Blois, France

May, 1515

Château Blois buzzed with activity as spring thawed out the final vestiges of winter. Farmers in the Loire Valley sewed their fields, birds flocked in the skies and alighted upon branches now lush with fresh, bright-green leaves. Horses clattered up over the bridges below the château’s stark white walls, bringing reports from the south as the armies of France mobilized for the coming war.

Still, another piece of news arrived from the south early in the month. A train of horses carrying a man in shackles, who swiftly found himself deposited in a gaol in town. Of such interest was this prisoner that a knot of smartly-dressed Gardes du Corps du Roi arrived after dusk to drag the shackled man into the Château proper.

On his person were documents-- clear forgeries-- declaring Philippe VII illegitimate, alleging his father was a Breton pirate. Their source: the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz, Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Questions, however ill-conceived, regarding the parentage of the King of France had been discussed in hushed conversations across France since the death of King Louis XII, but were not considered with any degree of seriousness as far as the King’s regents were concerned.

That was, until it became clear that such rumors had surfaced in the Empire and the Austrians, in their boundless perfidy, now sought to weaponize them. This required a response, lest they be successful in a subsequent attempt to spread them.

Alain d’Albret and his co-regent, Galiot de Genouillac, intervened to preserve the man’s life-- revealed to be none other than Wolfgang von Pforzheim, François de Valois-Angoulême’s German tutor. This made the issue explicitly political and very delicate. Pforzheim attested that François knew nothing of the plot and had not yet seen the documents, as he was on campaign in Italy.

By morning, the story had come together quite clearly. Alain d’Albret set about issuing a call to representatives of the great houses of France present in Blois to assemble after lunch in the Salle des États while Galiot de Genouillac personally briefed their charge on the issue.

Philippe, for his part, loved his cousin and was horrified by the notion that his mother had been unfaithful to his father. What actually surprised Genouillac was the young King’s following reaction: anger. There had been those at court who whispered that the King had a variable temper, and there were some issues which easily sent the boy into a rage or into tears alternatively. Genouillac had never witnessed the former, and often attributed tears to the boy’s lot-- his parents had died within a year of each other, which would shake even the most stoic of children.

Yet, after a few moments of silence, the King’s face reddened. From behind the table at which he’d been taking his breakfast, he sprung to his feet. “How dare they? My mother was a noble lady, she would never have laid with some lowly pirate!”

“Of course not, Votre Majesté,” Genouillac responded. “It is a lie.”

“A vicious lie!” Philippe said, rounding on his regent. “We ought to take this villain’s head!”

Genouillac’s eyes flitted from side to side. “Votre Majesté, the man must testify to his lie. He must make it known to your subjects that echoing his lies is giving aid to the Austrians at a time of war-- it is treason.”

Philippe snorted. To Genouillac’s relief, his hands unclenched. Still, there was something alien in his eyes, a bone-deep fury that seemed only barely held in check.

It chilled the regent, and he became keenly aware that he was suddenly treading in dangerous waters. Galiot de Genouillac did not achieve his station by being bold or outspoken-- he knew how to bend to the whims of Kings, and had done so since Charles VIII ruled. In silence, he nodded.

Philippe paced back towards his bed, and called out. His voice seemed cold, impossibly different from the shy young boy Genouillac was used to. “I must be dressed, then I will attend to the matter.”

Genouillac left, hurrying to find his compatriot of d’Albret.

They had negotiated with von Pforzheim, who agreed to testify before the court as to the German origin of these lies, and the complicity of the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz in those lies. He had done so, however, under the expectation that he would be spared the death he was owed by such acts taken against the Kingdom of France. To preserve their own honor, they would have to work in tandem to restrain the King were he to grow irate.

After lunch the regents and their charge, King Philippe VII, arrived in the Salle des États. The numerous courtiers knelt as their King passed before them and the caller announced his arrival:

Most High, Most Powerful, Most Excellent Prince, Philippe the Seventh, by the Grace of God Emperor of Constantinople, King of France, Naples, and Jerusalem, Duke of Milan, Gaeta, and Normandy, Count of Provence and Forcalquier, the Most Christian King!

His Majesty ascended to the throne emplaced at the head of the room, set beneath high vaulted ceilings decked blue and marked by the golden fleur-de-lis. At either side stood his regents, dressed resplendently in their own rights.

Galiot de Genouillac stepped forward and turned to address the King. “A matter of grave importance has arrived before the royal court. Humbly, I ask the permission of Votre Majesté to address his subjects here assembled.”

