22. Louis X.
CHAPTER XXII. Louis X. (1314-1316)
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 say anything to defend himself. His enemies said that this man had stolen money, and kept it for himself, when it had been given to him to spend for the good of the country, 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 (settled) to exile him, that is, to send him out of France, and make him live in another country. This he thought would 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 sorcerers, and women witches. It was considered a very wicked 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 persons of whom the images were made would fall ill and waste away too, and soon die. It was supposed that the Minister'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 was put into prison; the man supposed to be the sorcerer was hanged, 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 money 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 some 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 was 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 afterwards 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 which he marched into Flanders. The weather that year was unusually bad. There was such hard rain, that the mud came up to the knees of the men and horses, and it was 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 Flanders for a month or two, he turned back, burnt his tents, and led his army into France again. All through the autumn 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 a third part of the people died either of disease or hunger.
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 hot with 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 him. 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. (I need not tell you that there is no Salic Law in England. Perhaps it is because England is an island, separated from all the countries of the Continent, that we have been able to enjoy the good of having queens, without being conquered by the countries from which their husbands came.) Louis X. died in 1316, and was succeeded by his next brother.
