five years old when he became king; but he was as thoughtless and fond of amusement as a child, and he had gained the name of Hutin, which means disorder or noise, and was given him because he seemed to take a pleasure in quarrelling and making disturbances. He thought very little of his duties as King of France, and left all the business of governing the kingdom to his uncle, Charles of Valois. The people who had hated Philip were rejoiced to see a new king on the throne ; the nobles and Charles of Valois, Philip's brother, at once set to work to undo as much as they could of what Philip had done. They took away the chief places in the government from the men to whom Philip had given them, and two of the chief officers were thrown into prison and tortured — that is, they were hurt very much with horrible machines made on purpose, to force them to say they had done the bad things of which their enemies accused them. The chief minister of all had his head cut off, without being allowed to sav anvthins; to defend himself. His ene- LOUIS X. 99 mies said that this man bad stolen money, and kept it for himself, when it had been given to him to spend for the good of the countr}^ and that it was his fault that Philip had made the people pay so many taxes. This may have been true, but King Louis did not think he deserved to be put to death for this, and determined to exile him — that is, to send him out of France, and make him live in another country. This he thought w^ould be punishment enough ; but Charles of Valois told his nephew that the minister was not only a thief, but that he had made a plan to kill the king and his brothers by sorcery. Many people at that time believed that there were men and women who had the power of making things happen : causing storms to rise, people to fall ill, die, or get well, bringing happiness to their friends and misfortune to their enemies ; and other powers of the same sort. Men who were supposed to be able to do such things were called sor- cerers, and women witches. It was considered a very wick- ed thing to be either a sorcerer or a witch, and there was a law which said that they were to be put to death wherever they were found. Charles of Valois had heard that a sorcerer had made wax figures of himself, of the king, and of some of their relations, and had put them in front of a fire. The idea was that, as the wax images slowly melted away, the per- sons whom the images represented would fall ill and waste away too, and soon die. It was supposed that the minis- ter's wife had employed the sorcerer to make these figures. When Louis heard of it he said that the minister deserved death. The minister had his head cut off, his wife w^as put into prison ; the man supposed to be the sorcerer was hang- ed, and his wife, who was supposed to be a witch, and to have helped him, was burned. It is sad to see what foolish things people will believe, and how cruel men often become when they are frightened. Many of the chief men in the different provinces of France now asked the king to make arrangements for their being better governed than they had been before. The king and his uncle, who wanted to make friends with them, agreed, and made them many promises : some about their 100 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. raoiie}' not being taken away from them as it had been by Philip le Bel, and others about giving the nobles back some of the power which had been taken from them by Saint Louis and his son and grandson. But Louis was in great want of money himself, and was anxious to find out a way of getting some which would not make his subjects angry. Louis had a wife who had behaved so badly that she had for some time been shut up in prison. He wished to have another wife, and, as he could not marry again while his first wife was alive, he had her smothered between two mattresses, and then asked the sister of the King of Hungary, whose name was Clemence, to marry him. She agreed, and he was very much pleased, as she was rich, and he hoped she would bring him a great quantity of money, of which he was in much want, for he had not enough to be crowned with proper grandeur. But, as Clemence was on her way to France, she met with a great storm, in which her ship w^is wrecked, and she lost all her jewels, her fine dresses, and the money she was bringing to Louis. They had to be married quietly without much show, and afterward they were crowned together with as little expense as possible. But, in spite of being poor, Louis went on with the war which his father had begun against Flanders. He called upon the towns of France to send him soldiers for the war; but very few came, for the French obeyed only strong kings, and Louis was a weak one. However, by making promises to the towns, he managed to gather together a small army, with wdiicli he marched into Flanders. The weather that year was unusually bad. There was so much rain that the mud came up to the knees of the men and horses, and it Avas impossible to bring provisions from the country round to the army. The soldiers fell ill, and Louis saw that there was no use in going farther. After having been in Flan- ders for a month or tW'O, he turned back, burned his tents, and led his army into France again. All through the au- tumn the bad weather lasted; the harvests were spoiled, and the people were in great distress. After the famine there came illnesses of different kinds, caused by bad food and want ; and it is said that in the northern part of France PHILIP V. 101 a third part of the people died either of disease or hun- ger. _ • A year later the reign of Louis came to an end. His death was caused by his thoughtlessness and folly. He had made himself very warm by playing at tennis, and, without waiting to grow cool, he went down into a cold vault, or place underground, and drank great quantities of fresh wine. This brought on a fever of which he died. He left only one child, a little girl ; and there was a great question whether some one should govern for her till she grew up, and then she be queen, or whether she should be left out altogether because she was a girl, and one of the brothers of Louis be king. Since the time of Hugh Capet, it had never happened before that the King of France had died without leaving a son, so some new rule had to be made on purpose. It was settled at last that France should never be without a king, that no queen should ever rule there ; and that, therefore, if a king left only daughters, his brother, or his nearest male relation, should come after hira. The reason for this was that a queen would probably marry some foreign prince, and that he might want to rule over France, as well as over his own kingdom. This rule that no woman may reign in a country is called the Salic Law. Louis X. died in 1316, and was succeeded by his next brother. Chapter XXIH. PHILIP V. (1316-1322). The name of Louis X.'s next brother was Philip, and he was called Philip le Long, or the Tall, because of his great heio-ht. His reio'n was almost as short as his brother's had been, and brought no comfort to the people of France, who had lost most of their money in the last two reigns, and who were to be still more ill-treated by the new king. Philip's first act was to call together what were called the States-General. This was a body of men, something like a parliament, which met together from time to time to 102 FKENCH HISTOEY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. give the king advice or help in governing the country. This was the third time of its meeting ; the first two had been in the reign of Philip's father, Philip le Bel. These meetings were made up of clergymen, of nobles, and of some of the chief men in the different towns of the country. When the king wished the States-General to meet, he sent out word a short time beforehand, and the nobles met together, and chose out some of their number to go for them to the meet- ing; for there would not have been space or time for every one to go. The clergy did the same, and the townspeople the same. Every one could usually guess what the king was going to say or to ask from his States-General ; and the clergy, the barons, and the townspeople, who were not going to the meeting, told those who were going, who were called depu- ties, what they had better say to the king, and what they should ask from him ; for the States-General never met without the deputies making a complaint to the king of everything that was going wrong in the country, and ask- ing him to set their affairs right for them. They made lists of their complaints, which they gave to the king be- fore the meeting broke up, and which he always promised to consider, though he very often took no further notice of them. The first thing that happened when the deputies were all met together was that the king asked them whatever he wished. He sometimes told them that he was going to war, and asked them to help him against some of his en- emies ; or he wished to know what they thought of some new law which he had made ; or wanted them to collect money for him. Three men were chosen by the rest, one from each of the three ordei's — that is, the order of the cler- gy, the order of the nobles, and the order of the townspeo- ple or burghers-^who each made a speech in answer. At this time they usually agreed to whatever the king wished ; for, unless he expected them to agree with him, he did not call them together, and they could meet only when he call- ed them. After they had made their speeches and given in their list of complaints, the king sent back the deputies to their PHILIP V. 103 own homes. These meetings, though something like the English parliaments, were different from them in many im- portant ways, which I cannot explain here ; but the great difference of all was that in England the nobles and the common people usually took the same side, aud so were strong enough to prevent the king from having his own way in everything ; while in France they were enemies, and nei- ther was strong enough alone to resist the king, so that he had a great deal of power, and did what he liked. Philip wished the States-General to say solemnly that he was the right person to be king, and that no woman should ever be Queen of France. They did so, and swore to obey him as king, and his son after him. Philip's brother and the other great men of the state also agreed to his being king, and his reign began happily. It was a short and not an important reign. After Philip had been king for about two years, there was a great rising- up of the peasants in the south of France. There were still at different times some ideas of another Crusade, and these poor people wished to set off to conquer the Holy Land for themselves. At first they went quietly through the country, asking peaceably for bread at the doors of the churches; but, as more and more people joined them, chief- ly shepherds and laborers out of the fields, their numbers grew too large for them to be satisfied in this way. They grew hungry, and took whatever they could find. Then the people of the towns rose up against them and brought them before the magistrates, who hanged several of them. After this they broke open the prisons and made disturb- ances in all the countries through which they passed. In particular, they killed all the Jews whom they could find. At last, one of the king's officers brought an army against them, and shut them up in the town from which they had meant to set sail for the East, refusing to let them come back into the country they had left. Many of them were killed or taken prisoners ; some died of illness, others es- caped and went quietly to their own homes. These poor people were called pastoureaux, or pasturers, many of them being shepherds. There was another disturbance in France in this reign, 104 FKENCH HISTORY FOE ENGLISH CHILDREN. caused by a set of people more miserable and unfortunate than the poor peasants ; these were the lepers. Leprosy was a very bad illness caught in the East by some of the Crusaders, which spread through all Europe. It could not be cured, so the people who were taken ill with it were at once sent to houses made on purpose, where all the lepers lived apart from the healthy people, so that the illness might spread as little as possible. There arose an idea in the reign of Phil- ip Y. that the lepers had made a plan to try and poison all the healthy people in France — either to give them the lep- rosy also, or to make them die some other way. It was said that they put poison into springs of water, so that all the stream flowing from the spring might be poisoned, and that every one who used the water might die. There is no reason to think that the lepers ever tried to do anything so wicked, or that they could have done it if they had tried. No one ever found a poisoned stream, but people became so much frightened at the idea that the king- ordered all lepers to be at once imprisoned, and a great number of them were burned without any one having shown that they had done anything in the least wrong. Others were imprisoned for life in their hospitals. They had be- fore this been allowed to wander about the country by day looking for food. They were obliged to keep at a distance from any one who passed by, and to give them warning by their cries that they were lepers, and might give the illness to any one who came near. Kind people often put down food and other gifts on the ground, which the lepers took up when they were gone away. After this law of Philip's they were treated as pris- oners, and never allowed to go out into the country. At the same time a great number of Jews were burned alive ; they had money which their enemies wished to steal from them, and the Christians were glad of a reason for satisfying the hatred they all felt for the unfortunate Jews. Very soon after these cruel executions Philip V. was taken ill and died from a fever. His onlv son had been dead for some years ; like his brother Louis, he left only girls ; but there was still a third brother to succeed him. CHAELES lY. 105 Chapter XXIV. CHARLES IV. (1322-1328). Philip Y. Lad left a brother named Charles, who was the next king, and is known as Charles le Bel, or the Hand- some. He reigned for six years, the same length of time that his brother Philip had been king. Louis X. had reigned for two years. The reigns of all the sons added together did not take up half so many years as the reign of their father, Philip IV A boy or girl born in the last year of Philip IV.'s reign would have lived in the reigns of five kings by the time he or she was fifteen. This has not happened at any other time in French history ; or at any time in English history, between the reigns of William the Conqueror and of Queen Victoria. Three times over, in the course of French history, three brothers have come to be kings one after another, and each time they have come at the end of their family; none of them have left de- scendants. Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV. were the first set of brothers ; we shall come to the others in due time. Charles IV. had an unimportant reign, and very little is known about him, or the times in which he lived. It seems that at that time there was only one Frenchman who wrote history, and he wrote only about other countries, and scarce- ly at all about France. Many events happened in England, in Germany, and in Italy, but Charles IV. took very little part in them. In England a very weak and bad man, Ed- ward IL, was king, and his wife, Isabella, was the sister of Charles IV. Isabella hated her husband, and was always writing to Charles to say how unkind Edward was to her, and to ask for help against him. In one letter she says that her hus- band treats her " more like a servant than like his wife." Charles was, no doubt, glad of an excuse for taking away 106 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. some of the land wliicli still belonged to the English kings in France. This land was in the south part of the country, in the province called Aquitaine. Charles made himself master of several of the towns in Aquitaine, and, Avhen Ed- ward complained, he took no notice. At last Edward de- termined to send his wife Isabella to the French court, hop- ing that she would be able to persuade Charles to be at peace with him ; but Isabella, far from trying to make peace between her husband and her brother, did all she could to persuade Charles to give her an army with which to go back and attack England. When Edward sent for his wife to come back, she an- swered that she did not feel safe in England, and would rather stay in France. Charles gave her soldiers and money, and she found in Flanders a brave soldier, one of the sons of the count, wdio promised to march at the head of her little armv. When everything was ready, she went back to England, and began a war with her husband. All the peo- ple of England took her side. Edward tried to escape out of the country, but was always driven back by bad weather. He was at last taken prisoner by Isabella's friends, kept in prison for some months, and then most cruelly put to death. Isabella made her young son king, under the name of Ed- ward III. This king afterward became well known both in England and France. Edward 11. was a weak and bad man ; his wife must also have been a very bad woman, and a good deal like her brothers, tlie three kings of France. Charles found both the lepers and the Jews in great dis- tress when he came to the throne, owing to the cruel treat- ment of his brother Philip. He ordered that food should be given to the lepers, who were shut up in their hospitals or in deserted houses in villages. Though he still said they were never to come out themselves, their neighbors were al- lowed to collect food for them if they chose, and take it to their houses. Had it not been for this, all the lepers in France would probably have been starved. It was a custom for a new king, when he came to the throne, to grant favors to as many as possible of his subjects, by giving them some- thing for which they wished, or that would please them. The only favor which Charles would grant to the lepers was, ynuAv VI. io7 as we liavc seen, lliat some one should bring them enough food to prevent them from dying of hunger. Most of the Jews were shut up in prison, and Philip V. liad ordered them to pay him large Burns of money. Charles gave orders that the Jews should be allowed to come out of their prison by day, in order to collect this money for him; and tliat when they had collected it all, they should be al- lowed to leave the country. These were the favors he showed the Jews. During the reign of Charles IV. there was at one time an idea of going on another Crusade. Charles received some money for the purpose from the Pope, and got to- gether a little army of men ; he chose for their leader one of his noblemen, who had been put in prison a short time before for hanging one of his vassals and drowning another. There was no opportunity for finding out what kind of a general the prisoner would have made (which, perhaps, was as well for his soldiers), for the Crusade never came to pass. 'j'here is so little to be read or found out about Charles IV. that we do not even know of what illness he died. It was long and it was painful, and that is all we are told. He died at the age of thirty-four. lie had had two sons, both of whom were dead, lla left behind him only a baby girl. Charles IV. was the last of the Capets, the line of kings of which Hugh Capet was the first; there now be- gan a new line of kings, witli a different name, though they also were descended from Hugh Capet, as cousins may have different names, although the same person is the grandfather of both. Chapter XXV. PHILIP VI. (1328-1350). As Charles IV. had left neither brother nor son, there was some difficulty in settling who should be king after him, and several of his relations laid claim to be the rightful 108 FREXCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. king, amoiio- others Edward III., King of England, Charles's nephew. But the person who was chosen at last was the first cousin of the three last kings, Philip, called Philip of Yalois, and known as Philip YL He was a Frenchman, which made the people of France like him better than Ed- ward or any of the other foreigners who wished to be their king. His reign, however, was not a happy time for his subjects, as we shall see. Very soon after Philip had become king, he went with the Count of Flanders to help him against the people of Flanders, who had risen up against their count, and refused to obey him any longer, so that he had come for help to the French king. The Flemings were shut up by the French army in one of their towns, which was built on the top of a hill, where it was very difficult for the French to reach them. They thought themselves quite safe, and wrote mocking rhymes about the King of France, refusing to come down and fight him, as he invited them to do. Philip then began to burn up everything in the country round about, and this sight made the Flemings so angry that they came down from the mount one night, when they hoped the French soldiers would not be keeping watch, and attacked Philip's camp. They almost succeed- ed in taking him prisoner, but he managed to escape, called his soldiers together, and not only drove back the Flem- ings, but almost destroyed their army, killing many thou- sands of them, so that they could resist him no longer. He made himself master of all the country, and gave it over to his friend the count, telling him to keep it quiet and in good order for the future. The French were much pleased at having won this victo- ry, and Philip went back to Paris, and began to make his court as splendid as possible, and to live a gay life there with all his nobles round him. Several of his relations were kings of different small countries near at hand, and they came to live at the French court, as well as the chief noblemen from different parts of France. There were con- stant feasts, dances, hunts, tournaments, and amusements of all kinds. AYhile the king and his nobles were enjoying themselves in this way, they did not think what might be I J I .1 lJ — l_i — I— 1 L I I TBAKCE r "7l FrencTi Kingdom nZ^ Dominions of the King of England at tli^eginning of the Hundred Year»>War /^^'Lojninions of the King of England a.fter the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 2 Loiig 'West' ' Easi oi ' 2 ' Greenwich i ^ Harjjer & Jiru s, J>f. V. PHILIP VI. 109 happening to the common people who lived in the country, and who had to pay for these amusements ; because when the king had spent the little money he had, the only way of getting more was to make his subjects pay more taxes, and spend some of their money upon himself. The com- mon people, therefore, were especially poor and unhappy at this time. Philip got himself into much trouble by quarrelling with powerful people in France. One of the great barons had had a dispute with his aunt, as to which of them should rule over the county of Artois, the count of which had just died. It had already been settled twice over that Artois should belong to the aunt, but the young baron, Robert of Artois, hoped that, as he was a great friend of Philip VL, this king would perhaps give the county to him. He was mistaken, however; his aunt was allowed to keep Artois, but she soon after died very suddenly, and it was said that Robert had poisoned her. It was also said that Robert had used dishonest ways of making it seem that he was the person who ought to have been count, by writing himself letters which he pretended had come from the old count. He was tried before the king's court, and banished for the rest of his life. Robert was so angry at this that he tried to revenge himself by means of magic. He made a waxen image of the queen and her eldest son ; then he had them baptized by a priest, and it was believed that, when this had been done, he had only to stick a pin in the place where the heart should have been, and to put the images to melt away in the sun, or before the fire, to make the queen and the prince themselves waste away and die. The priest who was first asked to baptize one of these figures had refused to do it, and afterward told the story to the king. Robert was in Flanders, out of Philip's reach, but the king seized his sister and her children, and threw them into prison, burning a poor woman who was supposed to have helped him, and took away Robert's land, which he kept for himself. Robert then crossed over to England, hoping to find some one at the English court who would help him to revenge himself on his enemy. The English king at this time was Edward III., a brave, 110 FREXCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. wise, and warlike young prince, who bad reigned only for about six years. He bad wished to be King of France, and had always been angry that Philip should have been chosen instead of him. However, till now there had been no open disputes between them ; but, with Robert of Artois doing all he could to make a quarrel between them, we cannot be surprised that the two kings did not remain friends. Ed- ward was at war with the Scotch, to whom Philip sent help. This made Edward angry, and he was also vexed that Philip kept some of the towns which belonged to the English in Guyenne, and had been taken from them by the last king. Philip had promised that his lawyers should find out to whom these towns really belonged, and that those which W'Cre Edward's should be given back to him ; but this prom- ise was not kept. At last Edward heard that Philip was gathering together ships and men, and seemed to be mak- ing ready for an attack on England. He at once sent or- ders that all his ships should join him at Portsmouth, and that every one should be ready to fight if necessary. The war which now began between France and England is called the Hundred Years' War ; and the name shows the length of time for which it lasted. There were great differ- ences between England and France at the time when this war began. .France was very much larger than England; the French king had many more soldiers, and more strong cities ; but, on the other hand, Edward was richer than Philip, and was loved by his people, while PhiHp's subjects had no feeling of any kind about him. The kings of Eng- land had less power over their subjects than the kings of France ; they could not do whatever they chose without asking leave or advice from the Parliament, and so the king and Parliament were accustomed to settle together what should be done, and the people felt an interest in their king, and were pleased when he succeeded, and sorry when he failed. But in France the king did as he pleased, and told his plans to no one. Philip VI., in particular, kept everything about himself and his plans as secret as possible. Whether he was pleased or whether he was disappointed, he said nothing to his subjects. If he wished to punish any one, he did it suddenly, without saying what the person PHILIP VI. Ill had done wrong, or showing his reasons for thinking he had done anything. The people naturally did not care much about such a king. They would not have minded changing him for another, and they were not at first very eager in resisting Edward III. Edward had made himself liked by his people in many ways, of which, as I am not writing the history of Eng- land, I cannot speak now. He was, as I have said, richer than Philip, and his soldiers, especially the common people, fought far better than those of the French king. Though it would seem from all this that Edward had the best chances of success, it was Philip who did most to bring about the war. He interfered with Edward in all kinds of ways, and showed such a strong dislike to him that Ed- ward, who wished for war himself, saw it would be of no use to try to prevent it, and sailed with his army to Flan- ders. He had made friends with the Flemings, who had been very badly treated both by their own count and by his friend Philip VI. They did not, however, help him as much as he had hoped. Edward thought that perhaps they would fight for him more readily if he took the name of King of France, and said it was to him the crown ought to belong, and that he was coming to take it from Philip. This he did, and many of the Flemings joined him at once. In the first battle, which was fought by sea, the French were conquered. This was the battle of Sluys, and is re- markable because it was the first battle gained by the Eng- lish at sea. After this there were two years of war, then two years of truce, then war again, and there was no more time of settled peace in the reign of Philip. Philip lost several battles and a few towns, but for some time Edward did him no serious harm. While this war was going on there was a civil war in Brittany, at the northwest corner of France. Two men — Charles de Blois and John de Montfort — each thought he ought to be count there. The French took the side of one, the English of the other. John de Montfort was taken prisoner by the French king at the beginning of the war, and afterv/ard died; his wife, Jeanne de Montfort, one of the bravest women of whom we ever read, put herself at 112 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. the head of his army. She defended his cities for him; she marched about the country and made speeches to all her husband's friends, cahing upon them to fight in his cause, and showing them her Httle son, then quite a child, who, she promised, should fight for them when he grew up, if they would defend him now. She saw that there were provisions and all that was necessary in the towns that the French were likely to attack, and she herself went for the winter into a strong town by the seaside, so that she might be able to send for help to England if she were in danger. In this town her enemy, Charles de Blois, besieged her. She and her army resisted him bravely for many weeks. One day, when most of the enemy's soldiers were busy at- tacking the w'alls, the Countess of ]\Iontfort noticed that there were very few men left in the enemy's camp. She at once went out of the town at the head of three hundred men, and, without being noticed by the enemy, reached the tents, set them on fire, burned several of them, and then turned to go back to the town ; but she saw that the French soldiers were hurrying toward the camp, and that she could not make her way through them. She turned and rode away with her little body of men to a castle some miles off, where she stayed for five days. Her soldiers in the city were in great trouble during this time, fearing that she had been killed ; and the French soldiers mocked them, saying, "Go, sirs; go look for your countess; she is certainly lost, and you will never see her again whole." However, on the sixth night, trumpets were heard outside the gate, and the brave countess was seen, having found her way secretly through the enemy's camp ; and she was soon safe among her friends in the besieged city. She persuaded the nobles, who were growing impatient of the long siege, to hold the place until Edward came to their help. The war went on for some years, and in one of the bat- tles in Brittany, Robert of Artois, who had done so much to persuade Edward to go to war with Philip, was killed, to the great sorrow of his friends. Edward at last prepared three armies at once to march into France in different parts of the country. He himself led one division, which landed in the north of France. Philip marched against him with PHILIP VI. 113 an army about twice the size of Edward's. Edward, who had ahnost reached the gates of Paris, and had been burn- ing the buildings and ruining the countries on his way, turned back before the French army. PhiHp followed till the English army came to a river, which there seemed to be no way of crossing. This happened in the afternoon of one day, and Philip resolved that the next morning he would attack the English, and, as he hoped, destroy their army entirely. But