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of the operation being his and not theirs, the object of the soldiers in both armies being indeed the same, rather to plunder the country than press the objects of the war, which was carried on with diminished April 20, spirit and little success. In the following year Chartres was taken by surprise. A friar, the favourite preacher of the place, had in league with the Armagnacs collected all the inhabitants and most of the soldiers at a great display of his gifts, while a body of Charles's troops contrived to enter in the disguise of waggoners conveying goods to the traders of the town, who also favoured the King's Aug. 10, party. Some time after the allies were com1432. pelled to raise the siege of Lagny, before which they had lain for three months. But an event soon followed which put an end to all hope of the alliance continuing even in name or in form. The Duchess of Bedford died after a short illness, and the influence which alone had of late maintained it was at an end. Within six months the Duke married again; and the object of his choice was Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of Count de St. Pol, and niece of Therouanne, Bedford's Chancellor of France -a match which Philip represented as giving him great displeasure, both because he had not been consulted, and because, St. Pol being his vassal, his consent ought to have been asked. Bedford has been generally blamed for this step, as if it had put an end to the alliance by causing the estrangement of his brother-in-law; but it seems certain that it only at

most gave Philip a pretext for the course he had resolved to pursue more openly, now that the last link which bound him was broken by his sister's death. That Bedford should have sacrificed great public interests to his personal views or feelings is a supposition repugnant to the whole course of his life; and if he may be thought to have shown too little respect towards his ally in the manner of his proceeding, surely we are far too ill-informed of all its details to pronounce an opinion upon such a point. The Burgundian plainly availed himself of the breach of feudal etiquette to make out a case of grievance; for as to the second marriage being contracted so soon after the first wife's decease, in the families of princes, especially in those times, such matches were far from being uncommon. The fact undoubtedly is that the alliance had long come to its natural close. Formed originally in direct opposition to the public duty of one party, and to his own true interests, it had been continued by the influence of personal feelings; when those feelings no longer acted, there was an end of the connexion, and of the accident which alone had ever given a chance of success to the English invasion.

The operations of the war seemed now to have terminated with the virtual dissolution of the alliance; and as Charles could gain little by a renewal of his negotiation with Philip, nothing was done for some time towards a formal and final settlement, which, it was believed, might include England as well as Burgundy. But after some discussions at Nevers,

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which, together with the courtesy shown by Philip in several movements of his troops, showed that the difficulties on his part would be easily surmounted, a general congress, under the mediation of the Pope, Eugenius IV., who had expressed the greatest anxiety for restoring the peace of Christendom, was appointed to be held at Arras in the ensuing autumn. A few months before it assembled Bedford had made a short stay at Paris, and found proofs of the increased animosity towards the English which pervaded all ranks and each party now that the estrangement of the Burgundian was known. The war languished meanwhile. Some inconsiderable actions only were fought; and chiefly against the freebooter bands. These were a collection of the scum of all nations, but principally French and English from the armies, embodied under captains of courage and skill; they were known by the name, in which they gloried, of Ecorcheurs or flayers, as, after wasting the country by their pillage, they tortured the inhabitants to obtain ransom or the disclosure of their effects, or murdered them in brutal revenge when they found that all had been swept away by other hordes. Oftentimes in such force as to undertake extensive operations, they seized whole villages, and even drove the people from open towns to take refuge in fortified places. In one of these expeditions the English were worsted with the loss of Arundel, eminent among their best generals, and other distinguished officers. The capital itself nar

rowly escaped being sacked by a formidable body of those ferocious wretches, who were driven to desperation by the dread of the approaching negotiations putting an end with the war to their execrable trade.'

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Whether from declining health, or from despair of bringing to a successful conclusion the great affairs committed to his charge, certain it is that Bedford no longer displayed the same energy-at least in his proceedings he did not show the same activitywhich had marked the former periods of his life. But he remained at Rouen, repairing occasionally to Paris when any pressing exigency demanded his presence; and he left the administration of the English government to the Council, which was divided and paralysed by the conflict of the parties under the Cardinal and Gloster. The King himself, only in his thirteenth year, was in the hands of whichever of the two for the time obtained the ascendant. Yet his character had already begun to unfold itself, so that a fair estimate might without difficulty be formed both of his capacity and his dispositions; and already he evinced some desire, on certain matters at least, to share in the deliberations of the government. Possessed of very moderate abilities, rendered still more slender by a morbid indolence which disinclined him alike to cultivate and to exert them, he was wholly without firmness and resolution whether on great or on trifling occasions; and he thus seemed fashioned to be the tool

'Note LXVII.-Ol. de la Marche, liv. i. ch. 4.

of whatever designing persons might surround him, or the sport of the caprices of those who had no designs to compass. But his nature was eminently kind and gentle, as it was invariably honest and open; his abhorrence of violence and fraud was alike strong, and so habitual that it seemed constitutional; his piety was unobtrusive, but exemplary even in a religious age; his amiable disposition was testified in constant benevolence and kindness, the only virtues which in this world receive their full reward, by the love they inspire and the gratification they impart; while his manners, if not brilliant like his uncle's, or graceful like his father's, were uniformly mild and inoffensive, and won for him the affections of all who approached his person, as much as Charles's showy accomplishments with his condescension and good humour commanded admiration and esteem. It was, indeed, rather with Charles's father that men were led to compare him than to contrast him with Charles himself, from marking the similar fate which attended the two unhappy monarchs, of their reason being clouded over at various periods of their disastrous reigns. But although pity for the French prince's misfortunes continued his place in the public favour, after the recollection had passed away of the affable deportment and splendid figure which once made him popular, there was even in the form of the English sovereign's malady a gentleness, a patient submission, an entire harmlessness in thought, and word, and act, that formed a mighty contrast to the murderous fury

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