The consternation was great in France, when it was learnt that Rouen had succumbed. The Duke of Burgundy quitted Paris with the king and queen, and negotiations were again entered into with the King of England. The conditions offered by the Duke of Burgundy were so advantageous that Henry consented to negotiate in person. The plain beyond the environs of Meulan was chosen for the interview; the court of France was at Pontoise, and the King of England had established himself at Mantes. On the 30th of May, two magnificent retinues appeared in the field, around whom a crowd of people thronged; silken tents had been erected. For the first time Henry saw that Princess Catherine with whom he had been smitten through a portrait, and whom he had chosen for the lady of his thoughts. Tall, slim, fair, with black eyes, the beauty of the princess made a lively impression upon her knight, but without disturbing for a moment the policy of the king. Interviews succeeded each other, but Henry abated nothing of his demands. "Good cousin of Burgundy," said he, "I will have the daughter of your king for my wife, and with her all that I have demanded." But when the King of England presented himself for the eighth conference, the French tents were deserted. A treaty had been concluded between the Duke of Burgundy and the dauphin, they having embraced upon the road between Melun and Corbeil; the two parties were for the moment reunited against the English. King Henry, indignant at this treachery, and swearing to avenge himself unaided, advanced as far as Pontoise, which was taken on the 27th of July. Isle-Adam, who defended the town, was compelled to fly, leaving behind him the treasure which he had amassed in Paris by hanging the Armagnacs.

The Duke of Burgundy was at Saint-Denis; but he made no effort to defend Pontoise. Paris remained undefended; nobody thought any longer of taking possession of that unhappy city, the scene of so many horrors and crimes. There was uneasiness around the King of England; the negotiations which were on foot between the court of France and the Regent of Scotland were known; the King of Castile had armed a large fleet which ravaged the coasts of Guienne. Henry V. alone had not lost confidence: he counted upon the justice of God as well as upon the internal treachery of his adversaries; the event proved that he had not been mistaken. Since his reconciliation with the dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy strongly urged the latter to repair to Troyes, where the king and queen were; the young prince, or rather his councillors, insisted upon a preliminary interview at Montereau. The duke hesitated; he had received several warnings of the evil designs of Tanneguy-Duchâtel. But the influence of a woman, the Dame de Giac, gained over by the Armagnacs, decided him to risk all, and he started for Montereau. Tanneguy-Duchâtel came forward to meet him; the servants of the duke still insisted on his retreating. "No," said he, "if I die, it will be as a martyr, and the councillors of my lord the dauphin are good knights." Then, as Duchâtel entered, "This is what I rely upon," he said, resting his hand upon his shoulder; "Messire Tanneguy answers for my safety." The Armagnacs reiterated protestations, while leading the duke towards the pavilion which had been prepared upon the bridge. Barriers closed it upon both sides; they were carefully thrown down as soon as the duke had entered. He uncovered his head and placed one knee upon the ground before the dauphin, who leant against the balustrade in the centre of the pavilion. The young prince scarcely answered, muttering some reproaches. At the same moment, upon a movement of John Sans Peur which caused his sword to clatter, Tanneguy cried, "A sword before my Lord," and struck the duke a blow upon the head with his battle-axe. The Sire de Navailles, raised his arm to defend his master; but the Viscount of Narbonne sprang upon him. The duke had been thrown down without having been able to draw his sword; two noblemen raised his coat of mail and plunged their daggers in his breast; the Burgundians of the retinue were made prisoners and two of them were seriously wounded. The troops of the dauphin had scattered the escort; the young prince had retired; John Sans Peur remained upon the bridge, lifeless, and divested of his jewels and his rich habiliments. This bold and cunning heart, this egotistical ambition which nothing arrested, this magnificent life of pleasures and politics, all had been ended by a crime, and the public indignation enumerated the good qualities of the duke without recalling his vices; the death of John Sans Peur opened a wide entrance for the English in France.

Philip, count of Charolais, now Duke of Burgundy, was at Ghent, when he learnt of the assassination of his father. "Michelle," he said, turning towards his wife, the daughter of Charles VI., "your brother has killed my father." Amidst deputations which arrived from all parts to deplore the crime, and to throw the responsibility of it upon the dauphin, the first care of the new duke was to enter into negotiations with the King of England.

Anger and vengeance were about to give to Henry all that his victories had not yet been able to wrest from the weakness of France. The proposals of the dauphin had been rejected; but when the young Duke of Burgundy was entrusted to negotiate by Queen Isabel, the king entered into parleys; the hand of the Princess Catherine was promised him, with the regency of the kingdom, and the crown at the death of Charles VI. He consented, in his turn, to renounce the title of King of France during the lifetime of King Charles, to govern his new kingdom upon the advice of a French council, to respect the liberties of the Parliaments and towns, and to reannex Normandy to the crown of France on his accession to the throne. A private treaty assured certain favors to the Duke of Burgundy. Neither of these documents contained the clause which had led to their conclusion; but it was understood that the dauphin should be pursued to the death.

