VII., in maintaining the war which, after the treaty
of Troyes, was, in his father’s and his mother’s
name, made upon him by the King of England and the
Duke of Burgundy. This war lasted more than
three years. Several towns, amongst others, Melun,
Crotoy, Meaux, and St. Riquier, offered an obstinate
resistance to the attacks of the English and Burgundians.
On the 23d of March, 1421, the dauphin’s
troops, commanded by Sire de la Fayette, gained a signal
victory over those of Henry V., whose brother, the
Duke of Clarence, was killed in action. It was
in Perche, Anjou, Maine, on the banks of the Loire,
and in Southern France, that the dauphin found
most of his enterprising and devoted partisans.
The sojourn made by Henry V. at Paris, in December,
1420, with his wife, Queen Catherine, King Charles
VI., Queen Isabel, and the Duke of Burgundy, was not,
in spite of galas and acclamations, a substantial
and durable success for him. His dignified but
haughty manners did not please the French; and he
either could not or would not render them more easy
and amiable, even with men of note who were necessary
to him. Marshal Isle-Adam one day went to see
him in camp on war-business. The king considered
that he did not present himself with sufficient ceremony.
“Isle-Adam,” said he, “is that the
robe of a marshal of France?” “Sir, I
had this whity-gray robe made to come hither by water
aboard of Seine-boats.” “Ha!”
said the king, “look you a prince in the face
when you speak to him?” “Sir, it is the
custom in France, that when one man speaks to another,
of whatever rank and puissance that other may be,
he passes for a sorry fellow, and but little honorable,
if he dares not look him in the face.”
“It is not our fashion,” said the king;
and the subject dropped there. A popular poet
of the time, Alan Chattier, constituted himself censor
of the moral corruption and interpreter of the patriotic
paroxysms caused by the cold and harsh supremacy of
this unbending foreigner, who set himself up for king
of France, and had not one feeling in sympathy with
the French. Alan Chartier’s Quadriloge
invectif is a lively and sometimes eloquent allegory,
in which France personified implores her three children,
the clergy, the chivalry, and the people, to forget
their own quarrels and unite to save their mother
whilst saving themselves; and this political pamphlet
getting spread about amongst the provinces did good
service to the national cause against the foreign
conqueror. An event more powerful than any human
eloquence occurred to give the dauphin and his
partisans earlier hopes. Towards the end of
August, 1422, Henry V. fell ill; and, too stout-hearted
to delude himself as to his condition, he thought no
longer of anything but preparing himself for death.
He had himself removed to Vincennes, called his councillors
about him, and gave them his last royal instructions.
“I leave you the government of France,”
said he to his brother, the Duke of Bedford, “unless