Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/559

A.D. 1415 town, his 200 small vessels in the river plied to and fro, bringing in abundance to his camp from the whole country.

Those stringent measures soon began to tell. Before two instead of ten months had expired, famine had shown its hideous face. Though the governor had reduced the population greatly before the siege commenced, he now expelled from the city 12,000 more useless mouths, as they were termed in the iron language of war. Henry forbade them to be admitted within the lines, for the tender mercies of sieges are cruel under the most humane of commanders. To permit at will the expulsion of the people was to prolong the siege, and, therefore, as at Calais, under Edward I., notwithstanding some of these wretched outcasts were fed by the humanity of the troops, the greater number perished through want of food and shelter.

But within the city famine stalked on, and the misery was terrible. During the third month the besieged killed and subsisted on their horses. After that, for ten months, they killed the dogs and cats; and the necessity growing more and more desperate, they descended to rats, mice, and any species of vermin they could clutch in their famine-sharpened fingers. It is said that, in the whole siege, from famine, from the wretched unwholesome food eaten, by the sword, and other means, no less than 50,000 of the inhabitants perished.

All this time the unhappy people cried vehemently to the Duke of Burgundy, the head of the Government, for succour. Their messengers returned with flattering but fallacious promises, and no relief was ever sent. On one occasion the heartless minister oven fixed the precise day on which he would arrive in force and compel the English to raise the siege. At this news a wild joy ran like lightning through the famishing city. The bells wore rung with mad exultation; people ran to and fro spreading the glad tidings and uttering mutual congratulations. The troops were ordered to be every man in readiness to rush forth at the right moment, and second the assault of their friends without. The day came and went; no deliverer appeared, and a deadly despair sank down on the devoted city.

It was in the midst of these horrors that the Cardinal Ursini, who had in vain exerted himself to reconcile the insensate factions, now turned to Henry, and entreated him to moderate his pretensions, and incline to peace. But Henry was too sagacious a politician to renounce the advantages which the folly and crimes of his enemies opened up to him. He was willing to make overtures of peace, and he did so to both parties, but it was still on his fixed terms of the sovereignty of France. He repeated his clear persuasion that his work was the work of an avenging Providence. "Do you not perceive," he said to Ursini, "that it is God who has led me hither by the hand? France has no sovereign. There is nothing here but confusion; there is no law, no order. No one thinks of resisting me. Can I, therefore, have a more convincing proof that the Being who disposes of empires, has determined to put the crown of France upon my head?"

After the union of Burgundy and the queen, Armagnac grew more savage in his retaliative warfare. He sent from Paris his captains Tanuegui du Chastel and Barbazan to attack the Burgundians. They carried on a murderous warfare, taking several towns and fortresses, and putting their garrisons to the sword. Armagnac himself took the field, and, being repulsed from Senlis, in revenge he beheaded all his prisoners. Thou the Bastard of Thian, the Burgundian commander, in retaliation, also put to death his prisoners. Such was the devilish atrocity to which the contending chiefs had arrived, that it began to revolt the most callous. The Bishop of Paris took courage and opened a correspondence with Burgundy. The dauphin, who, as well as his imbecile father, was in the hands of Armagnac, also sent agents to treat with the duke and the queen his mother. The Pope, Martin V., had sent the cardinals Ursini and St. Mark to endeavour to mediate between the factions, and to put an end to this scandalous condition of things, and they succeeded in making a treaty with Burgundy and the queen. The people of Paris were in raptures at the news, but Armagnac was still in the city with a strong garrison; he had still the wretched king and the dauphin in his power; and he refused to recognise the treaty, and proceeded to proscribe and put to death as traitors all who dared to utter a different sentiment. The city was deluged with blood. But his time was now come. The whole people were weary of his savage despotism, and were ripe themselves for some desperate deed.

A company of young men had entered into secret correspondence with the Burgundians; and on the night of the 29th of May, Perrinet le Clerk, one of their number, opened the gate of St. Qermain-des-Prés to L'Isle-Adam, a captain of the Duke of Burgundy, and his troop marched in profound silence to the Chatelet, where they wore joined by 500 of the inhabitants. They then divided into different bodies, and, having admitted the whole garrison of Pontoise, they ran through the streets, crying, "Our Lady of Peace! Long live Burgundy! Let those who are for peace come and follow us!"

The mass of the people obeyed the summons with instant alacrity. They threw on their clothes and followed the Burgundians, who hastened to the houses of the chief Armagnacs, dragged them from their beds, and thrust them into prison. Tannegui du Chastel, a Breton, and one of the most daring of the Armagnacs, ran to the chamber of the dauphin, and carried him off, wrapped merely in his bed-clothes, to the Bastile, from whence he escaped to Melun. But scarcely did Du Chastel disappear from one door of the dauphin's chamber, when the mob broke in, and, missing him, seized all the gentlemen of his retinue, and sent them to prison. L'Isle-Adam, meantime, had hurried to the Hotel St. Pol, where the king lived, and, securing him, they set him on a horse, idiotic as he was, and paraded him through the streets, to convince the people that all they did was by his orders. The Count of Armagnac himself, who had fled and concealed himself in the house of a mason, was given up to L'Isle-Adam by this man, in terror of the denunciation against all who protected him.

On the 11th of June, Tannegui du Chastel made a sortie with 1,600 men from the Bastile, in the hope of recovering Paris; but he was driven back to his retreat, the people flinging down upon him and his followers at every step all kinds of missiles from their windows and roofs. The Armagnacs had killed a