The Duke of Burgundy had assured himself of his revenge; he returned to Troyes; all the constituent bodies had already reassembled at Paris,—the Parliament, the Chamber of Accounts, the University,—and all had approved of the treaty with the English. The great qualities of King Henry were enumerated; prudent and wise, loving peace and justice, maintaining a strict discipline among warriors, protecting the poor people, resigned to the will of God, praising Him in good fortune and accepting bad fortune without anger. It was added that he was of noble bearing and of an agreeable countenance. None objected; people were weary of the civil wars; misery had exhausted their hearts and benumbed their courage; the Duke of Burgundy was all-powerful. A few noblemen alone dared to complain: the Duke Philip had great difficulty in making John of Luxemburg and the Bishop of Thérouenne, his brother, to swear peace. "You wish it," they said, "we will therefore take the oath, and also will we, keep it until death." Others formally refused, and, in the duchy of Burgundy, all the towns at first resisted the oath of fidelity required by the King of England. "Those who looked displeased," says Juvenal des Ursins, "were treated as Armagnacs, but they were only good and loyal Frenchmen." The treaty of Troyes was the disgrace of France.

King Henry arrived at the court on the 20th of May, followed by the flower of his army, upon which he had imposed a severe discipline; in traversing the country, he had everywhere required the soldiers to put water in their wine. The Princess Catherine was awaiting her chevalier, who was affianced to her with great ceremony, and on the morrow the treaty was signed. The King of England, regent of France, had received the oaths of his new subjects, when his marriage was celebrated on the 2nd of June, by the Archbishop of Sens, amidst the most brilliant ceremonies. The young knights and gallants hoped for a joust and some passages of arms on the occasion of this great union; but Henry was not so full of love as to forget his affairs. "I beg my lord the king," he said, "for permission, and I command his servants as well as my own be in readiness to-morrow morning to proceed to lay siege to the city of Sens, where are the enemies of the king. There each of us will be able to joust, tourney, and display his prowess and courage, for there is no finer prowess than to mete out justice to the wicked in order that the poor people may live." The court of Queen Isabel was not accustomed to this serious and firm language, but they set out for Sens without complaining. The town was taken at the end of two days; the king caused the archbishop to be called, and conducted him to the church. "You have given me a bride, and I restore yours to you," he said to the prelate.

From Sens the army went to Montereau; the Burgundians were fighting furiously, eager to have possession of the spot in which the body of their duke reposed. The garrison had been compelled to retire within the castle, where the Sire de Guitry defended himself yet for some time. Scarcely had Philip of Burgundy entered the town, when the women conducted him to the church wherein his father had been hurriedly interred. He caused the tomb to be opened; the body was riddled with wounds, disfigured by the blows of the battle-axe of Tanneguy-Duchâtel; all wept while looking at him: the body was transported to Dijon with the greatest honors, and deposited in the tomb of Philip the Bold. The bastard De Croy, killed during the siege, took, in the church of Montereau, the place which the Duke John left empty.

The army had repaired to Melun; but the town was defended by the Sire de Barbazan, one of the dauphin's most gallant knights. The siege might have been protracted; the court came and established itself at Corbeil. Every day the besieged made sorties; an assault had been attempted without success; mines were defeated by counter-mines; the English, Burgundian, and French knights sometimes took pleasure in breaking lances in those dark galleries; the Sire de Barbazan there had the honor of encountering the King of England without knowing him; but the combats of the men-at-arms were more serious, and the knights sometimes took part in them. "You do not know what it is to fight in a mine," said De Barbazan to the young Louis des Ursins, who was preparing to descend there; "have the handle of your battle-axe cut down; the passages in the mines are often narrow and zigzagged; short sticks are necessary for fighting hand to hand."

Meanwhile the people suffered cruelly within the town, and the dauphin could not succor it: the English and Burgundian forces would have crushed his little army. The besieged still held out. King Henry had in vain caused Charles VI. to be brought to the camp; De Barbazan replied that he would open the gates to him willingly, but not to the mortal enemies of France. Already the English and the Burgundians began to quarrel among themselves; the French noblemen complained of the small court and the shabby costume of their king, while the King of England had a gorgeous establishment. Henry, besides, feeling himself surrounded by scarcely subjected enemies, and little accustomed to all the delicate shades of French courtesy, treated the barons with less consideration then they were wont to encounter. The Marshal of Isle-Adam, who was in command at Joigney, had come to Sens on some matters of business. "Is that the dress of a marshal of France?" asked King Henry, while surveying him from head to foot. "Sire," replied the marshal, "I had this light grey robe made to come here by water." "What!" cried the king, "do you look a prince in the face in speaking to him?" "Sire," and the Burgundian drew himself up, "in France it is the custom when one man speaks to another, of whatever rank, or whatever power he may be, that he pass for a bad man of little honor if he does not dare to look him in the face." "It is not our fashion," muttered Henry, and shortly afterwards Isle-Adam was deprived of his command.

Melun had at length been compelled to capitulate, on the 18th of November, and the King of England made his entry into Paris. That city was a prey to the most frightful misery; little children were abandoned and died of hunger and cold in the streets; wolves entered the cemeteries and even into the streets, to devour the dead bodies which none took the trouble to inter. Notwithstanding the distress, all Paris was holiday-making for the arrival of the two kings; the poor Charles VI. rode beside his son-in-law, who vied with him in courtesy at the doors of the churches when the relics were presented to them to be kissed. The Duke of Burgundy as well as all his household, clad in mourning, followed the King of France: the Dukes of Clarence and Bedford accompanied their brother. The misery was redoubled within Paris after the magnificences of the royal reception. Henry established himself at the Louvre, where he held court sumptuously; the old king had re-entered the Hotel St. Paul, but few people repaired thither to wish him a happy Christmas.

