Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/585

 HUNDRED YEARS WAR.] FRANCE a far higher position for itself, took up the national cause, and rousing the hitherto unconscious patriotism of the people, swept away the invader and his friends. An obscure strife went on until 1404, when Duke Philip of Burgundy died, leaving his vast inheritance to John the Fearless, the deadly foe of Louis of Orleans. Paris was with him, as with his father before him ; the duke entered the capital in 1405, and issued a popular proclamation against the ill-government of the queen-regent and Orleans. Much profession of a desire for better things was made, with small results. So things went on till 1407, when, after the duke of Berri, who tried to play the part of a mediator, had brought the two princes together, the duke of Orleans was foully assassinated by a Burgundian partisan. The duke of Burgundy, though he at first withdrew from Paris, speedily returned, avowed the act, and was received with plaudits by the mob. For a few years the strife continued, obscure and bad, a great league of French princes and nobles was made to stem the success of the Burgundians ; audit was about this time that the Armagnac name became common. Paris, however, dominated by the &quot;Cabochians,&quot; the butchers party, the party of the &quot; marrowbones and cleavers,&quot; and entirely devoted to the Burgundians, enabled John the Fearless to hold his own in France ; the king himself seemed favourable to the same party. In 1412 the princes were obliged to come to terms, and the Burgundian triumph seemed complete. In 1413 the wheel went round, and we find the Armagnacs in Paris, rudely sweeping away all the Cabocliians with their professions of good civic rule. The duke of Berri was made captain of Paris, and for awhile all went against the Burgundians, until in 1414 Duke John was fain to make the first peace of Arras, and to confess himself worsted in the strife. The young dauphin Louis took the nominal lead of the national party, and, ruled supreme in Paris in great ease and self- indulgence. The year before Henry V. had succeeded to the throne of England, a bright and vigorous young man, eager to be stirring in the world, brave and fearless, with a stern grasp of things beneath all, a very sheet anchor of firmness and determined character. Almost at the very opening of his reign, the moment he had secured his throne, he began a negotiation with France which boded no good. He offered to marry Catharine, the king s third daughter, and therewith to renew the old treaty of Bretigny, if her dower were Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, not without a good sum of money. The French court, on the other hand, offered him her hand with Aquitaine and the money, an offer rejected instantly ; and Henry made ready for a rough wooing in arms. In 1415 he crossed to Harfleur, and while parties still fought in France, after a long and exhausting siege took the place ; thence he rode northward for Calais, feeling his army too much reduced to attempt more. The Armagnacs, who had gathered at Rouen, also pushed fast to the north, and having choice of passage over the Somme, Amiens being in their hands, got before King Henry, while he had to make a long round before he could get across that stream. Consequently, when on his way he reached Azincourt, he found the whole chivalry of France arrayed against him in his path. The great battle of Azincourt followed, with frightful ruin and carnage of the French. With a huge crowd of prisoners the young king passed on to Calais, and thence to England. The Armagnacs party lay buried in the hasty graves of Azincourt ; never had there been such slaughter of nobles. &amp;gt;till, for three years they made head against their foes ; till in 1418 the duke of Burgundy s friends opened Paris gates to his soldiers, and for the time the Armagnacs seemed to be completely defeated ; only the dauphin Charles made feeble war from Poitiers. Henry V. with a fresh army had already made another descent on the 1417-29. Normandy coast ; the dukes of Anjou, Brittany, and Bur gundy made several and independent treaties with him; audit seemed as though France had completely fallen in pieces. Henry took Rouen, and although the common peril somewhat silenced the strife of faction, no steps were taken to meet him or check his course; on the contrary, matters were made even more hopeless by the murder of John, duke of Burgundy, in 1419, even as he was kneeling and offering reconciliation at the young dauphin s feet. The young Duke Philip now drew at once towards Henry, whom his father had apparently wished with sincerity to check ; Paris, too, was weary of the Armagnac struggle, and desired to welcome Henry of England ; the queen of France also went over to the Anglo-Burgundian side. The end of it was that on May 21, 1420, was signed the famous treaty of Troyes, which secured the crown of France to Henry, by the The exclusion of the dauphin Charles, whenever poor mad Charles treaty OL VI. should cease to live. Meanwhile Henry was made regent Troyes. of France, promising to maintain all rights and privileges of the parliament and nobles, and to crush the dauphin with his Armagnac friends, in token whereof he was at once wedded to Catharine of France, and set forth to quell the opposition of the provinces. By Christmas all France north of the Loire was in English hands. All the lands to the south of the river remained firmly fixed in their allegiance to the dauphin and the Armagnacs, and these began to feel themselves to be the true French party, as opposed to the foreign rule of the English. For barely two years that rule was carried on by Henry V. with inflexible justice, and northern France saw with amazement the presence of a real king and an orderly government. In 1422 King Henry died ; a few weeks later Charles VI. died also ; and the face of affairs began to change, although at the first Charles VII. the Well-served/ the lazy, listless Charles prince, seemed to have little heart for the perils and efforts VII. of his position. He was proclaimed king at Mehun in Berri, for the true France for the time lay on that side of the Loire ; and the regent Bedford, who took the reins ab Paris, was a vigorous and powerful prince, who was not likely to give way to an idle dreamer. At the outset Charles suffered two defeats, at Crevant in 1423 and at Ver- neuil in 1424, and things seemed to be come to their worst. Yet he was prudent, conciliatory, and willing to wait ; and as the English power in France, that triangle of which the base was the sea line from Harfleur to Calais, and the apex Paris, was unnatural, and far from being really strong, and as the relations between Bedford and Burgundy might not always be friendly, the man who could wait had many chances in his favour. Before long things began to mend ; Charles wedded Mary of Anjou, and won over that great house to the French side ; more and more was he regarded as the nation s king ; symptoms of a wish for reconciliation with Burgundy appeared ; the most vehement Armagnacs were sent away from court. Causes of disagreement also shook the friendship between Burgundy and England. Feeling the evils of inaction most, Bedford in 1428 decided on a forward movement, and sent the earl of Salisbury to the south. He first secured his position on the north of the Loire, then, crossing that river, laid siege to Orleans, the key to the south, and the last bulwark of the national party. All efforts to vex or dislodge him failed; the attempt early in 1429 to stop the English supplies was completely defeated at Bouvray ; from the salt fish captured, the battle lias taken the name of &quot; the Day of the Herrings.&quot; Dunois, bastard of Orleans, was wounded; the Scots, the king s bodyguard, on whom fell ever the grim mest of the fighting, suffered terribly, and their leader was killed. All went well for Bedford, till it suited the duke of Burgundy to withdraw from his side, carrying