Louis had really very little heart for war. He hated death, nor did he wish to punish his people. When he had been victorious at Orleans he had granted his rebellious subjects what they had asked for, and had stopped what he considered the cruel law of cutting off people’s fingers if they did not pay their debts. Of what use was that, he had demanded, when they need their hands intact to work to pay off their debts?

The thought of innocent people’s suffering worried him; but what could he do? Eleonore insisted that Toulouse was hers and therefore his, and she could not forget the insolence of Theobald of Champagne.

‘Are we going to allow our subjects to treat us thus?’ she had demanded. ‘If so we are no rulers.’

He had had to agree with her; he always had to agree with her. So here he was marching on Toulouse.

Into the rich country they went. Louis’s spirits were revived. Of course he would like to add these fertile provinces to his kingdom. Eleonore’s eyes glowed. He wondered whether it was the sight of the land which made them so bright and eager, or the fulfilment of revenge. She was so sure that ere long Toulouse would be theirs. She would have subdued not only the Count of Toulouse who had refused to hand back that to which he had no right, but also the insolent Theobald. And when he heard that his sister was to be divorced from the Count of Vermandois he would be doubly humiliated!

He would see what it meant to defy the Queen of France - and so would others. It would be a lesson.

Alas, for Louis and Eleonore. Toulouse was well defended, and it soon became clear to Louis that even those who had rallied to his banner had no heart for the fight.

As he encamped outside the castle occupied by Raymond Saint-Gilles, group after group of his followers reminded him that they had agreed to fight with him for only a specified time. Time was running out and they must return to their estates.

Louis was disturbed.

‘Command them to stay!’ cried Eleonore.

But Louis had given his word. He was not a man to break that. He must stand out against Eleonore for the sake of his honour.

Thus it was the King found himself before the castle with scarcely any supporters, and it was either a case of retreat or ignominious defeat. As it was he must retire in humiliation.

There was nothing for it but to return to Paris and shelve the conquest of Toulouse, until the King and Queen could find some means of bringing it to the Crown.

Such a situation was galling to the Queen. She imagined Saint-Gilles and Theobald of Champagne sneering at the royal ineptitude.

She must be revenged and the first blow should be struck through Theobald’s sister. Her bishops had found that there was a blood relationship between Raoul and his wife. Therefore the marriage was no true marriage and Raoul was free to marry again.

‘It is a good thing,’ said the Queen to the King, ‘that your cousin should marry with my sister.’


The Count of Champagne was amazed one day to see his sister with a few of her attendants ride into the courtyard of his castle. He hastened down to meet her.

‘Why Eleonore,’ he cried, ‘what brings you here?’

For a moment she could not answer him. She threw herself into his arms and clung to him.

‘I did not know where to go.’

‘Where is your husband?’

‘I have no husband.’

‘Come into the castle,’ said Theobald. ‘Tell me what this means. Raoul is dead?’

‘Nay,’ she answered. ‘It is simply that he is no longer my husband.’

‘But this makes nonsense. You were married to him. I myself attended the ceremony. Come, sister, you must calm yourself.’

He took her to his private chamber and she poured out her story. A blood tie had been discovered that meant her marriage to Raoul was not valid. She was not married to Raoul; had never been married and the ceremony she had gone through with Raoul was no true one at all. Moreover Raoul had married someone else. There had been a grand wedding and the King and Queen had attended.

‘Who was the bride?’ asked Theobald blankly.

‘The lady Petronelle.’

‘What! The Queen’s sister?’

‘Indeed yes, the Queen’s sister.’

‘This is monstrous. It is a plot.’

Eleonore nodded sadly.

Theobald was furious. It was not only the dishonour to his sister that he raged against; it was an insult to his family. The Queen had arranged this he knew. She had insisted that the bishops prove the marriage invalid and they had done so on pain of her displeasure. And why had she contrived this? To be revenged on him. Because he had refused to support her and the King over the annexation of Toulouse, she had arranged for his sister’s dishonour.