The Duke of Burgundy had formally demanded justice for the death of his father, and the murderers had been condemned by a decree of Charles VI., without giving the names and without personally accusing the dauphin. The King of England was in need of money, and, entrusting the command of his army to the Duke of Clarence, after having provided for the principal officers of the kingdom men who were devoted to him, he set sail for England, notwithstanding the severity of the weather. He landed at Dover, in the middle of January, welcomed by the acclamations of his people. The royal retinue resembled a triumph when it entered London. Catherine was crowned at Westminster, "with such great pomp and feasting and jollity, that since the time of the very noble and very warlike King Artus was not seen in the city of London a similar rejoicing for any English king," says Monstrelet. The sovereigns had commenced a journey in their states when, at York, the king learnt the sad news of the death of his well-beloved brother, the Duke of Clarence, slain in the combat of Baugé. He was ravaging Anjou, which still recognized the authority of the dauphin. The Seigneur de la Fayette had raised a few troops to resist him, and a numerous body of Scottish auxiliaries had joined him under the orders of the Earl of Buchan. Clarence did not know with what enemies he had to deal; he had imprudently advanced and had been killed by Lord Buchan together with a great number of English who remained upon the field. The dauphin then nominated the Earl of Buchan Constable of France.

Negotiations were then in progress for the release of King James of Scotland, so long a prisoner at the court of England; King Henry caused him to come, and, his face flashing with rage, he said, "Forbid all your subjects ever to lend assistance against me to the dauphin." "I should make a sorry figure by giving orders, being a prisoner," firmly replied James; "but if you will take me with you to France, I shall learn the art of war in a good school, and, perhaps, when my Scots shall see me with you, they will not fight on the other side." Henry V. had an affection for the King of Scotland, and granted him his request; but Archibald Douglas was already preparing to proceed to France, to join Lord Buchan.

Meanwhile, the king was assembling a more considerable army than any that he ever led beyond the seas, the Parliament having liberally voted subsidies. On the 10th of June, 1421, Henry landed at Calais, leaving Queen Catherine in England. The King of Scotland was entrusted to besiege Dreux, and Henry himself laid siege to Meaux, which detained him for several months; the town was commanded by the bastard De Vaurus, who had made of it a haunt of crimes and of pillage. When the castle was at length surrendered, in the month of May, 1422, the governor was hanged upon the great oak of which the branches had so often borne the corpses of his victims. Catherine, accompanied by the Duke of Bedford, had rejoined her husband, to whom she had recently presented a son. The dauphin, driven back by degrees by the English arms, had finally taken refuge in Bourges; but the Earl of Buchan continued to keep the field; he had taken La Charité and was besieging Cosne. The dauphin had repaired to the army, and the King of England, already for a long time enfeebled by fever, was preparing to attack him with the Duke of Burgundy, when his strength completely failed and he was compelled to halt at Corbeil. The Duke of Bedford having assumed the command of the army, the king was carried back in a litter to the castle of Vincennes: the queen having remained at Paris.

The hand of God was about to arrest this great career; at thirty-four years of age, King Henry V. was dying; the Duke of Bedford was arrested in a march during which he had encountered no enemies, by the wish of his brother, who desired to say farewell to him. Every worldly gift had been lavished upon the young conqueror; the master of two kingdoms, surrounded by the esteem and affection of his English subjects, recently married to the woman of his choice, just become the father of an infant son, he was about to leave them; but the faith and resignation of a Christian surmounted in the soul ready to take flight, the frail benefits of the earth. Amidst his grandeurs and his conquests Henry had led a pure and austere life, and had not neglected to serve God. He dreamt continually, when peace should be re-established, of proceeding to the East, to deliver the Holy Sepulchre; this vision still floated around his death-bed. He had caused his faithful servants to be summoned, "Since it is the will of God, my Creator, thus to shorten my life," he said to them, "His will be done! Console my sweet Catherine; she will be the most disconsolate creature there is in the world." He confided the education of his son to the Earl of Warwick. "You cannot yet love him for his own sake; but, if you should think that you owe me anything return it to him." He had entrusted John, duke of Bedford, to govern France, and designated Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, as regent of England. "Tell Humphrey to beware of quarrels for love of me, and never to allow anything in the world to separate him from John; do not separate yourselves from the Duke of Burgundy." He had summoned his physicians, asking them how long he had yet to live. They hesitated. "Speak," said he impatiently. "Sire," said one of them, "think of your soul, for in our judgment you have not two hours to remain on earth."

The king had finished his last instructions; he had said farewell to the affairs of this world; his confessor and the priests of his chapel surrounded his bed; the 51st Psalm was being recited: "Build the walls of Jerusalem!" chanted the chaplain. "Upon the faith of a dying king," murmured Henry, "if it had pleased the Lord God to prolong my life, I intended to proceed against the infidels, and deliver the Holy Sepulchre from their hands." The voice was dying away; he closed his eyes, and, amidst the prayers which were being repeated around him, the great soul of King Henry V. entered into eternal repose.

