28. Charles VI.
CHAPTER XXVIII. Charles 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 arranged 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 amongst 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 precious. 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 Treasurer 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 carried 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, and was then taken to Paris, where 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 discontented 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 honour 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 from 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 persuaded to cry out the news about the taxes. He rode into the market-place, and cried out that the king 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 listening 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 money instead.
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 VI.
fought his first battle, and won his first victory, helping the count against his subjects.
When Charles VI. was fourteen, he had the power of doing 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(; no body of men like our Parliament, which can prevent the king from having his own way, when the members of Parliament think what he wishes to be bad for the country). 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 as splendid 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 colours, 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, all in different pieces, which was to be put up when the army landed. It must have been something like the wooden farmyards 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 was 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 now 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 wages, and treated the people of their own special provinces with the greatest cruelty. Charles VI.
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 different kinds; fountains of milk and wine ran at the comers of the streets, and all the houses were made gay with rich silk and tapestry hanging from the windows. As the queen passed by the great church of Nôtre Dame, a man dressed like an angel slid down a cord from the top of one of the high towers, put a beautiful crown on her head, and was drawn up again. Charles VI.
disguised himself as a common person, and stood in the street to see the show. He was so anxious to get a good view, that he was always pressing forwards to the front, and the sergeants who were keeping order in the street, several times gave him blows 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 himself 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 enemies 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 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 displeased 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 become 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 wise 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 which he himself has very little to do, must be told in another chapter.
