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GOLDA MEIR
 Golda Meir
Israel’s Matriarch

DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
 Jewish Lives® is a registered trademark of the Leon D. Black Foundation.

Copyright © 2023 by Deborah E. Lipstadt. All rights reserved.

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Paper).

Frontispiece: A 1918 portrait of Golda Meir taken at a meeting of the American

Jewish Congress in Philadelphia. (Archives, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Libraries)
 For Isabel, Alex, Theo, Wendy, and Rose
You exude great joy and give us hope for the future
 ALSO BY DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT

Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust,
1933–1945
Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory
Denial: Holocaust History on Trial
The Eichmann Trial
Holocaust: An American Understanding
Antisemitism Here and Now
 CONTENTS

Introduction
1. Laying the Foundation: From Russian Jew-Hatred to American
Opportunity
2. The Kibbutz Years: A Dream Unfulfilled
3. Emissary to America
4. Tel Aviv, 1934–39: A Seat at the Leadership Table
5. The Apocalypse, 1939–45: “Shame on Us”
6. “Imagine, We Have a State”
7. A Return to Russia
8. Minister of Labor: “Seven Good Years”
9. Madam Foreign Minister
10. Prime Minister
11. The Yom Kippur War: An Ignominious End to a Storied Career
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
GOLDA MEIR
 Introduction

IN WRITING THIS BIOGRAPHY, I faced developing a serious case of

historical whiplash. I read a myriad of works—scholarly studies,
popular books, memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, plays, and
essays—that address the life and career of Israel’s fourth prime
minister, Golda Meir.1 The portraits they drew of her and her
accomplishments differed markedly. Some of these works vilified and
reviled her. Others valorized and revered her. When studying a
person’s life—particularly a life lived so publicly—one expects to find
differing evaluations. But these ranged from the venomous to the
hagiographic. At times I felt as if I was viewing a Rashomon
rendition of her life. (Rashomon is a Japanese thriller that tells the
same story in wildly different and often contradictory ways.)
I experienced the same whiplash in personal encounters. At one
point I found myself in Israel as one among a small gathering of
some highly accomplished Israeli women. For amusement we were
speculating on a short list of “great” Jewish women, including
scholars, humanitarians, artists, and politicians. Before we could
even commence, one of the women stated, with an emphasis not
unknown in that part of the world, “Just don’t include Golda. Too
many of my family and friends died because of her.” There were
murmurs of concurrence around the table. These bright, well-
educated, and thoughtful women, all of whom had been in university
or the army during the Yom Kippur War, were utterly convinced that,
but for her obstinance and inability to shed her “They will hate us
forever” perspective on Israel’s status in the Middle East, some of
those who had fallen in the war would still be alive.
 Shortly thereafter an American friend shared a family anecdote.
“Both of my grandmothers belonged to the women’s Labor Zionist
organization, Pioneer Women (PW). They were part of the Hannah
Szenes group (or gruppa, as they would call it). Initially the women
all called each other ‘ Chavera ——,’ using the person’s last name.
Even my two grandmothers would, even after their children married,
call each other ‘Chavera Chazan’ and ‘Chavera Libman,’ using the
Yiddish pronunciation Chavay-reh. Then, as they got older, they
dropped the Chavera and just called each other by their last names.
Golda came to install my grandmother Chazan as president of the
local PW chapter in the early 1950s. When they asked her how to
properly address her, she said, ‘Just call me Goldie,’ which they did.
It endeared her to them and, they believed, them to her forever.” I
heard variations of this story multiple times, evidence of how Golda
made these women and countless others (men too) feel, in the
words of the American Jewish fundraising slogan of the late
twentieth century, “We are One.” In the eyes of millions of American
Jews, she could do no wrong. For close to five decades, for better
and for worse, she shaped how American Jews saw and understood
Israel and its place in the world.
If the laudatory works depict a woman who built a nation, sent
men into battle, negotiated treaties, spoke truth to power, and still
found time to make homemade chicken soup, her critics depict a
Golda who is domineering, uneducated, unimaginative, incapable of
conceptual thinking, and unable to break out of her preconceived
perceptions about many things, particularly the peace process. She
was, they contend, at her very best an apparatchik who, absent her
own ideas, loyally executed what was demanded of her.
Who, then, was the real Golda Meir?
Her long career encapsulates a microhistory of the Jewish state.
She was part of the small cadre of people who helped craft a state
and lead it as it transformed itself from a wobbly enterprise to a
regional military power. She was one of only two women to sign
Israel’s Declaration of Independence. A member of David Ben-
Gurion’s close circle of political allies, she held three pivotal positions
in the Jewish state—as labor minister (1949–56), foreign minister
(1956–66), and Israel’s fourth prime minister (1969–74). She was
the first and, as of now, the only woman to hold that position.
During her career, the endless flow of laudatory press reviews
detailed every aspect of her life—entertaining dignitaries, her high-
profile White House visits, and spectacular receptions by Jews
worldwide. She had a papal audience, a first for any Israeli prime
minister. She helped realize the initial liberation of Soviet Jewry.
Plainspoken and with few airs, she was repeatedly ranked as the
world’s most admired woman. During her years as labor minister,
she laid the foundation of Israel’s social welfare system, facilitated
the immigration of hundreds of thousands of people, and created a
social safety net system that persists seven decades later. There is
no resident of Israel whose life is not made more secure because of
the innovations she put in place.
Yet she, who thought of herself as the consummate socialist,
would face accusations of racism from segments of Israel’s non-
Ashkenazi Jewish population. All this would happen against the
background of a proliferation of terrorist attacks, both in Israel and
outside it, including the tragedies of a massacre at Lod airport, the
shooting down of an Israel-bound airliner, numerous border
incursions, and the murders at the Munich Olympics.
Three years into her tenure as prime minister came the disastrous
Yom Kippur War (1973). Though she was officially cleared of
responsibility for the war-related failures, many Israelis held her—
and still hold her—responsible for Israel’s initial devastating losses.
In 1974, ill, tired of the demands of public life, and feeling
responsible for the war, she retired. She subsequently told journalists
that after that experience she was no longer the same person.
In addition to shaping Israeli society, she, possibly more than any
other Israeli with the exception of David Ben-Gurion, built and
cemented the Jewish state’s relationship with the American Jewish
community. American Jews were in awe of the brawny, tanned, and
swarthy sabras, the “new” Jews, the kibbutzniks and fighter pilots.
But it was Golda Meir who captured their hearts and their purses for
the Zionist enterprise. Those American Jews were thrilled to open
the July 1957 issue of the iconic American women’s magazine Good
Housekeeping to find a full-page photograph of a middle-aged
woman, her hair pulled back in an efficient style, wearing a small
flowered apron and poised above a sink washing dishes. She was
identified as Foreign Minister Golda Meir of Israel. The article, in
which Golda described how she planned meals, entertained guests,
and cleaned, even while conducting the country’s foreign affairs,
telegraphed the message that here was a no-nonsense woman who
could negotiate with other countries, host officials from abroad, and
still tend to her domestic tasks. Moreover, she did this with “no
sleep-in help.”2 A 1950s Superwoman. This was part of the mythic
Golda, and it was a myth she helped cultivate.
Something she did not have to cultivate was her quick wit. She
knew how to use a quip to cut down the most powerful people,
particularly those whom she perceived as thinking of themselves as
better than she. When Henry Kissinger told her that he thought of
himself as an American first, secretary of state second, and a Jew
third, she is reported to have responded, “We in Israel read from
right to left.” Shortly after Nixon appointed Kissinger as secretary of
state, the president turned to Golda and, referring to the Cambridge-
educated Abba Eban, said, ‘‘Just think, we now both have Jewish
foreign ministers.” Golda responded, ‘‘Yes, but mine speaks English.”3
Then there is, of course, Golda Meir the woman. She was, in fact,
only the third woman to serve as a head of state in the twentieth
century and the first to do so without benefiting from the
“appendage privilege.” She did not come into office, as had been the
case in other countries, because a father, brother, or husband had
previously held that position. Well before Margaret Thatcher gained
the moniker Iron Lady, Golda was sending soldiers into battle. She
sent them to battle but also demanded to be awakened, even in the
middle of the night, when one of them was killed. “I should get a
good night’s sleep and they fall in battle?” she mused to a
journalist.4 Meir consistently ranked among the most admired
women in the world in polls conducted by the Gallup organization in
the 1970s.5 In 1977, despite having left office three years earlier, she
was still second on the list. Yet her relationship with Israel’s feminists
was at best testy and more often downright hostile. They felt great
enmity toward her, and this has shaped the way some feminists view
her entire career.
Though many people perceived of her as the quintessential
Jewish mother, things were not as they seemed. Her relationship
with her children was often strained. They longed to be with her, but
she was consumed with the Zionist enterprise, often attending late-
night meetings and traveling on long trips. She regularly left them in
the care of others and, long before it was fashionable, arranged for
a “nanny” to live with them. Nor were things as they might have
appeared in terms of her intimate relations. She had a series of avid
relationships with a number of the leaders of the Yishuv, the Jewish
community in pre-state Palestine. Some of them occurred
simultaneously.
I mention these aspects of her private life—Golda as a mother
and Golda as a lover—because I know they are important parts of
her story. Yet even as I do, I wonder: if her name had been David
Meir, would these issues have been considered relevant? Are her
appearance, role as a mother, and intimate relationships integral
parts of the story only because she is a woman? Or, conversely, are
they important because they seem to stand in contradiction to the
public image she projected? When I told an older female friend who
is well read in this area that I was writing this biography, she
responded, “Oh, she was a great leader.” Then, after just a
momentary pause, she added, “But she wasn’t a good wife or
mother.” I asked her if she knew what kind of husbands and fathers
other Israeli luminaries (all male) were. She did not. And yet that—
knowing about her relationships, but not about the men’s—is also
part of her story.
Finally, though I write as an American, I have studied and lived in
Israel, including during her tenure as prime minister. I grew up in
the era when she was often in the United States. People clamored to
see her. American Jews spoke—and continue to speak—of her with a
respect akin to reverence. For many among them, she could do no
wrong. To suggest to them that she might have seriously failed at
key moments in her political career is akin to heresy, if not historical
revisionism. Conversely, there is a generation—if not more than one
—of Israelis, like the women who would not even consider including
her as a great Jewish woman, for whom the right she did has been
all but obliterated by what they perceive as her wrongs. To suggest
to them that their evaluation may not be entirely fair or complete is
dismissed as equally heretical. I understand both the reverence and
the sharp critique. I have sought the balance between these two
extreme views of Israel’s fourth prime minister in order to write a
study of an exceptionally accomplished woman who was not without
her serious flaws.
 1