No life in its brevity had been more active than his and no monarch was more bitterly regretted; it was so even in France, for the people saw themselves thrown back into the horrors of internal dissensions; he was mourned for in England, with sincere and profound grief. After the magnificent ceremonies celebrated in France, the body was brought to England, and solemnly interred at Westminster, beside the shrine of Edward the Confessor. King James of Scotland was chief mourner, while the Duke of Bedford, profoundly sad, seized in France the ill-secured power which his dying brother had confided to him, and endeavored to secure the two crowns upon the head of the child destined to lose them both.

The religious ceremonies had been prolonged in France; Queen Catherine embarked in the month of October, accompanying the body of her husband, when her father, King Charles VI., died of quartan ague. Notwithstanding his thirty years of madness, and the evils which they had suffered under his reign, the French had remained attached to their unhappy monarch, and the mob thronged the hall of the Hôtel St. Paul, where he was exposed. "Ah! dear prince!" it was said, amidst tears, "never shall we have one as good as you; you have gone to your rest; we remain in tribulation and grief, and seem made to fall into the distress in which were the children of Israel during the captivity of Babylon." The Duke of Burgundy was bitterly reproached for not having come to see the king during his sickness, and also for not having followed his funeral; the Duke of Bedford was chief mourner, and on the 10th of November, 1422, in England and in France, at Westminster and at Saint-Denis, the obsequies of King Henry V and those of King Charles VI. were solemnized. The royal remains being lowered into the grave, the heralds broke their wands and cried, "God grant long life to Henry, by the grace of God King of France and of England, our sovereign Lord." And the people shouted, "Long live the king!" The hand which was to bear this weighty inheritance was not yet one year old.

The Duke of Bedford had taken the reins of government in France without opposition; in England, the lords of the Parliament had contested the right of the deceased king to designate the regent of the kingdom, and had given to the Duke of Gloucester the title of Protector of the State and of the Church, which was to remind him, it was said, of his duties. Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, brother of King Henry IV. by the third wife of John of Gaunt, was entrusted to second the Earl of Warwick in the education of the little king. The Parliament voted the necessary subsidies, and the war continued in France.

The death of Charles VI. had rallied a few adherents around the Dauphin, proclaimed King of France at Mehun-sur-Yèvres, in Berry, under the name of Charles VII. Shortly afterwards he caused himself to be crowned at Poictiers, Rheims being in the power of the English. Right was upon the side of Charles, dispossessed as he was; the memory of the kings his ancestors, the natural aversion to foreigners, increased by eighty years of war, fought in his favour; the noblemen who did not rally around him were less eager to serve the Duke of Bedford than they had been to second Henry V., and, already it had been necessary to stifle; at Poissy, a trifling insurrection in favor of the Dauphin.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Bedford had caused all the large towns and constituent bodies in France to swear fidelity to his nephew, and in order to strengthen that intimacy with the Duke of Burgundy which had preoccupied King Henry even upon his deathbed, he had married Anne of Burgundy, his sister Madame de Guienne, the widow of the first Dauphin, shortly afterwards gave her hand to the Count of Richemont, the brother of the Duke of Brittany, and a solemn treaty of friendship united the three dukes to each other. Brittany and Burgundy, at the same [time], concluded a private alliance unknown to the Duke of Bedford.

The Regent was returning from Troyes, where his marriage had been celebrated and was fighting upon the way when he learnt that the Earl of Buchan was attacking his fortress of Crevant-sur-Yonne, endeavoring to open up a communication between the northern territories, which recognized the authority of Charles VII., and the southern provinces, where his cause had made great progress. The Earls of Salisbury and Suffolk were immediately despatched to relieve Crevant; a troop of Burgundians joined them. The orders of the Duke of Bedford were precise: the archers carried their stakes.

The battle was to be fought on foot, as at Agincourt, without giving any quarter to the enemy. The army of King Charles VII. was, it was said, superior in numbers to that of the English.

On arriving before Crevant, the assailants found themselves arrested by the river Yonne, and remained there two days; when the English had at length forced a passage, they attacked the Scots, leaving the French troops to the Burgundians. "There is no other antidote for the English than the Scots," said Pope Martin V. after the battle of Baugê, but at Crevant the Scots were defeated. The French had promptly yielded, only the bravest knight had supported their allies; Lord Buchan and the Count of Ventadour had both lost an eye, and were taken prisoners, as well as Saintrailles, a famous Armagnac knight; subsequently the English re-entered Paris in triumph. Scotland, however, was not exhausted of knights in search of adventure. Archibald Douglas had disembarked at La Rochelle with five thousand men, and King Charles VII., in his gratitude, conferred upon him the title of Duke of Touraine; he loaded with honors the other Scottish noblemen, of whom several finally became naturalized in France; the barons began to complain of the favours which the king lavished upon his foreign allies. The Duke of Milan sent him a large reinforcement of Italians.

