The Duke of Burgundy, as a matter of course, let his quarrel with the King of England drop, and occupied himself for the future only in recovering his power in France.  He set out on the march for Paris, proclaiming everywhere that he was assembling his army solely for the purpose of avenging the kingdom, chastising the English, and aiding the king with his counsels and his forces.  The sentiment of nationality was so strongly aroused that politicians most anxious about their own personal interests, and about them alone, found themselves obliged to pay homage to it.

Unfortunately, it was, so far as Duke John was concerned, only a superficial and transitory homage.  There is no repentance so rarely seen as that of selfishness in pride and power.  The four years which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and the death of John the Fearless were filled with nothing but fresh and still more tragic explosions of hatred and strife between the two factions of the Burgundians and Armagnacs, taking and losing, re-taking and re-losing, alternately, their ascendency with the king and in the government of France.  When, after the battle of Agincourt, the Duke of Burgundy marched towards Paris, he heard almost simultaneously that the king was issuing a prohibition against the entry of his troops, and that his rival, the Count of Armagnac, had just arrived and been put in possession of the military power, as constable, and of the civil power, as superintendent-general of finance.  The duke then returned to Burgundy, and lost no time in recommencing hostilities against the king’s government.  At one time he let his troops make war on the king’s and pillage the domains of the crown; at another he entered into negotiations with the King of England, and showed a disposition to admit his claims to such and such a province, and even perhaps to the throne of France.  He did not accede to the positive alliance offered him by Henry; but he employed the fear entertained of it by the king’s government as a weapon against his enemies.  The Count of Armagnac, on his side, made the most relentless use of power against the Duke of Burgundy and his partisans; he pursued them everywhere, especially in Paris, with dexterous and pitiless hatred.  He abolished the whole organization and the privileges of the Parisian butcherdom which had shown so favorable a leaning towards Duke John; and the system he established as a substitute was founded on excellent grounds appertaining to the interests of the people and of good order in the heart of Paris; but the violence of absolute power and of hatred robs the best measures of the credit they would deserve if they were more disinterested and dispassionate.  A lively reaction set in at Paris in favor of the persecuted Burgundians; even outside of Paris several towns of importance, Rheims, Chalons, Troyes, Auxerre, Amiens, and Rouen itself, showed a favorable disposition towards the Duke of Burgundy, and made a sort of alliance with him, promising