in the course of the night a peasant offered to show Edward a ford by which his army could pass the river while the tide was out. Edward is said to have been more pleased than if some one had given him twenty thousand crowns. He set off at once ; and, though he found a French army on the other side ready to guard the ford, he managed to make his way across with almost all his men by the time Philip came up to the river brink the next morning, and the tide rising prevented the French king from following him that day. It was not till two days afterward that Philip came up with the English army near a place called Cressy, where Edward had drawn up his men in order of battle, and where they were refreshing themselves after their march, resting while they waited for the enemy. Some of Philip's knights advised him to let his men also have time to rest a little before he attacked the English, and Philip gave the order for the troops to stop ; but the French soldiers were so disobedient that they refused to stop. The great bar- ons who were behind wished to push on in front, and those in front wished to stay nearest the enemy, which was the place of honor ; so there was great confusion and disorder. The English rose up when they saw the French coming near, and prepared to fight. Then Philip gave orders that some foreign archers who were in the army should begin the battle ; and they began to shoot their arrows with hid- eous cries, which they hoped would frighten the English, but which they soon found to be of no use. A heavy shower had fallen in the day, and their bowstrings were wet, so that their arrows could not fly far, while the Eng- lish bows, which had been carefully kept dry, were all ready for use. Philip's archers fell in great numbers, and at last 114 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. turned to flee. Then Philip gave to his men the order to turn against the archers and kill them, and the other French soldiers fell upon the archers and put them to death, which made the confusion in the army so terrible that there was no more chance of resisting' the English, Philip's army- was completely beaten ; and great numbers of his soldiers, friends, and great nobles, among others his brother, were killed. This was the battle of Cressy. There were three days' truce to bury the dead, after which Philip went back to Paris. Edward went on to a tow^n called Calais, and besieged it for many months. Philip had so little money and so few soldiers left that it was a long time before he could go to the help of the people of Calais; and when he came there he found he could not do anything for them, as the Eng- lish king w^as too strong for him. The place was defended by a brave man named John of Vienne, who had sworn to hold it to the last moment possible. The usual food was soon all gone, and the townspeople were obliged to eat cats, dogs, at last even rats, boiled leather, and anything they could find. They sent away all the old people out of the town. Some people say that Edward let them pass through his army and gave them food ; others, that he drove them into the trench outside the town and left them to die of hunger. At last the town was obliged to surrender. Edward was angry at the long resistance, and refused to promise to spare the town unless six of the chief men of the place came to him w^ith ropes round their necks, and gave themselves up to be treated exactly as he chose. When the people of Calais heard this, a brave townsman named Eustache de St. Pierre came forward and said he would be one of the six. Five others w^ere soon found to follow him, and they all went to Edward's camp in their shirts, with their feet bare, and cords round their necks. Edward gave orders that they should be put to death ; but his wife, Philippa, threw herself at his feet, and wept and entreated till he promised that their lives should be spared. He turned all the French out of Calais, except such as agreed to be his subjects, and brought over Eno-lishmen to live there. Philip could not JOHN. 115 prevent this, though he had done everything in his power to save the town, and afterward did all he could to com- fort the people who were driven out of Calais. After hav- ing taken Calais, Edward made a truce with Philip, and there was no more fighting for several years. At this time a terrible plague — a very bad kind of ill- ness, of which people often died quite suddenly — spread over all Europe. It is spoken of in English history as the Black Death, and in French as the Black Plague ; and peo- ple died of it in great numbers. Sometimes whole villages were left empty, all the people who had lived in them being dead, and whole streets in towns had only one or two in- habitants left. Many of the king's relations died, especial- ly many princesses. When the plague was over, the misfortunes of Philip had not come to an end. He had married a young wife, of whom he was very fond, but a few months later he himself fell ill, and soon afterward died, calling upon his eldest son to defend the country bravely against their enemies, the English. In this reign a province, called Dauphine, had been added to France ; its count, who was in great want of money, had sold it to Philip, and it was given to Philip's grandson, who came in time to be King of France. After his reign it always belonged to the eldest son of the king, who v/as called, after the name of the province, the Dauphin ; as the eldest son of an English king or queen is called the Prince of Wales. Philip VI. is the last Philip among the kino-s of France. Chapter XXVT. JOHJSr (1350-1364). The next king was John, the son of Philip. He found the country and the people over which he was to reign in a very unhappy state. Many of the people had died of the plague, many others had lost all they had in the war with England ; the king himself had very little money, and no 116 FKENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. regular army ; and tlie ^Ya^ with Edward might begin again at any time. John has been called the Good ; but good in those days did not mean quite what it does now; "good," when used about John, meant brave, gay, courteous, fond of giving. John's great wish was to be like a knight of the old times, to have adventures, tournaments, and feasts ; and he cared much more about this than about ruling his people well. He was also at times very passionate and cruel. One of the first things he did after he became king was to put to death one of his officers, a count who had been a prisoner in England, and who had been sent to France, by King Edward, to try and collect money for his ransom. John seems to have had some idea that this man had made friends with the English king, and would perhaps give up to him some of his land, instead of the money he had come to find. The king had him suddenly carried off to prison from his own house, and cut off' his head two days later, without giving a reason to any one. This cruel deed made all his great lords very angry, and a strong castle, which had belonged to the dead count, was given up to Edward by the sokliers who held it, for they thought the English king would be the better master of the two. The count who was put to death in this way was what was called a constable — a word which, in English, usually means only a policeman — but in France, in those days, it meant a person who gave the king advice on all matters that had to do with war, and who was usually sent on any spe-» cially difiicult attack that had to be made against the enemy. The king could not do without a constable, so he chose a new one, who, as we shall see, was not more fortunate than the first. There was a man living in France at this time who was a great enemy of the king's. He was a cousin of John's, and some people thought he ought to have been King of France instead of John's father. His name was Charles, King of Navarre. He had once put to death, very cruelly, some of his subjects, who had made a plot against him, and from that time he was called Charles the Bad. He was not, on the whole, a worse man that John the Good ; but he made JOHN. 117 great trouble in France, for he could speak well, and liad a pleasant manner, which made every one like him, and he used to go about through the country, and make speeches to the people, trying to stir them up against the king. Had John been wise, he would have tried to make this young man his friend, and find some useful work for him to do for the country ; but instead of this he treated Charles like a child, and as if he were of no importance, thus making him more and more of an enemy. Charles had a special dislike to the new constable, and one day, when they had had a quarrel together, told him that he would be revenged upon him, and that the constable should not escape though he were under the mantle of King John himself. A short time after this, when the constable was staying in a small village, a body of men stole in by night to the house where he was sleeping, while the King of Navarre waited outside the village with a company of knights. In the morning the party that had been in the village came out again, their leader crying : " It is done ! it is done!"—" What is done?" said Charles.— "He is dead," was the answer. The constable had been killed in his bed. King John was extremely angry at this murder ; but he had so little power in the country that he was not able to punish the King of Navarre, and so made peace with him, promising to forgive him and be his friend for the future ; but he did not keep this promise, and probably never meant to do so. Two years later, when the King of Navarre was one evening dining with the king's eldest son, with whom he had made friends, John suddenly appeared in the room with a body of soldiers, and carried off Charles of Navarre and several of his friends who were with him to prison, where he cut off the heads of all but three of the party. Charles was one of those whose lives were spared, but he was kept in prison for some months, and at first fully expected to be put to death as his friends had been. The king gave orders to his guards to torture him by telling him constantly that he was to die in a few hours' time. They sometimes woke him at night to say this, and though he probably came at last to disbelieve them, yet it was extremely disagreeable for him never to feel sure 9 118 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. that the unpleasant threat might not at last be carried out. Meantime the trace between Edward and John had come to an end, and the war began again. Edward did not this time come to France himself, but he sent his son Edward, known as the Black Prince, at the head of his armies, to command instead of himself. John had, as usual with the French kings, scarcely any money, so he called together the States-General, to ask whether his people would give him some. The deputies said they would, but made him prom- ise that he would not spend it except by the advice of some of their own number whom they chose for the purpose. The people trusted their king so little that they feared he might spend the money on his own amusements, and that they might be none the better off for having given it to him. The Bhxck Prince, as soon as he landed in France, be- gan to march about the midland provinces, and do great harm tKere, burning and destroying what came in his way. The French king led an army to stop him, and after follow- ing him for some days, they came to a place near Poitiers, where the English army stopped, and made ready to defend themselves. As had happened at Cressy, the French king- had many more men than the English leader, but the dif- ference in the second battle was greater than in the first. At Cressy there were twice as many French as English ; at Poitiers, six times as many. The English army was on a hill, and the side of the hill was covered with vineyards and hedges. Through the vine- yards was a path which led up the hill, and the Black Prince had hidden archers near to the path, so that they might shoot at any one who tried to reach the top. He also made what is called an ambush — that is, he hid some soldiers at the bottom of a hill, in a place where the French king would not expect to find any one, who were to spring out sudden- ly and take the enemy by surprise. Had John waited with- out attacking the English, and simply prevented them from coming down to find food, they W'Ould soon have had to yield to him ; but, instead of this, he determined to attack them on the hill. Tw^o messengers w^ere sent by the Pope to try and stop JOHN. 119 the battle ; but they tried in vain. The morning after their visit King John sent a body of his men to climb the steep path leading to the top of the hill. They were on horse- back, and as soon as they were seen on the path, the Eng- lish archers shot off their long arrows, which killed and wounded great numbers, both of men and horses. The horses, when they felt the arrows, turned and rushed down the hill in great confusion. The French soldiers below were so much frightened at seeing their friends fleeing before the English, that many of them turned and fled also. Among others the three eldest sons of the French king, of whom the eldest was 'about twenty, were persuaded by their officers to run away with the soldiers. They galloped off with eight hundred un wounded men, who had never been near the enemy, and did not stop till they were in perfect safety. The army had been in three divisions ; the only one that remained fighting was that which the king himself was com- mandino". The Black Prince rushed down the hill, followed by his small army, to attack John in front; the men in am- bush came out of their hiding-place to attack him on the side, and a struQ^crle began which lasted for some hours. King John fought bravely, like one of the old knights whom he so much admired. He held a huge battle-axe with which he attacked every enemy who came near him. His fourth son, Philip, quite a boy, stayed by his side and watched over him, calling out, " Father, look to the right ; father, look to the left," whenever he saw any one making a stroke or shot at the king. But John's courage could not prevent him from being beaten at last ; his men fell round him in great numbers, and the English had gathered about him, crying- out, " Yield, yield, or you are a dead man." John gave himself up to a knight who could speak French, and by him was taken, with his son Philip, to the tent of the Black Prince, where he was received with great kindness and po- liteness, and treated like a brave visitor rather than a pris- oner. The Prince of Wales gave him the chief place at table, and stood behind his chair to fetch him anything that he might want. The English soldiers went out on the field of battle, and gathered together all the money and valuable metal they 120 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. could find, of which there was a great quantity. The next day King John was taken prisoner to Bordeaux. The French were much distressed at the loss of their king, and very angry with all the knights and barons who had fled from the field instead of fighting for him to the last. The English had taken so many prisoners that they had not been able to guard them all, and so had sent them back to their own homes, making them promise to return at a cer- tain day to pay their ransoms. This was a promise which no one, at that time, ever thought of breaking. The French lords went to their estates, and called upon all their serfs and vassals to collect money for their ransoms. These poor people were obliged to give up all their money, besides hav- ing their goods taken from them, their corn, their cattle, or their fruits, which were sold by their lords to make up the sum that was wanted. Many of these poor men were even tortured to make them say where they had hidden their treasures. This made them more angry than ever at the way the nobles had behaved. That they should run away instead of defending the country, as was their duty, seemed bad enough, but that they should expect other people to pay for their cowardice was enough to make even their weak and helpless vassals begin to think of resistance. It was now settled that, as King John seemed likely to be kept a prisoner for some time, his eldest son, Charles, Duke of Normandy, should be regent — that is, rule in his place while he was away. This young man was about twenty years old, and not very w^ise, so it is not surprising that he had some difficulty in managing the country through the three years during which John was a prisoner. John was soon taken to England, where he w^as very well treated, allowed to live with the King of England as one of his friends, and altogether made as happy as a prisoner can ever be. The young regent had two special enemies in France: one was the King of Navarre, whom John had thrown into prison, and whom Charles kept there for the first few months of his reign ; and the other was a man about whom a great^ deal is to be read in all the histories of this time, called Etienne or Stephen Marcel. Marcel was a deputy of JOHN. 121 the States-General, and was well known to all the towns- people of Paris. He had shown himself to be brave and wise, and to care for the people of Paris. When Paris seemed to be in danger from the enemy coming close to the gates of the city, he had made every arrangement for defend- ing the town. He had had a wall built round it, and outside the wall a trench or large ditch ; on the wall were little towers in which soldiers could be placed to attack any one who tried to make his way through. Marcel had also per- suaded the people of Paris to buy arms, and learn to use them, and he had prepared chains to stretch across the streets in case any horse-soldiers should come in. After all, Paris was never attacked, but the Parisians were grateful to Marcel for having made them feci safe by making all these arrange- ments for their defence. The States-General met at once after the Duke of Nor- mandy had taken the chief power in the State, and several times afterwards. They gave the regent much good advice, which he was not particularly pleased to receive from them. Marcel soon saw that the young prince would not listen to what he wished, and that if he made promises to set straight all that was going wrong in the kingdom, as far as it was in his power to do so, he made them without meaning to keep them. The common people of France were at this time in a bad state ; they had lost a great deal of what belonged to them ; they had been much ill-treated, and were poor, miserable, and discontented. This was only natural after so much money had been spent by John and his father Philip upon their amusements and their wars with the English, besides all the losses of the French after the battles of Cressy and Poitiers, and during the many years through which their enemies stayed in the land, burning and laying waste the country. Etienne Marcel knew of this state of "things, and though he had more power than any other man in the kingdom, he could no more set it right than the young prince ; but besides all these troubles, the Duke of Nor- mandy was always doing things that the people disliked, and which were bad for the country ; but yet he could not be persuaded to do better. 122 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. There were many disputes between him and Marcel. Once Marcel marched at the head of a body of men to the palace where the regent lived, to call upon him to do some- thing to defend the country against the EngHsh. The re- gent answered in a very unfriendly way, and Marcel made a sign to some of his friends who had followed him into the room, and who at once fell upon two of the regent's chief officers standing on each side of him, and murdered them before their master's eyes. x\t this the regent was so much frightened that he promised to do anything Marcel wished, and put on a cap of red, white, and blue, the colors always worn by Marcel's friends, and which are now the colors of the French Republic. But Marcel gained no good end by this wicked and cruel act. The prince kept his promises only for a short time, and then he went out of Paris, and seemed to be calling together his friends, and making ready to attack the town. Marcel had tried to make friends with the King of Navarre, bat he was not much more to be trusted than the regent. He also left Paris, and seemed to be making friends with the prince. Marcel invited the King of Navarre to come back to the town and make himself king there, and was going secretly one night to open the gate of the city by which Charles was to come in, when some of the regent's friends saw him, found out who he was, fell upon him, and killed him. Thus Marcel died, and the young prince came into the city the next day, and found no one left to resist him in any way. Just before this the poor peasants, who had had to suffer so much in finding money to pay their lords' ransoms, had resolved to resist the ill-treatment, which was too much for them to bear. They rose up in a body, and marched through the country, burning houses, carrying off cattle, emptying barns and storehouses, and torturing their masters the nobles as they had been tortured themselves. These poor people were wicked because they were ignorant, and had been taught nothing good ; and unkind and cruel, because no one had ever been kind to them. The peasants from different pai'ts of France joined each other, and they were too strong JOHN. 123 to be stopped at once. But when the nobles made up an army and marched against them, the peasants could not long resist; many of them were killed in battles, and the nobles and gentlemen went in small parties through the country, behaving in much the same way as the peasants had done — burning houses, killing the people, and destroy- ing all that came in their way. At this time also bands of robbers went through the country, taking whatever they could find, and finding plenty of goods, either belonging to no one or belonging to people so weak as not to be able to defend them. After King John had been for three years a prisoner in England, there came news that he and King Edward had made peace together, and that John was soon to be set free and come back to his own country. The French were much pleased at this, as they thought things could not be worse, and might grow better if their own king Avere over them once more ; but when they heard how much of France John had agreed to give up to Edward, they said it w-as a shameful peace, that they would not agree to it, and that John must stay a prisoner. Edward then came to France, and went on with the war, making the people more wretch- ed than ever, till at last every one agreed to a peace, by which it was settled that Edward should give up calling himself King of France, and should set John free ; and that in return a large ransom should be paid, and the greater part of the west side of France should be given up to him. John was allowed to return to France, and sent two of his younger sons with some of the other great lords to be pris- oners instead of him till his ransom should have been paid. In this year the plague which had before visited France appeared again, and great numbers of the people died, es- pecially those who had been made weak by having little and unwholesome food to eat. The only important thing that happened after John came back to France again was that the Count of Burgundy died, and John was able to add this large province to his kingdom, though it ought by right to have belonged to the King of Nav^arre. Soon after this one of John's sons escaped from the court of Edward, where John had promised he should stay till the ransom had been 124 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. paid. When John heard of this lie resolved to go back liimself to Edward's court and be his prisoner again. The French writers say that John went back because he found his own country much less pleasant than England, and thought it harder work to rule his people than to be the visitor of King Edward, and have hunts and tournaments and all sorts of gayety go on in his honor ; and this is very likely true. Soon after he went back to England he was taken ill, and died there, and his son, who had been regent, became king in his place. Chapter XXVII. CHAKLES V. (1364-1380). The next king was Charles Y., the eldest son of John. As this young man had been managing the business of gov- erning the country for eight years already, his subjects thought they knew pretty well what sort of a king he would make, and they were not much pleased at the idea of hav- incr him to rule ov^er them. He had run away from the battle of Poitiers when a boy, and since then he had never been seen with armor on, being weak and delicate, unfit for war and for most of the amusements of the time. He had not been able to do anything for his country in the troubles of the time when John was a prisoner, and it was supposed that he was too foolish to govern; but his subjects soon changed their minds about him when he be- came king, and Charles V. is now known as Charles le Sage, or the Wise. His people never loved him, for they never saw him, and knew scarcely anything about him ; he used to live shut up in his own palace, seeing only his ministers and his generals, and making plans with them as to how the country was to be governed. One very important matter when France had such fierce enemies ready to attack her, especially when the king was not able to go to war himself, was to find a good general to lead the armies. The king was happy enough to find such a man, Bertraud Du Guesclin, a knight of Brit- CHARLES V. 125 tany, who fought his battles for him all through his reign, often with great success. Du Guesclin, when a child, had been fierce and wilful, and cared for nothing but fighting ; his mother had often been in despair as to what would be- come of him, but as soon as he was a man, he grew famous for his strength and courage in tournaments, till at last he became a soldier in earnest, and fought all through many of the wars in the reign of King John. One unusual thing about him was that he was kind to the poor, and defended them whenever it was possible. Wars such as those in which he had to fight could not go on with- out bringing much ill-treatment and distress to the poor of the country round about, but the difference between Du Guesclin and most other soldiers of his time was that he was sorry to see this distress, and did what he could to re- lieve it, while most men did not think about it at all, and went on their own way without caring in the least what happened to the peasants. Charles V. found that one of the great troubles of France when he began to reign was what was called the Free Lance companies. They were more like bands of robbers than soldiers; they had no payment for fighting but what they could get for themselves, so that they were obliged to take food and whatever they wanted from the people of the country. The King of Xavarre had called together a great number of these companies, and was pleased to see them lay waste the kingdom that belonged to his enemy. Du Guesclin defeated them in a great battle, which kept them quiet for a time. This happened just before the king was crowned, so that it was looked upon by his subjects as a sign of a happy and successful reign. But new troubles soon arose ; the war in Brittany was still going on, and Du Guesclin led an army to help Charles de Blois, the prince on whose side the kings of France had always been. This time the French leader was defeated ; he was taken prisoner, and his men were put to flight. Af- ter this, John de Montfort, the friend of the English, was made Duke of Brittany, and there was peace in that coun- try and in other parts of France for a short time. But though the war stopped, the free companies still 126 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. roamed about tlie land, burning and stealing wherever they went, and building themselves strong places to live in, so that they were in no danger of being driven away by the angry peasants. The king's soldiers, far from tr^-ing to de- feud the people, helped the robbers, and took a share of the spoil for themselves. Charles at last made up his mind that the free companies must in some way or other be made to leave France, and it was arranged that Pu Gueselin should take them to fight in Spain, where a war was go- inof on. Unfortunately Dii Gueselin and the companies fought too well. They conquered their enemies, and came back to France again, to the despair of the people. It was supposed that the English employed the companies to do harm to France, and this was one of the reasons for the quarrel which soon arose between France and England. No one can have supposed that the French would ever be satisfied to live at peace while the English were masters of the greater part of one side of the country. When one country conquers another, and takes from it a large quan- tity of land, there is almost sure to be another war before long, and so it happened now. The people living in the part of France which had been given up to the English were displeased at the way in which they were governed by the Black Prince, who was their ruler. One difficulty, as usual, was that he wished them to pay more taxes than they liked. It is also said that the French disliked their English rulers chiefly on account of the rough, unfriendly manners of the English, who never seemed to think the French had anything to do with them, or ought to be treated like sub- jects of the same king, but behaved as if they were con- quered enemies, almost servants. The people of one of these provinces sent to King Charles, saying that he had not the power to give away any of his subjects to another king, and asking him to let them come back and be his subjects once again. Charles was pleased at this, for he had long been making up his mind in secret to go to war with England, and now he seemed to have a good excuse. Charles then sent a letter to the Black Prince, telling him of the complaints made against him by his French subjects, CHARLES V. 127 and calling upon him to come to Paris to be judged there by the king's court. This was treating the prmce as if he were still a vassal of Charles's, and made him very angry. When the letter was brought to him, he thought for a little while, and then said, shaking his head, " We will certainly go to Paris, as the King of France sends for us, but we will go helmet on head, with sixty thousand men behind us." A few months later King Charles declared war. Charles had resolved that this war should be carried on in a different way from those which had gone before. He saw that the nobles of France had become so unruly and rash, and that the common people were so ill-prepared for fighting, that he had no chance in a great battle against the Eno'lish. He knew that if the French were defeated ao-ain, as they had been at Cressy and Poitiers, it would be a ter- rible misfortune for the country, and make more of the dis- tress and poverty which he was trying to relieve. He there- fore gave orders to his generals that no battle should ever be fought between his men and those of the King of Eng- land. If the English marched through the country, as they often did, they found no one to resist them ; the villagers fled to the strong towns, taking with them all the food they could carry off, and the English marched from one province to another, laying waste the country, but wearing themselves out by degrees, and obliged to come back at last by loss of men and want of food. The peasants usually followed the array at a little distance, and attacked it whenever they had an opportunity, doing as much harm as they could. Du Guesclin was a great help to the king, both in mak- ing these plans and in carrying them out for him. They answered so well that, after the war had lasted for four years, the English were driven entirely out of the province of Poitou, and