The Duke of Bedford was uneasy concerning the relief which arrived from Scotland for his adversaries, and he hoped to dry up the source of it by sending back King James into his dominions; negotiations had been opened up; the marriage of the captive prince with Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and niece of the Bishop of Winchester, had been celebrated; the ransom was settled and James I. had returned to Scotland after nineteen years of captivity, there to govern with an honest firmness to which his people had not been accustomed; but the tide of emigration towards France, although slightly slackened had not ceased in the meanwhile; the justice of the king was rigorously exercised upon the old enemies of his family, and a large number of Scottish knights, flying from his anger, took refuge in the army of Charles VII.; it was with their assistance that the royalist noblemen marched, in the month of August, against Ivry, in Normandy, which the Duke of Bedford was attacking. But the position of the English was strong, discord reigned in the French army, deprived of a chief by the indolence of Charles VII. Douglas and Buchan wished to make the attack; the Count of Alençon and the Count of Aumale refused their consent, and drew the army with them. In withdrawing they surprised Verneuil; the town was important, and the duke of Bedford followed the French thither. A tumultuous council resolved to repulse him in the open plain; the royalists, all on foot, quitted Verneuil; the Milanese alone remained on horseback. The English awaited the attack from behind the stakes of their archers. "Let us allow them to come," said Douglas; but the French noblemen despised the adventurers, as they called their valiant allies, and they made the attack. The combat was terrible; at one moment La Hire and Saintrailles, at the head of the Milanese, broke the reserve of the archers; but the reinforcements of the principal body repulsed them, and they were completely routed. Douglas had been slain, as well as his son. Lord Buchan lay upon the field of battle with the Counts of Narbonne, Tonnerre, and Ventadour; the Count of Alençon and the Marshall de la Fayette were prisoners. On his side, the Duke of Bedford had suffered; but the army of King Charles VII. was destroyed; the town of Verneuil surrendered immediately, and the Duke of Bedford caused to be beheaded those of the prisoners who, having sworn allegiance to his nephew, had not kept their oaths.

Bedford conducted affairs in France with firmness and prudence, but he was thwarted in his policy by the thoughtless and passionate acts of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester. The latter had become smitten with Jacqueline of Hainault, the daughter and heiress of the Count of Hainault, and married, in the first instance, to the second Dauphin, John, poisoned at Compiègne. Still young at the death of that prince, she had married the Duke of Brabant; but she soon conceived a horror of her husband, who had, she said, the taste for favourites of low degree, and abandoning him after three years of union, she had taken refuge in England, where King Henry IV. had received her with great honours. He had, however, opposed the project of marriage of his brother, and upon his death-bed had recommended him to renounce them. The Pope, Martin V., had refused to break off the marriage of Jacqueline of Hainault with the Duke of Brabant; but she pleaded the degree of relationship; and addressed herself to the Anti-Pope, Benedict XIII., who had refused to submit to the decision of the Council of Constance to terminate the schism. Too happy to perform the act of a pontiff, Benedict pronounced the nullity of the marriage, and the Duke of Gloucester espoused Jacqueline of Hainault. The remonstrances of the Duke of Burgundy became more ardent; he had, from the first moment, defended the rights of his cousin, the Duke of Brabant, proposing to refer the case to the arbitration of the Duke of Bedford. "I am content," said he, "that we should take as judge my very dear and beloved cousin, and also your brother the regent, Duke of Bedford, for he is such a prince, that I know that to you and to me, and to all others, he would be an upright judge." The Duke of Gloucester had listened to no remonstrance, and the dangerous disaffection of the Duke Philip was secretly becoming graver, when, shortly after the battle of Verneuil, Gloucester and Jacqueline landed at Calais with a body of English soldiers, notwithstanding the entreaties of their uncle Beaufort in England, and those of the Duke of Bedford in France; they traversed the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy, and attacked the Duke of Brabant in Hainault; they had already taken possession of Mons when the Duke of Burgundy, in a state of fury, wrote to Gloucester, challenging him to single combat. At the same time he sent considerable assistance to the Duke of Brabant, accepting for that favour the service of his former enemies. Saintrailles was among the number of the knights who proceeded to fight against the English in the Low Countries.

The bonds which united the House of Burgundy to England were beginning to relax, and the Pope was already working secretly in concert with the Duke of Savoy, to negotiate an agreement with Charles VII. The Duke of Gloucester had returned to England; fearing the influence of his uncle Beaufort, he had left Jacqueline entrusted to defend her inheritance. Scarcely had he departed, when the majority of the towns opened their gates to the Duke of Burgundy; and Jacqueline, at first tightly held within Mons, then led a captive to Ghent, escaped with great difficulty to take refuge in Holland.

So much imprudence on the part of his nephew had irritated the Bishop of Winchester so far as to bring about an open quarrel. The Duke of Bedford was compelled to repair to England towards the end of the year 1425 to prevent bloodshed between the two parties. He had some trouble in effecting a reconciliation, sincere on the part of the Duke of Gloucester, whose character was as frank as it was impetuous; doubtful in that of the priest, more implacable than the warrior; the Bishop of Winchester resigned the seals, and finding himself elevated by Martin V. to the dignity of a Cardinalship, he quitted England with the Duke of Bedford. The latter had been recalled to France by the defection of the Duke of Brittany, who had recently declared himself in favour of King Charles VII. at the instigation of his brother, the Count of Richemont, already for some time rallied, and whom the king had made Constable. Scarcely had Bedford set foot upon French soil, when he sent an army into Brittany; the country was devastated, the Duke of Brittany was shut up within Rennes and so closely pressed, that he found himself compelled to sever his alliance with the King of France; he swore for the second time to the treaty of Troyes, and did homage to the little king Henry VI.

