1431.

The people felt mortified at the spectacle of their King crowned by a foreign prelate, his uncle, in a place where no such solemnity had ever Dec. 16, before been witnessed, not a single Prince of the Blood present, the Duke of Burgundy himself declining to attend, with the concourse of hardly any nobles, and very few persons of distinction other than that derived from their rank in the English service. But the inhabitants of the capital felt still more the losses of their traders from the scanty attendance even of the classes accustomed to flock thither on great occasions, and the disappointment given to the hopes of the shopkeepers, the propensities of the multitude, and the vanity of all, by the extreme parsimony which governed all the arrangements. It was observed, too, that for the first time at a coronation no gifts were sent to the Hospital, no prisoners set free, no promise made of relief from general or local imposts. The grant to the University of exemption from taxes, only heightened the discontent of the community at large; and the privileges confirmed and even extended to the city by a Royal Ordinance only benefited the wealthier classes, while the distress of the poor was so great, that a second edict was issued to prevent uninhabited houses being sold for the purpose of using the beams, doors, and window frames as firewood.

The greater part of the discontent which was manifested, connected itself with the invasion, or with the disregard of the people's usages and habits, and

therefore with the subjection of the country to a foreign yoke; nor is there any attendant upon that calamity which is more certainly calculated to make its pressure be severely felt. The Ordinance did not in all probability lessen the general dissatisfaction by the studied phrases in which the King extolled the city of Paris, thanked the inhabitants for maintaining their loyalty and affection to his person amidst all their sufferings from the war, and declared his intention to treat his good town of Paris as Alexander had Corinth, and the emperors Rome, by making it his principal residence.

Dec. 2,

It is probable that this document was prepared on his entrance, when he had been well re1431. ceived, and when the arrival of the nobles and other dignitaries was expected. Certainly the intention thus expressed appeared so little to be seriously entertained, that he quitted Paris almost immediately, and returned to Rouen, his residence during twelve months.

There can be no doubt that Bedford now regarded the prospect of retaining the footing he then had as not only uncertain but gloomy, of extending it over the rest of the country as desperate. He seems to have wisely determined that all his efforts should be confined to maintaining the possession of Normandy, in the hope of its being confirmed to England at a general peace. Beside establishing the court at Rouen, he founded a college at Caen, which afterwards became one of the greatest universities of France. But he

took far more effectual means of strengthening English influence in the Duchy. The complaints so loudly and so justly made of the want of protection to life and property in the other provinces, where the troops were never employed against the bands of freebooters, and often found joining in their devastations, did not extend to Normandy. There all means were used to repress violence, and make the peaceable inhabitants secure. Trade was encouraged by the enforcement of the late King's excellent edict forbidding the levy of toll, or anything under pretence of toll, by public functionaries, upon goods carried from place to place. A determination to enforce the laws was shown in all the departments of the administration; and the college, which has been mentioned as founded by Bedford, had for its object the teaching of civil and canon law, for which purpose it was judiciously made independent of the University of Paris.

The view of his position in France which suggested this course was not by any means too desponding. His only remaining chance of success depended upon the continuance of the Burgundian alliance, the commencement of which had alone made the conquest a possible event. But the course of submitting to England, pursued under the influence of the Bourguignon party, was not more unnatural in the French than in Philip, though it wanted the excuse of his resentment against the authors of his father's death. Nor was the union of the two crowns in the English

monarch more contrary to the interests of France (and of England too) than to those of a Burgundian prince, who must have lost even the shadow of independence in the neighbourhood of a monarchy so enormously extended. The personal feelings under which he had so long acted, and which the quarrel with Gloster had weakened, began to give way before the sense of what his own safety and that of his dominions required. Charles spared no pains to court him in every way, and particularly to soothe those feelings. Acknowledgments, apologies, expressions of deep concern, protestations of innocence, affirmations of his powerless condition at a tender age in the hands of others, promises of pursuit and vengeance against the guilty, as well as pious foundations for the victim

these were the assurances unsparingly made to the son, while the prince was to be won over by lavish offers of release from feudal subjection and the cession of considerable territories. Against the influence thus exerted Bedford's only hold was in the honourable feelings of Philip, and the relationship of brother-inlaw through the Duchess Anne. Those ties, with the offer of the Regency two years before, had prevailed over the attempts of Charles in the negotiations at Compiègne. But this intercourse had since the coronation been renewed; it had ended in a two years' truce; and there immediately followed the significant absence of Philip from that solemnity. He had, however, very fairly given such previous indications as left no doubt

1429.

Sept. 8, 1431.

of his determination to retire from the war. He had sent a formal remonstrance both to the Council in London and to the Court at Rouen, the burthen of his complaint being the inadequate exertions of England, which threw upon him the whole weight of the contest. It was well known that his subjects had always disapproved of the alliance, and that his nobles and States had refused their oaths to the Treaty of Troyes. The position in which he found himself between his interest, according with his duty to his people, on the one hand, and his feelings of honour towards Bedford on the other, was the source of great pain to a man whose nature had gained for him the appellation of "The Kind;" and he is said to have exclaimed immediately before the remonstrance, on receiving the tidings of his infant son's death, "Would to Heaven it were my own; I should deem it a blessing!"-These details respecting the approach of the Burgundian alliance to its close are of great importance both for their bearing upon the judgment which we may pronounce on Bedford's conduct, and for the evidence which they afford that the failure of the invasion was not accidental, but inevitable.

During these two years nothing of any moment occurred in the field. Some places of little account were taken on either side; but the allies suffered much more in being forced to raise the siege of Compiègne than they gained by any other advantage. The truce did not prevent the Burgundian troops from occasionally acting with Bedford under the cover

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