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158 Henry now went over to France with a view to securing the throne, but did not get it, as it was occupied at the time. So he returned; but at Agincourt was surprised by the French army, four times as large as his own, and with a loss of forty only, he slew ten thousand of the French and captured fourteen thousand. What the French were doing while this slaughter was going on the modern historian has great difficulty in figuring out. This battle occurred in 1415, and two years after Henry returned to France, hoping to do equally well. He made a treaty at Troyes with the celebrated idiot Charles VI., and promised to marry his daughter Catherine, who was to succeed Charles upon his death, and try to do better. Henry became Regent of France by this ruse, but died in 1422, and left his son Henry, less than a year old. The king's death was a sad blow to England, for he was an improvement on the general run of kings. Henry V. left a brother, the Duke of Bedford, who became Protector and Regent of France; but when Charles the Imbecile died, his son, Charles VII., rose to the occasion, and a war of some years began. After some time, Bedford invaded southern France and besieged Orléans.

Joan of Arc had been told of a prophecy to the effect that France could only be delivered from the English by a virgin, and so she, though only