The ceremony was distinguished for pomp, but not for warmth.  The Duke of Burgundy was not present; it was an Englishman, the Cardinal-bishop of Winchester, who anointed the young Englander King of France; the Bishop of Paris complained of it as a violation of his rights; the parliament, the university, and the municipal body had not even seats reserved at the royal banquet; Paris was melancholy, and day by day more deserted by the native inhabitants; grass was growing in the court-yards of the great mansions; the students were leaving the great school of Paris, to which the Duke of Bedford at Caen, and Charles VII. himself at Poitiers, were attempting to raise up rivals; and silence reigned in the Latin quarter.  The child-king was considered unintelligent, and ungraceful, and ungracious.  When, on the day after Christmas, he started on his way back to Rouen, and from Rouen to England, he did not confer on Paris “any of the boons expected, either by releasing prisoners or by putting an end to black-mails, gabels, and wicked imposts.”  The burgesses were astonished, and grumbled; and the old queen, Isabel of Bavaria, who was still living at the hostel of St. Paul, wept, it is said, for vexation, at seeing from one of her windows her grandson’s royal procession go by.

Though war was going on all the while, attempts were made to negotiate; and in March, 1433, a conference was opened at Seineport, near Corbeil.  Everybody in France desired peace.  Philip the Good himself began to feel the necessity of it.  Burgundy was almost as discontented and troubled as Ile-de-France.  There was grumbling at Dijon as there was conspiracy at Paris.  The English gave fresh cause for national irritation.  They showed an inclination to canton themselves in Normandy, and abandon the other French provinces to the hazards and sufferings of a desultory war.  Anne of Burgundy, the Duke of Bedford’s wife and Philip the Good’s sister, died.  The English duke speedily married again without even giving any notice to the French prince.  Every family tie between the two persons was broken; and the negotiations as well as the war remained without result.

An incident at court caused a change in the situation, and gave the government of Charles a different character.  His favorite, George de la Tremoille, had become almost as unpopular amongst the royal family as in the country in general.  He could not manage a war, and he frustrated attempts at peace.  The Queen of Sicily, Yolande d’Aragon, her daughter, Mary d’Anjou, Queen of France, and her son, Louis, Count of Maine, who all three desired peace, set themselves to work to overthrow the favorite.  In June, 1433, four young lords, one of whom, Sire de Beuil, was La Tremoille’s own nephew, introduced themselves unexpectedly into his room at the castle of Coudray, near Chinon, where Charles VII. was.  La Tremoille showed an intention of resisting, and received a sword-thrust.  He was made to resign all his offices, and was sent