The Pope, Martin V., had solemnly declared the nullity of the marriage of Jacqueline de Hainault with the Duke of Gloucester, and the latter had consoled himself by espousing Eleanor Cobham, formerly a lady of the household of his wife. The Countess Jacqueline still held out bravely in Holland; the Duke of Brabant had recently died; his brother, who had succeeded him, had no claim upon Jacqueline or upon her dominions; she would have been free if the enemy whom she had raised up had not been too powerful and too greedy to stop on such a fine road; from town to town, from territory to territory, the Duke of Burgundy prosecuted his conquest, and Jacqueline, abandoned by nearly all her vassals, a victim on sea and on land, at length consented, in the summer of 1428, to recognize the Duke Philip as her heir, and to entrust to him immediately the government of her dominions. The duke, satisfied with the English, who had not hindered him in this last act of his ambition, promised troops for the great expedition which was being prepared against the country beyond the Loire, almost entirely rallied to King Charles VII.

The war had languished since the battle of Verneuil; the King of France was poor, indolent, and delivered up to favourites. The Sire de Giac and the Sire de Beaulieu had given place to the Sire de la Trémoille, more adventurous and more dangerous than the two others; he counteracted beside the king the influence of the Constable de Richemont and of the true friends of France. The Duke of Bedford for a long time paralyzed by the quarrels of the Duke of Gloucester, had recently received reinforcements from England, under the order of the Earl of Salisbury. The latter resolved to undertake the siege of Orleans. On the 12th of October, 1428, he appeared before the city, commencing his siege preparations according to the most learned rules of the time, but not considering that he had given time for the place to furnish itself with men and victuals, to repair its fortifications, and to place itself in a state of defence; the best knights of the King of France had shut themselves up in Orleans.

The assaults failed, the citizens of Orleans valiantly supporting the garrison. The Bastard of Orleans, Count of Dunois, had brought reinforcements, Salisbury dreamt of metamorphosing the siege into a blockade, when, contemplating the city from the Tournelles fort, which he had taken at the outset, he was struck in the face by a stone shot from a falconet, which rebounded against the embrasure of the window and killed his esquire beside him. The general was dying; it was found necessary to carry him to Fertê-sur-Meung, where he died at the end of a few days, to the great joy of the population of Orleans. The Earl Suffolk arrived to take the command, and the siege continued. The English army, badly installed beneath its huts of tree branches, suffered from the cold, and often from hunger; the country which surrounded them was hostile and devastated; the Duke of Bedford resolved, in the month of February, to send provisions to him from Paris. It was during Lent and the convoy which Sir John Falstaff was entrusted to lead, consisted especially of herrings, when, on the 12th of February he was attacked by the French near the village of Rouvray, between Graville and Orleans. As usual, the Scotch and the French quarrelled among themselves; the former, wishing to fight on foot, the latter to remain on horseback; they were within bowshot, and the English archers were beginning to shoot; the rout was not long delayed, and Sir John Falstaff arrived triumphantly at the camp with the herrings which gave their name to his victory.

This defeat threw discouragement into Orleans; hunger began to make itself felt; the citizens spoke of surrendering their city, not to the English but the Duke of Burgundy; the latter came to Paris to consult about it with the regent. "No," said Bedford, "it is just that those who have had the trouble should have the honour." Philip did not remonstrate; disquieting rumours were beginning to circulate among the Burgundians: it was said that the Duke of Bedford had declared that the Duke of Burgundy would finally proceed to England to drink more beer than would quench his thirst. The duke quitted the court, dissatisfied and gloomy. The King of France was at Chinon; his affairs appeared desperate; many noblemen had abandoned him, and he would have willingly retired to the South, abandoning to their fate Orleans and the banks of the Loire, but for the efforts of his wife, Mary of Anjou, and the anger of Dunois. La Trémoille had caused the Constable to be sent away.

Deliverance was approaching by the weakest instrument which it has ever pleased God to employ for the accomplishment of His designs. A young girl was growing up in the village of Domrémy, upon the borders of Lorraine and Burgundy; she was named Joan of Arc, she was eighteen years of age, she was good and pious. For a long while already—from the age of thirteen years—she had begun to have visions, to hear voices, Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret commanding her to go to France, to the assistance of the king: as she grew up the voices became more urgent. People began to speak in the village of the strange exaltation of Joan. The Sire de Baudricourt, in command at Vaucouleurs, wished to see her; but he sent her back ridiculing her. Urged however, by others, he resolved to cause her to be taken to the king. "I must go to the king before Mid-Lent," said Joan, "even should I have to wear my legs to the knees to reach him, for nobody in the world, neither king nor duke, nor daughter of the King of Scotland can deliver the kingdom of France; I should prefer to remain and spin beside my poor mother, for it is not my work, but I must go, because Messire wills it." "Who is Messire?" it was asked. "It is God," said Joan, and the noblemen who were leading her forward were struck with admiration on seeing her pass the night kneeling in the churches, and fasting on bread and water.

