The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, vol 3 | Page 9

allow good men to govern in his name; at any, rate, the rule of the

selfish Dukes seemed to be over. Their bad influences, however, still
surrounded him; an attempt to assassinate Olivier de Clisson, the
Constable, was connected with their intrigues and those of the Duke of
Brittany; and in setting forth to punish the attempt on his favourite the
Constable, the unlucky young King, who had sapped his health by
debauchery, suddenly became mad. The Dukes of Burgundy and Berri
at once seized the reins and put aside his brother the young Duc
d'Orleans. It was the beginning of that great civil discord between
Burgundy and Orleans, the Burgundians and Armagnacs, which
worked so much ill for France in the earlier part of the next century.
The rule of the uncles was disastrous for France; no good government
seemed even possible for that unhappy land.
An obscure strife went on until 1404, when Duke Philip of Burgundy
died, leaving his vast inheritance to John the Fearless, the deadly foe of
Louis d'Orleans. Paris was with him, as with his father before him; the
Duke entered the capital in 1405, and issued a popular proclamation
against the ill-government of the Queen-regent and Orleans. Much
profession of a desire for better things was made, with small results. So
things went on until 1407, when, after the Duc de Berri, who tried to
play the part of a mediator, had brought the two Princes together, the
Duc d'Orleans was foully assassinated by a Burgundian partisan. The
Duke of Burgundy, though he at first withdrew from Paris, speedily
returned, avowed the act, and was received with plaudits by the mob.
For a few years the strife continued, obscure and bad; a great league of
French princes and nobles was made to stem the success of the
Burgundians; and it was about this time that the Armagnac name
became common. Paris, however, dominated by the "Cabochians," the
butchers' party, the party of the "marrowbones and cleavers," and
entirely devoted to the Burgundians, enabled John the Fearless to hold
his own in France; the King himself seemed favourable to the same
party. In 1412 the princes were obliged to come to terms, and the
Burgundian triumph seemed complete. In 1413 the wheel went round,
and we find the Armagnacs in Paris, rudely sweeping away all the
Cabochians with their professions of good civic rule. The Duc de Berri
was made captain of Paris, and for a while all went against the
Burgundians, until, in 1414, Duke John was fain to make the first Peace
of Arras, and to confess himself worsted in the strife. The young

Dauphin Louis took the nominal lead of the national party, and ruled
supreme in Paris in great ease and self-indulgence.
The year before, Henry V. had succeeded to the throne of England,--a
bright and vigorous young man, eager to be stirring in the world, brave
and fearless, with a stern grasp of things beneath all,--a very sheet-
anchor of firmness and determined character. Almost at the very
opening of his reign, the moment he had secured his throne, he began a
negotiation with France which boded no good. He offered to marry
Catharine, the King's third daughter, and therewith to renew the old
Treaty of Bretigny, if her dower were Normandy, Maine, Anjou, not
without a good sum of money. The French Court, on the other hand,
offered him her hand with Aquitaine and the money, an offer rejected
instantly; and Henry made ready for a rough wooing in arms. In 1415
he crossed to Harfleur, and while parties still fought in France, after a
long and exhausting siege, took the place; thence he rode northward for
Calais, feeling his army too much reduced to attempt more. The
Armagnacs, who had gathered at Rouen, also pushed fast to the north,
and having choice of passage over the Somme, Amiens being in their
hands, got before King Henry, while he had to make a long round
before he could get across that stream. Consequently, when, on his way,
he reached Azincourt, he found the whole chivalry of France arrayed
against him in his path. The great battle of Azincourt followed, with
frightful ruin and carnage of the French. With a huge crowd of
prisoners the young King passed on to Calais, and thence to England.
The Armagnacs' party lay buried in the hasty graves of Azincourt;
never had there been such slaughter of nobles. Still, for three years they
made head against their foes; till in 1418 the Duke of Burgundy's
friends opened Paris's gates to his soldiers, and for the time the
Armagnacs seemed to be completely defeated; only the Dauphin
Charles made feeble war from Poitiers. Henry V. with a fresh army had
already made another descent on the