Laying the Foundation: From Russian Jew-Hatred to

American Opportunity

GOLDA MABOVITCH WAS BORN in 1898 in Kiev. Her early life was
difficult. Her parents had lost five children at birth or shortly
thereafter. Three children survived. Sheyna, the eldest, would have a
profound impact on Golda’s life. Clara was the youngest. Whenever
Golda Meir reminisced about her Russian childhood, she repeated a
familiar mantra of terrible hardships: poverty, cold, fear, hunger, and
Jew-hatred. Often there was not enough food in the house even for
an evening meal. Sheyna occasionally fainted in school because of
hunger. When Golda was a young child and Clara an infant, her
mother gave them porridge—a luxury. Her sister finished her bowl
first and a “shocked” Golda watched her mother take some of her
porridge for the infant. That moment of deprivation remained a vivid
memory for her.
But she experienced more than poverty and hunger. When she
was four, she learned about Cossacks, men who came “galloping”
[into Kiev] brandishing knives and huge sticks, screaming ‘Christ
killers.’” They had but one goal: “to do terrible things to me and to
my family.” Even children engaged in these attacks. Once, when
Golda and another Jewish child were standing together, a non-
Jewish child approached from behind, knocked their heads together,
and proclaimed, “This is what we’ll do with the Jews . . . and be
through with them.”1
 Traumatized children often carry that trauma with them into
adulthood. And so it was with Golda. In 1973, when she was
seventy-five years old, she was the first Israeli prime minister to be
welcomed at the Vatican. She was quite nervous. The visit began
with the pope berating her for Israel’s treatment of Arabs. Her
nervousness evaporated, replaced with barely disguised contempt.
As she so often did, she began with the personal. “Your holiness, do
you know what my own very earliest memory is? It is waiting for a
pogrom in Kiev.” Then, having established her bona fides, she moved
from the personal to the larger context of Jewish history as she
lectured the leader of over a billion Catholics: “My people know all
about real ‘harshness’ and . . . learned all about real mercy when we
were being led to the gas chambers.”2
The pogroms the Jews so feared never came. But the threatening
prospect of them shaped Golda’s evolving worldview. She was left
with both a conviction that non-Jews could do terrible things to Jews
and with memories of the Jews’ “impotence.” Golda recalled standing
on the stairs of her home, holding hands with a little Jewish girl
whose family lived in the same house as they watched their fathers
tried to secure the home by barricading the entrance with wooden
boards. Decades later she vividly described her fears: “Oh, that
sound of the hammer pounding nails into the wooden planks! Oh,
the sound of horses’ hoofs when the Cossacks are advancing along
our street!” She understood that her father’s efforts were puny in the
face of these marauders. “I remember how angry I was that all my
father could do to protect me was to nail a few planks together while
we waited for the hooligans to come.”3 Had the attack actually
come, the boards would have been ludicrously ineffectual. The
lesson she repeatedly claimed to have gleaned from that moment
was that if one wanted to survive, one had to personally take
effective action. Whether she learned that lesson that night or long
afterward is immaterial. She imprinted that memory on her
consciousness. It framed her worldview. Being stronger than those
who might want to do you harm became the leitmotif of her career,
particularly as prime minister.
 But that was not all she claimed to have learned from her years in
Russia. Her life was threatened not because of anything she had
done but simply “because I was Jewish.” Being Jewish was the
explanation not just for the violence they feared but also for her
family’s hunger and poverty. She was repeatedly told that her father,
a carpenter, was always being cheated, despite having done
exceptional work, because he was a Jew, and that as a Jew he had
no recourse. Given these life lessons, it is not surprising that for her
Zionism represented an antidote to a hostile, Jew-hating world. Even
her conception of what it meant to be a Jew fit into this construct.
While still a youngster, she told her mother that what made the Jews
unique was “not that God chose the Jews, but that the Jews were
the first people that chose God, the first people to have done
something truly revolutionary.”4 And she too would be revolutionary.
This was Golda Meir’s Russian legacy. If you wanted a better future,
one free from poverty, fear, and Jew-hatred, you must act. You could
not depend on others to protect you. You had to be a revolutionary.
That lesson would be the cornerstone of her life.
When Golda was five, her father, unable to earn a living in Russia,
left to work in America. Golda, her mother, and her two sisters
moved to Pinsk, her mother’s hometown. They expected her father
to return after he’d made his fortune. But the goldene medina did
not produce the easy money—or even the steady job—that his
dreams had promised. Golda’s mother, tired of waiting for her
husband to return and fearful of remaining in Russia, where the
political situation was deteriorating and the ever-present
antisemitism intensifying, left for America with her three daughters.
A woman of action, she arranged for smugglers to sneak them
across the border to Galicia, where they waited for a few days in an
unheated shack. A train then took them to Vienna and on to
Antwerp, from where they sailed to Quebec City. They took another
train through Chicago to their final destination, Milwaukee. During
the Atlantic crossing, the family spent fourteen days in a stuffy cabin
with four other people. They slept on bunks without sheets and ate
“food that was ladled out to us as if we were cattle.”5 Despite these
difficulties, Golda and the other children in steerage regaled one
another with fantasies of the unimaginable riches awaiting them in
the goldene medina.
Her father had been sent to Milwaukee by the Hebrew Immigrant
Aid Society (HIAS), the Jewish agency that resettled immigrants. The
agency’s objective was to disperse Jewish immigrants in as many
different cities as possible—that is, not in New York. Upon arrival the
family discovered that Golda’s father, despite having been in America
for three years, could not afford an apartment for his family. Instead
they joined him—temporarily and uncomfortably—in the room he
rented from a family of eastern European Jews who had recently
arrived. Eventually they found a two-room apartment, albeit one
without electricity or bathroom, in the “poorer” section of town.
Despite these hardships, Golda was thrilled by the sights and
sounds of her surroundings. Soon after arriving, she attended a
Labor Day parade. She was captivated by the popcorn, balloons,
brass bands, floats, and crowds and impressed by the fact that her
father, now in the carpenters’ union, was marching in the parade.
This event stood out for Golda because although it was not a Jewish
celebration, Jews were full participants. Her father marched with the
other carpenters. For Golda this exemplified her new American “way
of life.” But there was also the matter of the mounted police, who
reminded both Golda and her little sister Clara of the Cossacks. The
terrified younger girl, convinced that an attack on Jews was in the
offing, screamed, “Mommy, the Cossacks are coming!” and had to be
taken home. Golda’s reaction was the stark opposite. She took note
that in America the mounted police did not “trample” marchers
underfoot. They protected them.6
Not long after arriving in Milwaukee, Golda officially became an
activist. When she was twelve, the Milwaukee School Board, which
generally distributed used textbooks to poor students, adopted new
books. There were no used ones to distribute to indigent students.
Determined to rectify the situation, Golda organized a fundraising
campaign to buy books for needy students. Together with her friend
Regina Hamburger, whom she had met in the second grade at Public
School 4, she recruited a group of young girls. Under her tutelage
they planned a public meeting, distributed invitations, and convinced
the owner of a hall to rent it to a group of schoolchildren who
promised to pay the fee after the event. According to the Milwaukee
Journal, dozens came and contributed a “considerable amount of
money.” The paper described the organizers as a “score of little
children who give their play time and scant pennies to charity, a
charity organized on their own initiative.” The article was
accompanied by a photo of the group. Tellingly, the caption
identified only one of them. “President Goldie Mabovitz [sic] is in top
row, fourth from right.”7 Even then, her close friends recognized her
special qualities. A classmate who walked to school with her every
day recalled that she was “fearless . . . a firebrand with strong
convictions.”8
At the event, she was to deliver the main speech. Her mother
begged her to write it out. She refused, preferring to just say what
was in “my heart.” In a letter to Sheyna, she reported, “I said a
speech from my head.” For the next sixty years, this remained her
practice. With the exception of major policy addresses before the UN
and the Knesset, she spoke extemporaneously.9 But this entire event
gave evidence of more than her speaking ability. She had identified a
problem, devised a plan of attack, ignored those who thought the
plan foolhardy, carefully recruited supporters, and set about
resolving the issue. This would become her lifelong modus operandi.
Throughout her life, Golda’s supporters and detractors all agreed
on her steely resolve. When Golda was still a young child, her
mother, lamenting her stubbornness, declared, “There’s a dybbuk in
her.”10 That dybbuk did not come ex nihilo. She inherited that “will of
iron” from her forebears, including those whom she never knew but
whose stories were part of family lore. Her paternal grandfather, who
came from a highly religious family, had been “kidnapped” as a child
to serve in the czar’s army. Golda was raised on the story that during
his thirteen years of service, despite threats and punishment, he
maintained his religious practices, never eating non-kosher food and
subsisting on uncooked vegetables and bread. It is immaterial to
debate the literal truth of this story; what counts is that it was
etched into Golda’s consciousness. She also recalled how, upon
returning home, he so feared having sinned that he repented by
sleeping on a hard bench in the cold synagogue with a stone for a
pillow. “Little wonder,” Golda observed, barely masking her contempt
for such fanaticism after years of deprivation, “that he died young.”11
But it was the women in her life who truly shaped her. Her strong-
willed mother, breaking with the prevailing convention of relying on a
matchmaker, fell in love with Golda’s father, informing her own father
that she planned to marry him even though he was penniless. Golda
doubted whether her mother’s siblings could have overcome their
father’s objections to this serious breach of protocol. “But Mother
managed.” The couple had another resolute ally: Bobbe Golda, the
great-grandmother for whom Golda was named. She insisted that
what counted was that the groom was “a mensch.” The match went
forward. Golda thought of her mother as “energetic, shrewd . . .
enterprising.”12 She arrived in Milwaukee determined never to let her
family endure the abject poverty they had experienced in Russia.
Within a week of landing in a country whose language she could not
speak and with whose customs she did not know, she opened a
small grocery store—without either the capital or the knowledge to
manage a commercial enterprise.
Golda may have inherited her resolve or stubbornness from these
forebears, but it was her sister Sheyna, nine years her senior, who
made her not just a Zionist but a fervent adherent of Labor Zionism,
the amalgam of Jewish nationalism and socialism. For much of
Golda’s life, Sheyna was her muse and the person whose opinion
was most important to her. “For me she was a shining example, my
dearest friend, and my mentor.” When Golda’s family decided not to
send her to school because education was not a requisite for girls,
Sheyna became her “chief” teacher.13 While still in Pinsk, fourteen-
year-old Sheyna convened a weekly gathering of young Jews to
discuss how to resolve the challenges they faced. On Saturday
mornings, while their mothers were in synagogue, the group would
meet either in her home or that of Chaya Lichtenstein, whose
brother would become Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann.14
The teenagers engaged in vigorous debates to which the six-year-
old Golda listened from her perch atop the coal stove. The Bundists
wanted a revolution in Russia and promoted the notion of national-
cultural autonomy in areas where Jews lived. The Labor Zionists,
embracing the notion of Jewish peoplehood, called for Jewish
national independence built on the foundation of a socialist society.
Listening, Golda claimed she learned that “it isn’t enough to believe
in something: you have to have the stamina to meet obstacles and
overcome them, to struggle.” Sheyna may have thought of her
Saturday morning gatherings as a debating society, but the czarist
police considered them a revolutionary effort. Golda remembered it
as her “first lesson in illegal activities.”15 Their mother, concurring
with the police, quickly recognized that it was no longer safe or
practical to await their father’s return. She took her three daughters
and left. Thus ended the Russian chapter of Golda’s life. Despite its
brevity, it left its stamp on her.
Life in Milwaukee was an adventure. The fact that she retained no
recollection of learning English is indicative of how quickly and
smoothly she took to the language. Fifty years after she attended
the school, she returned for a visit as prime minister. In addition to
being welcomed with Hebrew and Yiddish songs by the student
body, which was now predominantly African American, she was
given a copy of her transcript. Her scores of 95 in reading, 90 in
spelling, 95 in arithmetic, 85 in music, and what she described as “a
mysterious 90” in something called manual arts, of which she had no
recollection, are testimony to her success. In their comments on her
report card, her teachers described her as “talkative.”16
But attendance at school had competition: her mother’s grocery
store. It quickly became the bane of young Golda’s existence. In the
early morning, when her mother went out to buy supplies someone
