CHAPTER XXI: THE JACQUERIE
ON the evening after the battle of Poitiers a splendid entertainment wasserved in the tent of the Prince of Wales to the King of France andall the principal prisoners. John, with his son and six of his highestnobles were seated at a table raised above the rest, and the princehimself waited as page upon the French king. John in vain endeavouredto persuade the prince to be seated; the latter refused, saying, thatit was his pleasure as well as his duty to wait upon one who had shownhimself to be the best and bravest knight in the French army. Theexample of the Black Prince was contagious, and the English vied witheach other in generous treatment of their prisoners. All were treatedas friends, and that night an immense number of knights and squires wereadmitted to ransom on such terms as had never before been known. Thecaptors simply required their prisoners to declare in good faith whatthey could afford to pay without pressing themselves too hard, "for theydid not wish," they said, "to ransom knights or squires on terms whichwould prevent them from maintaining their station in society, fromserving their lords, or from riding forth in arms to advance their nameand honour."
Upon the following morning solemn thanksgivings were offered up onthe field of battle for the glorious victory. Then the English army,striking its tents, marched back towards Bordeaux. They were unmolestedupon this march, for although the divisions of the Dauphin and the Dukeof Orleans had now reunited, and were immensely superior in numbers tothe English, encumbered as the latter were, moreover, with prisoners andbooty, the tremendous defeat which they had suffered, and still more thecapture of the king, paralysed the French commanders, and the Englishreached Bordeaux without striking another blow.
Not long after they reached that city the Cardinal of Perigord andanother legate presented themselves to arrange peace, and thesenegotiations went on throughout the winter. The prince had received fullpowers from his father, and his demands were very moderate; but inspite of this no final peace could be arranged, and the result of theconference was the proclamation of a truce, to last for two years fromthe following Easter. During the winter immense numbers of the prisonerswho had gone at large upon parole, came in and paid their ransoms, asdid the higher nobles who had been taken prisoners, and the whole armywas greatly enriched. At the end of April the prince returned to Englandwith King John. The procession through the streets of London was amagnificent one, the citizens vying with each other in decorating theirhouses in honour of the victor of Poitiers, who, simply dressed, rodeon a small black horse by the side of his prisoner, who was splendidlyattired, and mounted on a superb white charger. The king received hisroyal prisoner in state in the great hall of his palace at Westminster,and did all in his power to alleviate the sorrows of his condition. Thesplendid palace of the Savoy, with gardens extending to the Thames, wasappointed for his residence, and every means was taken to soften hiscaptivity.
During the absence of the Black Prince in Guienne the king had beenwarring in Scotland. Here his success had been small, as the Scotch hadretreated before him, wasting the country. David Bruce, the rightfulking, was a prisoner in England, and Baliol, a descendant of the rivalof Robert Bruce, had been placed upon the throne. As Edward passedthrough Roxburgh he received from Baliol a formal cession of his rightsand titles to the throne of Scotland, and in return for this purelynominal gift he bestowed an annual income upon Baliol, who livedand died a pensioner of England. After Edward's return to Englandnegotiations were carried on with the Scots, and a treaty was signed bywhich a truce for ten years was established between the two countries,and the liberation of Bruce was granted on a ransom of 100,000 marks.
The disorganization into which France had been thrown by the capture ofits king increased rather than diminished. Among all classes men strovein the absence of a repressive power to gain advantages and privileges.Serious riots occurred in many parts, and the demagogues of Paris,headed by Stephen Marcel, and Robert le Coq, bishop of Leon, set atdefiance the Dauphin and the ministers and lieutenant of the king.Massacre and violence stained the streets of Paris with blood. Generallaw, public order, and private security were all lost. Great bodies ofbrigands devastated the country, and the whole of France was thrown intoconfusion. So terrible was the disorder that the inhabitants of everyvillage were obliged to fortify the ends of their streets, and keepwatch and ward as in the cities. The proprietors of land on the banks ofrivers spent the night in boats moored in the middle of the stream, andin every house and castle throughout the land men remained armed as ifagainst instant attack.
Then arose the terrible insurrection known as the Jacquerie. Forcenturies the peasantry of France had suffered under a bondage to whichthere had never been any approach in England. Their lives and libertieswere wholly at the mercy of their feudal lords. Hitherto no attempt atresistance had been possible; but the tremendous defeat of the French atPoitiers by a handful of English aroused the hope among the serfs thatthe moment for vengeance had come. The movement began among a handful ofpeasants in the neighbourhood of St. Leu and Claremont. These declaredthat they would put to death all the gentlemen in the land. The cryspread through the country. The serfs, armed with pikes, poured out fromevery village, and a number of the lower classes from the towns joinedthem. Their first success was an attack upon a small castle. They burneddown the gates and slew the knight to whom it belonged, with his wifeand children of all ages. Their numbers rapidly increased.
Castle after castle was taken and stormed, palaces and houses levelledto the ground; fire, plunder, and massacre swept through the fairestprovinces of France.
The peasants vied with each other in inventing deaths of fiendishcruelty and outrage upon every man, woman, and child of the betterclasses who fell into their hands. Owing to the number of nobles who hadfallen at Cressy and Poitiers, and of those still captives in England,very many of their wives and daughters remained unprotected, and thesewere the especial victims of the fiendish malignity of the peasantry.Separated in many bands, the insurgents marched through the Beauvoisis,Soissonois, and Vermandois; and as they approached a number ofunprotected ladies of the highest families in France fled to Meaux,where they remained under the guard of the young Duke of Orleans and ahandful of men-at-arms.
