much on the passage; and deliberations were recommencing touching the opportuneness, and even the feasibility, of the expedition thus thrown back.  “If anybody goes to England, I will,” said the king.  But nobody went.  “One day when it was calm,” says the monk of St. Denis, “the king, completely armed, went with his uncles aboard of the royal vessel; but the wind did not permit them to get more than two miles out to sea, and drove them back, in spite of the sailors’ efforts, to the shore they had just left.  The king, who saw with deep displeasure his hopes thus frustrated, had orders given to his troops to go back, and, at his departure, left, by the advice of his barons, some men-of-war to unload the fleet, and place it in a place of safety as soon as possible.  But the enemy gave them no time to execute the order.  As soon as the calm allowed the English to set sail, they bore down on the French, burned or took in tow to their own ports the most part of the fleet, carried off the supplies, and found two thousand casks full of wine, which sufficed a long while for the wants of England.”

Such a mistake, after such a fuss, was probably not unconnected with a resolution adopted by Charles vi. some time after the abandonment of the projected expedition against England.  In October, 1388, he assembled at Rheims a grand council, at which were present his two uncles, the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry [the third, the Duke of Anjou, had died in Italy, on the 20th of September, 1384, after a vain attempt to conquer the kingdom of Naples], his brother, the Duke of Orleans, his cousins, and several prelates and lords of note.  The chancellor announced thereat that he had been ordered by the king to put in discussion the question, whether it were not expedient that he should henceforth take the government of his kingdom upon himself.  Cardinal Ascelin de Montaigu, Bishop of Laon, the first to be interrogated upon this subject, replied that, in his opinion, the king was quite in a condition, as well as in a legal position, to take the government of his kingdom upon himself, and, without naming anybody, he referred to the king’s uncles, and especially to the Duke of Burgundy, as being no longer necessary for the government of France.  Nearly all who were present were of the same opinion.  The king, without further waiting, thanked his uncles for the care they had taken of his dominions and of himself, and begged them to continue their affection for him.  Neither the Duke of Burgundy nor the Duke of Berry had calculated upon this resolution; they submitted, without making any objection, but not without letting a little temper leak out.  The Duke of Berry even said that he and his brother would beg the king to confer with them more maturely on the subject when he returned to Paris.  Hereupon the council broke up; the king’s two uncles started for their own dominions; and a few weeks afterwards the Cardinal-bishop of Laon died of a short illness.  “It was