welcome.
The university was represented before him, and made him a great speech on
the necessity of peace. Two days afterwards a deputation from the city
dames of Paris waited upon the Duchess of Burgundy, and implored her to
use her influence for the re-establishment of peace. She answered, "My
good friends, it is the thing I desire most of all in the world; I pray
for it night and day to the Lord our God, for I believe that we all have
great need of it, and I know for certain that my lord and husband has the
greatest willingness to give up to that purpose his person and his
substance." At the bottom of his soul Duke Philip's decision was already
taken. He had but lately discussed the condition of France with the
constable, De Richemont, and Duke Charles of Bourbon, his brother-in-law,
whom he had summoned to Nevers with that design. Being convinced of the
necessity for peace, he spoke of it to the King of England's advisers
whom he found in Paris, and who dared not show absolute opposition to it.
It was agreed that in the month of July a general, and, more properly
speaking, a European conference should meet at Arras, that the legates of
Pope Eugenius IV. should be invited to it, and that consultation should
be held thereat as to the means of putting an end to the sufferings of
the two kingdoms.

Towards the end of July, accordingly, whilst the war was being prosecuted
with redoubled ardor on both sides at the very gates of Paris, there
arrived at Arras the pope's legates and the ambassadors of the Emperor
Sigismund, of the Kings of Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Naples, Sicily,
Cyprus, Poland, and Denmark, and of the Dukes of Brittany and Milan. The
university of Paris and many of the good towns of France, Flanders, and
even Holland, had sent their deputies thither. Many bishops were there
in person. The Bishop of Liege came thither with a magnificent train,
mounted, says the chroniclers, on two hundred white horses. The Duke of
Burgundy made his entrance on the 30th of July, escorted by three hundred
archers wearing his livery. All the lords who happened to be in the city
went to meet him at a league's distance, except the cardinal-legates of
the pope, who confined themselves to sending their people. Two days
afterwards arrived the ambassadors of the King of France, having at their
head the Duke of Bourbon and the constable De Richemont, together with
several of the greatest French lords, and a retinue of four