Read Online The Maid and the Queen by Nancy Goldstone - Free Book Online
Authors: Nancy Goldstone
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apparel, often for as long as five months. He had to be tricked or frightened into removing his clothes, and when he did, his servants found his body covered in sores and smeared with his own excrement. Sometimes he threw his clothes into the fire. Sometimes he urinated on them. Often he made obscene gestures or babbled incoherently.
Charles VI suff ers his first psychotic episode, attacking his own men.
Although frequently he would recognize his household servants, he almost never knew his wife and children. The sight of Isabeau, in particular, upset him; he couldn’t bear to have her around him. According to the Monk of Saint-Denis, “when… she [Isabeau] approached to lavish attention on him, the king repulsed her, whispering to his people: ‘Who is this woman obstructing my view? Find out what she wants, and stop her from annoying and bothering me, if you can.’” Instead, to calm him, he was provided with a mistress who lived with him at his favorite Parisian domicile, the Hôtel Saint-Pol, and by whom he eventually had a child.
But then, sometimes after days, but more often after weeks or even months of raving, the hallucinations would disappear as abruptly as they had come. Charles would remember who and what he was and return to his wife and children. He would also once again resume rule. This was the great undoing of France. For although he appeared sane during these periods, the king was likely never really free of the disease, and his confusion and uncertainty, particularly about what had occurred in the kingdom during the intervals of his lunacy, made him highly susceptible to suggestion and the slightest persuasion. He became like one of those characters in a fairy tale who, stricken by Cupid’s arrow, or sprinkled with magic powder, or placed under a wizard’s spell, falls in love with the first person he sees upon waking. Eventually it became widely known among his relatives that whosoever succeeded at gaining entry into the king’s presence immediately upon his emergence from one of his cycles of madness could obtain pretty much anything he or she wanted out of him.
A S SOON AS IT BECAME CLEAR that Charles was mentally incapacitated, his uncles, especially the duke of Burgundy, moved quickly to once again take control of the kingdom. Unlike the period of the king’s minority, however, they were not openly named as regents. Because Charles was sometimes sane enough to govern, he was never removed from power, and his subjects continued to consider him to be the only legitimate ruler of France. Consequently, every policy that was implemented by his uncles or anyone else had to be done in the king’s name, whether the king was aware of the action or not. It could also be reversed by the king whenever he was rationalenough to do so. Additionally, any commandment issued by the king, even if it conflicted openly with a prior commandment, was automatically accepted as law.
This confusing state of affairs was further exacerbated by the introduction of a new and powerful rival to the duke of Burgundy. The king’s younger brother, Louis, duke of Orléans, married and with a family of his own to protect, was now old enough to jealously guard his prerogative. Louis was ambitious not only for power but for wealth, and was determined that his holdings should be on a par with—or preferably exceed—those of his uncles. In 1401, he took advantage of the duke of Burgundy’s absence from Paris to cajole his brother the king into ceding to him two important properties that Philip the Bold coveted. Furious, the duke of Burgundy responded by raising an army and marching on Paris. Civil war was only averted at the last minute through arbitration undertaken by the queen, the king being at the time locked up, raving, in the Hôtel Saint-Pol.
This was Isabeau’s first real foray into politics, and from the result she evidently decided it was better to wield power than to be at the mercy of someone else’s army,
Charles VI suff ers his first psychotic episode, attacking his own men.
Although frequently he would recognize his household servants, he almost never knew his wife and children. The sight of Isabeau, in particular, upset him; he couldn’t bear to have her around him. According to the Monk of Saint-Denis, “when… she [Isabeau] approached to lavish attention on him, the king repulsed her, whispering to his people: ‘Who is this woman obstructing my view? Find out what she wants, and stop her from annoying and bothering me, if you can.’” Instead, to calm him, he was provided with a mistress who lived with him at his favorite Parisian domicile, the Hôtel Saint-Pol, and by whom he eventually had a child.
But then, sometimes after days, but more often after weeks or even months of raving, the hallucinations would disappear as abruptly as they had come. Charles would remember who and what he was and return to his wife and children. He would also once again resume rule. This was the great undoing of France. For although he appeared sane during these periods, the king was likely never really free of the disease, and his confusion and uncertainty, particularly about what had occurred in the kingdom during the intervals of his lunacy, made him highly susceptible to suggestion and the slightest persuasion. He became like one of those characters in a fairy tale who, stricken by Cupid’s arrow, or sprinkled with magic powder, or placed under a wizard’s spell, falls in love with the first person he sees upon waking. Eventually it became widely known among his relatives that whosoever succeeded at gaining entry into the king’s presence immediately upon his emergence from one of his cycles of madness could obtain pretty much anything he or she wanted out of him.
A S SOON AS IT BECAME CLEAR that Charles was mentally incapacitated, his uncles, especially the duke of Burgundy, moved quickly to once again take control of the kingdom. Unlike the period of the king’s minority, however, they were not openly named as regents. Because Charles was sometimes sane enough to govern, he was never removed from power, and his subjects continued to consider him to be the only legitimate ruler of France. Consequently, every policy that was implemented by his uncles or anyone else had to be done in the king’s name, whether the king was aware of the action or not. It could also be reversed by the king whenever he was rationalenough to do so. Additionally, any commandment issued by the king, even if it conflicted openly with a prior commandment, was automatically accepted as law.
This confusing state of affairs was further exacerbated by the introduction of a new and powerful rival to the duke of Burgundy. The king’s younger brother, Louis, duke of Orléans, married and with a family of his own to protect, was now old enough to jealously guard his prerogative. Louis was ambitious not only for power but for wealth, and was determined that his holdings should be on a par with—or preferably exceed—those of his uncles. In 1401, he took advantage of the duke of Burgundy’s absence from Paris to cajole his brother the king into ceding to him two important properties that Philip the Bold coveted. Furious, the duke of Burgundy responded by raising an army and marching on Paris. Civil war was only averted at the last minute through arbitration undertaken by the queen, the king being at the time locked up, raving, in the Hôtel Saint-Pol.
This was Isabeau’s first real foray into politics, and from the result she evidently decided it was better to wield power than to be at the mercy of someone else’s army,
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