after this more and more of the country was taken from them. The Black Prince died in England while the war was still going on. His nature had seemed to change as he grew older, and he who had shown so much kindness and politeness to King John of France after the battle of Poitiers became cruel to his enemies and severe to his subjects before the end of his life. His last victory was at Limoges, a French town, which he took after a siege of a 128 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. montli ; he treated the people with horrible craelty, urging on the soldiers to kill them all. He was very ill at the time, and was carried through the streets in his litter, while men, women, and children threw themselves on their knees before him, crying for mercy, but he listened to none of them, and more than three thousand people are said to have been put to death on this day. The city was burned, plun- dered, and destroyed. Charles Y., who carried on this great war so well, and freed such a large part of his kingdom from the power of the English, had time to think about peaceful matters as well as about armies and fortresses. He read books of all kinds, and employed some of the wise men about him to write books upon questions which interested him, and to translate old Greek and Latin books, so that they might be- come well known. He was also fond of building, and dur- ing the one year of truce w^iich came in the middle of the long war with England, he had many bridges, churches, and fine houses begun in Paris. He also began the Bastile, which was at first a fortress to defend Paris against enemies, and afterwards was used onl}- as a prison. Charles was very delicate ; he had many illnesses, and did not live long. His death was sudden. The war between the French and English was going on ; a body of English had been surrounded by different French armies in a place between two rivers, from which they could not make their way out. One morning, when the English came out of their camp, there was no enemy to be seen. The French generals had been called to Paris, where Charles Y. was dy- ing. His two younger brothers were with him, and the king made them promise to protect his eldest son, the Dau- phin, a boy of twelve years old. Another brother, the Duke of Anjou, had also come to court, though without being in- vited, as he and Charles were not friends. No sooner was the king dead, than this brother seized all the jewels which had belonged to him, and kept them for his own, though they should by right have passed on to the new king, the son of Charles Y. CHAELES VI. 129 Chapter XXVIII. CHAELES VI. (1380-1422). When Charles V. died, his eldest son Charles, who was to be king after him, was only twelve years old. He was a tall, handsome boy, caring more for amusement than for anything else, which, while he was so young, was right and natural, but which distressed his subjects and ministers when, as years went by, they found that he grew no steadier, and took scarcely any interest in the affairs of the kingdom. Charles V. had arrano^ed that the three uncles of his young son should govern the country, and take charge of the young prince till he was old enough to rule for himself. These uncles, who were bad, violent men, fond of power, and not caring the least about what might happen to their subjects, divided the chief provinces of the country among them, and ruled them for the king. Charles V., besides leaving a great deal of money for his son, had collected some treasure, which he had hidden in the walls of one of his castles, where he hoped that no one would think of looking for it. It was not made into money, but was in bars of gold and silver, and very pre- cious. The secret of this treasure he told only to his treasurer, who was to give it in due time to his son. One of the uncles, the Duke of Anjou, who had already stolen the crown jewels, heard of this secret. He sent for the treasurer, asked where the money was hidden, and when the treasurer refused to say, threatened to put him to death. At last he even sent for the executioner, and told him to cut off the head of the treasurer. The poor treas- urer then gave way, and told the Duke of Anjou where the gold and silver was to be found. The duke at once went to the place, dug up the treasure, and earned it off to make use of it in a war of his own which he was carrying on in Italy. Soon after this the young king was crowned, 130 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. and was then taken to Paris, Avhere he was well received by the people. But it was not long before war began between the people of Paris and Charles VI. At this time, in all the greater countries of Europe there were signs that the common people were not only discon- tented and unhappy, but ready to rise up against those who were richer than they, and try in some way or other to take for themselves the good things, the comfort, or the riches, or the power, which they saw other people enjoying. The citizens of Paris had many taxes to pay, and one of the first things they did was to make Charles and his uncles promise that a great many of the taxes should be taken off. In Rouen, too, the people had risen up against the Duke of Anjou, who was their governor, because he tried to make them pay some new taxes ; they found a draper, who they declared should be their king, and whom they took through the town on a chariot, doing honor to him. They also tried to take the castle of Rouen. The king and his uncles came with a troop of soldiers to quiet the disturbance, and thus the first time that Charles VI. bore arms it was against his own subjects. After this the taxes which had been taken off the people of Paris were all put on again. For some time no one could be found bold enough to tell the people that the king meant to do this ; for you must remember that at this time there was no such thing as a newspaper or printed notice, by which a new tax might be announced, and if the king wished to make known anything to the people of Paris, some one had to cry it out in the streets, so that every one might hear. At last a town-crier was found who was per- suaded to cry out the news about the taxes. He rode into the market-place, and cried out that the kmg had lost some plate ; a crowd of people came round him to hear what he was saying, and when he saw that most of them were listen- ing to him, he turned his horse and galloped away as fast as possible, calling out that the taxes would be collected the next day. There was a riot and great disturbance after this, and the end of it was that the people of Paris refused to pay the taxes, but promised to give the king a great sum of monev instead. CHARLES VI. 131 The people of Flanders, the country which is now Holland and Belgium, also rose up against their ruler, the Count of Flanders, a bad and cruel man. Charles YI. fought his first battle, and won his first victory, helping the count against his subjects. When Charles YI. was fourteen, he had the power of do- ing whatever he liked in the kingdom. When any difficult question had to be settled, he was obliged to leave it to his uncles to decide, for he knew nothing about any important matter ; but if the question was a plain one, that he could understand, he decided for himself, without taking advice of any one, and often ordered what the wisest of his ministers had decided, after much thought, that it would be best not to do. Yet he was always obeyed in whatever he ordered, for the King of France had absolute power — that is, there was no one to prevent him from doing exactly what he liked. When Charles was in Flanders, he once gave orders that a particular town should be entirely burned down, and the people put to death, or sold as slaves, and it was done at once. The town was set on fire in a hundred different places, and the French army watched it burn till it was a heap of ruins. Charles was fond of war, and he and his uncles had a great wish to conquer England ; they made ready more than nine hundred ships to carry their soldiers across the British Channel, dividing England from France. The nobles at this time were fond of making themselves as gay and splen- did as possible. Though the poor people of the country were in great distress, the nobles were rich, and spent a great deal of money on their clothes and finery of different sorts. They did the same with their ships; they painted them all kinds of bright colors, carpeted them with rich stuffs, ornamented the masts with leaves of gold and silver, and hung up silk flags with their coats-of-arms beautifully worked. It was not very wise at the beginning of a war to spend their money upon what could do them no possible good, and would so soon be spoiled or destroyed. They also prepared a great quantity of food to take with them, in case the English should be too strong to be robbed of their stores ; and what was most curious of all, a wooden town, 132 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. all in different pieces, which was to be put up when the army landed. It must have been something like the wooden farm-yards with which children play, for it had houses to be put up in rows, and a wall to go round it and protect it. It was so large that it took seventy-two ships to carry all the parts of it. After all this, the ships never started ; one of the king's uncles did not really wish to set out, and was so long in joining the rest of the army that the right time of year had gone by, and the whole thing was given up. The next year the king tried again to collect an army and fleet and attack England ; but this time he was prevented from starting by his constable being taken prisoner by an enemy, and shut up for some time in a castle. When at last he w^as let out, the constable was so busy in asking every one to help him to punish his enemy that he had no time to think of the attack against England; and, as the king could not go without him, the plan was given up again. A year after this Charles was persuaded by some of the great men in the state, who hated his uncles, that he was now quite old enough to rule for himself. He had been king for eight years, and was now twenty years old. The common people and the nobles all hated his uncles, and thought that if Charles ruled alone the government might possibly be better, and could not be worse than it was. These uncles had spent all the king's money, led out his soldiers, and brought them back again without making the least use of them, and without paying their w^ages, and treated the people of their own special provinces with the greatest cruelty. Charles YI. was much pleased at the idea of ruling for himself ; he held a great council, at which he told his uncles that, being now grown up, he no longer wanted their help in ruling the country ; he thanked them for all they had done for him, and sent them away loaded with rich presents. After this Charles gave himself up to what, next to war, he liked best in the world, feasting and making merry. The young princess, whom he had lately married, was crowned queen, and there were processions, feasts, and shows of dif- ferent kinds ; fountains of milk and wine ran at the corners of the streets, and all the houses were made gay with rich CHARLES YL 133 silk and tapestry hanging from the windows. As the queen passed by the great church of Notre Dame, a man dressed like an angel slid down a cord from the top of one of the hicrh towers, put a beautiful crown on her head, and was drawn up again. Charles VI. disguised himself as a com- mon person, and stood in the street to see the show. He was so anxious to get a good view that he was always press- ing forward to the front, and the sergeants, who were keep- ing order in the street, several times gave him blow* with their rods to make him keep in his place, of course without having the least idea that it was the king whom they were treating thus. These little adventures amused Charles very much, and this was the kind of way in which he liked to spend his time. This feast, and others which followed it, cost the king immense sums of money ; but his ministers could not persuade him to spend less, or to think of the misery of his poorer subjects, whose taxes had to pay for his amusement. After the king had enjoyed his power for three years more a terrible misfortune happened to him, which made the rest of his reign a miserable time for him- self and for France. The Constable of France was a great friend of the king's and the chief soldier of France. He had one evening been dining at a feast given by Charles, and was on his way home when he was attacked in a small street by one of his enemies, knocked off his horse, and supposed to be killed. The king, hearing of what had happened, went out to look for him ; and, finding the constable alive, promised him that his enemy should be fitly punished. It was not long before he set out with a body of soldiers to march against the ene- mies of his constable. It was a very hot day, and the king had been for some time ill and feverish. As he rode through the forest a man with his head bare rushed through the trees, seized the bridle of the king's horse, and said to him, *' King ! go back ; you are betrayed." This man seemed to be mad ; and either must have been so or must have been sent by the people against whom Charles was marching, in the hope that he would be persuaded to turn back. The king said nothing, but rode on with two pages close behind him, one carrying a spear and the other a shield. One of 10 134 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. these boys fell asleep, and the spear, falling from his hand, hit against the shield which his companion carried, and made a ringing noise. The king turned round suddenly, calling out the word which he had just heard — " Betrayed !" — drew his sword, and rode against his own followers, hitting and wounding them. At first they supposed that one of them had dis- pleased him in some way ; but, when they saw him ride against his own brother, they understood that he must be mad, and with some difficulty they got behind him, held his arms to his sides, and lifted him off his horse. He had be- come quite senseless, and knew no one. They carried him home, and at first thought that he was dead ; he lived for thirty years after this, but he never again became sensible enough to be able to govern for himself. He was mad for the rest of his life, sometimes more mad, sometimes less. There were particular times of year when his senses partly came back to him, so that he could understand something of what was going on ; and at such times he often tried to make good and Avise laws ; but he was quite in the power of the people who happened to be about him, and always did what they wished, till his madness came back and he could again understand nothing. The rest of the poor king's reign, with wdiich he himself has very little to do, must be told in another chapter. Chapter XXIX.. CHARLES YI. — COntmued (1392-U22). The first time that the king began to get better it was hoped that he would soon be completely cured. He was, in fact, for some months quite as usual ; and there were feasts and rejoicings in honor of his being well again, in all of which he took part. One evening, at a ball, he and five of his young friends dressed themselves up as wild men, and came in to dance before the guests. They had on tunics daubed over with pitch, with tow fastened on to it to make CHARLES YI. oO them look hairy. The king's young brother was foolish enough to hold up a torch close to the face of one of these men, in order to find out who he was ; the tow and pitch caught fire, and blazed up all over his body, till the poor man looked like a column of flame. Unfortunately all these young men, except the king, were chained together; the fire spread from one to another, and burned so fiercely that it was impossible to put it out. One of the five broke his chain, escaped from the others, threw himself into a tub of water which was standing outside the ballroom, and thus saved his life; but the other four all died, two at once and two within two days afterward. Charles himself was safe; but this dreadful sight seems to have cured him for the time of his great love for shows and feasts, and he was beginning to attend seriously to im- portant matters of government when his madness came back and put a stop to all his efforts. For many years the chief thing that happened in France was the great dispute as to who should have the power which the poor king could not hold. The chief persons in the kingdom, next to the king, were his uncles and his brother. One of his uncles had died, and of the other three there was one more ambitious — that is, fond of power — more brave, and more clever than the others, named the Duke of Burgundy. He was called Philip le Hardi, or the Bold, and was the man who, when he was a boy, had ridden by his father, King John, all through the battle of Poitiers, and been taken prisoner with him to England afterwards. This was one of the persons who wished for power in the state ; the other was the king's only brother, the Duke of Orleans. This young man is said to have had all the faults of the king, but was, unlike him, clever and fond of power. He and the Duke of Burgundy struggled for power for many years, and sometimes one, sometimes the other, got the better in the dispute. Scarcely anything else happened in France during this time ; and, as the princes never could make up their minds to a regular battle, the people of the country went on planting their fields and carrying on their usual business without being much disturbed ; so that the country was not in so bad a state as might have been feared 136 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. during the first years of tlio king's madness. The people improved in many ways ; new in\'entions wore made, men wrote poetry and other works, and tliought about many im- portant matters of which they had never before taken any notice. They loved the poor mad king, who, whenever lie had any sense, sliowed a great wish to make good laws and do something useful for his people, and they called lum Charles le Bien-Aime, or the Well-beloved. The Duke of Burgundy usually had on his side the northern parts of France, and the Duke of Orleans the southern parts. Sometimes one and sometimes^ the other made friends with the Knglish, and tried to got help from them. When the Duke of Burgundy died, his son, who be- came duke after him, carried on the quarrel, and at last, by his orders, the Duke of Orleans was murdered in the street. It shows into what disorder the country had by this time fallen, that no one tried to punish the Duke of Burgundy for this wicked deed, except the wife of the nuirdered man, the Duchess of Orleans, and her three sons, who were still boys. They soon found that no help could be hoped for from the nobles, aiul that they must wait till they were of an age to avenge their father. The king tried to persuade the young princes of Orleans to make peace with their father's murderer. xV meeting was held two years after the death of the duke, at which the Duke of Burgundy confessed that it was he who had ordered the murder, and, though he showed no signs of re- penting of what he had done, asked both the king and the children of the Duke of Orleans to forgive him. The young princes wept, and for some time would not answer him ; but they were at last persuaded to say that, as the king ordered tliem to do so, they forgave him for their fa- ther's death. But their feelings were not at all changed by •what they had thus promised. Some years after this, the Duke of Burgundy was himself murdered by his enemies of the party of Orleans, who had gained over to their side the dauphin, the eldest son of the king. The Duke of Burgundy was invited to come to a meeting with the dau- phin to talk over the aifairs of the country. The meeting was to be at the middle of a bridge, where a little liouso CHARLES VI. 137 ■was built for them with a door on each side, through which the prince and duke were to go in with a few servants each, and then fasten the doors behind them, so that no strangers should hear what tliey might say to one another. As soon as t}jey were in this house a dispute began ; one of the dau- phin's friends cried out, " It is time !" and struck the Duke of Burgundy with an axe, killing him afterwards with a sword. All his friends except one were also killed. Toward the end of the reign of Charles VL, a new war broke out with lingland. Richard II. of England had been driven from the throne by his cousin, Henry IV., and had died in prison, it was supposed by poison. Some of the French princes had taken the side of Henry, others had wished to go to war to save Richard while he was alive, and to revenge him when he was dead. But the war did not be- gin till after the death of Henry IV., in the reign of his son, Henry V. This prince was brave and warlike, and easily found an excuse for beginning a war with France. He went into that country with a large army, and, finding no one to resist him, for the French had no ships, no money, and no one to lead their soldiers, he besieged and took the I'drmi town of Honfieur, the first which came in his wav. The English afterwards marched farther through the coun- try, till they met a large French army, which had at last been gathered together, and which came to stop Henry's way. The armies met each other near a village named Agincourt, and passed a night face to face. The English having rolled up their flags and carefully stored away their armor, that it might not be hurt by the damp, sent to fetch straw from the villages near at hand, and lay down on it to pass the night comfortably. They liad also made ready their bows, and prepared the sharp stones that they usually put in front of their army to stop the horses of the enemy ; they confessed their sins to the priests who were with them in the army, and slept with good consciences. Above all, they were perfectly quiet, as the king had ordered. The French spent their time chiefly in being knighted ; they had large fires, by whose light the English coidd see all that happened in their camp, and they were calling to each other and running backward and for- 138 FEENCH HISTOEY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. ward all niglit. Some of the knights sat on horseback all night through fear of spoiling their armor in the mud, and in the morning were almost dead with cold and fatigue. The French army was placed in a small narrow plain with a wood on each side, where its great size was of but little use ; between it and the English army was ploughed land, soft from the rain. The English began the attack by rushing against the enemy, making loud cries. The French could not move for some time, so deeply had they, on their heavy horses, sunk into the soft earth. At last they came forward, but their horses could not make their way through the mud. Many fell with their riders underneath them. Others, which came near enough to be hit by the English arrows, were frightened, turned round, and galloped back upon the rest of the French army, throwing them into great confusion. The battle went on as it had begun, the heavy-armed Frenchmen, shut up in a narrow space, and moving over ground into which their horses sank at every step, had no chance against the light, active English foot-soldiers, who rushed upon them with whatever weapons they had; often only hatchets and axes, for the English army was not well armed, but made up of men who had come together hastily. They killed many of the French soldiers who were lying on the ground, quite unable to do anything to save themselves. At one time Henry V. was told that a body of Frenchmen were attacking his camp from behind. He gave orders to his soldiers to kill the prisoners, thinking that if his men were to defend themselves against another attack the pris- oners would be in their way, and hinder them from fighting their best. Thousands of prisoners were then put to death, who had given themselves up on the promise that their lives should be spared. More Frenchmen were killed at this battle than even at Cressy or Poitiers. It is known as the battle of Agincourt, and caused great joy in England. It is mentioned in Lord Macaulay's poem on the "]3efeaL of the Spanish Armada," where, speaking of the lion on the English flag., he says — " So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned to bay ; And crushed and torn beneath his claws the princely hunters lay," CHARLES VI. 139 Still, though " crashed and torn," the Frencli could not give up their quarrels among themselves, and soon afterward Henry V. took the town of Rouen, after a siege of seven months, without any one trying to prevent him. The people of Rouen had suffered terribly before they would agree to yield and give up their town. They soon came to an end' of their proper food, and then ate horses, dogs, cats, and at last everything that could be swallowed. King Henry's soldiers rode through the country outside the walls, carrying off all the food they could find, for fear it should, in any way, be sent into Rouen. Some of these soldiers were wild Irishmen, of whom the French were spe- cially afraid, because of their strange looks and their wild- ness. They went about half naked, having very few clothes, and as they had no horses they usually rode on the cows of the villagers. One of their plans was to carry off babies in their cradles, which they rested upon the necks of the cows. They made the parents pay them large sums, either in money or food, before they brought back the children ; and even then there must have been some danger of the babies being taken to the wrong mothers. The poor people in Rouen were at last obliged to send out of the city all the old men, the women, and the children, keeping in the town only the fighting men. The English would not allow these poor creatures to pass their lines; they had to live in the trench outside the walls of Rouen. They had nothing to eat but ^vhat they could find there, chiefly grass. Yet some of them passed the winter in this way. Some of the women had little babies born there. When this happened, the people inside the town let down a basket, in which they drew the baby up into the town and had it christened ; they then let it down to its mother again. At last the town was obliged to yield ; Henry became mas- ter of Rouen, and soon after of all Normandy. The French people, who had seen wars first among their own princes, and then against the English all through the reign of Charles VI., wished for peace at almost any price ; and at last an agreement was made by which it was settled that Henry should marry a daughter of Charles YL, and that when Charles died, Henry should succeed him as king, 140 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. both of England and France, after which the two countries should always be governed by the same king, though each should keep its own laws and customs, and neither should be subject to the other. The son of Charles VI. would not agree to this treaty, and still kept up the war with a small array in the north of France ; but his mother and the nobles kept their word to Henry, and he married the French prin- cess, and ruled in Paris, as regent for Charles VI. Two years afterward he died in France, leaving a little son ten months old, to be king both of France and of England. A few weeks afterward died Charles VI., whose reign had brought such misfortunes upon himself and his country. Chapter XXX. CHARLES VIL (1422-1461). When Charles VI. died he left a son named, like himself, Charles. Henry V., who died at just the same time, had left a son called Henry. By the agreement which had been made a few years before by the English and French, it had been settled that when Charles died the son of Henry of England should be king. But the dauphin, the son of Charles, had never agreed to this, and had always gone on making war upon the English. He now began to call him- self Charles VIL, and the people of the south part of France gathered round him and said they would have him for their king rather than the son of an Englishman, though Henry V.'s little baby was half French, for his mother had been a French princess. The part of France that had been con- quered by the English, in which Henry VI. was to be king, was governed for him by his uncle, the Duke of Bedford, a wise and brave soldier, who ruled well, and brought the country into better order than had been known there for many years. But the state of France, on the whole, was miserable at this time. In some parts of the country everything was de- stroyed; woods were growing where there had been villages; CHARLES YII. 141 the roads had been all broken np, or become so rough from want of attention that no one could travel on them ; wolves came into the towns to find some child or weak person of whom to make a meal. Still the war went on, though the English would have done better at this time to make peace with the French, taking some part of the country for their own, and then leaving the rest and going back to England ; for now that Henry was dead they had very little chance of conquering the whole of France, and affairs in England were going very badly, so that the Duke of Bedford had to go backward and forward between England and France, and could not attend fully to the affairs of either. The fighting went on for about five years ; sometimes one side had the better, sometimes the other. The two chief battles fought were won by the English ; but though many men were killed in them, they were not of great impor- tance. At last the English resolved to besiege the most important town in France next to Paris — Orleans, on the river Loire, almost in a straight line to the south of Paris. The English had gathered together ten thousand men, and had begun by taking all the small places near Orleans, so that they might send no help to the town. Then the Eng- lish army drew close round the town, built forts, and pre- vented any food from going in. The people of Orleans did all they could to defend themselves, and for some time they managed to prevent the English from doing their city much harm ; but they soon began to feel the want of food, and they sent to ask for help from the chief men of France. But no help came to them, either from the great lords, who were all busy about business of their own, or from the king, Charles VII., who was a weak, idle man, and did not seem to care, so long as he himself was safe and comfortable, whether or not the second city of his country fell into the hands of his enemy. Help did come to Orleans at last, but in a way in which no one could have expected it. In a little village in Lor- raine, on the east side of France, there lived a peasant girl named Jeanne d'Arc. She was brought up like other chil- dren by her parents, taking the cows out to the meadows when she was quite young, and when she grew older, sitting 142 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. at home and sewing with her mother, while her brothers and sisters worked in the fields. She could neither read nor write, but her mother taught her all that she herself knew. Jeanne was fond of being alone, and used often to go to an old beech-tree near the village, where it was sup- posed that fairies danced by night. Here Jeanne would sit by herself when she wanted to think quietly. As she grew older, she began to hear a great deal of the war be- tween England and France, which brought so much distress and trouble to the people of France. She knew how many hundreds of Frenchmen had lost their houses, their lands, their friends, all that they cared about, already, and how the war was not yet nearly over, but seemed likely to go on, no one could tell how much longer. The king, Charles, had some good generals who would have fought bravely for him, but he would not listen to them, and spent all his time in amusing himself. Jeanne thought of all this till she longed to do something