When she arrived at Chinon, the king refused for several days to see her, saying that she was a mad woman; but the rumour of her journey had already spread. Dunois and the besieged in Orleans had caused inquiry to be made as to who this young girl was who was to deliver them; Joan was admitted into the great hall full of noblemen richly dressed; none of them detached himself from the groups; she went straight towards Charles VII. and knelt before him. "I am not the king, Joan," he said, and he indicated one of his courtiers to her. "By my God, gentle prince," she said, "it is you, and no other. Most noble lord Dauphin, the King of Heaven sends a message to you through me, to be consecrated and crowned in the city of Rheims, and you shall be His Lieutenant in the kingdom of France." Charles was won over; he drew Joan into a corner, and asked a thousand questions of her. Confidence began to spread in the army; the soldiers asked that Joan should be placed at their head, to go and deliver Orleans. The doctors and the bishops caused her to undergo interrogations; after having said that she was mad, they feared that she might be a sorceress, but neither examinations nor interrogations shook her simplicity and resolution. "The sign which I am to give is to cause the siege of Orleans to be raised," she said. "But if God wishes to deliver France, He has no need of armed men," insisted the doctors. "Ah!" she replied, "the soldiers will fight, and God will give them the victory."

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Joan of Arc recognizes the French King.

At least it was resolved to attempt the venture, and Joan, with the state of a chieftain departed from Blois at the head of a considerable convoy, led by the best captains of the French army. She wished to attack Orleans from the right bank, saying that her voices had commanded her to do it; but the soldiers were of a contrary opinion; they deceived Joan, and were arriving by the left bank; Dunois came in a little boat to meet the convoy. "Are you the Bastard of Orleans?" she said to him. "Yes, and very pleased at your arrival." "You gave advice that we should come by the Sologne," she said, "and not by the Beauce, across the dominion of the English: the advice of Messire was not yours. I bring you the best succour that ever knight or city received; it is the succour of the King of Heaven." And everybody was surprised on hearing her speak so well. The convoy entered Orleans without striking a blow; the soldiers returned therefrom, but Joan wished to remain in the city. The besieged crowded round her, already reassured and encouraged by her presence. Anxiety prevailed in the English camp; the leaders declared that Joan was mad; the soldiers feared that she might be a sorceress. She had written to the Earl of Suffolk and to Talbot, inviting them to retire. As they would not listen to her, and loaded her with insults, she was greatly enraged, and demanded that they should be attacked immediately. A second convoy had entered the city; Joan was sleeping; suddenly she awoke. "Ah! Lord," she said, "the blood of our people is flowing; why was I not summoned sooner? My arms! My horse!" and she ran towards the fortress of Saint Loup. She had not been deceived; a few soldiers had attempted a sally against the fortress occupied by the English; they were beginning to waver when Joan arrived; many soldiers had followed her; the English were repulsed, and the fortress recaptured. Joan had fought like at knight, and every one had admired her; but she was sad; many men had died without confessing. "I have compassion for their souls," she said. Terror spread among the English. "She performs miracles," it was said at Orleans. "She is a sorceress," said the archers of the enemy, but they began to fear her.

From fortress to fortress, from rampart to rampart all that the English had gained was by degrees taken from them; the Tournelles fortress had recently been taken; the citizens of Orleans were rejoicing; the Earl of Suffolk and his lieutenants had resolved to retire. However, they did not wish to escape ignominiously. The camp had been fired, and, arrayed in battle order, the English appeared to await the attack. It was on the 8th of May, 1429. "Do not assail them first," said Joan; "for the love and honour of the holy Sabbath, let them be allowed to depart if they wish to go: if they should attack you, defend yourselves boldly and you shall be masters." The English did not make an attack, but retreated without a struggle; Joan could not prevent the soldiers from throwing themselves upon the rear of the English army and gaining a large quantity of booty. Plunder, like disorder of all kinds, agitated and saddened her: she asked pardon of God in all the churches for all the evil which she had not been able to prevent.

Great satisfaction prevailed at the court of King Charles, who ordered rejoicings in honour of Joan; but she took no pleasure in the amusements; she wished the king to go and cause himself to be consecrated at Rheims. "I am strongly urged to conduct you thither," she said; "I shall last but one year or scarcely more; I must therefore employ it well." And as she was questioned about the voices, "I offered up a prayer," she said; "I complained that you would not believe what I say, thereupon the voice came and said, 'Go! go! my child, I will help you; go!' and it made me very joyful; I wish it might last forever." On the 11th of June the French army was before Jargeau, where the Earl of Suffolk had shut himself up. At the head of the attacking party was the Duke of Alençon, recently withdrawn from captivity. "Forward, gentle duke, to the assault!" cried Joan, and as he delayed, "Ah! gentle duke, are you afraid?" said she; "you well know that I have promised to your wife to return you safe." A large stone overthrew Joan; for a moment she was thought dead, but immediately afterward, she arose. "Come! come! at the English!" she cried; "Messire has condemned them; they are ours." Jargeau was carried by storm; the Earl of Suffolk and his brother, John de la Pole, were made prisoners; several fortresses fell into the power of the French; the English had retreated towards the Beauce, under the orders of Talbot.

The Constable had recently rejoined the army; it was resolved to follow the enemy. "Ah! my God!" said Joan, "we must fight them, were they even suspended to the clouds, we should have them, for God has sent us to punish them. The gentle Dauphin will to-day gain the greatest victory which he has yet had; my Counsel has told me that they are ours."

