governed Poitou. Whereas Louis the Eighth estab lished his provosts in La Rochelle and all the chief towns, greatly to the diminution of local privileges and independence. The Count de la Marche was also of the league. He had taken back Isabel, who had quitted him to become the wife of King John, and who brought with her the county of Augoulême. And through Isabel's influence Henry the Third came forward and promised aid to the French barons.

Blanche employed the means of repression at the disposal of the crown. She released Ferdinand of Flanders; and having thus secured tranquillity on the frontier of the north, she summoned the military vassals of the kingdom to meet at Tours in the spring of 1227. The malcontents had also appointed their place of muster. But Thibaud of Champagne, although he set out towards it, found reason to change his mind, and he forthwith proceeded to lay himself at the feet of Louis and the Queen-mother, to do them homage. This defection did not prevent the barons of the west from standing their ground; and when they did retreat, it was in consequence of many concessions made to them. John, a younger brother of the king, was betrothed to Yolande, a daughter of the Count of Brittany. By the will of Louis the Eighth, the Prince John was to have Anjou and Maine for his apanage, and until the marriage it was conceded that Peter Mauclerc should have possession of Angers, and even of Le Mans in certain contingencies. To the Count De la Marche, at the same time, was given a large pension, and the Prince Alphonso was affianced to his daughter Isabella. It was thus not without sacrifices that Blanche allayed the first league of the barons of the west against her.

This reconciliation was as short-lived as insincere. In gaining Thibaud, Blanche lost the support of Philip Hurepel, the king's uncle, who hated the Count of Champagne. The barons made Hurepel their chief,

CHAP.

VI.

CHAP.
VI.

and sent to make large demands for him of the queen. She refused to dismember the kingdom of France." On which they assembled at Corbeil, resolved to intercept the Court as it returned from the south to Paris. It had reached Montlhery. "The sainted king told me," writes De Joinville, "that, on this occasion, they dared not go on to Paris until the inhabitants came with a large force of armed men, and in such numbers, that the road was filled with them. They besought the Lord to grant the king long life, and prosperity, and protection against his enemies." These few words principally depict the different feelings of nobles and citizens towards the crown.

The marriage of Yolande of Brittany with the king's brother John was broken off, not only by the turbulence of Mauclerc, but by the death of Prince John. The Duke of Brittany, therefore, offered her in marriage to Thibaud of Champagne, in order to gain him from the Court. Thibaud allowed himself to be won by such an offer, and day and place were fixed for the marriage. It was then that the count received the famous letter from the young king, evidently dictated by Blanche, requiring Thibaud, "for the dearness he bore all he loved in France," not to complete this marriage. No sooner did Thibaud read the letter than he withdrew and broke off with Mauclerc and his daughter Yolande.*

This second betrayal of their cause angered Mauclerc, and apparently all the baronage of the kingdom, who declared war against the Count of Champagne, his neighbours, the Seigneurs of Coucy and of Chatillon, being the most eager to attack. The feudal chiefs of Central France seemed, indeed, for some cause unexplained in history, to be deeply discontented with the rule of Blanche, who apparently neither consulted the nobles nor respected their feudal privileges; and yet they shrunk from openly resisting or attacking

* Yolande was afterwards married to Hughes Count De la Marche.

