Page:Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe.djvu/141

 The Hundred Years' War, that has left ineffaceable traces in the south of France, began in 1336 before the conclusion of the Treaty of Bretigny, which was in 1360, and it lasted till 1443—over a century, though not without interruption; and it desolated the fields of Perigord, Quercy, and to a less degree Rouergue and the Limousin, and wrought havoc to the gates of Paris.

The close of the fourteenth century saw no hope anywhere, only gathering storms. In France, to the prudent Charles V. succeeded the mad fool Charles VI. In England the strong King Edward III. was followed by the incompetent Richard II. In Germany the Emperor Charles IV., a statesman, had as his successor the drunken sot Wenceslas. In England the Wars of the Roses were looming in the future. Agincourt proved more disastrous to England than to France. There was hopeless turmoil everywhere. As Luther said when a somewhat similar condition existed in Germany—"God, tiring of the game, has thrown the cards on the table." In France the free Companies ran riot unrestrained. About them one word.

The engagement of mercenaries in the war between England and France had begun early. As Michelet says: "The population of the North saw appear among them mercenary soldiers, the routiers, for the most part in the service of England. Some came from Brabant, some from Aquitaine; the Basque Marcader was one of the principal lieutenants of Richard Cœur-de-lion. The mountaineers of the South, who to-day descend into France and Spain to aingain [sic] a little money by huxtering, did so in the Middle Ages, utbut [sic] then, their sole industry was war. They maltreated priests as they did peasants, dressed their wives in consecrated vestments, beat the clergy, and made them sing mass in mockery. It was also one of their amusements to defile and break the images of Christ, to smash the legs and arms, treating Him worse than did the Jews. These routiers were