had to tend to the store. Sheyna, the committed socialist, refused to
work in the capitalist enterprise. Golda had to stand behind the
counter every morning until her mother, unfazed that Golda’s
groceries duties compelled her to be late to school or to miss classes
altogether, returned. The eight-year-old Golda, as she later recalled,
cried all the way to school. When Golda protested, her mother
dismissed her complaints as inconsequential. When the truant officer
came to the store to reprimand her mother, she would listen
attentively, despite barely comprehending what was being said. Her
mother’s entrepreneurial efforts did not ease the family’s finances. In
1908 Golda wrote to Sheyna, who had contracted tuberculosis and
moved to Denver for treatment, “Pa does not work yet and in the
store, it is not very busy.”17
Despite this unhappy situation, Golda remembered her time in
Milwaukee as “good years.” She completed elementary school at
fourteen and was named class valedictorian. Convinced that her
future was “bright and clear,” she planned to continue to high school
and a teaching career. She wanted to “open up the whole world for
children.”18 Her parents thought otherwise. Believing that education
was no asset for a woman in her search for a husband, they
proposed that Golda work full-time in the store until she found a
match. When she objected, they offered a compromise: secretarial
school, which, they argued, was better than teaching since a teacher
had to resign once she married. A secretary could continue working.
Neither Golda’s tears nor her entreaties changed her parents’ mind.
Golda believed her father might have supported her efforts, but at
this point life had defeated him and he could not challenge his wife.
So, showing the independence of spirit that would mark so much
of her life, she started high school. Her mother, demonstrating her
own strong will, tried to arrange her marriage to a man more than
twice her age. At that point, Sheyna and her future husband,
Shamai, stepped in and, despite their limited resources, urged Golda
to come to Denver where she could study and control her future.
Sheyna reassured her: “Goldie, . . . you are too young to work; you
have good chances to become something.”19 Golda grabbed this
lifeline and, with Regina’s help, escaped. On the appointed night,
she lowered her bundle of clothing out the window to the waiting
Regina and then snuck out of the house. Using the small savings she
had accumulated, she bought a train ticket for Denver, a distance of
one thousand miles and a ride of over twenty-four hours. She was
fourteen years old. Her “escape” caused an upheaval and, Regina
reported, a rumor circulated that she had eloped with an Italian
man. Her parents, anxious to save face, told neighbors she had gone
to Denver to help Sheyna. In Denver, with Sheyna and Shamai’s
encouragement, she continued her education. Then she began to
fight with Sheyna, whose personality was as domineering as Golda’s.
She moved out of her sister’s house, found a rented room, and
began to live on her own. She was fifteen years old.
But in Denver something other than school began to compete for
her attention. Sheyna’s home had become a meeting place for young
Jews who, akin to the group that met surreptitiously in Pinsk,
wanted to debate contemporary issues. She “hung on every word.”
Soon her convictions about Zionism, socialism, and nationalism
began to mature. She became enthralled by the work of one of
Labor Zionism’s ideologues, A. D. Gordon (1856–1922), and his
concept of kibush haavodah (conquest of labor). Gordon, who had
moved from Russia to Palestine at age fifty, believed Jews could
transform both society and their place in it through creative labor.
Tilling the soil, planting crops, and reaping harvests were acts of
self-liberation. She also encountered the work of Dov Ber Borochov
(1881–1917), who believed that the resolution of antisemitism
demanded the “normalization” of Jewish life. Jews were an
anomalous people who, in contrast to all other national groups,
lacked a territory. Once concentrated in Palestine, they could create
a Jewish working class and participate in the liberation of the
working class worldwide.
But at these gatherings she was mesmerized by more than Zionist
ideology. One of the regular attendees was a sign painter, Morris
Meyerson. An autodidact, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of
matters that were entirely foreign to her, and he became both her
mentor and her lover. They spent hours talking about classical
music, poetry, art, history, and philosophy. The young girl who grew
up in a home that had one book, a siddur (prayer book), and whose
parents thought education irrelevant, if not an obstacle, for a girl,
now discovered, thanks to Morris, topics that she had heretofore
never encountered.20
She was not a total tabula rasa concerning higher letters. In
Milwaukee she and Regina went to the public library where they
would immerse themselves in the classics. They read an array of
writers, including Gogol, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Maupassant,
Galsworthy, Wells, Dickens, Twain, Lewis, and Hawthorne. They read
classics such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. She read so
much her mother began to complain that she always had “her nose
stuck in a book.” While her young-adult reading list was impressive,
Morris expanded upon it, recommending Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Thomas Carlyle, and Byron’s poetry. Soon she was not only more
literate, she was in love. She wrote Regina about Morris’s “beautiful
soul.”21 The two seemed to complement each other’s strengths.
Their son Menahem later wrote that she was drawn to his “erudition
and sensitivity,” while he was “overwhelmed by her vivacity,
dynamism, and charm.” But they also had serious differences.
Menahem described his father as an introvert who saw the world as
a place of “universal sadness,” while his mother was “happy and
smiling.”22
These differences might have been surmountable. People with
contrasting worldviews often forge successful relationships. But
there was a third party present: Golda’s other budding love, Zionism.
Morris and Golda had diametrically opposed political ideologies. A
universalist, he informed her shortly after they met that he did not
“know whether to be glad or sorry that you seem to be so
enthusiastic a nationalist. I am altogether passive in this matter,
though I give you full credit for your activity.” His growing love for
Golda did not, at least initially, prompt him to adjust either his
interests or his schedule. “The other day I received a notice to
attend one of your meetings. . . . But since I do not care particularly
as to whether the Jews are going to suffer in Russia or in the Holy
Land, I didn’t go.”23
 In late 1915, after Golda had been in Denver about a year, her
parents, distressed by the separation and reconciled to her desire for
education, implored her to return to Milwaukee. She left Denver and
Morris, enrolled in a teachers’ college affiliated with the University of
Wisconsin, and began teaching in the Yiddish Folk Shulen, schools
that advocated Labor Zionism. Soon, much to her delight, Morris
followed her to Milwaukee. Thrilled, she wrote Regina, “I have the
greatest surprise for you. Morris arrived late last night. . . . Regina,
can you imagine my happiness. I am the happiest person alive.” He
continued to expand her cultural horizons. “We read books together,”
Golda recalled. “He gave me every capacity I have for enjoying . . .
poetry, music, philosophy.” He included her friends. Her neighbor
and good friend Sadie Ottenstein recalled, “Morris opened a whole
new life for all of us.” When the Metropolitan Opera visited
Milwaukee, “it was Morris who got us all seats for a quarter apiece,
and then explained the story of the opera to all of us.”24 But the
ever-present third party in their relationship remained. Morris
wanted a wife, but his bride had another suitor, one with whom he
would never be able to compete.
Though her relationship with her parents had improved, there was
still tension. Her father grew angry about the speeches on Zionism
she was giving at Milwaukee’s version of London’s Hyde Park
Speakers’ Corner. He objected not to the Zionism but to the street-
corner locale. He angrily told her, “Mabovitch’s tochter [daughter]?
Stand in the street?” This was a shandeh, a disgrace of the highest
order. He ordered her to stop, threatening that if she did not, he
would come and drag her off the platform by her braid. Golda, who
had made a commitment to speak, disobeyed. She anticipated that
he would appear and make a scene. But he did not show up and the
evening proceeded successfully. When she returned home, her
mother informed her that her father had indeed come to the venue
intending to foil her participation, but was so transfixed by her
speech that he forgot his threat and returned home awestruck. “Ich
vais nit fun vanit nemt sich dos zu ihr!” (I don’t know where she gets
it from). He never objected again. Golda would eventually make
speeches at pivotal moments in the Jewish state’s history. She spoke
before numerous British commissions on Palestine, American
presidents, and the United Nations. Yet for Golda none of those
compared to that night in Milwaukee where she delivered, she wrote
decades later, her “most successful speech.”25
Her parents’ financial situation had improved. Able to rent a nicer
apartment, they made their home the destination for Labor Zionist
emissaries visiting Milwaukee. Golda listened to Nachman Syrkin and
Shmarya Levin, two men who helped lay the groundwork for Labor
Zionism. She internalized their opposition to Jews hiring Arabs to
work the soil for them. She heard about Turkish repression of the
emerging Jewish community. Among the repeated visitors to her
parents’ home was Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, a future president of Israel who,
together with David Ben-Gurion, had left Palestine for Egypt when
the Turks began to deport people connected to Zionist activities.
Shortly thereafter they left Egypt for the United States with the hope
of spreading the Zionist message. In Milwaukee Golda participated in
Yiddish folk song sessions lead by Ben-Zvi, who would also regale
his audiences with stories of the Yishuv.
Her initial meeting with Ben-Gurion did not get off to a happy
start. He was scheduled to speak in Milwaukee and to have lunch
with her the following day. In a foretaste of the love triangle in
which she would be for much of her married life, she opted to skip
the lecture and accept Morris’s invitation to the Chicago
Philharmonic. When she appeared for lunch the next day, organizers
told her that someone who failed to come to Ben-Gurion’s lecture
was unworthy of lunching with him. In the future it would generally
be Morris whose priorities would be subordinate to her political ones.
The more she met these charismatic figures, the more she became
uncomfortable with being a “parlor Zionist,” someone who raised
money so that someone else could settle in Palestine. She wanted to
be part of things. Ironically, her distaste for parlor Zionism
notwithstanding, she, more than any other Zionist leader, would
eventually be responsible for creating generations of American parlor
Zionists.
 While the notion of building a new kind of Jewish society pulled
her to Zionism, antisemitism pushed her there. In the aftermath of
World War I, there was a series of pogroms in the Ukraine and
Poland. They were spearheaded by the “Whites,” a loose
conglomeration of monarchists, capitalists, and supporters of
democratic socialism. (These were responsible, in part, for
convincing many Jews to become Bolshevists.) In response Golda
organized a protest parade on one of Milwaukee’s main streets.
Much to her surprise, some local Jewish communal leaders thought
protesting “unwise.” Now was the time, they told her, to “lie low”
and “make no noise.” A Jewish owner of a major department store
who agreed with this assessment demanded that she come see him.
He threatened to leave town if the protest proceeded. Golda,
unmoved by the opposition, argued that these protests would earn
them the city’s respect and sympathy. Golda proved more accurate
than these seasoned leaders. The march was attended by scores of
people, including many non-Jews. The parade may have been a
success, but for Golda it was not enough. She was increasingly
convinced that the answer to pogroms was “not parades in
Milwaukee . . . making speeches or raising funds.” It was time to
move to Palestine.26
Now she had to convince Morris. They were engaged, but he was
still, at best, passive about the notion of a Jewish state. He
considered her certainty that creating one would ameliorate Jewish
lives “ridiculous.” She seemed to be more enamored of Palestine
than of her beloved. “I know that you don’t feel as strongly about
living in Palestine as I do . . . but I beg you to come with me.”
Emigrating had become a condition of the marriage.27 His
reservations notwithstanding, he eventually acquiesced. Golda later
acknowledged that he recognized even then that the differences
between them were insurmountable. As committed as she was to
building a Jewish home in Palestine, he was equally committed to
internationalism and pacifism. Yet he was mesmerized by this
woman and seems to have believed that love would obliterate these
differences. He may have also assumed that after being in the
Another random document with
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[6] Et disent que on tenoit à grant sens d’un signeur,
quant il a pluiseurs guerres en un temps, et il en poet
l’une atriewer, l’autre apaisier et le tierce guerroiier.
Tant li moustrèrent de raisons qu’il s’i acorda et pria
5 au prelat dessus dit qu’il y volsist aler. Li evesques
ne li volt mies escondire, ains se mist au chemin et
en ala celle part, mais il perdi sa voie et revint en arrière
sans riens faire. Si raporta au roy d’Engleterre
que li rois David d’Escoce n’avoit point de conseil
10 de donner triewes ne souffrance, ne de faire pais ne
acord, sans le gret et le consent dou roy Phelippe de
France. De ce raport eut li rois englès plus grant
despit que devant; si dist tout hault que ce seroit
amendet temprement, et qu’i[l] atourroit telement le
15 royaume d’Escoce que jamais ne seroit recouvret. Si
manda par tout son royaume que cescuns fust à
Evruich à le feste de Paskes, apparilliés d’aler là où
il les vorroit mener, excepté chiaus qui s’en devoient
aler en Bretagne avoecques monsigneur Robert d’Artois
20 et la contesse de Montfort.