the young king.
There ensued, in consequence, a
succession of bootless and resultless expeditions, in
which neither party struck a serious blow, or even
employed the means for prosecuting war with vigour.
Philip Augustus had fully proved how useless were
feudal levies for military purposes, unless they were
animated by the indulgences, the plunder, and the
licence of a domestic crusade. The French govern-
ment had resources, and might have paid an army
of routiers, or mercenaries; but the Church objected
to such modes of warfare, and Blanche had not re-
course to them.* Yet her feudal armies never helped
her to aught. They served their forty days, and then,
in general, abandoned the royal standard to fling them-
selves upon the lands of Champagne and ravage them
in hatred of its count. On one occasion, Blanche and
the king found themselves almost in the power of the
Count of Brittany, by the desertion or paucity of their
feudal supporters. From such a disgrace they were
seasonably rescued by the appearance of Thibaud of
Champagne with an efficient force. Blanche instantly
employed it to reduce the strong castle of Bellesme,
which had been ceded as part of Anjou to Mauclerc by
the treaty of Vendôme. This seemed Blanche's only act
of vigour. But, on the other hand, the barons showed
even less generalship or boldness against the Court.
Notwithstanding the powerful aid of England, and
the frequent weakness of the king's forces, the leagued
nobles never ventured to attack them; and when the
monarch summoned them to his presence, they replied
more often in submissive than defiant language. The
truth is, that the French barons were merely imitating
the resistance of the English noblesse, without the precise,
intelligent aims, the strong and clear determination,
shown by the chiefs of the insular aristocracy.

The only mention of routiers in her time was when they were

employed as police to keep down the
students of Paris.

CHAP.

VI.

CHAP.

VI.

There was one mode, in which this insurrection of the French barons against the crown and central government might have been rendered formidable and irresistible. This was, to have entered into alliance with Raymond of Toulouse and the persecuted population of Languedoc. Such a league, supported by England, the royal family of which was closely related to Raymond and anxious to aid him, would have united the south and west of France against young Louis; and Henry the Third might in the movement have recovered the old dominions of his family, which, not excepting Normandy, had become disaffected to Blanche. One might have expected that a talented priest-hater like Peter Mauclerc would conceive and accomplish such a league. But the mainspring of the movement must have been an English prince of spirit, prudence, and consistency. Henry had none of these qualities. Like all the princes of the day, he was prostrated before the Church and the Papal agents, who governed France and England at this time, and who supported the monarch and the regent.

In the use or even display of military force, nothing could be more feeble than the court of France during the minority of Louis. And yet in the midst of this feebleness, that court made one of the greatest acquisitions or conquests, which Philip Augustus dared not attempt, and which his son had failed to complete. The Church, however, was all in all, and it alone maintained the war against Raymond the Seventh and the Toulousans. It was no longer counts and dukes who led their warriors into Languedoc, but the bishops of the neighbouring provinces, who marched their retainers to devastation and to massacre. Many of these bishops had indeed taken possession of castles and counties, by the approbation of the Pope, and turned their resources and their population into soldiers and executioners against the heretics. Raymond is said by Matthew Paris to have retaliated with equal cruelty

VI.

upon the French, but this is not corroborated by any CHAP. French historian. In 1228 the military prelates who warred against Raymond, invented a new mode of reducing him. The Archbishop of Auch and Bordeaux, with bishops for military lieutenants, gathered an army round the stubborn city after midsummer, and began a systematic plan of destruction, cutting down vines and fruit-trees, destroying houses and enclosures, and spreading such wide devastation, that for miles the fertile territory of Toulouse was converted into a desert. This species of campaign the prelates facetiously termed the taille.

The spirits of the Toulousans were more effectually broken by this than by any mode of warfare, and the count at length made overtures to the court of France. It seems to have been Thibaud of Champagne, his relative, who advised him to this step, representing, no doubt, that the new king of France alone could protect Languedoc against the fury of the Roman clergy. In appealing to the court of France, however, the unfortunate count merely appealed to Rome itself, for the legate was all powerful in Paris; and he dictated the most severe terms, possibly in the hopes that Raymond would reject them, and that Languedoc might be more fully humbled under the feet of Rome. Raymond, however, had made up his mind to complete submission, and a treaty was concluded at Easter 1229.

By the terms of it, Raymond was to give his daughter, Jeanne, in marriage to one of the king's brothers, who by right of this was to inherit the county of Toulouse, to be, however, enjoyed during his life by Raymond. If the count had any other children, they were cut off from this inheritance, which was to lapse to the French crown. Together with Toulouse, Raymond was to keep possession of Agen, Cahors, and all of Albi beyond the Tarn, which were to descend to any future issue. All the count's claims and territories beyond the Rhone he