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 v.j THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 77 attempt to annex them. This marks the beginning of French aggression on the empire on the side of Lorraine, as we have already seen it on the side of the kingdom of Burgundy. Rene took Verdun, but failed before Metz, and the cities remained free on the payment of money. At the same time the Emperor Frederick HI. asked the help of Charles in a war against the Confederate cantons, which were now beginning to be called Stuiss. The king consented to the troops going on this expedition, provided Frederick would pay them ; and the dauphin, who was in a restless, discontented state, became their leader. The demoralized crew met the sturdy patriotic mountaineers, at St. Jacob near Basel, where the small body of Confederates were overcome by mere force of numbers. Lewis then not only made peace on his own account, but obtained the promise of the Swiss to support him whenever he should need them. Then, as no pay came from the emperor, he ravaged Elsass, and ended by turning the remnant of his freebooters loose into Germany. He had thus fulfilled his father's avowed object of draining the blood of the army, so as to be able really to carry out the Ordinances of Orleans. The dauphin however returned sullen and bitter. He quarrelled with all his father's servants, and was even accused of tampering with the Scottish guard to have the king seized and imprisoned. On this he retired to his own Dauphiny, which he ruled with much skill and prudence. 35. The Second Conquest of Normandy, 1450. — The war with England began again by a quarrel about the yielding up of Maine, according to Henry's marriage treaty. Charles besieged Rouen, and the inhabitants rose in his favour, forcing the Duke of Somerset to surrender, departing with all his troops on condition of giving up most of the Norman fortresses still in the possession of King Henry. A vain attempt of the English to recover the duchy only led to their rout at Formigni. Caen, Falaise, and Cherbourg, the last points held, were taken ; and by the summer of 1450 all Normandy was again in French hands. The duchy which had been cut off from France in the tenth century, which had been conquered by France in the thirteenth, and won back again by the descendant of its dukes, was now, after thirty-one years' separation, for ever annexed to the French crown. It was a most valuable possession, supplying a third part of the revenue of the kingdom. But local feeling was