§ 184. Li jours de le Paske et li termes vint. Li

rois Edowars tint une grant court à Evruic. Tout li
prince et li signeur et li chevalier d’Engleterre, qui
pour le temps y estoient, y furent et ossi grant fuison
25 de le communauté dou pays. Et furent là par l’espasse
de trois sepmainnes sans chevaucier plus
avant, car bonnes gens s’ensonniièrent entre le roy
englès et le roy d’Escoce, par quoi il n’i ot adonc
point de guerre. Et fu une triewe prise, jurée et
30 acordée à tenir deux ans, et le fisent li Escot contremer
deu roy de France. Par ensi se deffist ceste
[7] grosse chevaucie, et departi li rois englès ses gens et
leur donna congiet de raler en leurs hostelz. Et il
meismes s’en revint à Windesore et envoia adonc
monsigneur Thumas de Hollandes et monsigneur
 5 Jehan de Hartecelle à Bayone à tout deux cens armeures
de fer et quatre cens arciers, pour garder les
frontières contre les François.
Or vous parlerons de l’armée monsigneur Robert
d’Artois [et de sa compaignie[251]], et comment il arrivèrent
10 en Bretagne. En ce temps escheirent les Paskes
si hault que, environ closes Paskes, on eut l’entrée
dou mois de may. De quoi, en le moiiené de ce mois,
la triewe de monsigneur Charles de Blois et de la contesse
de Montfort devoit fallir. Si estoit bien messires
15 Charles de Blois enfourmés dou pourcach que la contesse
de Montfort avoit fait en Engleterre et de l’ayde
et confort que li rois li devoit faire. Dont messires
Loeis d’Espagne, messires Charles Grimaus, messires
Othon Doriie estoient establi sus le mer à l’encontre
20 de Grenesie, à trois mille Geneuois et mille hommes
d’armes en trente deus gros vaissiaulz espagnolz tous
armés et tous fretés, et waucroient sus le mer attendans
leur revenue. D’autre part, messires Gautiers
de Mauni et li signeur de Bretagne et d’Engleterre,
25 qui dedens Hembon se tenoient, estoient durement
esmervilliet de leur contesse de ce que elle demoroit
tant, et si n’en ooient nulles certainnes nouvelles.
Nompourquant moult bien supposoient que elle ne
sejournoit mies trop bien à se grant aise, et ne se
30 doubtoient de aultre cose que elle n’euist aucun dur
[8] encontre sus mer de ses ennemis; se n’en savoient
que penser.