to help her countrymen. She began to fancy that she saw visions ; that is, she thought she saw people and heard voices which no one else could see or hear. It seemed at times, always when she was alone, that three angels appeared to her in a bright light, saying, " Jeanne, go to the help of the King of France, and you will win back his kingdom for hiin." The voices also told her to go to the captain of the town near, and ask him to send her to the king. We often read in history of people who have thought, as Jeanne did, that special messages are sent to them from God by signs or voices which no one else can hear or understand. Sometimes such people are out of their minds, sometimes they are ill, but sometimes, like Jeanne d'Arc, they are not only in their right senses, but are particularly wise and sen- sible people, whose advice is of great value to everybody. They seem to see strange, unusual sights because their minds are full of strange, unusual thoughts; they think only of the one thing that interests them till they become too much excited to see and hear the common things going on round them, and then imagine they see something which is not seen by any one else, and so cannot be said to be really there. CHARLES VII. 143 Jeanne talked about her visions to lier relations, and told her parents that she wished to go to court to give the king a messao-e from heaven, and to help him fight his enemies. They refused for some time to let her go, but she at last found an uncle who took her to the captain of the town near at hand, and asked him to send her to the king. The captain would not hear of it for some time; but at last some of the chief people of the place saw her, and having talked with her, promised to go with her to the court. CHATEAU DE CHINON, PLACE OP MEETING BETWEEN CHARLES VII. AND THE MAID OF ORLEANS. Charles heard of her, and sent to say he would receive her; the people of the town bought her a horse; the captain gave her a sword ; and so she set off with a few soldiers to guard her. When she was presented at the court the king had hidden himself among his courtiers, and put one of them, richly dressed, on the throne, to see whether Jeanne would know which was the real king. She went straight up to Charles, and though at first he said, to try her, that he was not the king, she declared that he was, and went on to 144 FKENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. tell him that she was sent by God to save his country from the English. At last he was persuaded to listen to her, and even to believe what she said. The first thing she wished to do was to go to the help of Orleans. The king put her at the head of a body of sol- diers, and sent them on their way. They marched toward Orleans, all the people as they passed through the country coming out to look at Jeanne in her shining armor on her fine horse. From this time she always dressed herself like a man, which was more convenient for the soldier's life she had to lead. Jeanne at this time was only seventeen, but she had so much good sense and power of understanding that the cap- tains were glad to have her help and advice, and were all her friends by the time they came to Orleans, where they made their way into the town, and were welcomed with delight by the people. They all looked upon Jeanne as a saint ; and the English, who had heard so much of her, were frightened, and thought she would be able to bewitch them, or do them harm in some strange way. The first time that they met her in battle they did not dare to resist, but gave way before her. She was afraid of no one ; her friends w^ere always made braver themselves by seeing her courage in battle, for she went straight on as if nothing could hurt her ; and both her friends and ene- mies believed more and more that she was a special messen- ger sent from God to the help of France. Orleans was saved by her help. The siege had already lasted for some time, and the English were tired with the efforts they had made. They saw that the people of Or- leans were less likely to yield now than before. The Eng- lish general was killed one day by a shot from the walls of the town ; and at last, a week after Jeanne had come into the city, the English army left all the forts and towers that they had built round Orleans and marched away, leaving the town free. Jeanne had one more great wish. The king had never yet been solemnly crowned. It was the custom for the kings of France to be crowned at a place called Rheims, and Jeanne wished to take Charles to Rheims and have him JOAN OF ARC IN BATTLE. CHARLES VII. 145 crowned king. Charles had been amusing himself while Jeanne was at Orleans, and made no objection to anything that was proposed. Most of his advisers thought that, as the English were masters of the country all round Rheims, it would be too dangerous to try to make their way there ; but the common people, who thought the crowning of the king, which was done with a sort of religious service and very solemnly, a matter of great importance, agreed with Jeanne, and the great lords were persuaded to yield. They all went together to Rheims, meeting the English on the way, and defeating them in a great battle. In Rheims it- self there were no enemies ; the French had only to march in and they were masters. Charles was crowned king with Jeanne standing by his side, with the standard or flag in her hand. Many people, seeing that Charles had been crowned in this way, while Henry had not, went over from the side of Henry to that of Charles. When this was over, Jeanne wished to go back to her old home and live again with her parents. She had now been away for nearly three months, and she had done the two great things which she had wished to do for her coun- try — saving Orleans and having the king crowned. But the captains of Charles begged her to stay with the army. They found that the English feared her, and their own sol- diers admired her so much that they thought while she was with them they were certain to succeed. Jeanne agreed to stay, but from this time she was often sad and disturbed, and was sometimes heard to say, " I shall not live for more than a year." The English had begun to draw back from many of the parts of France which they had conquered, and the people whose country had not been conquered were encouraged to rise up against them. The English still held Paris, and Jeanne led an army to try to make its way into that city. Here she failed for the first time, and she and her men were driven back from the walls. The favorites of the king were growing jealous of Jeanne : they found that Charles lis- tened more to her than he did to them. They began try- ing to prevent her from winning any more glory by her 146 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. victories, and sometimes even refused to send soldiers out with her, or to listen to her advice on questions about the war. At last she one day went with a party of French sol- diers outside a town in which many of the French soldiers were gathered together, and where she had been staying. The English, with some of the French who still took their part, were outside the walls, and Jeanne and her men were surrounded by the enemy. Most of them made their way back into the city, but no one stayed to help Jeanne, who had gone on farther than the rest. She turned at last, but when she came to the town she could not get through the gates. Some writers say that they were shut ; others, that the people pressing in filled them up, so that she could not make her way through ; but, whatever the reason, she was kept out, and after trying to escape without being no- ticed was taken prisoner by her enemies. It was not to an Englishman, but to a subject of the Duke of Burgundy, a friend of the English, that she gave herself up ; and she was at first kept in a castle belonging to him, but she was afterward sold to the English for a large sum of money. It shows such ingratitude as one could hardly have thought possible in the King of France and his chief lords that no one did anything to save Jeanne d'Arc. The English, as soon as she was in their power, brought her up for trial as if she had been a criminal — that is, a person who has done some wrong action — -instead of a brave woman who had fought for her country. A French bishop was her chief judge, and all her judges were Frenchmen. She had no one to defend her ; questions of every kind were asked her about herself, about her life, her religion, her visions. The English wished to make her confess that she was a witch ; she was thrown into prison, and treated with great cruelty. It was thought very wicked of her to wear men's clothes instead of women's ; and her having one day put some on, because the women's clothes had been taken out of her prison, was one of the excuses for the horrible sen- tence which her judges passed on her. She was sentenced to be burned alive, and the execution took place at Rouen. Crowds of people, both friends and CHARLES VII. 147 enemies, came to see her die, but no one interfered to help her. She died before she was twenty-one, and is perhaps the most wonderful woman of whom we read in all history. It is hard to say how much she might not have done for France if the king had made up his mind to trust her rather than his vain and jealous courtiers. As it was, the English never settled themselves firmly in the country again, and were driven out of it altogether before the end of Charles VII.'s reign, as we shall hear. The English had hoped that when Jeanne was dead they would no longer find the French able to resist them ; but the French soon afterward made themselves stronger than they had ever been before, by making up the quarrels they had among themselves^ and all joining together against the English. The people of France wished for peace, and mes- sengers from France and England met several times to try to arrange it, but always in vain. As usual in time of war, the boldest and most lawless men formed themselves into bands, and went through the country, taking for themselves whatever they could find, and ruining all the poor people who were not already ruined by the war. It seemed as if every one had ceased to care not only for law, but for the common rules of right and wrong. Fathers and sons, hus- bands and wives, brothers and sisters, quarrelled, and put one another to death by poison, or in more open ways, and this happened in most of the great families of that time in France. There was one nobleman, living in Brittany, named Gilles de Eetz, of whom a horrible story is told. It had been no- ticed for some time that a great number of children who lived in the neighborhood had disappeared, no one knew where. They were usually poor children who had been sent out to keep cattle or to beg, and it was supposed that they were tempted away by an old woman to some place from which they never came back. After a time, the chil- dren in a town near at hand began to disappear in the same way. The people complained to the Duke of Brittany, and he gave orders that a castle belonging to one of the great lords, into which the children were supposed to be taken, should be searched. This was done, and there was found 148 FREXCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. in it a pile of bones so large that it was supposed that forty children must have been put to death. The nobleman to whom the castle belonged had killed the children out of wickedness, and amused himself by watching their strug- gles as they died. This was too much to be borne, even in those days, and the nobleman was put to death.. He was to have been burned, but because he was a noble the king ao-reed that he should be strano-led before the flames touched him. At about this time there came a change in the character of the king. Till now he had been so weak that he had allowed himself to be ruled by the people about him, with- out takino- any notice of what was goins; on. He had cared only for amusing himself, and not being troubled about the aflEairs of the kingdom ; but now at last he began to see the miserable state into which the country had fallen, and the importance of doing something to help his people. He called together the States-General, and made several wise laws. One of the first things to be done was to get rid of the disorderly soldiers — who obeyed no one, but spent their time in robbing peaceful people — by sending them out of the country. He first tried sending them to fight in wars that were going on in different countries of Europe. In these wars many of them were killed, and France was free from them for a time ; but Charles wished to make some plan by which they should be prevented from coming back again to trouble the country each time that there was a fresh war. He deter- mined to have what France and most other countries now have, a standing army — that is, an army which should al- ways be kept together and ready to fight — so that when a war beo-an there should be no need to call out a number of men with no one in particular to command them, and no one to answer for their behavior. All the soldiers in the country were to be always under fixed officers, who should lead them to battle when they were wanted, and should be punished if their men disturbed the people of the country, or did harm to any peaceable person. The king chose from all his men fifteen of the best and bravest, and called them his captains. Each captain had a CHARLES VII. 149 certain number of men under him, called a company, and was sent with them to a particular town or part of the country, which he was to defend and keep in order. All the men who were not chosen by the king or the captains to make part of the companies were commanded to go back to their homes and live quietly, which they did, because they were afraid to refuse, and so at last the country was freed from them. The war between England and France had gone on all this time without anything important being done on either side. Both parties had got tired of fighting at last, and there had been a truce for two years, but no peace. The French had, however, won back Paris, and suddenly they seemed to wake up as if out of a long sleep, and drove the English almost entirely out of the country. They took the whole province of Normandy in less than a year, and Gui- enne, which is all the southern part of France, in another year. The English had only about three towns in France still belonoino; to them : one was Calais, which was theirs for another hundred years ; the others were small places of no importance. The English were now taken up with troubles in their own kingdom. The Wars of the Roses had begun, and from this time they had no thought or time to spare for what went on in France. The war between England and France had lasted for nearly one hundred years, for which reason it is often called The Hundred Years' War. The French had suffered far more than the English, as all the fighting had been done in their country ; they had also had the misfortune of being badly governed all the time the war was going on. It is a gloomy part of history, and the part of it that is most pleasant to remember is the story of Jeanne d'Arc, which shows us what the courage and good-sense and virtue of one brave, wise, good person may do, even when things seem at their very worst, and though the person may be what we should think one of the humblest and least impor- tant of the people. Charles VII. had some trouble with his eldest son, who joined the great lords in an attack they made upon his father, and was only kept quiet by having a province of th« 11 150 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. kingdom given him to rule over. He left even that at last, being afraid that his father meant to do him some harm, and went to the court of the Diike of Burgundy, his father's cousin, who treated him very kindly, kept him there for some years, and tried to make peace between him and the king. But Louis, the young prince, would not trust his father, and Charles, though wishing Louis himself to come back, said he must not bring with him any of his friends, several of whom had followed him to the court of the Duke of Burgundy. At last King Charles fell ill ; he became very anxious to see his son again, but Louis still refused to trust himself at the French court. Then some of his enemies persuaded the king that the dauphin's friends wished to poison him. Charles believed this, and refused to take any food, even though his younger son tasted it before him. After a few days he became very ill, and at the end of a week he died, at the age of fifty-eight. He had been king for thirty-nine years. Charles VIL has been called the Well-served, and it is a good name, for very few of the good things that hap- pened to France in his time were brought about by him ; but he had had many good soldiers and advisers, of whom you will read in other histories when you are older, as I have not space here to mention any of them but Jeanne d'Arc. Chapter XXXL LOUIS XI. (1461-U83). "When Charles VH. died, his son Louis left the court of the Duke of Burgundy, went at once into France to be crowned king, and was gladly welcomed by the people. He held a grand funeral service for his father, and in the after- noon of the same day went out hunting, for he really felt nothing but joy that his father was dead. This king is known as Louis XL, .and he was one of the strangest kings of whom we have ever heard. LOUIS XI. 151 He seems to bave had scarcely any idea of the meaning of the words right and wrong. If he made a promise, he did not mean to keep it ; if he wished for a thing, he never tried to get it openly, but always in some sly way ; think- ing of a trick to persuade people to do what he wished. He never believed what any one else said to him, and some- times in this way he deceived himself, and when an honest man told him the truth, fancied that he was only trying to deceive, and so did not attend to him. He usually chose for his friends clever but bad men, thinking that they would be more dangerous to have for enemies than good ones. But all these bad things about the king were not found out at first. In those days they were thought less bad than they are now, because most of the princes and great men of the time behaved in much the same way, breaking their promises, and distrusting their servants, though no one did it so much as Louis XL Therefore his subjects did not no- tice the first signs of slyness and faithlessness, but they were much displeased at some of the first acts of his reign, es- pecially at his making them pay a new set of taxes. He made the nobles angry by sending away from his court many of them who had been employed by his father as governors of provinces, or as ministers or advisers. Louis had advisers of his own, but he made little use of their ad- vice. He knew a great deal about the affairs of the country, and could make up his own mind as to what to do in every case which happened. He listened to what his advisers said, but always made them agree with him in the end; and he was very clever in seeing what would be best for himself and his kingdom. It was said that no one else could ever get out of a difficulty so well as he. One of the people with whom he quarrelled was the son of the Duke of Burgundy, at whose court he had lived when he fled from his father, Charles YII. This young man, who became Duke of Burgundy when his father died, was bold, active, warlike, and fond of power. His great wish was to be more than a duke, to make himself a king, and to rule over his own country without doing homage to any one, or being subject to any other sovereign. He had for his 152 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. duchy most of the country which is now Belgium, and a good deal of what is Holland, besides some provinces farther south, which now belong some to France and some to Ger- many ; for some of these lands he was vassal to the French king, and for some to the Emperor of Germany. One idea that the Duke of Burgundy had was that he might some day be emperor himself, for the German emperor was not, like the French kings, always the son of the last emperor, but he was chosen by the princes of Germany each time a vacancy occurred, so that any one who could please the electors or choosers had a chance of becoming emperor. Charles of Burgundy hoped for this, but never succeeded. He was always glad to go to war with Louis, thinking that he might find some chance of making his duchy larger by taking in war some of the lands belonging to the French king. He joined with some of the other great lords who were displeased with the king, and they all at once march- ed toward Paris, one army from the north, one from the south, one from the east, one from the west. Louis had very few friends or servants whom he could trust ; two or three of the great lords still said they were on his side, but he did not feel sure that they might not leave him as soon as fighting began. However, he was obliged to put them over his soldiers, for he had no one else to help him. He himself, with a body of men, marched against one of the princes who was coming against him, and he sent off armies under other leaders against the other three. He fought the battle of Montleheri, in which neither side was successful, and then Charles of Burgundy and his friends, one of whom was the brother of King Louis, all met together, joined their armies, and besieged Paris. The princes were really fighting against Louis in order to get what they wanted for themselves ; some wanted to be ministers in the government, some to have provinces given them to rule over; but they all pretended that they were fighting, not for themselves or their own good, but for the good of the people of France, that Louis was ill-treating his subjects, and that they were going to war with him to make him promise to govern better. They called the war " The War of the Public Good." LOUIS XL 153 After Louis had been shut up in Paris for some time, he •went out alone in a boat to the tent of Charles of Burgundy, and called to him to ask if he might land safely. Charles promised that no harm should come to him, and he and the Mng took a walk together on the banks of the Seine, ajid arranged a peace by which it was settled that the king's brother should have the duchy of Normandy given him for his own, and that the other dukes and great lords should have other lands or places given to them ; but very little ■was done for the people for whose sake the princes had pretended that they went to war. The king chose thirty- six men who were to inquire into all the troubles and dis- orders in the kingdom of which the nobles had at first com- plained, and to try to find out the best way of putting an end to them. But as he was to choose these men himself, it was not very likely that they would find fault with any- thing without his leave, and so the people would not be much the better for what they did. On the whole, however, Louis XL treated his poorer sub- jects well ; he hated the princes more than ever, after hav- ing been obliged to give up so much of his country to them, and he made friends with the people of the town rather than with them, so as to have some one on his side. It was a great thing for all the people of France that the long wars with the English had come to an end. The States-General were again held in France in the reign of Louis XL The people were always glad to see the States meet, and hoped that it would bring them some good, either good laws, or the setting right of something wrong, or some wise plan made by the king and his counsellors as to what should be done for the country. But often nothing of this kind happened ; the king only promised good things, and no one was the better for his promises. This was how it was under Louis XL Louis had a great dislike to war, which was one of the many ways in which he was specially unlike his cousin, Charles of Burgundy. He was very clever at persuadino- people, and making them think it would be for their own good to do what he wished ; and so, when he had a quarrel with any one, he always wished to go and see him and have 154 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. a talk witli him, and try if he could not, usually in some rather sly way, make his enemy agree to what he wished. In this way he once told Charles, who had now become Duke of Burgundy, that he should soon come to pay him a visit. Charles did not much wish to see Louis, but promised that if it were his pleasure to come to the town of Peronne, where Charles then was, and hold a meeting there, he might come and go back again safely. Louis went to Peronne, and was lodged in a strong tower, with his Scotch archers to protect him. He always had a band of these Scotchmen about him, because they were especially brave men, and, be- ing foreigners, were not likely to join in any plots that his enemies might make against him, but always stayed faithful to the king. Even with his archers, however, Louis did not like the looks of Peronne, a strong place, filled with soldiers of the Duke of Burgundy, in the castle of which another French king, Charles the Simple, had been put to death about five hundred years before. While Louis was thus in the power of Charles, there came news that some of Charles's subjects had risen up against him and killed some of his oflicers, and there was reason to think that they had been persuaded to do this by letters from Louis. Charles was furious. He was a violent, pas- sionate man, and his first idea was to kill the King of France. Louis was kept a close prisoner in his room, with- out an idea of what might happen to him at last. He was completely in the power of Charles, who might have cut off his head if he had chosen, without any of the king's friends being able to come to his help. This was what Charles had meant to do, but he was persuaded at last by his chief coun- sellor, who was the friend of Louis, not to do so base a thing as to harm in any way a guest who had come to visit him, trusting to his honor, and to whom he had specially promised that no harm should happen. He was at last persuaded to see Louis, and to sign an agreement with him, by which Louis promised to give up trvino; to win for himself some of the lands which belono-ed to the duke ; and also agreed to march with Charles against the rebel subjects whom he had himself persuaded to rise up against the duke. This he did with a body of his own LOUIS XI. 155 soldiers, helping the Burgiindians to destroy a city of the name of Liege, in which the people, who fought to the cry of " France," were sadly disappointed to find that the French king, instead of coming to their help, as he had promised to do, was marching against them with their enemies. After this Louis made peace with his brother, who had again begun to make disturbances in the kingdom, and everything seemed quiet. Louis was much disappointed and provoked at the way in which he had failed to do as he wished with the Duke of Burgundy ; he was afraid that his subjects would laugh at him, and he forbade that any songs, pictures, or ballads should be made about his journey to Peronne. He even ordered that all magpies, owls, and speaking birds should be brought before him and made to talk, so that he might find out whether any of his subjects had taught their birds to cry " Peronne " in mockery of him. This king, who was always suspecting harm in his ser- vants, was often betrayed by them. He had one great friend, a cardinal, whom he had raised from being a com- mon priest, for no special reason but that he took a fancy to him, and who is said to have had every fault in the world except hypocrisy. This man was faithful to Louis for some years, and then began to write secret letters to the Duke of Burgundy, trying to make friends with him. Louis found this out, put the cardinal into prison, and kept him for ten years in an iron cage, which the cardinal himself had in- vented to keep safely prisoners who were likely to escape. Louis saw enemies all round him, but he did not give up hope. His great wish was to make all the people who were against him quarrel with one another, and in this he often succeeded. This king had a great respect for the saints; he used often to pray to the Virgin Mary and other saints, asking them for help in whatever he was going to do, or forgiveness for his sins, and promising to make them pres- ents of offerings in their churches, such as pictures, tapers, or something of the kind, if they did what he wished. He ordered that at noon every day a large bell should ring in all the towns of France, and that all the people, when they heard it, should kneel down and pray for peace for the country of France. 156 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. At about this time the brother of Louis died, which re- lieved the king from a great deal of trouble, for his brother had always been among his enemies, and a year or two af- terwards, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, went into Germany to fight against some enemies he had there. He stayed there for the rest of his life, which did not last much long- er ; he only once came back to France to make war upon Louis, and then did not bring enough soldiers to do him any harm. He was one day attacking a place called Nancy ; his soldiers were driven back and many of them killed. The duke was not seen by any of his men. The next day they found him, after some search, dead in a frozen ditch, covered with wounds. He left only one child, his daughter Mary, who now be- came Duchess of Burgundy. All the young princes in Europe wished to marry her, so as to become master of her duchy. Louis was very anxious that she should marry his little son, who was only seven years old, or, if she thought him too young, some great French lord; but Louis treated Mary so badly in other ways that she would not listen to his wishes, but married a German prince instead. Louis now began to fall into bad health. He had a war with Mary of Burgundy and her husband, but it was his last; he made peace with them and with every one else. He added several important provinces to France by the different treaties of peace he made with his enemies. He then shut himself up in an old castle he had, put guards all round it, and saw no one but his servants. All round his castle was a moat, and the walls were defended with iron turrets or towers. No strano;er could 2:0 in without the king's leave. Louis lived in this strange way because he could trust no one; he had three children, but he did not care to have them with him. His chief companion was his doctor, who, afraid that the king might some day put him to death, as had happened to so many others of Louis's fa- vorites, had persuaded him that their lives would last just the same time, and that if any harm happened to the doc- tor the king would die directly afterwards. Louis there- fore took the greatest care of him, and did all that he could to make his life comfortable. Louis had two other great CHARLES VIII. 157 friends — a barber, who was one of his chief advisers, and a provost, as he was then called, which in this case really meant an executioner. This man, as may be supposed, was hated by the people. The king would make him a sign that a particular person was to be killed, and as soon as a good opportunity came the provost would seize him, carry him off prisoner, and hang or drown him without any kind of trial, or telling any one of what he was accused. There is a story that the king once pointed in this way to a cap- tain who came into the room. A monk was standing near him, and the provost, mistaking the king's sign, seized upon the monk as he was leaving the room, put him into a sack, and threw him into the river. When Louis heard of the mistake he showed no sorrow for what had happened, but merely said, " Why, that was the best monk in my king- dom." After all this, there is no need to say that Louis was a bad man. But it must be remembered that he lived in a bad time, when people thought very differently from what we do now of the way in which every one, and kings in particular, ought to behave. Some of his subjects were sorry when he died. These were the people of the towns, to whom he usually showed kindness, and the men who wrote books or poetry, for which he cared very much. He died in his strong castle, at the age of sixty-one, having been king for twenty-two years. Edward IV. of England died the same year. Louis had always been the friend of the Red Rose, or party of Henry YI. Charles of Burgundy was the friend of Edward IV. Chapter XXXIL CHARLES VIII. (1483-1498). The only son of Louis XL was fourteen years old at the time of his father's death. He became king under the name of Charles VIII. His father had left him to the care of his sister, the eldest daughter of Louis XL This princess 158 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. was twenty-two years old ; her name was Anne, and she was married to one of tlie oTeat lords of the country. She is often spoken of as ISIadanie Anne, and was a very im- portant person in France till C'harles o-rew np ; for he was afraid of her, and could be persuaded by lier and her hus- band to do anytliiuo' they liked. In the first year of the young king's reign the States-General met together. Tlio nobles and the common people were both delighted that Louis was dead, ami hoped now for nu>re freedom than they had had before, the nobles especially thinking that now they would be able to have their own way while there was no king whom they need fear. The tirst question considered by the States was, who should be regent till the king was old enough to govern. The princes of the royal family said they had a right to choose a regent among themselves, and that if the king was too young to reign, the person who would naturally have been king after him, if he had no son, should be regent. But the deputies of the people said that the government was trusted to the king by the people for their good, and that, if he could not for any reason carry it on himself, it was for the people to trust it to some one else. However, after much disputing, it was settled that the king w^as old enough to manage the affairs of the country with the help of a council, which he might choose for himself from among the deputies. What really happened was that Madame Anno governed the country for eight years; for she told her brother what to do, and he never refused what she wished. She ruled wisely on the whole ; she kept the kingdom quiet, defended it against all, enemies, and was able to les- sen the taxes, so as to prevent the poor people from being ruined by what they had to pay. AVhen Charles w'as twen- ty-two, and took the government upon himself, she gave up all the power to him, and went to live quietly in her own home with her husband and children, like any private per- son. Iler father Louis, when he was alive, used to say of her that " she was the least foolish woman in the world, for there is no such thing as a wise woman." Her brother Charles, unfortunately, was a foolish boy, and grew up a foolish man. CHARLEH Vni. I59 The StatoH-^/orjoral, after they had settled the ^juention ahout the rej^ent, made eorriplaintB to the kinj:;; of many thinjrs tliat were going wrong in the kingdom. 