Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/84

64 he would remit the condition of the payment of expenses.

Charles had foreseen with so much clearness the impossibility of the English advance, that he had not so much as waited for the King's reply. He commenced his retreat before the return of his messenger, and if Henry had gone forward he would have found himself at Paris alone. The Imperialists reached Chasteau Thierry. At that point they turned north towards Soissons. On the nth of September, the day on which Arras reached Boulogne, a French commission formally attached itself to the army. A proclamation was issued that the soldiers should do no more injury, and peace was generally talked of. On the 14th D'Annebault came in in person. On the 17th Granvelle told Wotton that the French offered reasonable conditions; his son's delay in returning, he said, caused great embarrassment, for the army—being unpaid, and at the same time forbidden to forage—was in mutiny. Peace evidently was on the point of being concluded, with or without the English consent. On the evening of the 18th Arras returned with the news of the fall of Boulogne and the King's message. If Charles was acting in good faith, he had blundered into a situation where he could plead a seeming necessity for accepting a peace which gratified his most sanguine wishes. The Bishop of Arras, to shield still further the Imperial