§ 185. Ensi que messires Robers d’Artois, li

contes de Pennebruc, li contes de Salebrin et li
5 aultre signeur et chevalier d’Engleterre et leurs gens,
avoech la contesse de Montfort, nagoient par mer au
lès devers Bretagne et avoient vent à souhet, au departement
de l’isle de Grenesie, à l’eure de relevée,
il perchurent le grosse navie des Geneuois dont
10 messires Loeis d’Espagne estoit chiés. Dont disent
leur maronnier: «Signeur, armés vous et ordenés,
car veci Geneuois et Espagnolz qui viennent et qui
vous approcent.» Lors sonnèrent li Englès leurs
trompètes et misent leurs pennons et leurs estramières
15 armoiies de leurs armes et de Saint Jorge.
Et s’ordonnèrent bien et sagement et s’encloirent de
leurs arciers; et puis nagièrent à plain voile, ensi
que li tamps l’aportoit. Et pooient estre environ quarante
six vaissiaus, que grans que petis. Mais [nuls[252]]
20 si grans ne si fors de trop n’en y avoit que messires
Loeis d’Espagne en avoit neuf; et entre ces neuf
avoit trois galées qui se remoustroient dessus tous les
aultres. Et en cescune de ces trois galées qui se
remoustroient
dessus tous les aultres estoient li troi
25 corps des signeurs, messires Loeis, messires Charles
et messires Othes.
Si s’approcièrent li vaissiel, et commencièrent Geneuois
à traire de leurs arbalestres à grant randon,
et li arcier d’Engleterre ossi sus eulz. Là eut grant
[9] tret des uns as aultres, et qui longement dura, et
maint homme navret et bleciet. Et quant li signeur,
li baron, li chevalier et li escuier s’approcièrent, et
qu’il peurent des lances et des espées venir ensamble,
5 adonc y eut dure bataille et crueuse, et trop bien s’i
portèrent et esprouvèrent li un et li aultre. Là estoit
messires Robers d’Artois qui y fu très bons chevaliers,
et la contesse de Montfort meismement armée, qui
bien valoit un homme, car elle avoit coer de lyon, et
10 tenoit un glave moult roide et bien trençant, et trop
bien s’en combatoit et de grant corage.
Là estoit messires Loeis d’Espagne en une galée,
comme bons chevaliers, qui moult vaillamment et
de grant volenté requeroit ses ennemis et se combatoit
15 as Englès, car moult les desiroit à desconfire,
 pour li contrevengier dou damage qu’il avoit eu et
receu ceste propre anée, assés priès de là, ou camp de
Camperli. Et y fist li dis messires Loeis grant fuison
de belles apertises d’armes. Et jettoient li Espagnol
20 et li Geneuois, qui estoient en ces gros vaissiaus, d’amont
gros barriaus [de fer[253]], et archigaies dont il
travilloient moult les Englès. Là eurent li baron et
li chevalier d’Engleterre moult à faire et un dur rencontre,
et trouvèrent l’armée des Espagnols et des
25 Geneuois moult forte et gens de grant volenté.
Si commença ceste bataille moult tart et environ
vespres, et les departi li nuis, car il fist moult obscur
sus le vesprée; et se couvri li airs moult espès, si
ques à painnes pooient il recognoistre l’un l’autre.
30 Si se retraisent cescuns et se misent à l’ancre, et
[10] entendirent [à] appareillier les bleciés et les navrés et
remettre à point; mais point ne se desarmèrent, car
il cuidièrent de rechief avoir le bataille.
 § 186. Un petit devant mienuit s’esleva uns vens,
5 uns orages et uns tempestes si très grans et si très
horribles que il sambloit proprement que li mondes
deuist finer. Et n’i avoit si hardi ne si oultrageus, de
l’une part ne de l’autre, qui ne volsist estre bien à
terre, car ces barges et ces naves hurtoient les unes
10 as aultres telement que ce sambloit proprement que
elles deuissent ouvrir et fendre. Si demandèrent
conseil li signeur d’Engleterre à leurs maronniers,
quel cose leur estoit bon à faire. Il respondirent que
d’yaus traire [à terre[254]] au plus tost qu’il poroient,§
15 car la fortune estoit si grande sus mer que, se li vens
les y boutoit, il seroient tout en peril d’estre noiiet.
Dont entendirent il generalment à traire les aultres
amont, et misent les singles ensi qu’à demi-quartier;
et tantost eslongièrent il le place où il avoient jeu à
20 l’ancre.
D’autre part, li Espagnol et li Geneuois n’estoient
mies bien assegur de leurs vies; ançois se desancrèrent
ensi que li Englès, mais il prisent le parfont,
car il avoient plus grans vaissiaus et plus fors que li
25 Englès n’euissent; si pooient mieulz souffrir et attendre
[le hustin et[255]] le fortune de le mer que li Englès
ne fesissent. Et ossi, se leur gros vaissiel euissent froté
à terre, il euissent esté en peril d’estre brisiet et
[11] romput. Pour tant, par grant sens et avis, il se boutèrent
avant ou parfont. Mès, à leur departement,
il trouvèrent quatre nefs englesces cargies de pourveances
et de chevaus, qui s’estoient tenu en sus de
5 le bataille. Si eurent bien conscience, [quel tamps
ne[256]] quel tempès qu’il fesist, de prendre ces quatre
vaissiaus et d’atachier as leurs et emmener après
yaus. Et saciés que li vens et li fortune qui estoit si
grande les bouta, avant qu’il fust jours, plus de cent
10 liewes en sus dou lieu où il s’estoient combatu. Et
 les nefs monsigneur Robert d’Artois prisent terre à
un petit port assés priès de le cité de Vennes, dont
il furent tout resjoy, quant il se trouvèrent à terre.

§ 187. Ensi et par ceste grant fortune se desrompi

15 la bataille sus mer de monsigneur Robert d’Artois et
de se route à l’encontre de monsigneur Loeis d’Espagne
et de ses gens. Si n’en scet on à qui bonnement
donner l’onneur, car il se partirent tout maugret
yaus et par le diverseté dou temps. Toutes voies,
20 li Englès prisent terre assés priès de Vennes, et issirent
hors des vaissiaus et misent leurs chevaus sus
le sabelon et toutes leurs armeures et leurs pourveances;
et puis eurent conseil et avis dou sourplus,
comment il se maintenroient. Si ordonnèrent à
25 traire leur navie devers Hembon, et yaus aler devant
Vennes, car assés estoient gens pour le assegier; si
s’esmurent et chevaucièrent tout ordeneement celle
part, et n’avoient mies grant fuison à aler, quant il
s’i trouvèrent.
[12] Adonc estoient dedens le cité de Vennes, [pour
monsigneur Charlon de Blois[257]] messires Hervis de
Lyon et messires Oliviers de Cliçon, doi vaillant
chevalier durement, comme chapitainne; et ossi y
5 estoient li sires de Tournemine et li sires de Lohiac.
Quant cil chevalier de Bretagne veirent venus les
Englès, et qu’il s’ordonnoient pour yaus assegier,
si n’en furent mies trop effraet, mès entendirent au
chastiel premierement et puis as garites et as portes.
10 Et misent à çascune porte un chevalier et dix hommes
d’armes et vingt [archiers parmi les[258]] arbalestriers,
et s’aprestèrent bien pour tenir et garder le
cité contre tous venans.
Or, vous parlerons de monsigneur Loeis d’Espagne
15 et de se route.
 § 188. Saciés que, quant cilz grans tourmens et
ceste fortune eurent pris et eslevet et boutet en mer
le dessus dit monsigneur Loeis, il furent toute ceste
nuit et l’endemain tant c’à nonne moult tourmenté
20 et en grant aventure de leurs vies. Et perdirent par
le tourment deux de leurs vaissiaus et les gens qui
ens estoient. Quant ce vint au tierc jour environ
prime, li temps cessa, li mers s’aquoisa. Si demandèrent
li chevalier as maronniers de quel par il
25 estoient plus priès de terre, et il respondirent: «dou
royaume de Navare.» Lors furent li patron moult
esmervilliet, et disent que li vens les avoit eslongiés
ensus de Bretagne plus de six vingt liewes. Si se misent
[13] là à l’ancre et attendirent le marée: si ques,
quant li flos de le mer revint, il eurent assés bon
vent pour retourner vers le Rocelle, et costiièrent
Bay[o]ne, mais point ne l’approcièrent. Et trouvèrent
5 quatre nefs de Bayonois qui venoient de Flandres;
si les assallirent et prisent tantos, et misent à
bort tous chiaus qui dedens estoient. Et puis nagièrent
vers le Rocelle, et fisent tant en briefs jours
qu’il arrivèrent à Garlande, et là se misent il à terre.
10 Si entendirent des nouvelles que messires Robers
d’Artois et ses gens estoient à siège devant le cité de
Vennes. Si envoiièrent devers monsigneur Charlon
de Blois qui se tenoit à Rennes, à savoir quel cose il
voloit qu’il fesissent. Or lairons nous un petit à parler
15 François, et parlerons de chiaus qui estoient au siège
devant Vennes.

