Charles V: Le Sage

by Françoise Autrand

La guerre de Cent Ans, la Peste noire et les grandes compagnies, les révoltes et les défaites. Malgré tant de malheurs, l'espoir n'a pas manqué aux contemporains qui ont vu dans leur temps le beau XIV e siècle et encore moins à Charles dès le jour de son avènement, il affirmait sa volonté de " bouter les ennemis hors du royaume ".

Un roi sage, un règne réparateur. Arrivé au pouvoir à dix-huit ans, en pleine crise, ayant fait face à Etienne Marcel et aux états généraux, à la contestation dynastique et à la levée de boucliers contre l'Etat moderne, Charles V, devenu roi, sans quitter sa chambre ni son étude, dirigea la reconquête du royaume. La sagesse de l'homme fut la patience. La sagesse du roi, ce fut de porter le débat politique sur le terrain intellectuel, de penser l'Etat, de l'expliquer en clair et en français. La science politique moderne est sortie de là. Ce fut d'abandonner les méthodes brutales du gouvernement et de leur préférer la loi et la justice. Ce fut encore d'engager la royauté dans le chemin qui conduit à l'Etat de droit.

Françoise Autrand, ancienne élève de l'ENSJF, est agrégée d'histoire, docteur ès lettres, professeur à l'Ecole normale supérieure. Spécialiste d'histoire politique du Moyen-Age, elle est l'auteur d'une thèse d'Etat sur le personnel du Parlement de Paris et d'une vie de Charles VI. Elle a collaboré à une histoire des fonctionnaires et de la fonction publique en France .

909 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

A professor of medieval history at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Françoise Autrand has written extensively on France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Reviews

[Andrew Dockrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely outstanding book! My second read with Francoise Autrand completely left me speechless about the reign of Charles V and the country of France on the brink of collapse, among the highlights; the city of Paris falling into the hands of the Jaquerie and Etienne Marcel with the monarchy about to be dissolved and or given over to Charles of Navarre. She also introduced me to the origins of the french inherited title of the "dauphine" reserved for the prince.

Francoise Autrand praises the actions and wisdom of the 3rd Valois who would be called the king of lawyers or king of books or "the sage", often leaving me with the impression of a french Marcus Aurelius. Also the man who had his palace in Paris ransacked while having one of his chamber men killed in front of him as a warning and a very reminiscent window into what would be coming in the french revolution.

She makes the argument that in many ways, you could trace the origins of the french revolution to this point in history as a social revolution was boiling over and the discontent with the monarchy that was becoming far more reigned in. Thankly for Charles he appreciated the need for this relationship with his people while his father failed to recognize it. But the wealth gap of the third estate and the bourgeois was widening.

Much of Charles reign was spent in retaking his country from the companies who had been disbanded and left behind by the English armies who had previously invaded France under the command of Edward III and his son the black Prince.

Only thing that disappointed me about the book was that while this book was thorough and fascinating, I could not help but find that Charles V plays second rate importance to the events of his reign, either emphasizing that there is not a considerable amount known about him which I wasn't left with that impression as his life was well documented. But she seems to want to put the importance and emphasis on the fact that this is a crucial period in the history and France and foreshadowing what this centuries circumstances would mean for France in the 18th century.