Philippe gestured his assent, and stared out over the assembled nobility as Genouillac spoke. The aged regent first whispered in the ear of one of the Gardes du Corps du Roi, who departed the room at a quick clip. “His Majesty King Philippe the Seventh has recently received word of a foul plot undertaken by the duplicitous and foul Archbishop-Elector of Mainz to undermine the morale of the French people as our people prepare for war.

“Honor is lost upon dogs such as the Austrians,” Genouillac declared, when the doors opened at the opposite end of the Salle des États and the shackled Wolfgang von Pforzheim, now gagged, was dragged in by two of the Gardes du Corps du Roi, right to the foot of the throne. “Their agents have reached deep into France, but they will be scoured clean. Here is one such villain, who will confess his crimes before King and court.”

Wolfgang von Pforzheim had the gag removed from his mouth, and he sputtered. In his German-accented French, the language tutor told his tale. “Votre Majesté, good nobles of France, I profess to you that I was unaware of the contents of the messages imparted to me by the very hands of Archbishop-Elector of Mainz. Were I aware of the lies I was party to spreading, I would never have accepted the messages. I swear it before God.”

Philippe’s eyes had not left the man since his entry to the hall. Like a hawk, he sized up his prey from above but thus far remained silent.

“Proof, my good people, of the Germanic origin of the lies surrounding our good King’s parentage. The Archbishop-Elector and his Emperor seek eternally to undermine the only continental power that has so often and so thoroughly humbled them in their avaricious mission to seize His Majesty’s lands in Italy,” Genouillac declared. He produced the documents-- allegedly signed by the Breton pirate Alain Armorlaine-- and demonstrated them before the court. “I have in my hand the documents delivered by the Archbishop-Elector, paper fresh from the mill and ink still wet. Wherefore did the Archbishop-Elector find the Breton, I must ask, so recently? Alain Armorlaine has been feeding the fishes of the sea for near to a half-decade.”

The court remained silent as Genouillac surrendered the paper to a Garde du Corps, who carried it about the Salle des États for the inspection of any inquiring noble, who would clearly see the paper was far too new and the ink too dark for a document that might have been signed by the long-dead pirate.

“You have done well in uncovering this plot,” Philippe said from the throne, able to bite his tongue no longer. “The dishonor done to my royal parents and to my person is intolerable, especially at a time of war.

“Were you a Frenchman, I would charge you with high treason and see you dismembered for your crimes. Were you a noble, I would see you beheaded instead. You are neither, but instead a catspaw made use of by a scheming coward in Innsbruck,” he declared. Again, his voice was icy.

“In the time of the Rome you would be charged with having committed crimen laesae maiestatis, in layman’s terms an offense against the majesty of the Emperor. Your life would then be subject to the whims of the Emperor, and in many cases your fate would be a terrible one.

“We live in a more civilized time, however, and I am no Caligula. Here the crime you have been party to is lèse-majesté. I am a young King, I can see it in how you all look at me, but I must endeavor to show you that despite my age I will tolerate no offense to my name or my throne,” Philippe said, scarcely blinking as he returned his glare to the prostrate German. Before him, Alain d’Albret and Galiot de Genouillac braced. “Justice must be served, and an example must be made. As this man hails from Pforzheim, not France, I cannot name him a traitor. I will instead order his arrest and place him on trial for lèse-majesté, with the maximum punishment of five years’ imprisonment.”

The Gardes du Corps returned, and swiftly gagged the German again before dragging him to his feet. Once the doors cut off the jangling of the man’s shackles, Philippe sighed. “Fiat justitia.”

Genouillac exhaled. He exchanged a glance with Alain d’Albret, one of relief. Where had the boy learned any of that? Of course, the answer was clear: the books. He spent half his day buried in them in the library.

As Pforzheim departed through the doors, murmurs spread around the room. Genouillac, with royal assent, concluded matters and the King and his regents departed, making for the royal quarters. There were preparations to be made.

With the exposure of the rumors of Philippe’s parentage as an Austrian plot before the whole of the French nobility, a royal ordinance passed in the name of the King declared further promulgation of these rumors for the duration of the war to be an act of treason-- subsequent to the cessation of hostilities the charge for the same act would revert to lèse-majesté of the first instance, which itself carried a stiff penalty. Pamphlets, published at the numerous royal printing houses established by King Louis XII, would detail the Austrian nature of the plot and the testimony of the Archbishop-Elector's catspaw before the royal court in Blois.

The matter at last put to rest with Pforzheim awaiting trial in Paris, the royal court would shift its attention to the oncoming campaign in Italy.