es to be made, and then said to the duke, "Truly,
fair brother, he for whom you have spoken to me is a rich man, but one of
little sense and bad behavior." "Assuredly," said the Duke of Anjou, "he
to whom you have given the office is a man of straw, and incompetent to
fill it." "Why, prithee?" asked the king. "Because he is a poor man,
the son of small laboring folks, who are still tillers of the ground in
our country." "Ah!" said Charles; "is there nothing more? Assuredly,
fair brother, we should prize more highly the poor man of wisdom than the
profligate ass;" and he maintained in the office him whom he had put
there.

The government of Charles V. was the personal government of an
intelligent, prudent, and honorable king, anxious for the interests of
the state, at home and abroad, as well as for his own; with little
inclination for, and little confidence in, the free co-operation of the
country in its own affairs, but with wit enough to cheerfully call upon
it when there was any pressing necessity, and accepting it then without
chicanery or cheating, but safe to go back as soon as possible to that
sole dominion, a medley of patriotism and selfishness, which is the very
insufficient and very precarious resource of peoples as yet incapable of
applying their liberty to the art of their own government. Charles V.
had recourse three times, in July, 1367, and in May and December, 1369,
to a convocation of the states-general, in order to be put in a position
to meet the political and financial difficulties of France. At the
second of these assemblies, when the chancellor, William de Dormans, had
explained the position of the kingdom, the king himself rose up "for to
say to all that if they considered that he had done anything he ought not
to have done, they should tell him so, and he would amend what he had
done, for there was still time to repair it, if he had done too much or
not enough." The question at that time was as to entertaining the appeal
of the barons of Aquitaine to the King of France as suzerain of the
Prince of Wales, whose government had become intolerable, and to thus
make a first move to struggle out of the humiliating pace of Bretigny.
Such a step, and such words, do great honor to the memory of the pacific
prince who was at that time bearing the burden of the government of
France. It was Charles V.'s good fortune to find amongst his servants
a man who was destined to be the thunderbolt of war and