upon the Gospels, and swore the peace, saying that “It was his duty to imitate the King of kings, our divine Saviour, who had brought peace amongst men.”  At the chancellor’s order, the princes and great lords, one after the other, took the oath; the nobles and the people of the third estate swore the peace all together, with cries of “Long live the king!  Long live the Duke of Burgundy!” “With this hand,” said Sire de Lannoy, “I have thrice sworn peace during this war; but I call God to witness that, for my part, this time it shall be kept, and that never will I break it (the peace).”  Charles VII., in his emotion, seized the hands of Duke Philip’s ambassadors, saying, “For a long while I have languished for this happy day; we must thank God for it.”  And the Te Deum was intoned with enthusiasm.

Peace was really made amongst Frenchmen; and, in spite of many internal difficulties and quarrels, it was not broken as long as Charles VII. and Duke Philip the Good were living.  But the war with the English went on incessantly.  They still possessed several of the finest provinces of France; and the treaty of Arras, which had weakened them very much on the Continent, had likewise made them very angry.  For twenty-six years, from 1435 to 1461, hostilities continued between the two kingdoms, at one time actively and at another slackly, with occasional suspension by truce, but without any formal termination.  There is no use in recounting the details of their monotonous and barren history.  Governments and people often persist in maintaining their quarrels and inflicting mutual injuries by the instrumentality of events, acts, and actors that deserve nothing but oblivion.  There is no intention here of dwelling upon any events or persons save such as have, for good or for evil, to its glory or its sorrow, exercised a considerable influence upon the condition and fortune of France.

The peace of Arras brought back to the service of France and her king the constable De Richemont, Arthur of Brittany, whom the jealousy of George de la Tremoille and the distrustful indolence of Charles VII. had so long kept out of it.  By a somewhat rare privilege, he was in reality, there is reason to suppose, superior to the name he has left behind him in history; and it is only justice to reproduce here the portrait given of him by one of his contemporaries who observed him closely and knew him well.  “Never a man of his time,” says William Gruet, “loved justice more than he, or took more pains to do it according to his ability.  Never was prince more humble, more charitable, more compassionate, more liberal, less avaricious, or more open-handed in a good fashion and without prodigality.  He was a proper man, chaste and brave as prince can be; and there was none of his time of better conduct than lie in conducting a great battle, or a great siege, and all sorts of approaches in all sorts of ways.  Every day, once at least in the four and twenty hours, his conversation was of war, and he took more pleasure in it than in aught else.  Above all things he loved men of valor and good renown, and he more than any other loved and supported the people, and freely did good to poor mendicants and others of God’s poor.”