27. Charles V.

CHAPTER XXVII. Charles V.

(1364-1380)

The next king was Charles V., the eldest son of John. As this young man had been managing the business of governing 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 having him to rule over them. He had run away from the battle of Poitiers when a boy, and since then he had never been seen with armour 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 all through 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 became 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, Bertrand Du Guesclin, a knight of Brittany, 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 become 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 without bringing much ill-treatment and distress to the poor of the country round about, but the difference be tween Du Guesclin and most other soldiers of his time was that he was sorry to see this distress, and did what he could to relieve 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 Navarre 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. After this, John de Montfort, the friend of the English, was made Duke of Brittany, and there was peace in that country and in other parts of France for a short time.

But though the war stopped, the free companies still roamed about the 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 trying to defend 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 Du Guesclin should take them to fight in Spain, where a war was going on.

Unfortunately Du Guesclin 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 quantity 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 subjects of the same king, but behaved as if they were conquered 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, and calling upon him to come to Paris to be judged there by the king's court. This was treating the prince 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 English. He knew that if the French were defeated again, as they had been at Cressy and Poitiers, it would be a terrible misfortune for the country, and make more of the distress and poverty which he was trying to relieve. He therefore gave orders to his generals that no battle should ever be fought between his men and those of the King of England. 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 army 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 making 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 had taken after a siege of a month, where he treated the people with horrible cruelty, 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, plundered, and destroyed.

Charles V., 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 become well known. He was also fond of building, and during the one year of truce which 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 Bastille, which was at first a fortress to defend Paris against enemies, and afterwards was used only as a prison.

Charles was very delicate; he had many illnesses, and did not live long. His death was quite 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 V. was dying. His two younger brothers were with him, and the king made them promise to protect his eldest son, the Dauphin, a boy of twelve years old. Another brother, the Duke of Anjou, had also come to court, though without being invited, 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 rights have passed on to the new king, the son of Charles V.