§ 189. Messires Robers d’Artois, si com vous poés

oïr, avoit assegiet le citet de Vennes à mille hommes
d’armes, et trois mille arciers, et couroit tout le pays
20 environ et l’ardoit, exilloit et destruisoit tout jusques
à Dinant [en Bretaigne[259]] et jusques à le Roce Periot
et jusques à Ghoy le Forest. Et n’osoit nulz demorer
 sus le plat pays, s’il ne voloit le sien mettre en aventure,
tout jusques au Souseniot et le Roce Bernart.
25 Le siège durant devant Vennes, il y eut as bailles
de le ville tamainte escarmuce et maint assaut et
tamaint grant fait d’armes fait. Li chevalier qui dedens
estoient, li sires de Cliçon et messires Hervis de
Lyon et leur compagnon s’i portoient vaillamment,
[14] et moult y acqueroient grant grasce, car bien estoient
songneus de deffendre et garder le cité de leurs ennemis.
Et toutdis se tenoit la contesse de Montfort
au siège de Vennes avoech monsigneur Robert d’Artois.
5 Ossi messires Gautiers de Mauni, qui s’estoit
tenus en Hembon un grant temps, recarga le ditte
ville et le chastiel à monsigneur [Guillaume] de Quadudal
et as deux frères de Pennefort, puis prist
avoech lui monsigneur Yvon de Tigri et cent hommes
10 d’armes et deux cens arciers. Et vinrent en l’ost devant
Vennes, et leur fisent messires Robers d’Artois
et li chevalier d’Engleterre grant feste.
Assés tost apriès que messires Gautiers de Mauni
fu là venus, se fist uns assaus devant Vennes moult
15 grans et moult fors. Et assallirent la cité, cil qui assegiet
l’avoient, en trois lieus et tout à une fois. Et trop
donnèrent à faire à chiaus de dedens, car li archier
d’Engleterre traioient si ouniement et si espessement
c’à painnes s’osoient cil qui deffendoient amoustrer
20 as garittes. Et dura cilz assaulz un jour tout entier.
Si y eut pluiseurs bleciés d’un lès et de l’autre. Quant
ce vint sus le soir, li Englès se retraisent à leurs
logeis, et cil de Vennes as hostelz, tous lassés et moult
travilliet; si se desarmèrent. Mais chil de l’host ne
25 fisent mies ensi; ançois se tinrent en leurs armeures
et ostèrent tant seulement leurs bacinès, et burent
un cop cescuns et se rafreschirent.
Or avint que là presentement et tantost, par l’avis
 de monsigneur Robert d’Artois, qui fu uns grans et
30 sages guerriières, ilz s’ordonnèrent de rechief en
trois batailles, et envoiièrent les deux as portes là où
il faisoit le plus fort assallir, et la tierce fisent tenir
[15] toute quoie couvertement. Et ordonnèrent que, si
tretost comme li aultre aroient assalli une longe espasse,
et que cil de Vennes entenderoient à yaus
deffendre, il se trairoient avant sus ce plus foible lès,
5 et seroient tout pourveu d’eschelles cordées à grawès
de fier, pour jetter sus les dis murs et atachier as garittes,
et assaieroient se par ceste voie il le poroient
jamais conquerre. Tout ensi comme li dis messires
Robers l’ordonna et avisa, il le fisent. Et s’en vint li
10 dis messires Robers en le première bataille assallir et
escarmucier à le baille de le porte, et li contes de
Salebrin ensi à l’autre. Et pour ce qu’il faisoit tart, et
afin ossi que cil de dedens en fuissent plus esbahi, il
alumèrent grans feus, si ques li claretés en respondoit
15 dedens le cité de Vennes. Dont il avint que li
homme de le ville et cil dou chastiel cuidièrent
soubdainnement que leurs maisons ardissent; si criièrent:
«Trahi! Trahi! Armés vous, armés vous!» Jà estoient
li pluiseur retret et couchiet pour yaus reposer, car
20 moult avoient eu grant traveil le jour devant. Si se
levèrent soudainnement et s’en vinrent cescuns qui
mieulz mieulz, sans arroi et sans ordenance, et sans
parler à leurs chapitainnes, celle part où li feus estoit.
Et ossi li signeur, qui en leurs hostelz estoient,
25 s’armoient.
Endementrues que ensi il estoient entouelliet et
empeeciet, li contes de Kenfort, messires Gautiers
de Mauni et leurs routes, qui estoient ordonné pour
l’eschellement, entendirent à faire leur emprise. Et
30 vinrent de ce costé où nulz n’entendoit ne gardoit,
et drecièrent leurs eschelles, et montèrent amont,
les targes sus lors testes, et entrèrent par les dis murs
[16] tout paisievlement en le cité. Ne onques ne s’en
donnèrent garde li François et li Breton qui ens estoient;
si veirent leurs ennemis sus le rue et yaus
assallir devant et derrière. Dont n’i eut si hardit ne
5 si aviset qui ne fust tous esbahis, et tournèrent en
fuites cescuns pour lui sauver. Et cuidièrent encores
de premiers que li meschiés fust plus grans qu’il
n’estoit. Car se il se fuissent retourné et deffendu
de bonne volenté, il euissent bien mis hors les Englès
10 qui entret estoient dedens. Et pour ce que riens
n’en fu fait, perdirent il meschamment leur ville. Et
n’eurent mies li chevalier chapitainne loisir de retraire
ou chastiel, mès montèrent tantost à cheval et
partirent par une posterne et prisent les camps pour
15 yaus sauver, et furent tout cil ewireus qui issir
porent. Toutes fois, li sires de Cliçon, messires Hervis
de Lyon, li sires de Tournemine et li sires de
Lohiac se sauvèrent et une partie de leurs gens. Et
tout cil qui furent trouvet et attaint des Englès furent
20 mort ou pris. Et fu la cité de Vennes toute courue
et robée. Et y entrèrent ens toutes manières de gens,
et meismement la contesse de Montfort dalès monsigneur
Robert d’Artois qui en eut grant joie.

§ 190. Ensi que je vous compte, fu la cité de

25 Vennes à ce temps prise par l’emprise de monsigneur
Robert d’Artois, dont tous li pays d’environ
fu durement esmervilliés. Et en murmurèrent grandement
sus le partie des chevaliers qui dedens estoient
au jour que elle fu prise, comment que je
30 cuide bien que ce fust à grant tort, car il y perdirent
plus que tout li aultre. Et de l’anoi qu’il en eurent,
[17] il le demonstrèrent assés tost apriès, si com vous
orés avant en l’ystore.
Au cinquième jour que la cité de Vennes eut esté
prise, s’en retourna la contesse de Montfort dedens
 5 Hembon, et messires Gautiers de Mauni avoech li, et
messires Yves de Tigri et pluiseur aultre chevalier
d’Engleterre et de Bretagne, pour le doubtance des
rencontres.
Et se partirent encores de monsigneur Robert
10 d’Artois li contes de Sallebrin, li contes de Pennebruch,
li contes de Sufforch et li contes de Cornuaille,
à bien mille hommes d’armes et trois mille arciers,
et s’en vinrent assegier le cité de Rennes. Si s’en
estoient parti, quatre jours devant, messires Charles
15 de Blois et ma dame sa femme et venu à Nante;
mais il avoient laissiet en le cité de Rennes grant
garnison, chevaliers et escuiers a plenté.
Et tout dis se tenoit messires Loeis d’Espagne sus
le mer à tout ses Espagnols et ses Geneuois. Et gardoit
20 si près et si songneusement les frontières d’Engleterre
que nulz ne pooit aler ne venir d’Engleterre
en Bretagne qu’il ne fust en grant peril. Et fist celle
saison as Englès moult de contraires et de damages.