‘I will not endure this,’ he said. ‘This day I will send a messenger to Rome. I shall put my case before the Pope and it will be proved that this was a plot to discredit me through you, sister.’

‘And you think the Pope will not agree to the dissolution of the marriage?’

‘How can he? The reasons put forward are groundless. I will make Raoul take you back. I will prove that his marriage to Petronelle was no marriage. She will be the one to suffer dishonour, not you, my sister.’

‘Raoul was eager to go to his new wife, I know.’

‘He will be begging to come back to you when I have the Pope’s word.’ Theobald was not a man to delay when action was necessary.

He asked the advice of Bernard of Clairvaux who suggested that he take his case immediately to Rome with an account of the wrong done to his sister.


Petronelle was content with her marriage. She glowed with satisfaction. Watching her Eleonore felt a little discontented with her own. True it had brought her the crown of France and she would not have missed that for anything, but she did wish it had brought her a man like Raoul instead of a monk like Louis.

She must get an heir. The country needed an heir and so did she. The purpose of marriage for such as herself was the procreation of children. She could not endure that she should fail in anything.

She was in a mood of discontent when the messenger arrived from Rome.

He brought letters for the King and the Count of Vermandois.

Eleonore made a point of being with Louis when he read his. They were very much to the point. The Pope found that there had been a miscarriage of justice. The Count of Vermandois had put away his true wife on the instigation of the Queen and the bishops and married the Queen’s sister. The Pope could find no just cause why the marriage of the Count of Vermandois and the sister of the Count of Champagne was not legal. The Count of Vermandois was excommunicated and ordered to put away the woman with whom he was now living and return to his wife.

Eleonore was furious.

‘This is an insult to my sister,’ she cried. ‘Does His Holiness realise that? The sister of the Queen of France … !’

Louis said mildly, ‘My dearest, we should never have allowed Raoul to put away his wife.’

‘His wife! That was no true marriage. They are too closely related.’

The King looked at her sadly.

‘You have allowed your love for your sister to blind you,’ he said. ‘Petronelle should have looked elsewhere for a husband.’

‘He is her husband. She has lived openly with him. Do you realise what this means? Who will want to marry her now?’

‘Many I think would wish for an alliance with the sister of the Queen of France.’

‘I’ll not endure this insolence.’

‘This is the edict of the Pope, my love.’

‘You know who has done this. It is Theobald. He was determined to flout us. I’ll not rest until I have driven him from Champagne.’

‘Champagne is his, my dear. It is independent of France.’

The Queen narrowed her eyes. ‘Louis, sometimes I think you do not love me.’

‘You cannot doubt that I do.’

‘Yet you allow me to be insulted.’

‘Theobald has done only what any brother would have done. He has tried to preserve his sister’s honour.’

‘And what of my sister’s honour?’

‘It was unwise to marry her to my cousin.’

‘Unwise! He had no wife, his marriage to Theobald’s sister being invalid. Why shouldn’t they, who had been lovers, sanctify their union!’

‘Because he already had a wife.’

‘He had not, I tell you. The marriage was illegal. He is married to Petronella and we are going to teach Theobald a lesson.’

‘How so?’

‘We shall invade his lands. We shall raze his castles to the ground. I tell you we will be revenged on Theobald.’

‘We should have no support.’

‘Then we will do it without support. I have my loyal subjects of Aquitaine. They would follow me wherever I wished to go.’

‘Nay, Eleonore, let us not go rashly into war.’

Her eyes blazed at him. He was a weakling, a monk, and they had married him to her! He had little to give her but her crown.

And he was going to obey her.


She was determined they were going to war. They were going to ravage the lands of Champagne and teach its disobedient Count a lesson. She was frustrated, married to a man who could not satisfy her intense longings. She had her crown from him but had grown accustomed to that now, and she wanted a strong man whom she could find some pleasure in subduing. Louis was too easily managed although in this matter of war he was proving obstinate. It would not be for long; she would make him agree shortly and there was a certain stimulation in urging him. She enjoyed the battle with him while his repulsion to war infuriated her.