'J'he uobleB wanted to have time ahowed them to pay their debts, and to have partieular laws made about hunting; the eh;rgy ■wanted diff(;rent arrangements made as to who should choose tlie bishops. The eommon pt^ople said that they were in a state of great distress, and explained to the king some of the reasons, of wljich thnt Anne was too strong for them ; she marched with an army, first into the soutli of France, then into the west ; at hist lier soUliers fono'ht a g-reat battk> against her enemies the princes, and won it. Tlie DulvC of Orleans, and some of the great k>rds, were taken prisoners. The Duke of Brittany had been one of Anne's great enemies : he died, leaving only a daughter to be duchess after him. Most of the young princes and lords in all the countries round wished to marry the Duchess of Brittany, nnd be master of her lands, but ^[adame Anne managed to persuade lier to marry King Charles; and though they had no children, it happened three times in succession that the King of France married the lady to wliom l>rittany at the time belonged ; so that at last Brittany came to be com- pletely part of France, and had no more dukes of its own, as had happened to Normandy and Toulouse and Burgundy, and the otiier great provinces which are now joined together to make up wiiat we know as France. When Charles mar- ried he was about twenty-one years old, atid he now said that he was old enough to govern for himself, so his sister and her husband left him to manage his government as best he could. At this time happened a war which ^Yas an important one for all Europe. All the wars of France had till now been either wars between the king and his great barons, or wars with England ; the French had not fought with any other nation on the CVtntinent. Each country there had been too much taken up with its own affairs to mind those of others. But now, for the first time, one great nation on the Continent began a war with another, and the conse- quences lasted for Imndreds of years. One of the great lords in Italy wrote to Charles YTIL, and invited him to et>me and make himself master of several of the Italian cities, which, it was said, wished to have some new ruler over them, and would receive Charles gladly. There was no one King of Italy, but there were a great number of princes, dukes, marquises, and counts, all ruling over a CHARLES Yin, ](U Ifiri/or or Rmall<;r' ]>'dvi of iJic country. Sorrio ha/i oriJy a few towrjK belonging to them, hohjo a great many, some a province, some several [>rovinceH. They often quarrelled among themselvcH, and any one of them who made himself stronger than tlie otfjers was apt to wish to make himself master and king of the whole country. Home of the princes wished that there should be one king of the whole country, and others wished that there should not be one, not liking the idea of ttjere being any one more important than themselves. Many of tliem were inclined to make fri('A\(h with France. Charles had invitations from two or three Italian towns to come and rule over tfjcm. Against the advice of his sister Anne, and some of his best coun- sellors, lie gatliered together a large army, and set off for Italy. A great many of the cities received him gladly ; the peo- ple usually asked him to make them certain pronjises, to all of which he agreed, without even taking the trouble to understand what they were, so that iiis promises were often broken, 'i'lie people found this out by degrees; and when they saw tlie sort of man he was, were much less eager than they had been to iiave him for their king. Several of the cities joined against him. He liad succeeded better than any one would have thought possible: he had taken Rome and Naples, and most of the otiier chief cities of Italy, and had made a treaty with the Pope, who liad at first disliked his coming into Italy. I:>ut seeing the Italians turn against him, he thought it best to retreat. He divided his army into two parts; left one to defend what lie had taken in Italy, and led the other back into France. He had to fight one great battle when the enemy overtook him and at- tacked })im as he was leaving the country ; but he was the conqueror, and came back safely to France. TIjc Italians then, attacked the general Charles had left behind him ; they succeeded in taking from the French all they had won, and at last in driving them out of tlie country. The whole war was over in two years from the time it began. The PVencTi liad not gained anything by it, but it had made them think of Italy and wish to be masters there; and other wars were made there by other French kings, as we shall see. 162 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. After Charles YIII. came back to France he spent a good deal of time in amusing himself and living idly, going from one place to another to hold tournaments, and to feast and make merry, and thinking of nothing else. But suddenly he grew more serious ; he began to mind the government of the country, to attend to public business, to listen to preachers, and to try not to spend more money than had been allowed him by the States-General. But he did not live to carry out his good plans. One day he went with his queen to see a game of tennis played in the moat of the castle. He had to pass through a low, dark gallery, and he hit his head against a doorway. He did not seem hurt at the time, but went on, watched the tennis, and talked cheer- fully to everybody, till suddenly he fell down fainting. He was too ill to be taken back to his own rooms ; they put him on a mattress in a room close by, which was the dirti- est in all the castle, and there, after nine hours of illness, Charles VHI. died. He was not a great king nor a great man, and he brought no good to France. His reign was short ; he died before he was twenty-eight years old. Chapter XXXHI. LOUIS XII. (1498-1515). Charles left no son. He had three, but they all died when children ; and his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, became king after him, and was called Louis XH. The wife Charles left behind him, Anne, who had been Duchess of Brittany be- fore he married her, was very unhappy at his death. She crouched down, in a corner of her room, and did nothing but sob when her friends came to comfort her. People said it was not so much her husband she cared for as the pleasure and glory of being queen ; and it certainly seemed as if this were true, for in less than two months she had persuaded Louis to marry her, and was Queen of France once more. Louis had another wife, but she was ugly and deformed, and he had never cared for her. The Pope gave \j ^i LOUIS XII. 163 him leave to divorce her. She, poor thing, knew that it was of no use to resist, and went away into a convent, where she spent the rest of her days in doing good deeds, and was considered a saint by the people. She had been a sister of Charles VIII. and of Madame Anne, who had governed his kingdom so well for him. Louis XIL, by marrying Anne, became master of Brit- tany, as Charles had been ; but it was settled that if Anne had children Brittany should not belong to the eldest son, who would be King of France, but to one of the other chil- dren, so that it might be kept a distinct province. Louis, though he had behaved so unkindly to his first wife, was on the whole a kind, good -hearted man. He punished none of the people who had been his enemies in the last reign. When some of his friends advised him to do so, he refused, saying, " It would not become the King of France to revenge the quarrels of the Duke of Orleans." You re- member that he had been Duke of Orleans before he was King of France. By this kindness he soon made friends with all the chief people of the country, and all through his reign he had no disturbances of any kind in France. Very soon after he became king Louis called together an assembl}?^ of some of the wisest among his subjects, and with their help he made a set of laws called an ordonnance^ changing and improving many of the arrangements for doing justice, about which he was always very anxious. After this he unfortunately did as Charles VIII. had done before him, and began another Italian war. There was one town in the north part of Italy, named Milan, which had belonged to the great-grandfather of Louis, and Louis always called himself Duke of Milan, and hoped, with the help of some of his friends among the Italian princes, to make himself master of the town. He collected a great army, and marched across the Alps into Switzerland. Many of the States that had fought against Charles VIII. were quite willing to help Louis, and he be- came master of Milan without having had to fight any great battle. Louis went back to France well pleased at his success ; but as soon as he was gone the Duke of Milan came back 164 FKENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREX. with an army, and tried to win back his town. At first it seemed as if he would succeed. All the towns through which lie passed turned out the French, and gave them- selves up to their duke. It was said that he won back his country even more quickly than he had lost it. But Louis heard of what was happening, gathered a large army, w^hich could now be done easily in France, because of the regiments and captains always ready for use, and marched with them into Italy again. The duke Louis Sforza of Milan shut him- self up in a town with his soldiers. Among the duke's soldiers was a body of Swiss. It was the custom at that time for any king or prince w^ho wanted soldiers to hire some from Switzerland. The Swiss were fierce, brave, fond of fighting, and, their country being very poor, they were always glad to earn money by fighting for any one who would pay for soldiers. It sometimes hap- pened in a battle that there were Swiss on both sides, and so it was now. These men soon met and made a bargain together; the Swiss who were paid to fight for the duke, and some of the other soldiers on the same side, agreed to give up the town to the French, in return for which it was promised that they and all that belonged to them should be safe. They made no agreement that the duke, their employer, should be safe. When they yielded up the town next morning, and were marching out with the French soldiers watching them, the duke disguised himself as a Swiss soldier and marched w^ith the otherS) hoping that no one would notice him ; but the French, suspecting that he might do this, made them go out by twos and threes, so that each man might be ex- amined as he passed. Still, perhaps, the duke might have passed safely, but that some of his soldiers w^ere persuaded by a present of money to point him out to the French. He ■was taken prisoner, carried to France, and very badly treated by Louis, who was usually kind and merciful to every one. He was kept in one of the horrible iron cages which had been invented in the reign of Louis XL One great man had distinguished himself in this Italian war. He was a knight named Bayard, one of the bravest and at the same time the best of the French soldiers, who LOUIS XII. 165 is sometimes spoken of as the knight without fear and without blame. He was born at an old castle, called like hiinself Bayard, and there he had lived with his parents till he was fourteen, when his uncle, a bishop, had come to stay at the castle, and offered to take his nephew away with him and find him some place at court or in the army, from which he might rise to higher things. The boy was delighted to go. His uncle gave him a horse; the tailor of the place sat up all night to make him handsome clothes '' of velvet, satin, and other things need- ful to clothe a good knight.'' The next morning, when he was ready to set off, his mother came down to say good-bye to him. She gave him a purse with six crowns of gold in it, and also some good advice, which very likely helped to make him the great and good man he afterward became ; 'for she told him to bear himself wisely and well, to love and serve God, to be courteous to his equals and merciful to the poor, to tell the truth, and be loving and faithful. After this Bayard became a page in the court of the Duke of Savoy, and in time a soldier. A year or two later there w^as another Italian war, but in this Louis was less fortunate than before. At first every- thing seemed to go well with him, and he and the King of Spain, who was helping him, took Naples and some other Italian towns from the King of Naples ; but when they had done this they began to quarrel about dividing the land which had become theirs. After long disputes the French and Spaniards began to fight with each other, and at last the French were driven entirely out of the country, and the Spaniards kept everything for themselves, so Louis XII. had not gained much for his country by this war, w^hich had cost much money and the lives of so many brave soldiers. Louis had only one child, a daughter, and the queen was very anxious that- she should marry the young man who was going to be King of Spain. But the French lords did not wish that Spain and France should belong to the same person, and said that it would be better for the princess to marry the greatest of the French lords, the man who, if Louis should have no son, would be the next King of France. Louis did not like to disappoint his wife, and at first agreed 12 166 FKENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN". that the marriage should be as she wished it ; but when he thought himself dying he considered how much trouble he should bring upon his people if he did anything which was likely to make a war between France and Spain, and he changed his mind and made a will saying that his daughter should marry the French prince as soon as she was old enough. When he grew better he called together the depu- ties of the Three Estates, and asked them for advice. They all wished that his daughter should be betrothed to Francis, the young French prince, which was done. It was at this time that the deputies first called Louis the Father of his People, the name by which he has since been known, and on hear- ing which, he was so much delighted that he wept for joy. There was one more Italian war ; this time France joined with several others of the Italian states against one state named Venice, and, as usual, he succeeded very well at first, and took a great deal of the country, but afterwards the Italians all joined together against him, and Henry VIII. of England came to help the enemies of Louis. Henry was quite young, and had only just become king. He was a bold, warlike young prince, and beat the French in a battle called the battle of the Spurs, because the French used their spurs to run away with more than their swords to fight. The French were also driven quite out of Italy, so that they had no land at all belono-ino; to them there. If it had not been for the Italian wars, Louis XII. would have been a good king ; much that he did was good, and when he died, which happened soon after the end of the war, his people grieved for him, and the ringers went through the streets ringing their bells and crying in a sad voice, " The good King Louis, the father of his people, is dead." He left no son. Chapter XXXIV. FEANCIS I. (1515-1547). The next king was the cousin of Louis XIL, who had married his daughter. Francis I. was at this time a young FRANCIS I. 167 man — handsome, brave, gay, fond of war, glory, and amuse- ment. Louis XII. had always been afraid that when Francis came to be king he would disturb the arrangements which he had made for governing the kingdom, and would think only of his own amusement, not of the good of the country. He used to say, " That bouncing boy will spoil everything." The father of Francis was dead ; his mother, a very clever, but not a wise or good woman, spoiled him com- pletely. She thought him the greatest man in the world, and helped him to take his own way in everything. She used to call him " my peaceful Caesar" before he had fought any battle, and, as soon as he had won one victory, " my glorious, triumphant Caesar." Francis had also a sister named Margaret, who loved him as well as his mother did, but who was an excellent woman, and whose advice was al- ways for his good and the country's. She wrote poetry, and was fond of all learned men ; she often persuaded Francis I. to protect people who were hated for having a different religious belief from their neighbors. She could often persuade Francis to do as she wished, when he would not listen to any one else. The reign of Francis I. is a very important time, not only in the history of France, but in the history of the whole world. Two men lived at that time, both of whom gave much trouble to the French king, and, though they were not Frenchmen, made so much change in the affairs of all Europe that I must say a little about each of them. The first I shall mention was the young prince who, soon after Francis began his reign, became King of Spain. He was the grandson of the JEmperor of Germany, and, when his grandfather died two years later, wished to be emperor in his place. The emperor was chosen by seven of the chief princes in Germany, and the King of Spain hoped to be able to persuade them to choose him, though he was only eigh- teen, and had not then showed any signs of being likely to become a specially wise or brave king. Francis also wished to be emperor, and made friends with several of the elec- tors, as the princes were called who had the right of choosing or electing the emperor. Others, however, took the side of the Spanish king, whose 168 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. name was Charles, and after he and Francis had both said all they could, and made handsome presents to the electors, each trying to persuade them to be on his side, it was set- tled that Charles would be most likely to make a good em- peror, and he was solemnly invited to come and govern Germany, to his great joy and Francis's deep disappoint- ment. Charles, known as Charles V., had now far more land belonging to him than any other prince in Europe. Spain was his, and Germany and Austria, and the country which is now Holland and Belgium, and a good deal of land in the west, where first Columbus, and then other sailors and soldiers from Spain, had discovered and conquered isl- ands in the seas near America, and at last part of America itself, for the Spanish kings. Charles gave Austria to his brother, but all the rest of the empire he kept for himself. As he grew older, his neigh- bors began to grow more and more afraid of him. Seeing him so much stronger than they, they feared he might wish to grow stronger still, and take their lands from them. However, he had too much to do in his own country to at- tack other people of his own accord. His empire was too large to be ruled easily ; disturbances were always rising up in one or the other part of it, and if Charles had not been ac- tive, industrious, and very clever, he could never have kept it all under his rule through his lifetime as he did. He was a thoughtful, grave, and prudent young man, very different in every way from the gay, cheerful Francis, who cared more for war and anmsement than for anything else. Francis, all throuo;h his reio-n, had to be on the watch against Charles V. ; they had three wars together, and on the whole, Charles had the best of the struggle. The other man who made himself important in Europe at this time was a very different person from the great em- peror and the gay French king. He was a German monk, and his name was Martin Luther. This was the man who first taught the faith which is now believed by all Prot- estants ; and pointed out the mistakes and evils that had grown up among the believers of the faith which, till then, had been held by almost all Christians. Half the countries of Europe gave up their old beliefs to follow what he taught, FRANCIS I. 169 and in some countries his followers are still called Lutherans, after his name. There were several important differences between the old and the new ideas. The one which has the most to do with history was the different way of thinking about the Pope. The Pope, to begin with, had been only Bishop of Rome, and one of four bishops who were over all the others, and were all four very important people. But in time the other three bishops were forgotten, and became no greater than all the others, while the Bishop of Rome was more and more looked up to, and treated with respect, first by all Italy, then by all Europe. He was called Pope, which means father, and was a common name at that time for many bishops ; but the Bishop of Rome was the only one who has kept it till the present time. In early days the Pope chose all the other chief bishops in all the countries of Europe, settled all religious disputes, and had the power of excommunicating kings and laying countries under an interdict. As his power grew greater, the people in distant countries began to respect him more and more, and by degrees the idea grew up that the Pope was the wisest and best man in the world. Then people began to think that he was so wise and good that he could never make a mistake or do anything wrong. This was partly because Rome, where the Pope lived, had been the home of the strongest and wisest people that had ever been known, when the people in the other countries of Europe were wild and ignorant, and understood little about religious matters. When they grew wiser, and became as strong and important as the Italians, they ceased to believe so much in the wisdom and goodness of the Pope. But still the popes had held their power for so many years that it would have been a difficult thing to turn the people against them if they had used their great power well. But in the time of Martin Luther they had come to use it in many ways very ill. The Pope, at that time, was in great want of money, as he often was, and he had many plans for getting it. He had often asked for it from the clergy in the different countries of Europe. The kings of such countries did not like the clergy to pay away great sums to the popes, because less money was left for the 170 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. bishops to give them when they wanted it for wars or any other purpose. The kings and popes often had great disputes as to whether all the clergy were the subjects of the Pope, or whether each was the subject of the king in whose country he lived, as happens with other people. Bat just at this time the Pope had a plan for making the common people give him money. It had always been thought that the Pope had the power of settling who was good and who was bad. If any one wrote a book which was thought wicked, it was sent to the Pope for him to say whether people were to be allowed to read it or not. If any one displeased the Pope, he was punished by excom- munication, as has been alread}^ described ; besides all the unpleasant things which happened to the excommunicated person in this life, it was thought that if the Pope did not at last forgive him, he would be punished in another world after his death. Any one who had been forgiven for a sin by the Pope believed that he should be forgiven by God. It was next said that after people were dead the prayers of the Pope would still be useful for them, and people paid him sums of money to persuade him to say these prayers for their relations. A man was sent through Germany, in the reign of Francis, with pardons ready printed on paper. Persons who paid him a certain sum of money could have these pardons from the Pope, either for something wrong they had done themselves, or for the sin of some of their friends, or they could buy the Pope's prayers for the soul of any one who was dead. It made many people extremely angry to see this being done. The Pope was now thinking only of making money for himself, and not at all of whether what he was teaching people was right and true, for forgive- ness is not a thing that can be bought ; and after a man is dead, the Pope knows no more than any one else what God may do with the soul he alone has created. Many people spoke and wrote against selling the pardons, but the man who spoke and was listened to most was Mar- tin Luther. He had been a monk, and had been taught everything that was then believed to be true about the best way to please God and live a good life, as well as about the power of the Pope ; but he was not satisfied with what he FRANCIS I. 171 was taught, and saw reasons for thinking that his teachers made mistakes. He explained his own ideas first in giving his reasons for disliking the sale of pardons, and he went on to teach and to write books about what people ought to believe, and about the wickedness of the Pope and his court. Every one listened to him, many people were pleased, many were furious, and there were wars and disturbances for many years, and all through the greater part of Europe, while one nation after another was deciding the question whether they should think as they had always been taught to do before, and submit to the Pope as they had done, or whether they should resist the Pope and accept the new ideas which Luther taught, and which, by degrees, more and more peo- ple came to think were the true ones. I cannot explain here the difference between what Luther thought and what the Pope and his clergy thought. It was almost the same difference there is now between the people called Roman Catholics and those called Protestants. Some Protestants now think just what Luther thought, and others nearly the same. Some people agreed with Luther in dis- liking the great power of the Pope, and, thinking that it ought to be stopped, without agreeing to his other opinions, became Protestants. Francis of France was one of these. The Popes had never had the same power in France that they had in some other countries. The king often resisted them, and the French clergy often took the side of their king. Many of Luther's followers came into France to teach there, and in some parts they found friends, in others ene- mies. Their enemies, some of whom were bishops and people in power, were so angry with them that they would have put many of the Protestant teachers to death, if Margaret, Francis's sister, had not helped them, and persuaded the king to treat them well. Some of the people listened to them and became Reformers, which was the name first given to those who agreed with Luther's ideas, because they wished to reform — that is, make better — the people about them and themselves. The king, however, and the greater number of his sub- jects, went on believing the old teachings, as they had done 172 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. before. Francis had not much time to think about such things, for he was very often at war; and, when not, was amusing himself buying pictures or building fine palaces, and he did not care to spend time in thinking quietly about serious subjects. It was less trouble to him, of course, to go on with his old ideas than to think about changing them ; and this he did, and had his children brought up in them as well. When some of the people in a town became Reformers, there was sure to be disputes and often lights between them and their fellow-townsmen. For one thing, Luther's followers w^ere made angry by the little statues and images before which people in those days were accustomed to say their prayers ; and they often broke or spoiled them by way of showing that they were only statues and images. The Roman Catholics, for their part, were made extreme- ly angry when the Protestants did any harm to the images about which they cared so much, and there were fights in the streets in which people often lost their lives. Francis always took the side of those who defended the images, and when a special favorite of the people's had been pulled down, the king went in great state to set up another in its place, and punished very cruelly the people who had damaged it. On the other hand, he did what he could to prevent the people who believed in the new ideas from being ill-treated by their neighbors so long as they lived quietly. But the worst act of his reign was the way in which he ill-treated a set of people who had found out for them- selves a form of belief, much like that which Martin Lu- ther taught. In some of the valleys of the Alps lived a tribe of people known as the Vaudois. They had been driven into the mountains by the Albigensian wars in the reign of Philip Augustus. There chey and their children had lived for nearly four hundred years without being disturbed by any one; but with a different belief from that of their neighbors, the peo- ple who lived in one of the southern provinces of France. They were quiet and industrious, so that the great lords in the country near protected and employed them, and at last FRANCIS I. 173 sorae of tliem came down to live in the land at the foot of the Alps, where they built two towns and thirty villages, planted trees, sowed grain and fruit, and raised cattle, till they made their little corner one of the most fertile parts of the province. These people had made friends with the Reformers, whose opinions were so nearly the same as their own. Francis at one time had sent messengers to find out what they did believe and what sort of life they led, and the ac- count of them was so good that for some time they were not disturbed. At last, however, the bishops, who were his friends, and the emperor with whom he had just made a peace, began reminding him of these heretics, and telling him that they would do some harm to the country if they were allowed to go on living as they had done. The king allowed him- self to be persuaded ; he wrote to the governor of the prov- ince and told him to clear it entirely of the heretics. Sev- eral bands of fierce soldiers were sent against the poor Vaudois, who had no means of helping themselves, and who did not even know that the king was angry with them. When the soldiers came to the nearest villages they set them on fire, and put to death every one they found in them — men, women, and children alike. The Vaudois in other villages, seeing this, fled into the woods ; the soldiers, when they came up, burned the vil- lages, cut down the fruit-trees, spoiled the crops, and killed any of the people whom they could find. This happened all through the country ; the people were killed in horrible ways; village after village and the two towns were burned. In one of the towns was found a young man who was an idiot, and had stayed behind, when all who were in their senses had fled for safety. He was shot. In the other town several inhabitants were found ; they gave up the town, and a promise was made that their lives should be spared ; but as they were heretics, the promise was broken, and they were all put to death. The women of the town were shut up in a barn and burned. More than three thou- sand people were killed, and others had wandered off into the woods. 