o had aided and served my said father in conquering Normandy
and Guienne, in driving the English out of the kingdom, and in restoring
it to peace and good order, for so I found it, and right rich also.
Therefrom much mischief came to me, for thence I had the war called the
Common Weal, which all but cost me my crown."

With the experience and paternal care of an old man, whom the near
prospect of death rendered perfectly disinterested, wholly selfish as his
own life had been, Louis's heart was bent upon saving his son from the
first error which he himself had committed on mounting the throne.
"Gentlemen," said Dunois on rising from table at the funeral-banquet held
at the abbey of St. Denis in honor of the obsequies of King Charles VII.,
"we have lost our master; let each look after himself." The old warrior
foresaw that the new reign would not be like that which had just ended.
Charles VII. had been a prince of indolent disposition, more inclined to
pleasure than ambition, whom the long and severe trials of his life had
moulded to government without his having any passion for governing, and
who had become in a quiet way a wise and powerful king, without any eager
desire to be incessantly and everywhere chief actor and master. His son
Louis, on the contrary, was completely possessed with a craving for
doing, talking, agitating, domineering, and reaching, no matter by what
means, the different and manifold ends he proposed to himself. Anything
but prepossessing in appearance, supported on long and thin shanks,
vulgar in looks and often designedly ill-dressed, and undignified in his
manners though haughty in mind, he was powerful by the sheer force of a
mind marvellously lively, subtle, unerring, ready, and inventive, and of
a character indefatigably active, and pursuing success as a passion
without any scruple or embarrassment in the employment of means. His
contemporaries, after observing his reign for some time, gave him the
name of the universal spider, so relentlessly did he labor to weave a web
of which he himself occupied the centre and extended the filaments in all
directions.

As soon as he was king, he indulged himself with that first piece of
vindictive satisfaction of which he was in his last moments obliged to
acknowledge the mistake. At Rheims, at the time of his coronation, the
aged and judicious Duke Philip of Burgundy had begged him to forgive all
those who had offended him. Louis promised to do so,