§ 191. Pour le prise et le perte de le cité de Vennes

25 fu li pays durement esmeus et courouciés, car bien
cuidoient que li dessus dit signeur et chapitainne,
qui dedens estoient quant elle fu prise, le deuissent
deffendre et garder un [grant[260]] temps contre tout
le monde, car elle estoit forte assés et bien pourveue
[18] de toute artillerie et d’autres pourveances et bien
garnie de gens d’armes. Si en estoient pour le mesavenue
tout honteus li sires de Cliçon et messires
Hervis de Lyon, car ossi li envieus[261] en parloit
5 villainnement sus leur partie. De quoi li doi seigneur
ne vorrent mies plenté sejourner, ne yaus endormir
en le renommée des mesdisans; ains cueillièrent
grant fuison de bons compagnons, chevaliers et escuiers
de Bretagne, et priièrent à ces chapitainnes
 10 des forterèces qu’il vosissent estre à ce jour, que ordonné
et nommé entre yaus avoient, sus les camps, à
tel quantité de gens qu’il poroient. Tout y obeirent
de grant volenté, et s’esmurent telement toutes manières
de gens de Bretagne qu’il furent sus un jour
15 par devant le cité de Vennes plus de douze mille
hommes, que frans, que villains, et tous armés. Et là
vint bien estoffeement messires Robers de Biaumanoir,
mareschaus de Bretagne. Et assegièrent le cité
de Vennes de tous costés, et puis le commencièrent
20 fortement à assallir.

§ 192. Quant messires Robers d’Artois se vei assegiés

dedens Vennes, si ne fu mies trop esbahis de
lui tenir vassaument et de deffendre le cité. Li Breton,
qui devant estoient comme tout foursenet de
25 chou, che leur sambloit, que perdu l’avoient si simplement,
s’aventuroient à l’assallir durement et corageusement,
et se hastoient d’yaus aventurer, par quoi
cil qui se tenoient devant Rennes et cil qui estoient
ossi dedens Hembon ne leur venissent pour yaus
[19] brisier leur emprise. Dont il avint que li Breton qui
là seoient fisent et livrèrent à le ditte cité un assaut
si dur et si bien ordonné, et si corageusement s’i
esprouvèrent li assallant, chevalier et escuier, et
5 meismement li bon homme dou pays, et tant donnèrent
à faire à chiaus de dedens, qu’il conquisent les bailles
dou bourch et puis les portes de le cité. Et entrèrent
ens par force et par proèce, vosissent ou non li
Englès, et furent mis en cace; et moult en y eut adonc
10 grant fuison de mors et de navrés. Et par especial
messires Robers d’Artois y fu durement navrés; et à
grant mescief fu il sauvés et gardés d’estre pris. Et se
parti par une posterne derrière, et messires Richars
de Stanfort avoecques lui, et cil qui escaper peurent;
15 et chevaucièrent devers Hembon. Et là fu pris et
 fianciés prisons de monsigneur Hervi de Lyon li sires
Despensiers d’Engleterre, filz à monsigneur Huon le
Despensier de jadis, dont cilz livres fait mention ens
ou commencement; mais il fu si dur blechiés à cel
20 assaut qu’il ne vesqui depuis que trois jours.
Ensi eurent li François et reconquisent le ville et
le cité de Vennes, et misent hors tous leurs ennemis
par sens et par proèce. De quoi li signeur d’Engleterre,
qui seoient devant Rennes, furent durement
25 courouciet. Et ossi fu la contesse de Montfort, qui se
tenoit en Hembon; mais amender ne le peut, tant
c’à celle fois. Si demora messires Robers d’Artois un
temps bleciés et navrés, si com vous avés oy. En le
fin, il li fu consilliet et dit, pour le mieulz mediciner
30 et garir, qu’il s’en repairast en Engleterre, car là
trouveroit il surgiiens et medecins à volenté. Si crut
ce conseil, dont il fist folie; car au retourner en
[20] Engleterre il fu durement grevés et appressés de le
marée. Et s’en esmurent telement ses plaies que,
quant il fu venus et aportés à Londres, il ne vesqui
point longuement depuis; ançois moru de ceste maladie:
5 dont ce fu damages, car il estoit courtois chevaliers,
preus et hardis, et dou plus noble sanch dou
monde. Si fu ensepelis à Saint Pol à Londres. Et li
fist li rois englès faire son obsèque ossi solennelment
comme c’euist esté pour son cousin germain le conte
10 Derbi. Et fu li dis messires Robers moult durement
plains dou roy, de ma dame la royne, des signeurs
et des dames d’Engleterre.
Si tretost que messires Robers d’Artois fu trespassés
de ce siècle, et que li rois englès en seut les nouvelles,
15 il en fu si courouciés qu’il jura et dist, oiant
tous chiaus qui oïr le porent, que jamais n’entenderoit
à aultre cose si aroit vengiet le mort de lui, et
iroit meismement en Bretagne, et atourroit tel le pays
que dedens quarante ans apriès il ne seroit point
 20 recouvret. Si fist li rois englès tantost escrire lettres
et mander par tout son royaume, que cescuns, nobles
et non nobles, fust appareilliés pour mouvoir
avoecques lui au chief dou mois. Et fist faire tantos
grant amas de naves et de vaissiaus, et bien pourveir
25 et estofer de ce qu’il apertenoit. Au chief dou mois,
il se mist en mer à grant pourveance de navie et de
gens d’armes, et vint prendre port assés priès de
Vennes, là où messires Robers d’Artois et se compagnie
arrivèrent, quant il vinrent en Bretagne. Si descendirent
30 à terre, et misent par trois jours hors leurs
chevaus et leurs pourveances. Et puis au quatrime
jour, il chevaucièrent par devers Vennes. Et toutdis
[21] se tenoit li sièges dou conte de Salebrin et dou conte
de Pennebruch et des Englès dessus dis, devant
Rennes.

§ 193. Tant esploita li rois englès, depuis qu’il

5 eut pris terre en Bretagne, qu’il vint à toute son
host par devant le cité de Vennes, et le assega de tous
poins. A ce donc estoient dedens messires Oliviers
de Cliçon, messires Hervis de Lyon, li sires de Tournemine,
messires Joffrois de Malatrait et messires
10 Guis de Lohiac. Si pensoient bien cil chevalier et
avoient supposé de lonch temps que li rois englès
venroit moult efforciement en Bretagne, si comme il
fist. Pour quoi il avoient le cité et le chastiel de
Vennes pourveu très grossement de toutes pourveances
15 necessaires, et ossi de bonnes gens d’armes
pour le deffendre. Et bien leur besongnoit, car si
tost que li rois englès fu venus et logiés par devant,
il les fist assallir moult asprement, et venir les arciers
par devant et traire de grant randon à chiaus de le
20 cité très fortement. Et dura cilz assaus bien demi
jour, mais riens n’i fisent fors yaus lasser et travillier,
tant fu la cité bien deffendue. Adonc se retraisent li
 Englès en leurs logeis. Si tost que la contesse de
Montfort sceut la venue dou roy englès, elle fu
25 moult resjoye et se parti de Hembon, acompagnie
de monsigneur Gautier de Mauni et de pluiseurs
aultres chevaliers et escuiers; [et s’en vint devant
Vennes[262]] conjoïr et festiier le roy d’Engleterre et les
[22] barons de l’host. Li rois recueilla la dame moult
liement, et adonc eut entre yaus là pluiseurs parolles
qui toutes ne poeent mies estre escrites. Et quant la
contesse ot là esté devant Vennes avoech le roy ne
5 sçai trois jours ou quatre, elle s’en parti et retourna
en Hembon avoecques ses gens.
Or vous parlerons de monsigneur Charlon de Blois
qui se tenoit dedens le cité de Nantes. Si tost qu’il
sceut que li rois englès estoit arrivés en Bretagne, il
10 le segnefia au roy de France son oncle, et y envoia
devers lui grans messages de Bretagne, pour mieulz
esploitier et pour priier qu’il fust aidiés et confortés
à l’encontre des Englès, car il estoient venu en son
pays à grant poissance. Li rois oy et reçut les messages
15 moult liement, et en respondi courtoisement, et
dist qu’il envoieroit à son neveut si grant confort
que pour bien resister contre ses ennemis, et yaus
bouter hors de Bretagne. Voirement y envoia il depuis
le duch de Normendie son fil à grant poissance,
20 mais ce ne fu mies si tretost. Ançois eurent li Englès
moult adamagiet et destruit le bon pays de Bretagne,
si com vous orés avant en l’ystore.