174 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. A law was made that no food or shelter was to be given to a Vaudois, so that numbers of them died of hunger; others made their way into other countries, and some were caught by their enemies and put to death, or carried off to serv^e in the French armies. This treatment of the Vaudois is worse than anything else which happened in Francis's reign. It is an example of the way in which stronger men often behaved to weaker, who thought differently from them about religious questions. Unhappily, there are many such examples in French history. This chapter has been more about the Reformation than about the special events in the reign of Francis, who must therefore have another chapter to himself. Chapter XXXV. FEANCis I. — continued (i 515 -1547). Soon after Francis became king he determined to go on with the war in Italy, which had answered so badly for Charles VIII. and Louis XII. He was not more successful than they in the end, but he began by winning the victory of Marignan against some Swiss who had come to help his enemies in Italy. The chief Italian cities had joined to- gether against him, and a Spanish army had come to their help ; but after this battle Francis, without any more fight- ing, gained two of the towns for which he most cared ; the Swiss went away home, and Francis went back to France, where his people admired him more than ever, and where he began to turn his mind to the business of governing the country. Unhappily, he chose a bad man to be his chief minister, and so brought great troubles upon his people. His mother, too, who was a friend of the min- ister's, often made things go ill by her meddling and dis- honesty. After Francis had been king about three years his first quarrels with Charles V., who was then only King of Spain, began. Both Francis and Charles were anxious to have the FRANCIS I. 175 King of England, Henry YIII,, on their own side. Francis had begun by making friends with Wolsey, one of Henry's chief ministers, and with him he had agreed that there should be a meeting between Henry and Francis of a very splendid kind, where they would talk over their disputes and try to settle them in a friendly way. A place in France was chosen for this meeting. Henry was to come over with his chief barons and a great train of followers. They were to bring their tents with them, and Francis wrote to propose to Wolsey that the English king should give orders that his tents should not be too expensive, and said he would give the same orders to his French nobles. But the English ministers would not hear of this, and said everything should be as grand as possible. After this the only question was which nation would show the greatest riches and splendor. Tents were set up with the walls and ceiling of precious stuffs, such as satin and cloth of gold ; golden trees were arranged round them with leaves of green silk ; the English palace was made entirely of crystals, which flashed in the sunlight. The great lords, but especially the English, wore handsome dresses of silk and velvet, covered with gold chains and jewels of different kinds. Francis's sister Margaret and other French ladies came to see the tournament with which the meeting was to open. The kings both joined in it, Henry so roughly that he killed the man who was fighting against him, and hurt his own horse so that it died in the night. The next morning Fran- cis went to Henry's tent very early, while Henry was still in bed. It had been arranged that the two kings should never meet except in a solemn way, arranged beforehand, great care being taken to prevent either of them from doing harm to the other by taking him prisoner or putting him to death ; for people remembered how the Duke of Bur- gundy had been murdered on a bridge while making a treaty with his enemy before one of the dauphins of France, and they were afraid of the same thing happening again. But Francis, who was brave and generous to people of his own rank, and never would have done harm to an enemy of his own class who could not defend himself, trusted to Henry's honor, and took with him only two gentlemen and 176 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREX. a page. Outside the English tent he met two hundred archers on guard, and asked for the Hng. " He is asleep,'* they said. Francis knocked at the door and went in. Henry was surprised, but said, " You do right to trust me," and gave Francis a rich collar. " I will be your valet," said Francis, giving Henry a bracelet of precious stones, and helping him to put on his clothes. After this meeting the kings soon became friends, and treated each other quite fa- miliarly. One day when they were watching a wrestling- match going on before the ladies, Henry seized Francis's collar and said, " Let us wrestle." Henry was the stronger of the two, but Francis was the more active ; he threw down Henry, at which the Eno-lish kino; was much vexed. After all, the two kings did not settle much at this meeting, which is known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in honor of all the splendid stuffs that had been shown there. Francis had not even done what he most wished, made Wolsey and Henry inclined to take his side against Charles. Charles came to meet the English on their way back to England, and treated them in an humble, respectful manner, which pleased them, and made Wolsey his firm friend. As Wolsey had much power over Henry, this was a great suc- cess for Charles. Soon after this the old emperor died, and it was then that Francis and Charles both wished to be chosen as the new emperor. Charles was successful, and two years after- ward the first war between Francis and Charles began. Charles tried to take Milan, and the part of Italy which Francis had won by his first victory, away from the French king. Francis's general was able to do nothing, because the queen, his mother, took away for herself the money which the king had meant to be used in the war. She also quar- relled with one of the king's most powerful relations and subjects, the Duke of Bourbon. Francis had treated him ill, and the queen treated him w^orse, till at last he forgot his duty to his king and his country, and made friends with Charles V. He left France and joined one of the emper- or's armies. Francis, finding his general driven out of Italy, marched there himself, at the head of a large and fine army, against FRANCIS I. 177 tlie advice of his ministers at home. He went to besiege a town named Pavia, in which was the Spanish general with a body of his men ; while Francis with his troops waited outside the town, an army of Germans came up in his rear to help the Spaniards in Pavia. The king, between the two armies, was obliged to fight under great difficulties. The battle was so fierce at one time that it is said " you could see nothing but heads and arms flying in the air." Some of the Spanish troops ran backward to find shelter from the guns of the French ; Francis, thinking that they were yielding, rushed out from the camp, and went on far- ther and farther, not noticing that his army was not follow- ing him, and that the Spaniards were getting in between him and the camp. He had only a small body of followers ; his enemies gathered round him, his horse was killed, and at last he gave up his sword to one of the Spanish officers. He was treated with great respect ; his enemies admired his bravery so much that they kept bits of his clothes and of his armor as relics. The French army, after the king was taken, had been utterly defeated, all the commanders who had not been killed were prisoners, and many of the chief nobles of France were either dead or dying. The soldiers who were left alive wandered back into France, many of them dying on the way from hunger and misery. The king was carried from one prison to another, and at last to Madrid in Spain. As soon as he was made prisoner Francis wrote to his mother a letter, in which he told her that he had lost every- thing except his life and his honor, begged her to govern the country prudently for him, and said he still hoped that God would at last help him out of his troubles. He stayed in prison for nearly a year, after which he could bear it no longer, and agreed to a peace with Charles, by which he promised to give back to the emperor some of the lands which were then his, and to give up trying to conquer others, which he had always till now said ought to belong to him. Francis was to go back to his country, and send his two eldest sons, the dauphin and the Duke of Or- leans, to stay as prisoners till he should have done all that he promised. 178 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. But when he made these promises the king had no idea of keeping them. He rode off into France, sent his Httle boys to take his place, and, caUing together some of his nobles, told them of the promises he had made, and asked their advice as to whether or not he should keep them, say- ing that he could not give away a part of the country with- out the people of the country agreeing to it. This was only his plan to find an excuse for refusing to keep his word. The nobles told him as he wished, that he had not the power of giving away any part of France without their leave, and that they would not allow him to do so. They said that Charles had obliged him to make the promise against his will, and that therefore he was not bound to keep it. Francis was not a man who would have paid any attention to the wishes of his subjects unless they had been the same as his own ; but he made them an excuse to give Charles for breaking his word, and the war went on as before. "We hear little of how the young French princes, who were quite children, were treated in Madrid. It may be thought that it was very unkind of the king to go away safely himself and leave his little boys to stay in prison for his sake ; but we must remember how important it was for the whole kingdom that the king should be at liberty, and also that it was much more unpleasant for him to be a pris- oner than for the children. They had each other, and a body of French servants to wait on them, and we may hope that they were not uncomfortable, on the whole. They went back to their home three years afterwards, when a peace was made between Francis and Charles, called the la- dies' peace, because it was arranged by two ladies, the king's mother on one side, and the emperor's sister on the other. Francis, in making this peace, thought only of his own af- fairs, and did not try to get anything for his allies, the peo- ple who had helped him in the war. The people of France, meanwhile, were by no means well off. The mother of the king kept for her own use the money that should have been spent on the affairs of the kingdom, and as so much had been used for the war, the taxes were heavier than ever. There were five bad seasons FRANCIS I. 179 one after another, in whicL no frost came all the winter. The insects, not being killed by the cold, increased in num- ber till they became a plague, eating all the fruits and grain. The peasants had to satisfy themselves with what they could find in the fields — with thistles, mallows, and weeds ; they made bread of fern-roots, beech-masts, and acorns. While the poor people were in this distress, the king's court and the nobles were rich enough to spend money upon all sorts of amusements and strange fancies. There is a list of the way in which Francis spend his pri- vate money the year before peace was made with Charles. He bought pictures, musical instruments, diamonds, and pearls, a splendid bronze horse and rider, rare trees, some creatures for a menagerie, "eight horses, four camels, six ostriches, a lion, eleven pair of birds, eight hares," and a horse for the king's cook, that he might be always near the king to make his soup. A great deal was spent on fine buildings, but nothing for the good of his country, or to help his poor subjects in their distress. A few years later another war began with Charles. Francis, seeing that Charles had many more friends than he had, made a treaty with the Turks, who at that time had become very strong, both by land and sea, and who often attacked Charles's empire on the east side opposite to France. The Turks had a great man for their sultan, which means the same as king ; they were useful friends to have, but it was thought at that time very horrible that Christians should make friends with Turks, and many people who would have been friends of Francis were turned against him by his do- ing so. Francis was to attack Charles in Italy, and the Turks on the eastern side of Germany. Charles would have been able to defend himself against Francis alone, but with the Turks on the other side he was soon glad to make peace, and Francis gained a little more land. After this there was a third war, during which Francis won his last victory in Italy. It did not bring him much good, and soon afterwards peace was again made. Francis was worn out with his active life, though he was little more than fifty years old. He died two years after his last peace with Charles, and Henry YIIL, King of England, died in the 180 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. same year. Francis was admired and loved by many of his subjects, as lie had many of the good qualities which they cared for the most, because they were like their own. He was active, brave, generous, cheerful, good-natured ; but he w^as not altogether a good king, though better than many of those who came both before and after him. He was selfish, never thinking of any one but himself, and he was untruth- ful, so that his word could not be trusted. He treated his good sister Margaret, toward the end of his life, with great unkindness. Chapter XXXV T. HENRY II. (1547-1559). The two eldest sons of Francis I. had been prisoners in Spain for three years, as w^as related in the last chapter. Though they had been well treated there, on the whole, the life had not agreed with them ; and the elder and better of the two became delicate before he went back to France, and died young before his father. The second brother, Henry, was the next king. He was a handsome, brave, active young man, but not fit to be king, because he never would take the trouble of thinking for himself. He always had some fa- vorite to think for him and tell him his ideas, with which the king was sure to agree. Henry had for a long time a set of friends of his own, who very much disliked all that Francis did in the country. They all watched anxiously for his death, and as soon as it came, Henry changed all his father's ministers and put his friends into power. The chief of these friends was a lady called Diana of Poitiers, who could make both the king and his wife do whatever she liked, and as Diana thought only about what pleased herself, and not at all about the good of the country and the king's subjects, her power was a misfortune for France. The king also had for friends two brothers — one a soldier, one a cardinal — brave, active, and ambitious, and distant relations of the king, so that they had some hopes, HENRY II. 181 while the king had no children, that the elder, the Duke of Guise, miofht some day come to be king himself. These men were friends of Diana, and she persuaded Henry to give them places and power, and make them as important as possible. All the king's ministers were so eager for some chance of making themselves rich or grand, that they were said to seize upon every office or abbey or place that was left unfilled, as a swallow does upon flies. The king never had the spirit to resist either the Guises or his con- stable Montmorency, who was another of his friends; and no one who did not belong to one of these two great par- tics could be attended to at the court. The English king had died at the same time as Francis I., and the new king, who was quite a boy, had wished to be betrothed to the little Queen of Scotland, who was a child of six years old, in order to bring about peace between the two countries, which were very often at war with each other. But the little girl, Mary Stuart, was a niece of the Guises, and they decided to carry her off into France, that she might be betrothed to the eldest son of the French king, so that whenever France went to war with EnHand, Scotland miffht be inclined to take the side of the French. Mary and her mother were taken to France, and the child was betrothed to the little daupliin, and was married to him when they both grew up. This was the Mary Stuart who afterward went back to her own country, quarrelled with Elizabeth of England, and at last had her head cut off in an English prison. It was very unfortunate for her that she was taken away from her home in this way as a child, and never learn- ed to know her subjects till it was too late. She was brought up with the French princes by their mother, Cathe- rine de' Medici, who was one of the worst women of whom we have ever heard ; but she had no power while her hus- band lived, and so people did not yet know hoAV bad she was. In the reign of Henry II. the question had to be settled whether he and his subjects would belong to the reformed religion which Luther had taught, or would stay as they had been, subjects of the Pope. The Emperor Charles was at war with the princes of Germany, who had most of them followed the new ideas, and the princes asked Henry for 13 182 TRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. help. There were three towns on the borders of France and Germany named Metz, Toul, and Verdnn, and called the Three Bishoprics, because they were governed by bish- ops instead of counts or princes. Henry "and other French kings had much wished to have them for their own, because they were so near to other French towns, especially to Paris, that^ the French kings always felt afraid of the Germans coming through them as enemies into France. Henry saw a good opportunity for making himself master of these towns by becoming the friend of the German princes. He made a treaty with them, and collected a great army with which he marched into Germany, When the army came to Metz, the nearest of the Three Bishoprics, the magistrates sent out food to the soldiers and invited the king and princes to come into the town. The constable asked leave to take in a few soldiers with him, and when the magistrates had said that he might bring a few, he went in with so great a number that he was able to make himself master of the town. The people of Metz, when they saw what he was doing, tried to shut the gates of the town upon him, but it was too late. The soldiers were inside, and could not be driven out, so that the town had to submit to the king. Toul and Verdun — the two other bishoprics — did the same, as Henry promised not to interfere with their rights and customs, and it made little difference to them whether they belonged to the emperor or to him. Soon after this the emperor and the princes made peace, and the king was able to go back to his own country without having done any great good to his friends, but having won for himself the three towns, which were what he really cared about. Henry, though he had been fighting to help the Reform- ers, was himself a Roman Catholic. The Guises, the Con- stable, and Diana, were all friends of the Pope, and Henry thought as they thought. About this time many of his sub- jects began to turn from the old beliefs to the new. A French- man named Calvin wrote a book about what he believed, which many people thought good and true, and those peo- ple called themselves Calvinists after his name, and used to meet together and have a service of their own. Their be- HENRY n. 183 lief was in some wavs different from that of the Lutherans, but much more like them than the old religion, and both Lutherans and Calvinists called themselves Protestants. Henry set up a council of men in the Parliament, whose special business it was to attend to all. questions about heretics, which was the name given by Roman Catholics to all Protestants. This council was called the Burning Council, because it generally ordered all the Protestants brought before it to be burned. But still the number of Protestants, or, as they were called in France, Huguenots, grew^ larger and larger. Printing had lately been invented, and the Bible and little books of psalms were printed out of France, and then brought into the country by people who disguised themselves and hid the books they carried. The psalms were sometimes set to music, and the poor Hu- guenots sang them through all their troubles, in their hid- ing-places, in prison, and often even at the stake. Many of them were burned with the little books in their hands. The king at one time used to go and look on at these dreadful sights. He once went to see the burning of sev- eral heretics together, and among them he found one that he knew. The man was a tailor who had been employed in the palace, and the ladies of the court had, to amuse themselves, asked him what he believed. He had then told them plainly that he was a Huguenot, and for this he was to be burned. When he saw^ the king come to look on at his death, he fixed his eyes upon him, so that Henry was startled and moved away. But the man still kept on look- ing at him, even after the fire was lighted and the flames rose up, till Henry at last left the place, and for some time after imagined himself seeing the same sight every night, so that he resolved never to look at an execution again. While Henry was king, his father's old enemy, Charles v., ended his reign. By the time he was fifty-six, Charles was so worn out with his long reign and all the troubles and difficulties he had gone through, as well as disappointed and vexed at findino- that he could not make the heretics submit to him, as he had hoped to. be able to do, that he made up his mind to govern no longer. He gave up the different countries of his empire one by one to his son and 184 FREXCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. to his brother. The brother became emperor, and the son, Philip IL, King of Spain and of the Netherlands. Direct- ly after this a war began between Philip and Henry of France, and as Philip had married Mary, who was now Queen of England, the English sent an army to help the Spaniards. Philip won the great battle of St. Quentin, and took the town of the same name in the north of France, but was so long in marching any farther, or putting his vic- tory to any nse, that the French had time to get their men together, and when lie did go farther on toward Paris they were ready to resist him. In this war the man who was afterward the chief leader of the Huguenots, and one of the best and bravest men of the time, defended the town that Philip besieged, and with scarcely any men fought as long as it was possible, so as to keep the Spanish army from going farther till his friends were ready to resist it. This man was called Coligny. It is said of him that whenever there was a piece of work to be done, specially hard and dull, and that would bring no glory or fame as a reward, Coligny was the man to do it. Often, when some one else had planned an attack or sur- prise for the enemy, and found some difficulty in the way that seemed likely to spoil everything, Coligny would set to work to get rid of the difficulty, and then let the other carry out his plan and have all the glory of it. He was siiid to be harsh and stern, but every one trusted and hon- ored him, and his first thought was always for the good of his friends. He was taken prisoner by Philip, with the constable Montmorency, wdio had gone to his help, and had not been able to help him in the town where he was be- sieged. Henry then put the Duke of Guise at the head of the army, and trusted to him to drive the Spaniards out of the country. The duke determined to do what he knew would please the French better than anything else. He marched against Calais. This town had belonged to the English ever since it had been taken by Edward I., two hundred years before, and it had always been a great vexation to the French to see a town so near Paris belonging to their ene- mies. There was always a body of soldiers there and a ADMIRAL COLIGNY. HENRY II. 185 governor to protect the place ; but it was the custom in winter for the number of soldiers to be made a good deal smaller than usual, because at this time the marshes around Calais were so deep and wet that it was supposed no one could pass through them. The English had also become careless about guarding the ramparts or walls round the town, and Queen Mary was so much taken up in trying to make all her people Roman Catholics that she had not much time to attend to anything else. The Duke of Guise had observed the place carefully, and knew where to pass the marsh, and how to attack it. The English were taken by surprise, and after an attack which lasted three days, the French took the castle, and soon after- ward the town. It was the last bit of land that had be- longed to the English in France, and the French were so much delighted at seeing their country free again from all strangers that they were comforted for having been so lately defeated by Philip. The Duke of Guise was almost wor- shipped by the people. The English, on the other hand, were very angry at their loss. Queen Mary was made so unhappy by it that she said that when she died the word '* Calais" would be found written on her heart. There was one other battle between the French and Span- iards at a place called Gravelines. It was fought by the seaside, on the sands at low tide. Just when the battle was at its height ten English ships came sailing up with a good breeze, and, coming close to the shore, fired at the French. They could not resist the two enemies at once, and were beaten. Soon after this Philip and Henry made peace, and also France and England. The French lost a great deal of land by this peace, and it was gained by Philip, which much displeased some of Henry's soldiers ; among other things he gave up all that had been his in Italy. He and the Spanish king were both anxious for peace with each other, in order that they might give all their time to stopping heresy among their subjects. In France many even of Henry's ministers and of the chief people in the country were becoming Huguenots. The king found that these people were ready to resist his plan of having people put to death for heresy, as if it were 186 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. the worst of crimes. Henry -wished to set up in France the Inquisition — a terrible secret council which the Pope and the King of Spain had invented. Its work was to find out heretics, to ask them questions and see what they really believed, and if they were found to be heretics, to punish them for it by death, or in other ways. People were often tortured by the Inquisition in order to make them speak, if they refused at first to say all that the Inquisitors wished. It was enough that any one person should say of another that he was a heretic, for him to be carried off to the Inqui- sition. The people were all expected and commanded to give up any of their friends who might be heretics; and they did this so much that no one could trust even his near relations. Children were afraid of their parents ; brothers of their sisters ; wives of their husbands. All Roman Cath- olics were taught by their priests that it would be a sin to help a heretic because he happened to be their friend or re- lation, and also that it was better for the person himself that he should be punished in this life, than that he should die a heretic, which, it was thought, would bring him worse punishment in another life. The king found that most of the chief people in the country refused to have this terrible Inquisition brought into France. He did what he could to persuade them ; and had some of the men who resisted him most boldly thrown into prison. A few days later he was joining in a tournament which was beino- held in honor of the marriao-es of his two dauo-h- ters. It was held close to the walls of the Bastile, one of the prisons of Paris where these prisoners were shut up. It is even supposed that they might have seen what went on through their windows. The king was very fond of exer- cises of all sorts ; and just as the sports were coming to an end he asked a Scotch knight to tilt with him. By an ac- cident the end of the knight's spear flew upward into the king's face, lifted up the vizor which protected it, and went into his eye. The king fell forward on the neck of his horse, and was carried away by his squires. The best doc- tors in Europe came to attend him, but it was of no use; he died ten days afterwards. The Protestants, both in and out of prison, were glad of his death, though they soon FRANCIS II. 187 found that they were no better off under his son's rule than they had been under his. Chapter XXXVII. FRANCIS ri. (1559-1560). Henry left four sons, of whom the eldest was between fifteen and sixteen, and he was crowned king, and is known as Francis II. Besides being so young, he was in very bad health, and weak and foolish by nature, so that he was quite unable to govern for himself. But there were plenty of people ready to advise and help him ; the only question was, to which of them he would listen. His mother, Cath- erine de' Medici, and his wife, Mary Stuart, who had been betrothed to him when he was five years old, and married to him a short time before he became kinof, were the ad- visers to whom he listened most. Mary, as I have before said, was the niece of the Duke of Guise and his brother, and did whatever they wished. Catherine was also their friend, because she thought that they were stronger than any one else in the kingdom, and that it would be danger- ous to have them for enemies. They persuaded her and the king to make them the chief ministers