After the conclusion of the peace at Bordeaux, Sir Walter Somers hadbeen despatched on a mission to some of the German princes, with whomthe king was in close relations. The business was not of an onerousnature, but Walter had been detained for some time over it. He spent apleasant time in Germany, where, as an emissary of the king and one ofthe victors of Poitiers, the young English knight was made much of.When he set out on his return he joined the Captal De Buch, who, everthirsting for adventure, had on the conclusion of the truce gone toserve in a campaign in Germany; with him was the French Count de Foix,who had been also serving throughout the campaign.
On entering France from the Rhine the three knights were shocked atthe misery and ruin which met their eyes on all sides. Every castleand house throughout the country, of a class superior to those of thepeasants, was destroyed, and tales of the most horrible outrages andmurders met their ears.
"I regret," the Count de Foix said earnestly, "that I have been awaywarring in Germany, for it is clear that every true knight is wanted athome to crush down these human wolves."
"Methinks," the Captal rejoined, "that France will do well to invitethe chivalry of all other countries to assemble and aid to put down thishorrible insurrection."
"Aye," the Count said bitterly; "but who is to speak in the name ofFrance? The Dauphin is powerless, and the virtual government is in thehands of Marcel and other ambitious traitors who hail the doings of theJacquerie with delight, for these mad peasants are doing their work ofdestroying the knights and nobles."
The villages through which they passed were deserted save by women, andin the small towns the people of the lower class scowled threateninglyat the three knights; but they with their following of fortymen-at-arms, of whom five were followers of Walter, fifteen of theCaptal, and twenty of the Co
unt de Foix, ventured not to proceed beyondevil glances.
"I would," de Foix said, "that these dogs would but lift a hand againstus. By St. Stephen, we would teach them a rough lesson!"
His companions were of the same mind, for all were excited to fury bythe terrible tales which they heard. All these stories were new to them,for although rumours had reached Germany of the outbreak of a peasantinsurrection in France the movement had but just begun when theystarted. As far as the frontier they had traveled leisurely, but theyhad hastened their pace more and more as they learned how sore was thestrait of the nobles and gentry of the country and how grievously everygood sword was needed. When they reached Chalons they heard much fullerparticulars than had before reached them, and learned that the Duchessof Normandy, the Duchess of Orleans, and near three hundred ladies,had sought refuge in Meaux, and that they were there guarded but by ahandful of men-at-arms under the Duke of Orleans, while great bands ofserfs were pouring in from all parts of the country round, to massacrethem.
Meaux is eighty miles from Chalons, but the three knights determinedto press onward with all speed in hopes of averting the catastrophe.Allowing their horses an hour or two to rest, they rode forward, andpressing on without halt or delay, save such as was absolutely needed bythe horses, they arrived at Meaux late the following night, and found totheir delight that the insurgents, although swarming in immense numbersround the town, had not yet attacked it.
The arrival of the three knights and their followers was greeted withjoy by the ladies. They, with their guard, had taken up their positionin the market-house and market-place, which were separated from therest of the town by the river Maine, which flows through the city.A consultation was at once held, and it being found that the Duke ofOrleans had but twenty men-at-arms with him it was determined that itwas impossible to defend the city walls, but that upon the followingmorning they would endeavour to cut their way with the ladies throughthe peasant hosts. In the night, however, an uproar was heard in thecity. The burghers had risen and had opened the gates to the peasants,who now poured in in thousands. Every hour increased their numbers.
The market-place was besieged in the morning, and an hour or twoafterwards a large body of the ruffians of Paris, under the command of abrutal grocer named Pierre Gille, arrived to swell their ranks.
The attack on the market-house continued, and the Duke of Orleans helda consultation with the three knights. It was agreed that against sucha host of enemies the market-place could not long be defended, and thattheir best hope lay in sallying out and falling upon the assailants.Accordingly the men-at-arms were drawn up in order, with the banners ofthe Duke of Orleans and the Count de Foix, and the pennons of theCaptal and Sir Walter Somers displayed, the gates were opened, and withlevelled lances the little party rode out. Hitherto nothing had beenheard save yells of anticipated triumph and fierce imprecations andthreats against the defenders from the immense multitude without; butthe appearance of the orderly ranks of the knights and men-at-arms asthey issued through the gate struck a silence of fear through the mass.
Without an instant's delay the knights and men-at-arms, with levelledlances, charged into the multitude. A few attempted to fight, but morestrove to fly, as the nobles and their followers, throwing away theirlances, fell upon them with sword and battle-axe. Jammed up in thenarrow streets of a small walled town, overthrowing and impeding eachother in their efforts to escape, trampled down by the heavy horsesof the men-at-arms, and hewn down by their swords and battle-axes,the insurgents fell in vast numbers. Multitudes succeeded in escapingthrough the gates into the fields; but here they were followed by theknights and their retainers, who continued charging among them andslaying till utter weariness compelled them to cease from the pursuitand return to Meaux. Not less than seven thousand of the insurgentshad been slain by the four knights and fifty men, for ten had been leftbehind to guard the gates of the market-place.
History has no record of so vast a slaughter by so small a body of men.This terrific punishment put a summary end to the Jacquerie. Alreadyin other parts several bodies had been defeated, and their principalleader, Caillet, with three thousand of his followers, slain nearClermont. But the defeat at Meaux was the crushing blow which put an endto the insurrection.