The English had halted in the open field in the environs of Patay; Sir John Falstaff and many others were inclined not to fight. The soldiers were discouraged by their recent checks, they said, and the spells of Joan took away all their courage; but Talbot was ashamed of having retreated so far; he began to make his arrangements for the fight; and the archers were driving in their stakes, when the advanced guard of the French army came and attacked them with that inconsiderate ardour, so sadly rewarded at Crecy and at Poictiers; but this time the English were in disorder; the soldiers who had remained on horseback fled; the rout was complete, and Sir John Falstaff gallopped to Paris, where the Duke of Bedford, in a great rage, wished to send him the Garter. Lord Talbot and a large number of knights were made prisoners. "Well, Messire Talbot," said the Duke of Alençon, "you did not expect this, this morning?" "It is the fortune of war," replied the Englishman, without emotion. Joan no longer spoke of anything but the visit to Rheims.

The councillors of King Charles still hesitated; the Sire de la Trémoille feared lest he might be supplanted beside his master; he contrived once more to remove the Constable; at length the persistence of Joan prevailed, and the king started with his little army; Auxerre, summoned to surrender, promised to open its gates if Troyes and Rheims would do likewise. The Burgundian garrison of Troyes resisted, and the French had no provisions. Murmurs began to be uttered against Joan; she urged the king to make the assault. "You will enter into Troyes within two days, by love or by force, and the trecherous Burgundians will be completely dismayed." "Whoever should be certain of obtaining possession of it in six days, could well wait Joan," said the chancellor, Archbishop of Rheims. "Yes," she persisted, "you shall have it to-morrow." On the morrow the entry into Troyes was made; Friar Richard, a famous preacher, came to meet Joan, and besprinkled her with holy water, to assure himself that she was not a sorceress; Joan smiled. On the 15th of July, 1429, Rheims opened its gates, and on the 17th the king was at length crowned in the cathedral. Joan stood beside him, holding her white standard, with these two words: "Jesus, Maria." When the king had received the sacrament, she threw herself at his feet, in tears. "Gentle king," she said, "now is fulfilled the good pleasure of God, who willed it that you should come to Rheims to receive your worthy consecration, to show that you were king, and he to whom the kingdom should belong." And, from that day, she spoke no longer but of returning to her village. "I have accomplished that which Messire has commanded me," she repeated, "which was to raise the siege of Orleans and to cause the gentle king to be crowned; I wish he could cause me to be taken back to my father and mother, who would be so pleased to see me again. I would mind their sheep and cattle, as I was wont to do."

Meanwhile, the Duke of Bedford was collecting reinforcements; the dissensions which continued in the English council between the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal de Beaufort impeded the consignments of men and money; the regent had even been compelled to weaken his garrisons in Normandy, to assemble an army in the neighbourhood of Paris, when his uncle, the Cardinal, sent him a corps of two or three thousand men, whom he had raised with the object of making war in Bohemia, against the partisans of John Huss, that were excommunicated in a body by the Pope. The cardinal had already furnished heavy sums for sustaining the war in France, and this fresh succour enabled the Duke of Bedford to make an expedition into Normandy, with the intention of stifling the insurrections which had attracted the Constable. The noblemen favourable to the French were restrained and the Constable was repulsed; but meanwhile Charles VII., led by Joan of Arc, whom he retained beside him, made an attempt upon Paris. Soissons, Senlis, Beauvais, had opened their gates to him, but the soldiers marched unwillingly towards the capital; the captains did not agree; the assault was lightly made, and Joan was wounded. The troops were furious. "You told us that we should be in Paris this evening," they said to Joan. "And so should we have been there, if you had fought well," she replied. The king, discouraged, retired to Bourges, to spend the winter.

While the King of France was going away from his good city of Paris, the Duke of Burgundy arrived there, still hesitating between the two parties, notwithstanding the efforts of his sister, the Duchess of Bedford, to renew his old intimacy with the English regent. By degrees the influence of national feeling began to reawaken in the soul of the Duke Philip, as his thirst for vengeance was appeased; the French promised him every conceivable reparation for the assassination of John Sans Peur, and it was necessary, in order to retain him in the camp of the English, for the Duke of Bedford to offer him the command of the allied forces, thus abdicating in his favour. The regent retired to Normandy, where he preserved the most complete authority. Joan was waging war upon the banks of the Loire; she had taken the castle of Pierre-le-Montoir, but she had been repulsed before La Charité. When the king at length took the field in the spring of 1430, Joan was entrusted to deliver Compiègne, besieged by the Duke Philip in person, and she contrived to enter into the town. The fatal moment however was approaching.

On the 25th of May the garrison of Compiègne made a sally. Joan led the troops, and she had attacked an important position occupied by the Burgundians, when a crushing force made her retreat. She covered and directed the retreat: at the moment when she was about to re-enter the town, the drawbridge was withdrawn, and, whether by mistake or treason, Joan found herself almost alone outside the walls. She had rallied a few soldiers around her, and endeavoured to gain the country; but she had been recognized and was surrounded and thrown from her horse. She was still upon the ground when she surrendered to the Bastard of Vendôme, who conducted her to the quarters of John of Luxembourg.

The rejoicing was great in the English and Burgundian camp, the Duke of Bedford caused a Te Deum to be sung; but the French did not concern themselves about the heroine who had delivered them: her task was accomplished; she had restored courage to the soldiers and hope to the captains; her enthusiasm had drawn along the most distrustful. Now she was a prisoner. Her enemies were negotiating among themselves to possess her; but those whom she had saved by the help of God did not raise a sword to defend her, nor a farthing to ransom her.