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       The Cardinal of Périgord speaks

      

      IT IS NOT THAT I am loath to ride on horseback, Archambaud, nor that old age has made me incapable of doing so. Believe me, I am fully able to cover fifteen leagues on my mount, and I know a fair few younger than I that I would leave far behind. Moreover, as you can see, I always have a palfrey following me, harnessed and saddled in case I should feel the desire or need to mount it. But I have come to realize that a full day cantering in the saddle whets the appetite but not the mind, and leads to heavy eating and drinking rather than clear thinking, of the sort I often need to engage in when I have to inspect, rule or negotiate from the moment I arrive.

      Many kings, first and foremost the King of France, would run their states more profitably if they wore their backs out less and exercised their brains for a change, and if they didn’t insist on conducting their most important affairs over dinner, at the end of a long journey or after the hunt. Take note that one doesn’t travel any slower in a palanquin, as I do, if one has good wadding in the stretcher, and the forethought to change it often. Would you care for a sugared almond, Archambaud? In the little coffer by your side. Well, pass me one would you?

      Do you know how many days it took me to travel from Avignon to Breteuil in Normandy, in order to join King John, who was laying a nonsensical siege there? Go on, have a guess? No, my nephew; less than that. We left on the twenty-first of June, the very day of the summer solstice, and none too early at that. Because you know, or rather you don’t know what happens upon the departure of a nuncio, or two nuncios, as there were two of us on that occasion. It is customary for the entire College of Cardinals, following Mass, to escort the departing officials for a full league beyond the edge of town; and there is always a crowd following them, with people watching from both sides of the route. And we must advance at procession pace in order to give dignity to the cortège. Then we make a stop, and the cardinals line up in order of precedence and the Nuncio exchanges the kiss of peace with each one in turn. This whole ceremony takes up most of the morning. So we left on the twenty-first of June. And yet we were arrived in Breteuil by the ninth of July. Eighteen days. Niccola Capocci, my co-legate, was unwell. I must say, I had shaken him up no end, the spineless weakling. Never before had he travelled at such a pace. But one week later, the Holy Father had in his hands, delivered by messengers on horseback, the account of my first discussions with the king.

      This time, we have no such need to rush. First, even if we are enjoying a mild spell, days are short at this time of year. I don’t recall November in Périgord being so warm, as warm as it is today. What beautiful light we have! But we are in danger of running into a storm as we advance to the north of the kingdom. I plan on taking roughly one month, so that we’ll be in Metz by Christmas, God willing. No, I am not in nearly as much of a hurry as last summer; despite all my efforts, that war took place, and King John was taken prisoner.

      How could such ill fortune befall us? Oh! You are not the only one to be flabbergasted, my nephew. All Europe felt not inconsiderable surprise and has since been arguing about the root causes and the reasons. The misfortunes of kings come from long ago, and often one takes for an accident of fate what is really the fatality of their very nature. And the bigger the misfortunes, the longer the roots.

      This whole business, I know it all in great detail – pull that blanket over towards me a little would you? – and I might say I even expected it. I expected a great reversal of fortune, a humbling, would strike the king down, and thus, alas, bring down his kingdom with it. In Avignon, we in the Church need to know all that may interest the courts. Word of all the scheming, all the plotting, finds its way back up to us. Not a single marriage could be planned that we don’t know about before the betrothed themselves. ‘In the event of lady such-and-such accepting the hand of lord so-and-so, who is in fact her second cousin, would our Most Holy Father bestow upon us his permission to thus join their two crowns?’ Not a single treaty would be negotiated without our receiving visits from agents of both sides; not a single crime committed without the instigator coming to us in search of absolution. The Church provides kings and princes with their chancellors as well as most of their jurists.

      For eighteen years now the houses of France and England have been in open conflict. But what is the cause of this war? King Edward’s claims to the French crown most certainly! That is indeed the pretext, a fine legal pretext is how I see it, as we could debate the issue ad infinitum; but it is neither the only, nor the true motive. There are age-old ill-defined borders between Guyenne and neighbouring counties, such as ours to begin with, Périgord, borders suggested by unintelligibly written land charters, where feudal rights overlap; it is difficult for vassal and suzerain to come to an understanding when they are both kings; there is trade rivalry, primarily for wool and cloth, which was the cause of the fight for Flanders; there is the support France has always offered the Scottish, who represent a threat to the English king to the north. War didn’t break out for one reason alone, but rather for the twenty that had been smouldering like embers and glowing in the night. When Robert of Artois was banished from the kingdom, with honour lost, he went to England to blow on the firebrands there. The pope at that time, Pierre Roger, that is Clement VI, did everything in his power to prevent this war, and pulled as many strings as he could to counter the malicious warmongers. He preached compromise, inviting concessions on both sides. He too dispatched a papal legate, who was by the way none other than the current pontiff, at the time Cardinal Aubert. He wanted to revive plans for a crusade in which the two kings were to participate, taking their noblemen along with them. It would have been a fine means of diverting their warring urges, with the added hope of reuniting Christendom. Instead of the crusade, we got Crécy. Your father was there; you had word from him of this disaster.

      Ah! My nephew,