sh for the French
kingship; this relinquishment, in the present, of the government of
France to the hands of an English prince nominated to become before long
her king; this authority given to the English prince to prosecute in
France, against the _dauphin_ of France, a civil war; this complete
abdication of all the rights and duties of the kingship, of paternity
and of national independence; and, to sum up all in one word, this
anti-French state-stroke accomplished by a king of France, with the
co-operation of him who was the greatest amongst French lords, to the
advantage of a foreign sovereign--there was surely in this enough to
excite the most ardent and most legitimate national feelings. They did
not show themselves promptly or with a blaze. The fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, after so many military and civil troubles, had
great weaknesses and deep-seated corruption in mind and character.
Nevertheless the revulsion against the treaty of Troyes was real and
serious, even in the very heart of the party attached to the Duke of
Burgundy. He was obliged to lay upon several of his servants formal
injunctions to swear to this peace, which seemed to them treason. He had
great difficulty in winning John of Luxembourg and his brother Louis,
Bishop of Therouenne, over to it. "It is your will," said they; "we will
take this oath; but if we do, we will keep it to the hour of death."
Many less powerful lords, who had lived a long while in the household of
Duke John the Fearless, quitted his son, and sorrowfully returned to
their own homes. They were treated as Armagnacs, but they persisted in
calling themselves good and loyal Frenchmen. In the duchy of Burgundy
the majority of the towns refused to take the oath to the King of
England. The most decisive and the most helpful proof of this awakening
of national feeling was the ease experienced by the _dauphin_, who was
one day to be Charles 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