‘I have served my forty days. Why should I stay longer?’
‘Because if all deserted him now it would mean defeat for him.’
‘What rejoicing there would be in Avignon.’
‘Be sensible, Thibaud.’
‘I am weary of this siege. I promised the King forty days and nights and I have given them to him.’
‘If you go you will regret it’
‘You think only of your brother, Philip.’
‘Is he not your kinsman too?’
‘’Tis a fact he rarely remembers.’
Others came to him and pointed out the folly of leaving. There were some who scorned him for suggesting such a course of action. Thibaud was surprised how many supported the King when they were all weary of the siege and were certain that the besiegers were in a more sorry state than the besieged.
Thibaud realised that opinion was against him. He knew that the King must in time subdue the town; he knew that if he left now it would be remembered against him and could bring him harm. And yet he could not resist the impulse.
Louis was unworthy of Blanche and Thibaud longed to be her lover and he would never feel completely happy with any other woman because he had set himself this unattainable ideal. And Louis had been married to her without effort – simply because he had been heir to the throne.
He had to fight Louis. It was against his impulsive, reckless, not always logical nature not to do so.
It was dark when he gathered his knights together and prepared to slip away.
‘You will regret this,’ Philip Hurepel told him angrily.
‘I have met my dues. I will give nothing to Louis.’
‘You fool,’ said Philip.
‘You loyal brother,’ mocked Thibaud. ‘Who can tell how much my desertion will cost me and what the rewards of your loyalty will be? Adieu, Hurepel. I doubt not we shall meet again ere long.’
Then Thibaud and his company rode back to Champagne.
‘Traitor!’ cried Louis. ‘I ever found it hard to tolerate that fat man. Though I must admit he is a good poet and I have enjoyed some of his work. What think you, Blois, Bourbon, Hurepel … will others follow?’
Philip Hurepel said stoutly that the King had enough good friends beside him to enable him to take Avignon.
‘I doubt it not,’ replied Louis. ‘But I like it not when traitors desert.’
‘Thibaud is too fat to be a good soldier,’ said Bourbon. ‘He is more adept with the pen.’
‘The pen can be a mighty weapon,’ said Louis, and he wondered whether those poems about Blanche had engendered his hatred of the man.
As he feared, Thibaud’s departure had increased the dissatisfaction of the men. The people of Avignon had been well prepared. Never it seemed to those outside the walls had there been a city so well equipped to withstand an army. Louis’s health was failing again and his friends watching him with anxiety wondered if it would not be wise after all to raise the siege and abandon Avignon.
August had come – sweltering hot. Never, declared the soldiers, had the sun shone so fiercely; dysentery increased. Men were dying all around them.
‘It would seem that Louis will be one of them if we don’t get out of this place,’ said Philip Hurepel.
Bourbon was of the opinion that the King would never give in.
‘Perhaps, after all, Thibaud was the wise one,’ suggested the Count of Blois. ‘At least he escaped this.’
‘He will repent his folly,’ said the loyal Philip.
It was only a few days later when the governor of the town sent a messenger to the King. The town was ready to make peace, for it could hold out no longer.
This was victory – but a dearly bought one.
Louis had no wish to send his soldiers to rape, murder and pillage. He shrank from such procedure. He could not but respect such valiant men. He therefore decreed that the people should be spared but it would be construed as weakness if some punishment were not meted out to a town which had cost him so much in men, arms and money.
He ordered that the walls of the city should be demolished but the townspeople unharmed.
His work was done at Avignon. It could be carried out by others whom he appointed. He could go back to Paris.
Blanche would be waiting for him and there he would enjoy a time of recuperation in her soothing company.
He needed it.
So he began the journey.
The siege had ended at the close of August but there had been a great deal to arrange and it was the end of October before he could begin the journey back.
He felt very tired and a day spent in the saddle often exhausted him so much that it was necessary for him to rest the following day.
It was when he reached the Castle of Montpensier that he took to his bed and found, when he attempted to rise the next day, that he was unable to do so.
‘Alas, my friends,’ he said, ‘I fear I shall be obliged to rest here for a few days.’
Blanche called the children to her … her adored Louis, who grew more handsome every day, Robert, John, Alphonse and Philip Dagobert. Isabella was too young of course; she must remain in the nursery where another little one would soon join her.
‘Your father is coming home,’ she told them, ‘and we shall all go to meet him and give him welcome. That will give him as much pleasure as his victory.’
Young Louis said: ‘What will happen to the people of Avignon, my lady?’
She looked at him sharply. There was compassion in his voice and she wondered why it should have occurred to him first to ask after the defeated.
‘Your father will know best how to treat them.’
‘He’ll cut off their hands perhaps,’ said Robert, ‘or their feet. Perhaps put out their eyes.’
‘Our father will do no such thing,’ declared Louis.
‘He will punish them for having a siege, won’t he?’ demanded Robert.
‘It is their leaders who were to blame,’ pointed out Louis. ‘The people should not be punished for that, should they, my lady?’
‘When your father returns,’ said Blanche, ‘you may ask him what happened to the people of Avignon. Then you will hear that justice was done.’
‘Is our father always right?’ asked Robert.
‘Your father always does what God tells him is right,’ answered Blanche.
‘God does not always answer,’ Louis pointed out.
‘But He guides, my son,’ replied Blanche.’ You will understand one day, when you are King. That will not be for many many years. First you will have learned from your father how best to reign.’
How proud of them she was as they rode out together. It was fitting that they should be there to greet him after the victory at Avignon. How glad she was that it was over, for there had been a time when she feared that the siege might have to be abandoned and that would have been bad for France and for Louis.
As they came near to the Castle of Montpensier she suggested that Louis with his party should ride on ahead so that he should be the first to greet his father.
This the young boy was eager to do. At twelve years old he already had the bearing of a hero. His blond good looks and his regal bearing attracted men to him for his bearing was enhanced by a certain gentleness. Blanche did not think it was disloyal to Louis to notice that his son was the more kingly of the two. Louis himself had remarked on it.
The young boy rode a little ahead of his attendants in his eagerness to see his father and he had not gone very far when he saw a party of horsemen coming from the château.
He pulled up and cried, ‘Where is my father? I have come to greet him.’
‘My lord,’ said the leader of the group, ‘where is the Queen?’