in the country ; and it was settled that the Duke of Guise should have the man- agement of everything belonging to war ; that his brother, the cardinal, should be in charge of all the money and treas- ure of the kingdom ; and that the other offices of govern- ment should be taken away from the enemies of the Guises and given to men who were their friends. Francis II. reigned only for one year. During that time France had no war with any other country, but there was a great deal of what was almost civil war in France itself. The great question to be settled was how the Huguenots were to be treated. The king had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, the Guises and some other great people in the country were Roman Catholics also, and most anxious to put a stop to heresy. But the number of Huguenots or heretics was growing greater every month. Many of the 188 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. chief men in France had taken their side. At this time there were so many important people about the king, some his friends and some his enemies, that it is best to mention them all at once to prevent confusion. There were three sets of brothers, of whom the most im- portant were the Guises. The Duke of Guise was the eld- est of this set, the Cardinal of Lorraine the second, and there were four others ; they w^ere all Roman Catholics, friends of the Pope and of Spain. The king's wife, Mary, was one of the same family. The constable Montmorency was also a Roman Catholic, and was secretly a friend of the King of Spain, though at first he was inclined to help the Protestants, from a dislike to the great power of the Guises. On the Protestant side there were three brothers, of whom Coligny was one; his yoimger brother was a soldier, the eldest a cardinal ; they were all three brave, honest men, and the nephews of the constable. There were two other Huguenot brothers, the elder of whom was looked on as the head of all the Huguenots. These were the King of Na- varre and Louis, Prince of Conde. The King of Navarre was a weak, changeable man, and did his friends as much harm as good, for they could not depend upon him, as there was always a chance of his being won over by their enemies and suddenly leaving them when they wanted him most. His brother Conde was brave, amlitious, and warlike, but poor, without any place in the government to make him a person of importance. These two were rivals of the Guises, who were always afraid lest Catherine de' Medici should make friends with them, and govern by their help instead of by that of the Guises. Catherine was indeed very doubtful wdiich side to take, and whose advice to listen to. x\t first the Guises had everything their owm w^ay, and a very bad way it was for the Huguenots. Laws were made to stop all meetings by day or night, and saying that every one who went to any should be put to death. This was to prevent the Huguenots from holding any services, which, as they had no churches, were of course only meetings either out of doors or in the house of one of their own party. Every day some of them were thrown into prison or driven out of the country. Sto- CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. FRANCIS II. 189 ries were invented about wicked things of all kinds which the Huguenots were supposed to do when they met to- gether, and the common people were set against them as much as possible. At the corners of the streets in Paris little images of saints were set up, and whenever any one passed one of these without taking off his hat, or stopping to make a prayer to it, the people cried out that he was a heretic, and often attacked and beat him, or carried him off to prison directly. One of the differences between Protestants or Huguenots and Roman Catholics w^as that the Roman Catholics thought it right to pray to saints and to the Virgin Mary, and the Protestants thought it wrong and foolish. The Huguenot minister whom Henry H. had put into prison at the end of his reign was tried and put to death. The Guises had one great difficulty in governing the country ; there was very little money in the treasury. They looked for ways of making more, and found some that were unjust ; they persuaded the king to refuse to pay back money which had been lent to the kings who had gone be- fore him, and which he was bound by law to pay. Francis gave orders that all persons who came to the court to ask* for payment of debts, or for rewards of any kind, or for favors, should go away within twenty-four hours, and that if they did not go they should be hanged. Most of the people who had lent money to the kings were noblemen ; they were very angry at being treated in this way, and knowing it was the Guises who had given the young king bad advice, they all joined together against them, and re- solved to take away their power. In order to be strong enough to do this, they joined with the Huguenots, who had been still worse treated than they. The Huguenots had been taught that it was never right to resist a ruler, however bad or unjust he might be ; but the nobles told them that the young king was their real ruler, and that what they wished to do was to set Francis free from the Guises, who were making him do whatever they liked, and treated him as a slave. A leader was wanted ; and the King of Navarre, who was 190 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. the most important man of the Huguenot party, might have seemed the right chief for them to have ; but he Ijaei been so much frightened by a letter from the King of Spain, promising to help the young king and the Guises, that he did not dare do anything against them. His brother Conde was bolder, and agreed to be their leader, but not openly. He was to have nothing to do with the rising-up which they were planning, but when all had been done, the Guises made prisoners and the young king in the power of the Hugue- nots, Conde was to take the place which the Guises now held, to guard the young king, and advise him as to ruling the country. Conde, as he was not expected to take any share beforehand in what went on, was called the dumb cap- tain, and a gentleman of the south of France was found to be captain in the meanwhile, and make necessary prepara- tions. The plan was to take the town in which were the king and the Guises without fighting, if possible ; if not, by force. All would be easy if the plot could be kept a secret ; but among the many people to whom the secret had been told, was one who was at heart a Roman Catholic, and who went to the Guises and told them all he knew. They at once took the king to a stronger town, which had a castle to defend it, and they arranged that soldiers should be brought into the country, and should be kept near to the town, ready to gather together at once as soon as they were sent for. When the Huguenots at last made their attack, they found every one ready to meet them. Many of them were seized separately and carried off as prisoners, others were attacked by the king's soldiers ; their leader fell in the fight. Those who were left alive joined in one body and attacked the town openly, but they were driven back and could do noth- ing more than fly from their lines, followed by their cruel enemies. The Prince of Conde, when he saw they had not succeeded, saved his life by declaring that he had had nothing to do with them, and offering to fight any one who did not believe him. The Guises certainly did not believe him, but as they were afraid to do him any harm, they did not say so, and he went away unhurt, while every one who had had a share in the plot was hunted down by the FRANCIS II. 191 soldiers, thrown into prison, and put to death without any trial. It was a new thing in Franco to see men put to death without anything being declared in public as to their crime, their punishment, or even their names. Some were hanged, some drowned, some beheaded; and it explains the hatred many people had for the Guises, that they and the great people of the court, both men and women, used to look on at the executions as if they were a show. They always hap- pened outside the palace windows, and the young king and his little brothers were brought to look on as well, and at last grew so well accustomed to the sight that they laugh- ed at it and thought it an amusement. The people had been told that the Huguenots had wished to take the king prisoner and to do harm to the Roman Catholics, while the Huguenots themselves declared they had only wished to get rid "of the Guises. This rising-up, which ended so badly, is called the Conspiracy of Amboise. After this the Guises had as much power as ever, but Catherine, the king's mother, was now afraid of their becom- ing so strong that she would be obliged to do all they wish- ed, and she began to turn toward the Huguenots. She had for chancellor a wise and prudent man named L'Hopital, who wished to make some plan by which the Huguenots and Catholics might both live peaceably in France without hurting one another; and he persuaded the queen-mother, as she was called, not to take the side of either, but to stay between the two, and try to prevent cruelty on either side. The Huguenots had long been asking that the States-Gen- eral might meet to settle the question of religion. The Guises had at first disliked this idea, but at last they agreed to it, hoping that the States-General would decide as they wished, and the deputies were commanded to meet at Or- leans in a few months' time. The Guises had a plan to make use of this meeting to take prisoners their two enemies, the King of Navarre and his brother Louis of Conde. They were invited to come to the States-General, and as they had always specially asked that the council should be held, they did not like to refuse, though many people warned them th^t the Guises were not 192 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. to be trusted, and that if they went to court some harm would probably happen to them. However, they went on boldly, and refused to take with them a body of horsemen who had come together on purpose to defend them. As soon as they arrived at Orleans, and while they were talking* to the king in his private room, some captains of the guards came in and carried away Conde to prison. The King of Navarre was also treated as a prisoner, for he was forbidden to go out of his own house, and was not allowed to see any one without leave. The Guises wished to do worse than this. They had ar- ranged that the young Francis should have a meeting with the King of Navarre, and while they were talking give a signal to some murderers who should be waiting close at hand, and should put him to death at once; but when the moment came Francis could not make up his mind to give the signal, and the King of Navarre escaped for the time. Both brothers would most likely have been put to death, but that Francis II. was siiddenly taken ill. He died after a few days' illness, and the great power of the Guises came to an end at his death, as their niece Mary would now no longer be Queen of France. No one but the Guises had wished for the death of Con- de and his brother, and they were at once set free. Fran- cis's death was a happy thing for the country, for the Guises had meant to make use of the States-General for getting rid of all their enemies. They had meant to ask every deputy to take an oath that he believed the Catholic faith, and those who would not do so were to lose all their titles and wealth, and to be burned as heretics. They would have done the same all over France, taking the oath to every town and putting to death all who would not agree to take it. The consequence would probably have been a civil war, and in- deed this was what came at last, but the death of Francis 11. put it off for a while. CHARLES IX. 193 Chapter XXXVIH. charles ix. (1560-1574). Francis II. was succeeded by his next brother, Charles IX. He was a boy of ten years old at Francis's death, and there was some question as to who should be regent for him till he was old enough to govern for himself. It had been settled by the French laws that the king was of age — that is, old enough to govern — when he was fourteen. Other people were not considered of age till they were much old- er — a gentleman's son not till he was twenty-one, and a poor man at tvventy-five. There were four years still to come before Charles would be of age, and his mother, Catherine de' Medici, was declared regent. She was still inclined to be the friend of the Guises. She was in the same difficulties as before as to which side to take between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. She was afraid of either party becoming so strong that it would be able to take away the power from her, and so, for the time, she changed about, always turning against any one who seemed growing especially powerful in the country. The King of Navarre and his brother Conde were set free after Francis's death, and the States - General of Orleans were opened directly afterward. Many complaints were made of different matters that were going wrong in the country, and when the council was over an edict or order of the government was sent out, explaining what was to be done in order to set right all that was wrong or in con- fusion. But some powerful people disliked the edict, and, after all, it was never carried out. Many meetings were held at this time to consider the difficult question of the Huguenots; many laws were made about them; one that they might never have public services or preach, and anoth- er afterward that they might preach in the open country, but not in towns. Once a few of the most distinguished 194 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Huguenot teachers met together with some of the chief Roman Catholic clergy and discussed their different beliefs. The little king came to hear them, though some people said he ouo-ht not to be allowed to listen to Hu2:uenots. There were long speeches and explanations made on both sides, but of course neither party succeeded in persuading the other. There were many disturbances and quarrels in Paris, usually begun by the Roman Catholics, but carried on very cruelly on both sides. At last came one quarrel worse than usual, which brought on the beginning of the first of the civil wars about religion, which lasted so long in France. The Duke of Guise, who had been into Germany, was on bis way home, and' was passing through a little town named Vassy, when he heard bells ringing, and, asking what it meant, was told that the Huguenots were holding a service. He had before this been angry with the people of Vassy, and he came this way with an army on purpose to be re- venged on them. Their service was being carried on in a barn, to which Guise, biting his beard as he always did when angry, led his soldiers, who were all delighted at the idea of an attack on the Huguenots, and made them fire in at the windows. The Huguenots tried to shut the door, but could not; Guise's soldiers rushed in, their swords drawn, crying out, "Kill, kill." The Huguenots tried to defend themselves with stones, but their enemies were too strong for them. Some of them climbed on to the roof, and, if they were not seen and shot down by the soldiers, escaped; others were driven out of the barn, and forced to pass between two lines of soldiers, who drove them on with cuts from their swords. Sixty people altogether were killed, and two hun- dred severely wounded. The Duchess of Guise, who was outside the town, and heard the cries of the Huguenots, sent a message asking her husband to spare at least the women, after which none of them were killed, but the attack lasted for an hour. The Duke of Guise made himself hated all through France by this horrible cruelty. He always said, indeed, that he had tried to stop his soldiers, and that he had never intended that any Huguenots should be put to death. This CHARLES IX. CHARLES IX. 195 he repeated on his death-bed, and it is possible that it may be true. But at any rate we do not hear of his punishing any of his soldiers, or doing anything afterward to help the people of Yassy ; and it seems most likely that he plan- ned this attack beforehand, and was glad of the opportunity of showing his friends that he was still the worst enemy of the Protestants, and strong enough to do them serious harm. That year the war began : both parties found friends abroad to help them. The Spanish king sent men to the Roman Catholics, Queen Elizabeth of England to the Prot- estants. The Huguenots were successful at first, and took more than two hundred towns in Normandy and the other provinces in the north of France. The first of these towns, and one of the most important, was Orleans, the same from which Jeanne d'Arc drove the English in the reign of Charles VII. The brother of the Prince of Conde had taken one of the gates, and sent to Conde to come quickly and make himself master of the town. The prince, who was about eighteen miles away, at once set off, galloping at full speed with two thousand horsemen behind him : they went so fast that knapsacks, horses, and riders rolled on the ground, but the others only shouted with laughter, and rode on without staying to pick them up. The people who saw this body of soldiers sweeping by like a whirlwind, and be- having in this strange way, were much surprised, and asked if they were going to a battle of fools. But in spite of this cheerful beginning, the Huguenots did not find the war answer as well for them as they had hoped. The people of the country did not really agree with them, and when the Roman Catholics came to take back the towns that had been won by the Huguenots, they found no diflnculty. The war was carried on most cruelly by the Roman Catholics. The Huguenots, whenever they made themselves masters of a town, ruined the churches, broke down the images, burned the pictures, destroyed bridges, statues, and other ornaments of the town ; but the Roman Catholics did worse, for they turned all their anger against men and women. The townspeople were put to death in the street, the peasants were chased fiercely through 196 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. the country ; some were tried before a court of justice and hanged, or broken on the wheel, one of the most cruel of punishments. The leaders of the Huguenots were the Prince of Conde and Coligny, who was now made Admiral of France; those of the Roman Catholics, the Constable Montmorency, the Duke of Guise, and the man whom Guise had once wished to put to death, Antony, King of Navarre, the brother of Conde, who had now left the Huguenots, and become a Ro- man Catholic and a friend of Guise. The Huguenot Coligny had been very unwilling to begin the war, but was persuaded to it by his wife, a Huguenot herself, who could not bear to see how the Roman Catholics ill-treated her friends, not even keeping the promises that had been made about Protestant services and sermons. Toward the end of the year in which the war began, the King of Navarre, while fighting outside a town named Rouen, was so severely wounded that he died a few days afterward. His wife, Jeanne, was a Huguenot, and had brought up her only son, who now became King of Na- varre, in the same faith. He was at this time a boy of nine years old, and was afterward to become one of the greatest kings of France. Shortly after this there was a great battle, the first in this war. The Roman Catholics were the stronger in foot-soldiers, the Huguenots in horse soldiers, and the battle was long and for some time equal; but it was won at last by the Roman Catholics. The gen- eral on each side was taken prisoner — the Prince of Conde by the Roman Catholics, the Constable Montmorency by the Huguenots. This was the battle of Dreux. Before the end of the year the Duke of Guise was mur- dered by a Huguenot enemy, as he was making ready to attack Orleans. It was toward evening when the murderer followed him and two gentlemen who were riding with him, and standing close to him fired three pistol-shots at the Duke of Guise and rode away. Guise fell forward on his horse's neck, and his companions carried him to a castle near at hand ; they tried every means to cure him, but in vain, and he died, leaving a son to succeed him, who afterward became almost as famous as his father. Francis CHARLES IX. 197 of Guise had a splendid burial in Paris, while the murderer, who was caught and tried, was put to death in the most cruel manner. The chief men on both sides were now either killed or in prison. The Huguenot prisoners were won over by Cathe- rine, and agreed to make a treaty with her. Peace was made, and it was settled that the Protestants might hold services in the house of any baron or nobleman, but public services only in certain towns in France ; and as these towns were a good way apart, some of the peasants would have had to travel for fifty or sixty miles from their homes to reach one of them, and travelling in those times, when the war had only just stopped, was neither safe nor easy. Coligny told Conde that in agreeing to this peace he had ruined more Protestant churches than the war would have destroyed in ten years. The young Charles was by this time fourteen, and was then declared to be grown up, and able to govern for him- self. Catherine was no longer regent, but she was always her son's chief adviser, and was usually able to persuade him to do as she wished. Charles and his mother took a journey round France, in the course of which they paid a visit to one of Charles's sisters, the young Queen of Spain, and made friends with the Duke of Alva, a terrible Spanish general, who was going into the Netherlands to punish the people for being Protestants, and for trying to set themselves free from the Spanish king. He probably gave Charles advice which was very cruel concernino; the Huguenots. A second war began three years afterward, and lasted for six months. Another peace was made, and a third war broke out. It was impossible that there should be peace between two sets of people so nearly equally strong and hat- ing each other so much. Two great battles were fought in this third war; in one of them the Prince of Conde was killed. He had been hurt the day before by a fall from his horse, and in the course of the battle had his leg broken by the kick of a horse, but he would not leave the field. He cried out to his friends, " This is the moment we have wished for. 14 198 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Remember how Louis of Condo entered into battle for Clirist and liis country," and then charged down upon his enemies with three hundred horsemen behind him. At first the enemy gave way before him, but his body of followers was so small that the Roman Catholics soon closed round them, and Oonde's horse was killed and fell with the prince underneath it. Conde at last gave himself up to a Roman Catholic gentleman, but no sooner had he done so than another French captain came up, saw who he was, and shot him dead. Tliis was the battle of Jarnac. The Roman Catholics hoped that the Huguenots would lose all their spirit now that Conde was dead ; but they were disappointed. The Queen of Navarre, widow of Antony, arrived at the head- quarters of the Huguenots, bringing two boys, both named Henry, one the- son of Cond6, the other her own son, the young King of Navarre. She made a speech to the soldiers, and called on them to take her son for their chief. They agreed with loud shouts of joy, and the young Henry, who was then about lifteen years old, took an oath never to de- sert the cause of the Huguenots. One more battle was fought, in which the Protestants were again defeated and lost a great number of men. It was at a place called Moncontour. Coligny was wounded, but, carried in a litter, was able to lead the retreat and to make plans for the future. One of his chief enemies, look- ing on at the slow march which none of the Roman Catho- lics dared to disturb, said, in despair at the courage of the Huguenots, " AVe must make peace." Catherine thought the same. It was the Protestants who were not willing to make peace, but the arrangements that at last were made were better for the Huguenots than those of either of the two other peaces tliere had already been in this war. The Prot- estants were allowed to hold services, they were to have em- ployment and offices like the Roman Catholics, and they had four strong towns given up to them as an assurance that the king would keep his word. This was the end of the first division of the war. The king, Charles IX., was now about twenty years old. CHARLES IX. 199 lie v/as a wcalc, delicate yonn<^ man, and tliough he had 8tron^, violent feelini^s, and was always ready to insist upon havin<^ his own way, his mother, Catherine de' Medici, was usually able to persuade him to do what she wished, and make him think that what she proposed was really his own idea. She loved his next brother JJenry, a boy of sixteen, much better than Charles, and had put him at the head of the army ar^ainst the IIiiii;uenots, w^hile she never would al- low the king to join in the war at all, so that Henry gained all the glory of the two last victories which the Roman Catholics had won. Charles was angry with his mother and brother, and began for the first time to think of mak- ing friends with his chief Huguenot subjects. The admiral, Coligny, was invited to court, and talked to the young king of the great deeds that might be done in the Netherlands by helping the people there who were ris- ing up against Philip If., King of Spain. Philip was the enemy of all Protestants, and he was also the enemy of France; and Coligny wished that Charles should send him with an army to fight on the side of the Netherlanders. The king and his Huguenot lords would then be friends, and all the Huguenots of France, pleased at seeing their king help men who believed much the same as they did, would become Charles's loyal subjects. Charles himself was pleased at the idea, for he had always wished to have «ome opportunity of making himself famous as a soldier. Catherine was much vexed when she found that Coligny was becoming so great a friend of the king's. She was afraid that he would try to set her son against her, and she determined that she must in some way get rid of the ad- miral. She consulted with the young Duke of Guise and his relations, and with her own favorite son, Henry, Duke of Anjou. A man was hired, who shot at the admiral from a window as he was walking from the Louvre to his own house, reading a paper. The ball shot off one of the fingers of his right hand, and went into his left arm. Coligny had pres- ence of mind enough to point with his wounded hand to the window from which the shot had come, and while some of his friends helped him to his house, and others went to tell the king what had happened, the rest rushed to the 200 FliENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN-. house where the murderer had been hidden, beat open the door, and searched for hira everywhere, but in vain. They found the gun still smoking, but no otlier sign of him. He had had a horse -waiting at the door, upon which he had made his escape, and he was never caught. The king was much distressed when he heard of this. He went to see the admiral as he lay in bed, swore to pun- ish the enemies who had plotted against him, and was very angry with the Guises, whom he rightly suspected of hav- ing had something to do with the matter. But Catherine had in her mind a still more wicked plan than that of put- ting the admiral to death ; and the Guises and her son Henry agreed to it. It was nothing less than what had been pro- posed but not carried out once before — on a particular night to put to death all the Huguenots in Paris and in the other chief towns of France. She thought that in this way she should get rid at least of some of her enemies, and that if the Protestants resisted, and some of the Roman Catholic lords, even the Guises, were killed in the struggle, she should get rid of still more. The king was told that the Huguenots had made a plot to rise up against the government, and that it was necessary to put the admiral at least to death to prevent them from do- ing so. His mother told him this again and again, till the weak young man, who might have known how deceitful and treacherous she was, believed her, fell into a state of terroi* and was anxious to have the deed done at once. That afternoon he had been with the admiral, talking to him as a son might to a father, while Catherine stood in the room watching and longing to stop their conversation. At last Coligny made the king stoop down to him, and said some words in a low tone that Catherine could not hear. Then she had been able to bear it no longer, and had called away her son, saying the admiral was too ill to be allowed to talk any more. After so much friendliness between them, Charles was naturally much shocked at the idea of this good man being murdered in his bed, and for some time refused his mother and brother leave to touch him. But one evening, when they had been talking to him for some time in the same way, he suddenly changed his mind, CHARLES IX. 201 crying out in a sort of wild passion that since they thought it good, the admiral should die ; but that every Huguenot in France should die too, lest one should be left to reproach him afterward. Sunday, the 24th of August, St. Barthol- omew's Day, was the one fixed upon ; a bell was to ring at midnight, and then the massacre, or killing, was to begin. The king spent the day working at a blacksmith's forge, which he had set up to amuse himself. Catherine, Henry of Anjou, and the Guises made everything ready for their horrible plan. The night came ; the king drew back at the thought of what was to happen, and wished to stop every- thing, but the queen urged him on. She was so much afraid of his changing his mind again that she made Guise set out from the palace two hours earlier than had been arranged. When the clock struck ten the horrible work began all over Paris. The Roman Cath- olics rushed in upon the helpless Protestants, many of whom were asleep in their beds, and killed them by stabbing, shooting, or beating out their brains. Men, women, and children were dragged through the streets and thrown into the river. Houses were burned, bells rang to call together more and more enemies against the unfortunate Protes- tants. Even children were so much excited by the dread- ful sights to be seen in the streets that they went to hunt for Protestant babies, and did their best to put them to death. The murderers went to Coligny's house, where Guise stayed in the courtyard and sent in one of his servants, Avho found the admiral asleep. Coligny woke, asked what was wanted, and got out of his bed as calmly as usual. For a moment the murderer was afraid and hung back; but a friend came up, and together they attacked the admiral, killed him, and threw his body out of the window to the Duke of Guise, who was waiting below. Some Huguenots had escaped by getting on horseback before the murderers reached their part of the town, and fleeing from the city ; none of those who stayed were left alive. It is said that when day came the king himself stood at the window of his palace, firing a long gun at the fleeing Huguenots, and shouting, "Kill, kill." This unfortunate 202 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. young man seems to have been in a state almost like mad- ness at this time, and was not so much to blame for what had happened as his mother, his brother, and tlie Guises, though it is sad to think that they never could have done as they did if he had gone on refusing his leave, or had given warning to the admiral. About two thousand people were killed in one day and night. Orders had been sent to the governors of the other chief towns of France to put to death all the Huguenots, as had been done in Paris. A few governors bravely refused, saying they were soldiers, not murderers ; many others obeyed. But, after all, Catherine was