Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
18 November 1020, L’École du Sorciers
My dearest cousin Armand,
Many thanks to you for sending your dear Captain Grier and the Amelie so promptly! I shall give this letter into his hand the moment I have sealed it.
I was pleased to discover that the captain has duties in Yorke, for I fear His Deposed Majesty Charles IX is no longer in residence here at L’École and has no further need of the Amelie. We have been quite overtaken by events here in Toulouse.
If you received my last, you know that the barricades rose a little over two weeks ago in response to the depredations of the “Ducs” de Lancey and de Mauritaine and their “noble” cronies. No young woman was safe, and no tradesman either, for les nouveaux nobles ran up enormous bills with no intention to pay them. If a bold merchant refused them service the “Ducs” sent in their guardsmen.
The regime that preceded the Reign of Ducs (as Maximilian has been calling it) was deeply corrupt; the members of the Provençese parliament were for sale, and justice went to the rich. In time it grew so horrible that restoring the nobility seemed preferable. But bills were paid, and the streets were at peace.
And so two weeks ago, the Jacques Bonhommes repented their decision. The barricades rose, as did a deal of weaponry that should have been returned to the arsenals; the Ducs’ guardsmen did not last long, not against snipers firing from concealment from every tenement window. It was, perhaps, the most effective uprising in Toulouse of which I have yet heard.
Charles himself, perhaps miraculously, survived. Maximilian and I had the story from de Marigny, who came and waited upon us after the dust had settled.
De Marigny and the kind had left L’École, clad in simple if well-made clothing, with the intent of joining the citizens on the barricades. So dressed they were able to navigate the city in safety, and in time came to the largest barricade, which lay just a few streets away from the Palais Royal athwart one entrance to the Place Gregoire. There they found the man in charge of the barricade, a blacksmith named Vincent Martel, and presented themselves and asked to be put to use.
Martel eyed the fine cloth of their garments suspiciously. “And who are you?” he asked.
And here, so de Marigny tells us, Charles took the royal seal from his pocket; and placing it on his finger rose to his full height as he showed it to the blacksmith.
Martel examined it and then Charles’ face; and then in growing wonder drew out a newly minted coin and held it up. Charles silently turned his head to show his profile.
“Le Roi! C’est incroyable!” cried Martel in wonder, and then, his brows darkening, raised a hand and called for men to seize Charles and his companion.
Charles allowed them to lay hands on him, and said, “I was king, until the men you oppose overthrew me. I ask you again to put me to use. If a cell is the best use you can make of me, then so be it. But I would prefer to remain on the barricades with my people.”
Martel glowered for a time, says de Marigny, as the king waited patiently, tall and resolute despite the Bonhommes on each arm. At last he said, “You have no standing here!”
Charles smiled, then, and said, “I have the two shoes I stand up in, the same as any man here; and more, I have two good ears with which to hear orders.” And begging the pardon of the man on his right, he took off the seal and returned it to his pocket.
“Give me some,” he said.
Scowling fiercely, Martel pointed at a spot on the barricade. “Go there,” he said. “Find a cudgel.”
Word spread quickly, and over the course of that long day many of the men on the barricade came to ask him if he was really the king.
“Was the king,” he told each of them. “Now I am a farmer once again, I suppose.” Some asked angrily why he had not prevented the les nouveau nobles from behaving so badly. “I tried,” he said, “and the Ducs tried to kill me for it.”
In the end, the men on the barricade were much heartened by his presence; and the next day—after he had slept on the barricade, with no more comfort than any of the men next to him—Martel sent him, with several strong men as guards, to visit the other barricades in the area.
In three days the number of the Ducs’ guardsmen was much reduced, and all the city knew that their king stood with them.
In six days the Ducs and their surviving friends were huddled in the Palais Royal, which was surrounded on all sides by the Bonhommes.
Charles, for his part, visited every barricade, and spoke at length with all those that approached him. He gave no orders, but rather listened, and told his story; he ate what he was given, and slept wherever he was at nightfall, and put on no airs whatsoever.
And in eleven days it was done. There had been no need to take the palace by storm, and little desire to do so; for Charles had said, “We don’t want the Troubles back again, do we? They’ll get hungry soon enough, the vultures.” And on the morning of the twelfth day, the Ducs and their cronies emerged, pale and starving, and were taken in hand.
The leaders of the uprising asked Charles to oversee the trial and sentencing of their erstwhile rulers, to which he said, “Very well. And then we must discuss how our motherland is to be governed. I pray you, assemble a body of good men, and we shall see what can be done.”
And then de Marigny left us, for, as he said, “I have much to do.” He is a good man, de Marigny, and I have quite forgiven his earlier pestering.
And so here we sit. The body of good men was duly assembled, with Charles presiding; and soon we shall see what can be done.
Your much relieved cousin,
Amelia
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Photo by Robert Katzki on Unsplash
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