The She Wolf of France Read Free

France panted thirstily beside their generous rivers, or drank only with fear in their hearts, expecting death at every sip. And had the Temple anything to d o with that strange poison compounded of human blood, urine, magic herbs, adders' heads, powdered toads' legs, desecrated hosts and the pubic hair of whores - which it was asserted had been introduced into the water supply? Had the Temple incited this accursed race to rebellion, inspiring it, as some lepers admitted under torture, to will the death of all Christians or infect them with leprosy?
    It began in Poitou, where King Philippe V was staying; and soon spread over the whole kingdom. The inhabitants of town and countryside attacked the leper colonies and exterminated the members of the diseased race who had suddenly become public enemies. Pregnant women were alone spared, but only till their child was born. Then they were burnt. The royal judges endued these hecatombs with legality, an d the nobility supplied men-at - arms. Then the public turned against the Jews once again, accusing them of being involved in a huge, if vague, conspiracy, inspired, so it was said, by the Moorish Kings of Granada and Tunis. It seemed as if France were trying to allay her agony and fear with gigantic human sacrifices.
    The wind of Aquitaine was impregnated with the appalling stench of the pyres. At Chinon all the Jews in the bailiwick were thrown into one huge fiery pit; in Paris they were burnt on that island opposite the Chateau Royal, which so tragically bore their name, and where Jacques de Molay had uttered his fatal prophecy.
    Then the King died. He died of the fever and the appalling stomach pains he had contr acted in his apanage of Poitou; he die d of having drunk the water of his kingdom, poisoned by some of his subjects.
    He wasted away till he became a skeleton; and it took him five months to die, sufferin g the most appalling agonies.
    Every morning, in the Abbey of Longchamp, to which he had been carried, he had the doors of his room thrown wide, allowing the passers-by to approach his bed, so that, he might say to them! `Look on the King of, France,, your Sovereign Lord, the most miserable man in all his kingdom, for there is not one among you with whom I would not change my lot. My children, look on your temporal Prince, and give your hearts to God at the sight of how it pleases Him to sport with His creatures of this world.'
    He went to join the bones of his ancestors, at Saint-Denis, the day after Epiphany, 1322; and no one, save his wife, wept for him,
    And yet he had been a wise king, careful of the public good. He had declared every part of the royal domains, that is to say, France proper, inalienable; he had unified the currency and weights and measures, reorganized the law so that it might be applied with greater equity, forbidden pluralism in public offices, refused to allow prelates to sit in Parliament, and systematized the administration of the country's finances. It was due to, him also that the emancipation of the serfs was developed. He desired that serfdom should disappear altogether from his realms; he wanted to reign over a people who enjoyed the `true liberty' with which nature had endowed them.
    He had avoided the temptations of war, had suppressed many of the garrisons in the interior of the country to reinforce those on the frontiers, and had invariably preferred negotiation to foolish military escapades. It was no doubt too soon as yet for the people to grasp the fact that justice and peace were necessarily expensive or, indeed, to understand why the King so ardently required their cooperation. `What has happened,' they asked, `to the, revenues, to the tithes and annates, to the subventions of the Lombards and the Jews., since less charity has been distributed, no wars have been made, and no buildings constructed? Where has all the money gone?'
    The great barons, who were only temporarily submissive, and who had only on occasion, and when faced