disappointed ; the Huguenots, though so many had died, were not crushed yet ; there was still another war, and by the peace at the end of it the Huguenots gained more freedom than they had ever had before in France. Charles IX. died, two years after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in deep distress at the thoughts of that dreadful night and day, w^hich were always in his mind. His last words were that he was o-lad he left no male child to be kino- after him. Chapter XXXIX. HENRY III. (1574-1589). When Charles was dead his next brother, Henry, who had been Duke of Anjon, became king. He was Catherine's favorite son, and she had managed only a few months be- fore to have him chosen Kino- of Poland. Messeno'ers were now sent to tell him of his brother's death, and call him back to France. Catherine hoped it might be arranged that her fourth and youngest son, who was now just grow- ing up, should be King of Poland in Henry's place. It had been foretold to her when she was young that all her sons should be kings, and as this had now come true with three of them, she was anxious to see it fulfilled for the last. However, far from wishing for any other king, the Poles refused to let Henry go. They were in danger from their HENRY III. HEXRY III. 203 enemies the Turks, and wanted their king to stay and pro- tect them. But Henry liked France better than Poland, and soon managed to leave the Polish capital by night, taking with him some precious jewels belonging to the crown, and made his way into Austria. The Poles, when they found that he was gone, sent messengers to try to stop him, but in vain ; they had to give it up at last, and choose another king. He was probably a better man than Henry ; he could hardly have been a worse. Henry went on into Italy, and there spent his time in amusino; himself, showincr that it was no wish to beo-in his duties as king that had made him hurry away from the Poles. He did not arrive in France for three months, and meanwhile his mother governed in his name. The question about religion in France was as far as ever from being settled. War followed war, and each time that peace was made the Huguenots had rather more promised to them than before ; but the promises were usually not kept, or kept only in the parts of France where the Hugue- nots were the stronger. The natural leaders on the Hu- guenots' side were the two young princes whom Jane of Navarre had presented to the people after her husband died — her own son, Henry of Navarre, and his cousin, Henry of Conde. They were now young men ; Henry of Navarre, the elder of the two, was twenty-one, almost as old as the new King of France. He had at first agreed to live at the court with his wife, who was the king's sister, amusing himself, and seeming to be good friends with Charles while he lived, and afterward with Henry. But he felt more and more clearly that this was not the right place for him. He remembered his mother's teaching and the death of the Admiral Coligny, his friend, and at last he resolved to leave the court for- ever. He made ready secretly, so that the king might not find out what he had planned, and stop him in any way. He succeeded in escaping one night, and, riding to a pjace many miles away, he gathered his friends round him, and put himself at the head of the Huguenots. There were some people in France who did not care much about the difference between Protestants and Roman 204 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. Catholics, who, though they were Roman Catliolics them- selves, were chiefly anxious that France should be at peace, and that the Pope should lose all his unlawful power in the country. This body of people joined themselves with the Huguenots, who thus became much stronger than they had been before. At the head of the Roman Catholic party was the king, who hated the Huguenots, and who was always, after he had arrived in France, doing different strange things to show his subjects how good a Roman Catholic he was. One of his strange habits was to walk through the streets with a scourge, singing hymns and beat- ing hiaiself till his shoulders bled. This was done by many Roman Catholics of the time as a penance or punishment which they gave themselves for their sins ; and it was thought to be a very good deed and pleasing to God. The people were therefore pleased to see the king doing it. At other times he amused himself with balls and enter- tainments, or childish games ; he spent a great deal of time in playing with some little dogs of a particular kind of which he was very fond. The other leader of the Roman Catholics was Henry of Guise, the son of the Duke of Guise, who had been so powerful in the reigns of Charles IX. and Francis H. Henry of Guise was now just grown up, and was as clever and fond of power as his father had been. He despised the king, and had great hopes of be- ing able to make himself the most powerful man in the country, and perhaps, if Henry died without sons, succeed- ing him on the throne. He and his Roman Catholic friends arranged what they called a League, and tried to persuade all the Roman Catholics in the country to belong to it. They were all to join themselves together in a league or body of friends, and all to make certain promises ; one chief promise was to defend the Roman Catholic faith ; another, to obey the person who should be chosen by the League to be their head ; another, to help each other against any one who might attack or resist them, whoever it might be. The king was the person secretly meant by this, though his name was not mentioned, but every one who belonged to the League knew that if ever thei'e was a war between the king and the Guises, they would be ex- HENRY III. 205 pected to help the Guises. Many people took an oath to join the League and be faithful to it forever. As soon as it was made, Guise, at the head of it, went to war with the Protestants. Both sides had asked King Henry to call together the States-General, and see if tiiey could make any arrangement for settling the religious dispute, lie aOTccd, being in want of money, and hoping to persuade the deputies to give him some, and the States met together at Blois. The Hugue- nots would not attend, nor send any deputies, and the Roman Catliolics who came were not very friendly to the king. He had hoped that they would propose tr}' him some severe means of keeping the Huguenots quiet; but there was among the deputies one wise and good man, who, though a Roman Catholic himself, persuaded many of the otliers that it was better there sliould be two ways of thinking about religion in the country than that the civil wars which had lasted so long should go on. All the deputies agreed in refusing money to the king, who put an end to the sitting of the States in great disappointment, and every- thing went on as it had done before. The leaders of the League were also disappointed at finding that they had not more friends, for they had hoped that all the deputies would join with them in wishing to persecute the Hugue- nots. One of the troubles of Henry HI. was that his brother, who was now called iJuke of Anjou, as he had been him- self, was his enemy, and might at any time join the Hugue- nots against him. The duke had always been a friend to the Huguenot leaders, and he had had hopes at one time of marrying Elizabeth, Queen of England ; at another time he had thought of being King of the Netherlands. He marched into the Netherlands, pretended he was go- ing to help the people there in their struggle against Philip XL, but he really only tried to made himself master of a few towns and keep them for his own, leaving the rest of the country to help itself as best it might. He did not manage to take the towns, and went back again into France, where he soon afterward died, to the relief of his brother. Henry had now no near relation left to be king after 206 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. him, no brother and no son. The two people for whom he cared most in the world were two favorites, to whom he gave all kinds of posts and honors, and for whom he col- lected together money by taxing his people ahnost more than they could bear. They had both been made dukes, and the king arranged that they should marry two of the sisters of the queen, in order that they might be grander than any of the other lords. But the person who would now be king after Henry III. was his enemy, the Hugue- not Henry of Navarre, who was showing himself to be a wiser and a greater man than he had at tirst seemed likely to be. He had learned much from his troubles, and had become thoughtful and prudent, as \vell as brave and active. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, when he was livdng at the French court, and had married the king's sister, he had been persuaded to become a Roman Catholic, and had been so till he had gone to put himself at the head of the Hugue- not army. He had then declared himself a Huguenot, but he had always treated the Roman Catholics with great kindness, and many people thought that he did not really much prefer one religion to the other. The king wrote to him to ask whether, now that he seemed likely soon to be- come king of France, he would not become a Roman Catho- lic. He positively refused. The Roman Catholics were much distressed at the idea of having a Huguenot king when Henry should die. Thouo-h he was onlv twenty- three, he was so weak and delicate that his subjects always thought and spoke of him as likely to die at any time. No such thing had ever been known as a Protestant King of France, and people said that such a thing could not law- fully be. They all became eager agjiin to join the League, which had been put an end to by one of the treaties be- tween Henry and his subjects. The* oath was again sent all over the country, and those who swore it again became bound to help the Duke of Guise and his friends against any one in France who should resist them. The King of Spain, Philip XL, made a treaty with the Duke of Guise, and promised to send him help ; but he was really more anxious that there should be war in France HENRY III. 207 than that either party should succeed in conquering the other. He wanted the French to be busy fighting, so as not to attend to him, while he went to attack the English with his Invincible Armada, which he did just at this time. There is no need for me to say how he failed. Henry HI. was frightened when he saw Guise so strong, and made a treaty with him, promising to join him against the Huguenots. When Henry of Navarre heard of this, he sat up all one night, thinking of the danger in which the Huguenots were, and trying to invent some means of safety or help for them. In the morning he found that half his mustache had turned white from trouble and thought. After this began a war called the War of the Three Hen- ries. These were King Henry III., Henry of Navarre, and Henry, Duke of Guise. The King of Navarre and the Duke of Guise were real enemies ; King Henry was on the side of neither. He was afraid of Guise, and he hated the Hugue- nots. He called himself the friend of the League, but al- ways drew back from giving it any real help. He had, however, made an edict — that is, an order or command — that the Huguenots should be forbidden to hold services in France ; that all their ministers, and all Huguenots who re- fused to become Roman Catholics, should leave the country within six months. Hundreds of poor people left their homes and fled out of France — men, women, and children — taking with them what goods they could carry. Many of the king's ministers warned him in vain of the folly and wickedness of thus driving away his subjects. Henry of Navarre had asked for help from the Protes- tants of Germany, and a body of soldiers were on their way to him at this time, but Guise and his army were between the Huguenots and their friends, and they found it impossi- ble to join. Henry of Navarre met the royal army, com- manded by one of the king's two favorites, a brave, rash young man. A battle was fought, in which Henry's grave old Huguenots, who began the fight by kneeling down and saying a prayer, and sang a hymn as they marched against their enemies, soon had the better of the young duke's brave but thoughtless soldiers, who had most of them never been in battle before. Tiie duke was killed. This was the 208 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. first victory of the King of Navarre. It made the Protes- tants hopeful for the time, but no good came to them from it. Soon afterward, the Duke of Guise marched against the army of German Protestants, and fought a great battle against them, in which they were completely beaten and so much discouraged that those of them-who were left alive went home at once. The people of the country rose up against them as they passed, and put to death any who strayed away from the main body. The French Protestants were thus left with no hope except in the courage of their leader, and in the dislike which they knew the king had for the Duke of Guise. Guise's friends admired him more than ever after his victory over the Germans, and it w^as always in his mind that perhaps some day he might manage to make himself king instead of Henry III., whom everybody despised. Even if he were not really king, he had hopes of being able to take for himself all the real power in the country, and while he was called constable or admiral, or was supposed merely to hold some other great ofiice, to be able to make King Henry do whatever he wished. He had made a treaty with the King of Spain, who promised help, but did not give him much, being very busy about his own afEairs. Guise resolved to go to Paris and see Low the people would receive him. He told his friends of his plan, but it was not known by the king or the queen's mother Cathe- rine, who was still alive, or by the common people in Paris. He arrived with very few followers, and at fii^st rode through the street with his face hidden in his cloak, so that no one knew hira ; but at last one of his friends pulled ofE his hat as if in joke, and told him it was time to show himself. He was then known at once, and all the people came rush- ing into the streets to look at him. They treated him as a hero, a conqueror, almost as a saint ; they pressed round to touch him, they tried to kiss his cloak ; ladies threw down flowers upon him from high w^indows, and cries of " Long live Guise !" rolled from street to street. The duke went to the house of old Queen Catherine, and she took him to see the king. Henry was not at all delighted at the way HENRY III. 209 in which Guise had been received, and had serious thoughts of having him murdered when he came to the palace ; but was persuaded by his ministers not to do what would have been both so wrong and so foolish. The next day the king brought some troops into Paris, at which all the citizens rose up in defence of Guise, and built what they call barricades across the streets. These were made by stretching chains across a street and piling up behind them barrels, sand, paving-stones, and whatever would make a firm wall. Behind each barricade stood men ready with muskets, others at the windows* of the houses were also armed, ready to fire into the streets. Women were also at the windows armed like the men. This day was called the Day of the Barricades. After all, the town was not attacked, the king went away from Paris, and left the Duke of Guise there in triumph. It is said that when the king left Paris, he swore never to come back there but by a breach, that is, through a hole in the wall made in battle. The king was so weak and uncertain that there did not seem much chance of his ever coming back to his capital. Though he now looked upon the Duke of Guise as his worst enemy, he would not join with the King of Navarre against him ; in fact, he did all that Guise wished, being afraid to refuse him anything. The States-General were called together at Blois, the town where the king was stay- ing. No deputies dared to go there who were not mem- bers of the League and friends of Guise, and they hoped to have everything their own way, and make the king agree to whatever they liked. They made him agree to so much, that at last he could bear it no longer, and not having cour- age or strength to resist the Duke of Guise openly, he resolved to murder him, and so free himself from the man he now hated and feared more than any one else. Some of his friends, whose help he first asked, refused to commit the murder for him, saying they were not execu- tioners, but others were found at last who were willing to undertake the business. The duke had many warnings sent him by his friends, but he took no notice of them. The day before Christmas- 210 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. day he went as usual to the king's castle, where a council was to be held. A message came asking the duke to go into a private room to speak to the king. As soon as he was in the room, the murderers fell upon him, stabbed him, and in spite of his struggles succeeded in killing him before his brother and some other friends, who from their council chamber heard sounds of what was going on, could come to his help. The brother was also thrown into prison and afterward put to death. King Henry came to look at the body of his dead enemy, and was full of pride and pleasure at his success. He went to tell the news to his mother, Catherine, who was ill in bed, and she was much surprised to hear of the death of the man who had been the most important person in France. She warned Henry to take care that, now he had killed the King of Paris, as Guise was called, he did not himself be- come the king of nothing. Catherine died soon after this, cared for by no one, not even her son, for whom she had done so much, though she had turned even against him at the end of her life. When Guise was dead, Henry IH. did the only thing that could now be of use to him, and made peace with the King of Navarre. Together they were too strong for the party of the League, who now had for their leader a brother of the Duke of Guise. The two kings marched toward Paris, where they believed most of the townspeople would be ready to take their side. Some of the towns of France gave themselves up to the king, others to the Duke of Guise. But the enemies of the king used the same means against him that he had used against others. Many of the French monks, especially a particular order, called the Jesuits, who had lately become of great importance in France, taught that it might at times be right to do wrong things, that good might come of it ; in particular, that it might be a duty to kill bad people. A friar, who had heard this teach- ing, and who was known to his friends as half mad, had made up his mind to kill the king. He asked advice from a priest, who said the idea was a good one, and encouraged him in it. He walked to the camp of the king, which was outside Paris, at a village named St. Cloud, and was allowed HEXRY IV. 211 to go into his presence with a letter which he pretended he wished to deliver. While the king was reading it the friar went close up to him, saying that he wished to speak to him alone, and suddenly stabbed him with a long knife which he had brought in hidden in his coat-sleeve. The king cried out, " Ah ! bad monk, he has killed me ;" drew the knife from his own body, and struck the murderer in the face. The courtiers rushed upon him and killed him. It was thought at first that the king's wound was not dangerous; but soon it became worse and worse. Henry HI. died that evening;;, eio;ht months after the murder of the Duke of Guise. Of all the bad kings of France, he may be said to have been the worst ; he was both wicked and weak, and his reign came at a time when his wickedness and weakness were able to do more mischief in the country than might have come from them at a less disturbed time. Chapter XL. HENRY ry. (1589-1610). When Henry III. was dying, he sent for the King of Navarre, and in his last hour called upon all his subjects who were with him to take an oath to Henry, declaring that he should be their next king. They all took the oath^ but as soon as the king was dead, it became clear that many of them had no thoughts of keeping their promise. When Henry went into the room where the dead body of the king was lying, he found the courtiers and servants of Henry HI. all standing together in groups, with their fists clenched, and talking to each other in low voices, their sen- tences often ending with, " Sooner die a thousand deaths." This was not encouraging for him, and what happened afterward had all the same meaning. In Paris, the people were filled with joy on hearing of the death of the king ; nothing was heard in the streets but songs and laughter, firew^orks were set off, and the citi- zens made feasts for each other in the streets. Clement, 212 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. the murderer, was spoken of as a saint ; pictures and busts of liim were put up in the houses of many of the Parisians, and even in the churches and on altars. The people who showed so much delight were all friends of the Guises, who felt that now the death of the great duke was revenged. Henry III. being no longer king, the next thing that the Guises were anxious about was to prevent Henry of Navarre from succeeding him. The head of the family was now a brother of Henry of Guise, called the Duke of Mayenne ; Guise had left a son who was still a child, so young as to be of no importance to his party. Mayenne had same hopes that one of his family might be chosen as king by the Roman Catholics, instead of the heretic Henry, and there were many other people who hoped the same thing for themselves or their friends. The King of Spain, for one, said he had a right to the crown because he had married the sister of the three last kings ; and a duke, who had married another sister of the same kings, also claimed the crown, but was said to have less right to it than Philip, because his wife was the younger sister of Philip's wife. The Guises chose one of their relations, who was old and weak, and would do nothing but what pleased them, and called him King Charles X. The King of Spain thought it best for the present to join with the Guises and help them as much as possible, so as to defeat completely the King of Navarre, after which he hoped to be able to arrange everything with the Roman Catholics in his own way. Therefore he se-nt men and money to the Duke of Mayenne. From this time, the people who were friends both of the Leaguers and of Philip of Spain were said to belong to the Union, because the two parties were joined or united to- gether. Many Frenchmen, who cared for their country more than for either the old or the new religion, took the side of Henry, because his enemies were the friends of the Spaniards, and they did not like to think of Philip even proposing to be King of France. Some of the Roman Catholic nobles, really wishing to made friends with Henry, sent to ask him again to become a Roman Catholic, or, if he would not do so at once, to allow himself to be taught HENRY IV. 213 by some of the Roman Catholic nobles, and see whether he would not come to agree with them as to which was the right religion. Henry replied that they could not expect him to change so suddenly, but that he would at some future time hold a council on the subject, and consider what it was best to do ; and that he would always treat the Ro- man Catholics well. Some years later Henry made up his mind to change his religion and become a Roman Catholic, as so many of his subjects wished. He was too proud to do it as soon as his subjects chose to ask it of him, but he saw by degrees, as the civil war went on for year after year, that he should never come to be king, and there would never be peace in France, by any other means. There were plenty of reasons to be given for this change. The war w^as the worst thing there could be for France ; no one could live happily or prosperously in the country while it lasted ; the poor people were suffering a great deal, and Henry, while he was taken up with fighting, was not able to do anything for the help of any of his subjects, and, while he had no power over the Roman Catholics, w^as not able to help the Protestants. But what is wrong can never be made right, however much good may come of it ; and it is wrong for a man to say he believes what he does not believe, and to pretend to think good what he really thinks bad. Nothing can ever make such conduct right, and many of the greatest and best men who have lived have died and suffered pain and trouble of every sort rather than make a change such as Henry made. J5ut it is by no means certain what Henry did really believe, and whether it were much more untrue for him to call himself a Roman Catholic than to call himself a Protes- tant. He would have been a greater and no doubt a better man than he was, if he had thought more about serious matters, made up his mind what he believed, and told the truth about it honestly and openly ; but, as it was, I do not think that what he did was really so bad as it at first seems to be. It should be said that several of his Protestant fi'iends and ministers advised him to turn Roman Catholic for his good and the good of the country. 15 214 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. In Henry lY. good and bad qualities were joined together as they are in ev^ery other man, but there was far more good in him than there had been for many reigns in the French kings. He had been brought up in a way most unlike that in which young princes are usually treated. He ran about with the village boys bareheaded and barefooted, always out of doors, both in summer and winter; when he grew strong enough he used sometimes to work in the fields as if he had been one of them, and to feed on the coarse bread which they ate. He learned to be bold, active, and vigor- ous, and grew up strong and healthy. All this was of great use to him when his wars began, and he and his army had to go through many hardships and difficulties. Henry was lively, gay, and very kind and friendly to his soldiers and servants, talking to them, finding out what they wanted, and whether there were anything he could do for them. Every one who met him was delighted with his manners, rich and poor alike. His first idea, when he found he must resist the Union by war, Avas to make himself master of Paris ; but this he found he was not strong enough to do. The Duke of Mayennei had called together an army of his friends, who were meet- ing in the capital, and Henry, who had been encamped with his soldiers outside the walls, was obliged to give up all hope for the present of winning Paris, and led his men into the north of France, hoping that Mayenne would follow him there. He was disappointed, however, when Mayenne ar- rived with a much larger army than Henry had expected. A great battle was fought between them at a place named Arques, where Henry and his chief general had themselves worked as engineers, blocking up roads by which they could be attacked, and putting up defences on all sides. Their men, seeing them at work themselves, had helped them eagerly. At the beginning of the battle both armies were partly successful, but at last Henry's soldiers began to give way. Henry in despair cried out, " Are there not fifty gentlemen to be found in France ready to die with their king ?" He then turned to the Protestant minister of the camp, and bade him sing the psalm. The psalm was one which was HENRY IV. 215 always sung by the Huguenots in battle, and which had been heard when they won some of their most famous vic- tories. When the Huguenots heard this, and ail the soldiers saw Henry at their head, all theii* usual courage came back, and as Mayenne sent no help to his troops, Henry soon saw his enemies driven backward, and at last quite out of the camp. Mayenne was not strong enough to attack him again. The fighting went on at times all through the end of that year and the beginning of the next. The next year was fought the battle which, of all those gained by Henry, is the one of which people thought and talked most, and where he won the most glory for himself. It was at Ivry, which is, like Arques, in the north part of France. The king, as usual, had fewer men than his enemies ; still he was on this day as cheerful and gay as was usual with him in times of danger, and he went about among the men talk- ing to them, and saying all he could to raise their spirits and give them hope for the battle. There is a story told of him about this day, which shows some of the good qualities for which he was so much beloved by his subjects. He had with him a German officer, named Schomberg, commanding a body of cavalry. A few days before, this officer had asked the king for money for the troops, and Henry, who had but little money to spare, and was vexed at being asked for more, hastily answered that no man of honor ever asked for money on the eve of battle. On the day of the battle Henry remembered this speech, which he knew to have been unjust, as well as unkind, and going to Schomberg's tent, he said to him, "M. de Schomberg, I offended you the other day ; this may be the last day of my life, and I do not wish to carry away with me the honor of a gentleman. I know your courage and your merit. For- give me, and embrace me." The colonel answered, " Sire, it is true that your majesty wounded me the other day, and now you kill me, for the honor you do me obliges me to die in your service." A king wdio knew when he had been wrong — still more, who would own it — was something to which the French in those days had long been unused. Just before the fight began the king made a short speech 216 FRENCH HISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. to his men. He told them, if their flags should be lost in the battle, to follow the white plume of peacock's feathers in his helmet. His horse was adorned in the same way, that they might be easily seen and known by both friends and enemies. The battle was fierce and short. It ended in the victory of King Henry, who escaped unhurt, though he had plunged so far into the thickest of the fight that, for about a quarter of an hour, no one knew whether he were alive or dead. Henry received kindly all the French who submitted to him. " Give quarter to the French," he said to his men ; " save the French nobles, and down with the foreigners." Soon after this battle Henry marclied to Paris. His great Avish was to make himself master of the capital ; but he soon found that he was still much too weak to have any chance against so strong a city. The people of Pai'is, who had always been friendly to the Guises, were now such bit- ter enemies to Henry IV. that some of them would rather liave given themselves up to Spain than submit to him, and would rather have had Philip II., one of the most cruel and hard-hearted men that ever lived, to reign over them than the heretic king. Philip seriously hoped at one time to make himself King of France, for now the king, whom the Guises had made for themselves, and called Charles X., was tlead. Henry besieged the city closely, and soon the people be- gan to suffer terribly from hunger. When they had used all the food they had stored np in the town, they began to eat cats, dogs, asses, rats, and at last almost anything that could be swallowed, even little balls of clay and slate mixed with water. It is said that the only thing to be had cheap in Paris was sermons, for the clergy of the League preached constantly, probably about the virtues of the Guises and all the Roman Catholics, and the sins of Henry. The Spanish ambassador, who was in Paris, gave away food and money, and did all he could to prevent the people from yielding themselves up to Henry. Once when a crowd of people gathered together outside his palace, and he threw them out some coins, they all cried with one voice, " No more money ; give us bread !" After this he Jfarptr