to cover the western approach to Paris, with strict orders not to
fight; the Aquitanians were more than half French at heart. The record
of the war is as the smoke of a furnace. We see the reek of burnt and
plundered towns; there were no brilliant feats of arms; the Black Prince,
gloomy and sick, abandoned the struggle, and returned to England to die;
the new governor, the Earl of Pembroke, did not even succeed in landing:
he was attacked and defeated off Rochelle by Henry of Castile, his whole
fleet, with all its treasure and stores, taken or sunk, and he himself
was a prisoner in Henry's hands. Du Guesclin had already driven the
English out of the west into Brittany; he now overran Poitou, which
received him gladly; all the south seemed to be at his feet. The attempt
of Edward III. to relieve the little that remained to him in France
failed utterly, and by 1372 Poitou was finally lost to England. Charles
set himself to reduce Brittany with considerable success; a diversion
from Calais caused plentiful misery in the open country; but, as the
French again refused to fight, it did nothing to restore the English
cause. By 1375 England held nothing in France except Calais, Cherbourg,
Bayonne, and Bordeaux. Edward III., utterly worn out with war, agreed to
a truce, through intervention of the Pope; it was signed in 1375. In
1377, on its expiring, Charles, who in two years had sedulously improved
the state of France, renewed the war. By sea and land the English were
utterly overmatched, and by 1378 Charles was master of the situation on
all hands. Now, however, he pushed his advantages too far; and the cold
skill which had overthrown the English, was used in vain against the
Bretons, whose duchy he desired to absorb. Languedoc and Flanders also
revolted against him. France was heavily burdened with taxes, and the
future was dark and threatening. In the midst of these things, death
overtook the coldly calculating monarch in September, 1380.

Little had France to hope from the boy who was now called on to fill the
throne. Charles VI. was not twelve years old, a light-wined, handsome
boy, under the guardianship of the royal Dukes his uncles, who had no
principles except that of their own interest to guide them in bringing up
the King and ruling the people. Before Charles VI. had reached years of
discretion, he was involved by the French nobles in war against the
Flemish cities, which, under guidance of the great Philip van Arteve