ther was encouraged and kept up by frequent vifits, authorised by both their parents, who obferved with pleasure the difpofitions of their children exactly fuited to the intention they had of making them hufband and wife. A marriage was accordingly on the point of being concluded between them, when a rich collector of the king's revenues made his addrefles to the young lady. The delufive charms of a fuperior fortune foon induced her parents to change their refolution of bestowing her on their neighbour's fon; and the lady's averfion to her new lover being furmounted by her filial duty, the married the collector: but the engagement was fatal to her happiness, and brought on a melancholy, which threw her into a diforder whereby her fenfes were fo locked up that he was taken for dead, and accordingly interred. The affecting news foon reached the ears of her first lover, who remembring that he had once been feized with a violent paroxyfm of a lethargy, flattered himself that her late misfortune might be produced by the fame caufe. This opinion alleviated his forrow, and induced him to bribe the fexton, by whofe affiftance he raised her from the grave, and conveyed her to a proper chamber, where, by the use of all the expedients he could poffibly think of, he happily restored her to life. We may imagine the lady was in no fmall furprize, when the found herself in a strange houfe, faw her darling lover ftanding by her bed, and heard the detail of all that had befallen her. The love that he had always bore him, and a grateful

Hober 1764.

fenfe of the obligation fhe was now under to him as her deliverer, pleaded frongly in his behalf; and the juftly concluded, that her life belonged to him who had preferved it To convince him therefore of her affection, when he was perfely recovered the went along with him to England, where they lived feveral years in all the happiness refulting from mutual love. However, about ten years afterwards they returned to Paris, imagining that nobody would ever fufp: &t what had happened ; but one day the collector unfortunately met the lady in a public walk, and not only accofted her, but, notwithstanding the difcourfe the ufed in order to deceive him, parted from her fully perfuaded that The was the very woman whom he had married, and for whofe death he had gone into mourning. word, he foon difcovered her apartments, in fpite of all the precautions fhe had taken to conceal herfeif, and claimed her as his wife in a court of judicature. In vain did her lover infift on the right he had to her, arifing from the care he had taken to preferve her; in vain did he urge, that without the meafures he had ufed, the lady would have been rotten in her grave; that his adverfary had renounced all claim to her by ordering her to be interred; and all the other arguments that the fincereft love could fuggeft: so that perceiving the court was not like to prove favourable to him, he refolved not to ftay for its decifion, and accordingly made his efcape with the lady to a foreign country, where their love continued facred and in violable as long as life remained.

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ING John, who was a very voluptuous prince, had repudiated Havife, the daughter of the earl of Gloucetter; and having feen Ifabel d'Angoulefme, who was contracted, if not married, to Hugues le Brun, count of March, caufed her to be carried away from his houfe, and, by the confent of her father, married her. As this lady was neatly related to king Philip, he carried her to Paris, where they were treated with the utmoft magnificence, and difimiffed with all poffible demonftrations of the molt cordial affection. This fituation of things very fuddenly changed; the count of March refenting the injury done to him, and drawing many of the nobility to whom he was allied in blood to his party, began fome froubles; which John, with great feverity, foppreffed. Complaints were made upon this to king Philip, who wrote in ftrong terms to the king of England; who promifed to render justice more readily than he performed it. From thefe fmall fparks a great flame enfued. Philip, who had mighty things in view, encouraged the young prince Arthur to fet himfelf at the head of the malecontents, conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, and furnished him with a large fum of money to raife forces. The firft exploit this young prince attempted with his half formed army, was the fiege of Mirebeau, where his grandmother the old queen dowager refided. King John, already landed in Normandy, marched with great forces to her relief, routed thofe of his nephew, and took him prifoner. This fuccefs, which might have

been highly advantagecus to his af fairs, proved his ruin; for having first transferred the poor young prince to Falaife, and from thence to the caftle of Rouen, when he found it utterly impoffible to detach him from the French intereft, either murdered him, as fome hiftorians fay, with his own hand, or caufed him to be murdered, as almost all writers agree. This cruel act rendered him juftly odious to all his fubjects in France; and his mother applying herfelf for juftice to Philip, who fummoned him to appear and anfwer to this charge before the court of peers at Paris; and, upon his refufal or delay, declared him, according to the ordinary courfe of juftice, convicted of felony, and all the lands he held as fiefs from the crown of France confifcated. King John was at this time in a moft deplorable fituation; the old queen his mother lately dead, most of his nobility in arms against him, fome of his ancient allies employed in the fourth croifade in Syria, fome dead, and the reft detached from him; fo that Philip had the fairest opportu nity, as well as the moft plaufible pretence, for depriving him of Normandy, and the rest of his domninions in France, under colour of executing the fentence of the court of peers; and he was not a prince capable of letting flip even a less promifing occafion. But he did nothing precipitately; he took care to have all the forms of law on his fide, and, while he was taking thefe precautions, he affem bled a numerous army, with which he undertook the conquest of Normandy.

1202.

It is not our bufinefs to enter into a detail of the campaign, it is fufficient for our purpose to say, that, in less than fix months, he either obtained, by intelligence of the principal inhabitants, or reduced by force, all the great towns in the Higher Normandy, while John remained at Caen in fuch a fate of inaction, as not only amazed that but all fucceeding ages. The ftrong fortrefs of Chafieau Gaillard made a gallant defence; and John, as if he had waked out of a fleep, af fembled a firong fleet and army for its relief; but a concurrence of unfortunate accidents rendering his efforts ineffectual, he, in a fit of diftraction, returned. to England, and, feemed to abandon all. Philip, taking advantage of this, reduced all Lower Normandy with the fame facility; infomuch that John had no thing left but the city of Rouen, the inhabitants of which, from a true Spirit of loyalty and independency, defended themselves bravely; neither did they furrender, till, acquainting John with their diftrefs, he returned them for answer, that, being able to afford them no relief, they must make the best terms for themselves they could and thus, after a fepa

ration of three hundred 1203. years, Normandy was again united to the crown of France. This fuccefs, far from fatisfying, ferved only to raife and inflame the ambition of Philip, who carried the war into the countries of Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, the best part of which he fubdued with the fame eafe that he had done Normandy. He faw clearly the fuperiority he had, and refolved to prefs it to the utmoft. The count of Flanders was in Syria, the count of Champagne a child under his tutelage, the count of

Thouloufe embarraffed with the court of Rome, who treated him as a heretic; in fhort, he was free from all the reftraints by which his predeceffors were in a manner tied down, and he thought the best use he could make of it, was to tranf mit that liberty which himself enjoyed to his pofterity and fucceffors. The only error he committed 1204. was fhewing his fentiments too plainly, and behaving towards fome of the nobility as if that was already done, which was only in a fair way of being done; a thing inexcufable in a politician; but after all, even wife men are but men. Guy de Tours, who was become duke of Bretagne by the marriage of Conftance the mother of prince Arthur, and the heiress of that duchy, had, during her life, acted as warmly as any against the English; but that princefs being dead, and perceiving plainly what was the intention of Philip, he laboured as much as in him lay to make king John fenfible of the weak part he had acted, and to perfuade him not to defert fuch of his subjects as yet remained faithful, and were willing to risk all to preferve what was still remaining of his dominions in France. Moved by these remonstrances, and encouraged by his promifes, that monarch came with a fleet and army to Rochelle; but the fortune of Philip prevailed. John received at the beginning various checks, which made him glad to accept a truce for two years, and the duke of Bretagne, being left to the king's mercy, was forced to make peace upon the best terms he could obtain; which was an event highly acceptable to Philip, who defired nothing fo much as an opportunity of punishing or humbling his vaffals. 3 Y a

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