ee weeks there, and went away once more, on the 3d of December,
to go and resume at Orleans first, and then at Bourges, the serious cares
of government. It is said to have been at this royal entry into Paris
that Agnes Sorel or Soreau, who was soon to have the name of Queen of
Beauty, and to assume in French history an almost glorious though
illegitimate position, appeared with brilliancy in the train of the
queen, Mary of Anjou, to whom the king had appointed her a maid of honor.
It is a question whether she did not even then exercise over Charles VII.
that influence, serviceable alike to the honor of the king and of France,
which was to inspire Francis I., a century later, with this gallant
quatrain:

"If to win back poor captive France be aught,
More honor, gentle Agnes, is thy weed,
Than ere was due to deeds of virtue wrought
By cloistered nun or pious hermit-breed."

It is worth while perhaps to remark that in 1437 Agnes Sorel was already
twenty-seven.

[Illustration: Agnes Sorel----175]

One of the best informed, most impartial, and most sensible historians of
that epoch, James Duclercq, merely says on this subject, King Charles,
before he had peace with Duke Philip of Burgundy, led a right holy life
and said his canonical hours. But after peace was made with the duke,
though the king continued to serve God, he joined himself unto a young
woman who was afterwards called Fair Agnes.

Nothing is gained by ignoring good even when it is found in company with
evil, and there is no intention here of disputing the share of influence
exercised by Agnes Sorel upon Charles VII.'s regeneration in politics and
war after the treaty of Arras. Nevertheless, in spite of the king's
successes at Montereau and during his passage through Central and
Northern France, the condition of the country was still so bad in 1440,
the disorder was so great, and the king so powerless to apply a remedy,
that Richemont, disconsolate, was tempted to rid and disburden himself
from the government of France and between the rivers [Seine and Loire, no
doubt] and to go or send to the king for that purpose. But one day the
prior of the Carthusians at Paris called on the constable and found him
in his private chapel. "What need you, fair father?" asked Richemont.
The prior answered that he wished to speak with my lord the constable.
Richemont replied that it was he himself. "Pardon me, my lord," sa