a scourge to the neighborhood of Paris, everywhere saying that the Duke of Burgundy was the most irresolute man in the kingdom, and that if there were no nobles the war would be ended in a couple of months.  Duke John set about negotiating with the dauphin and getting him back to Paris.  The dauphin replied that he was quite ready to obey and serve his mother as a good son should, but that it would be more than he could stomach to go back to a city where so many crimes and so much tyranny had but lately been practised.  Terms of reconciliation were drawn up and signed on the 16th of September, 1418, at St. Maur, by the queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the pope’s legates; but the dauphin refused to ratify them.  The unpunished and long-continued massacres in Paris had redoubled his distrust towards the Duke of Burgundy; he had, moreover, just assumed the title of regent of the kingdom; and he had established at Poitiers a parliament, of which Juvenal des Ursins was a member.  He had promised the young Count of Armagnac to exact justice for his father’s cruel death; and the old friends of the house of Orleans remained faithful to their enmities.  The Duke of Burgundy had at one time to fight, and at another to negotiate with the dauphin and the King of England, both at once, and always without success.  The dauphin and his council, though showing a little more discretion, were going on in the same alternative and unsatisfactory condition.  Clearly neither France and England nor the factions in France had yet exhausted their passions or their powers; and the day of summary vengeance was nearer than that of real reconciliation.

Nevertheless, complicated, disturbed and persistently resultless situations always end by becoming irksome to those who are entangled in them, and by inspiring a desire for extrication.  The King of England, in spite of his successes and his pride, determined upon sending the Earl of Warwick to Provins, where the king and the Duke of Burgundy still were:  a truce was concluded between the English and the Burgundians, and it was arranged that on the 30th of May, 1419, the two kings should meet between Mantes and Melun, and hold a conference for the purpose of trying to arrive at a peace.  A few days before the time, Duke John set out from Provins with the king, Queen Isabel, and Princess Catherine, and repaired first of all to Pontoise, and then to the place fixed for the interview, on the borders of the Seine, near Meulan, where two pavilions had been prepared, one for the King of France and the other for the King of England.  Charles VI., being ill, remained at Pontoise.  Queen Isabel, Princess Catherine, and the Duke of Burgundy arrived at the appointed spot.  Henry V. was already there; he went to meet the queen, saluted her, took her hand, and embraced her and Madame Catherine as well; Duke John slightly bent his knee to the king, who raised him up and embraced him likewise.  This solemn interview was succeeded