§ 194. Quant li rois englès, qui seoit devant

Vennes, vit la cité si forte et si bien furnie de gens
25 d’armes, et entendi par ses gens que li pays de là
environ estoit si povres et si gastés qu’il ne savoient
où fourer ne avoir vivres pour yaus ne pour leurs
chevaus, tant estoient il grant nombre, si s’avisa qu’il
en lairoit là une partie pour tenir le siège, et à tout
 30 le remanant de son host il se trairoit devant Rennes,
et veroit ses gens qui là seoient, qu’il n’avoit veus
[23] de grant temps. Si ordonna le conte de Warvich, le
conte d’Arondel, le baron de Stanfort, monsigneur
Gautier de Mauni, monsigneur Yvon de Tigri et les
deux frères de Pennefort, à cinq cens hommes d’armes
5 et mille arciers, à tenir le siège devant Vennes.
Puis s’en parti li rois à tout le remanant de son
host, où bien avoit quinze cens hommes d’armes et
six mille arciers. Et chevauça tout ardant et essillant
le pays d’un lès et d’autre, et fist tant qu’il vint
10 devant Rennes, où il fu moult liement veus et receus
de ses gens qui là seoient et avoient sis un grant
temps. Et quant il ot là esté environ cinq jours, il
entendi que messires Charles de Blois estoit dedens
la cité de Nantes et faisoit là son amas de gens d’armes;
15 si dist qu’il se trairoit celle part.
Et se parti dou siège de Rennes, et y laissa chiaus
que trouvés y avoit; et chevauça tant qu’il parvint à
toute son host devant Nantes: si l’assega si avant
qu’il peut, car toute environner ne le peuist mies,
20 tant est grande et estendue. Si coururent li mareschal
et ses gens environ, et gastèrent et essillièrent durement
le plat pays; et prendoient vivres et pourveances
par tout où il les pooient avoir. Et furent li
rois d’Engleterre et toutes ses gens ordonné sus une
25 montagne au dehors de le cité de Nantes un jour,
dou matin jusques à nonne, par manière de bataille.
Et cuidoient bien li Englès que messires Charles de
Blois et ses gens deuissent issir, mès non fisent.
Quant li Englès veirent ce, si se retraisent à leur
30 logeis; mès li coureur le roy d’Engleterre coururent
adonc jusques as barrières de le cité, et à leur retour
il ardirent les fourbours.
[24] § 195. Ensi se tint li rois d’Engleterre par devant
Nantes. Et messires Charles de Blois estoit dedens,
qui souvent escrisoit et envoioit lettres et messages
et l’estat des Englès, devers le roy de France, son
5 oncle, et le duch de Normendie, son cousin, qui le
devoit conforter, car il en estoit cargiés. Et estoit jà
trais et venus li dus de Normendie en le cité d’Angiers,
et là faisoit son amas de toutes manières de
gens d’armes qui li venoient de tous costés. Entrues
10 que ces assemblées se faisoient, se tenoit li rois d’Engleterre
devant Nantes, et le avoit assegie à l’un des
costés, et y faisoit souvent assallir et escarmucier et
esprouver ses gens. Mès en tous assaus petit y conquist;
ançois y perdi par pluiseurs fois de ses hommes,
15 dont moult li anoia.
Quant il vei et considera que par assaut il n’i pooit
riens faire, et que messires Charles de Blois n’isteroit
point as camps pour lui combatre, si s’avisa qu’il
lairoit là le plus grant partie de ses gens à siège, et se
20 trairoit aultre part tout dis, en gastant et essillant le
pays. Si ordonna le conte de Kenfort, monsigneur
Henri visconte de Byaumont, le signeur de Persi, le
signeur de Ros, le signeur de Montbrai, le signeur de
le Ware, monsigneur Renault de Gobehen et monsigneur
25 Jehan de Lille à là demorer et tenir le siège
à six cens armeures de fier et deux mille arciers; et
puis si chevauça o le demorant de ses gens. Si
pooient estre environ quatre cens lances et deux
mille arciers, tout ardant et essillant le bon pays de
30 Bretagne par devant lui, de l’un lès et d’autre, tant
qu’il vinrent devant le bonne ville de Dignant dont
messires Pières Portebuef estoit chapitainne. Quant
[25] il parfu venus devant Dignant, il mist le siège tout
environ, et le fist fortement assallir. Et cil qui dedens
estoient entendirent ossi à yaus deffendre. Ensi assega
li rois d’Engleterre tout en une saison, et en un
 5 jour, [luy et[263]] ses gens, trois cités en Bretagne et une
bonne ville.

§ 196. Entrues que li rois d’Engleterre aloit et

venoit et chevauçoit le pays de Bretagne, ses gens
qui seoient devant le cité de Vennes y faisoient et
10 livroient tous les jours tamaint assaut, car durement
le convoitoient à gaegnier par fait d’armes, pour
tant que li chevalier qui dedens estoient l’avoient
reconquis sus yaus en celle meisme saison. Dont il
avint un jour, le siège pendant, que, à l’une des
15 portes, uns très grans assaus se fist. Et se traisent de
celle part toutes les bonnes gens d’armes, de l’un
costé et de l’autre. Et là eut tamainte belle apertise
d’armes fait. Car cil dedens Vennes avoient, comme
bon chevalier et hardi, ouvert leur porte et se tenoient
20 à le barrière, pour le cause de ce qu’il
veoient le banière le conte de Warvich et ceste dou
conte d’Arondiel et dou baron de Stanfort et de
monsigneur Gautier de Mauni qui s’abandonnoient,
ce leur sambloit, assés folement. De quoi li sires de
25 Cliçon et messires Hervis de Lyon et li aultre chevalier
plus corageusement s’en aventuroient. Là y eut
fait tant de belles apertises d’armes que merveilles
seroit à recorder. Car li Englès, qui veoient le porte
ouverte, le tenoient en grant despit, et li aucun le
[26] reputoient à vaillance. Là eut lanciet et estechiet d’un
lès et de l’autre moult longement. Finablement, cilz
assaus se porta telement que [de premiers[264]] li Englès
furent reboutet et reculet moult arrière des barrières.
5 Et à ce qu’il reculèrent, li chevalier de Bretagne s’avancièrent
et ouvrirent leur baille, cescuns son glave en
son poing, et laissièrent six chevaliers des leurs pour
garder le baille, avoec grant fuison d’autres gens. Et
puis tout à piet, en lançant et escarmuchant, il
10 poursievirent les chevaliers englès qui tout en reculant
 se combatoient. Là eut très bon puigneis et fort
bouteis de glaves, et mainte belle apertise d’armes
faite. Toutefois, li Englès montepliièrent et fortefiièrent
telement qu’il couvint les Bretons reculer, et
15 non pas si rieuleement qu’il estoient avalet. Là eut
grant luite et dur encauch. Et remontoient li chevalier
de Bretagne, li sires de Cliçon et messires Hervis
de Lyon, à grant malaise. Si y eut maint homme mort
et blecié. Quant cil qui gardoient le barrière veirent
20 leurs gens cacier et reculer, il retraisent leurs bailles
avant, et si mal à point qu’il couvint le signeur de
Cliçon demorer dehors, [et fu pris devant le barrière;
et ossi fu messires Hervis de Lion[265]]. D’autre part, li
Englès qui estoient monté vistement, et tous premiers
25 li barons de Stanfort, furent enclos et se
banière entre les bailles et le porte. Là eut grant
touellement et dur hustin. Et fu pris et retenus li
sires de Stanfort, onques nulz ne l’en peut aidier; et
ossi furent pluiseur des siens qui estoient dalès lui:
[27] [Oncques[266]] nulz n’en escapa qu’il ne fuissent ou mort
ou pris. Si se departi ceste estourmie atant, et se
retraisent li Englès à leurs logeis, et li [Breton[267]] à
leurs hostelz par dedens le cité de Vennes.

5 § 197. Par tel manière que vous avés oy compter

furent pris li chevalier dessus nommé. Et euissent fait
li Englès grant feste de leurs prisonniers, se li sires
de Stanfort n’euist esté pris. Depuis cest assaut, n’en
y eut [fait[268]] nul si grant ne si renommé d’armes que
10 cilz fu, car cescuns se tenoit sus se garde. Or parlerons
dou roy d’Engleterre qui avoit assegiet le ville
de Dinant. Quant il eut là sis jusques à trois jours là
en dedens, il avisa et ymagina comment il le poroit
avoir. Si regarda que elle estoit bien prendable,
15 car elle n’estoit fremée fors que de palis. Si fist
querre et pourveir grant fuison de nacelles, et entrer
 dedens arciers, et puis nagier jusques à ces palis, et
yaus venu jusques à là, assallir fortement à ceulz qui
les deffendoient, et traire si ouniement que à painnes
20 osoit nuls apparoir as deffenses pour le deffendre.
Entre ces arciers y avoit autres assallans qui portoient
cuignies grandes et bien trençans, dont, entrues
que li arcier ensonnioient chiaus de dedens, il copoient
les palis; et les eurent en brief temps grandement
25 adamagiés, et tant qu’il en gettèrent un grant
pan par terre, et entrèrent ens efforciement. Quant
cil de le ville veirent leurs palis rompus et Englès
entrer ens à grant randon, si furent tout effraet. Et
[28] commencièrent à fuir vers le marchiet: mais petite
ralloiance se fist entre yaus, car cil qui estoient entré
ens par les nacelles vinrent à le porte et l’ouvrirent.
Si entrèrent ens toutes manières d’autres gens qui
5 entrer y vorrent. Ensi fu prise li ville de Dinant en
Bretagne, toute courue et robée, et messires Pières
Portebuef qui capitainne en estoit. Si prisent li Englès
des quelz qu’il veirent[269], et gaegnièrent grant
avoir dedens, car elle estoit adonc durement riche
10 et plainne et bien marchande.

§ 198. Quant li rois d’Engleterre eut fait sen emprise

et sa volenté de le ville de Dinant en Bretagne,
il s’en parti, et le laissa toute vaghe, et n’eut mies
conseil dou tenir; si s’en achemina vers Vennes. En
15 chevauçant celle part, les nouvelles li vinrent de le
prise le signeur de Cliçon et de monsigneur Hervi de
Lyon. Si en fu grandement joians, et tant chevauça
qu’il vint devant Vennes, et là se loga.
Or vous parlerons un petit de monsigneur Loeis
20 d’Espagne, de messire Charle Grimau, de monsigneur
Othon Doriie, qui estoient pour le temps amiral de
le mer, à huit galées, treize barges et trente nefs cargies
de Geneuois et d’Espagnols. Si se tenoient sus