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CHAPTER XI.

"Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

I would not wish them to a fairer death."

THE LAST CAMPAIGN AND DEATH OF HENRY THE FIFTH-CONCLUSION.

On the tenth day of June, 1421, Henry the Fifth embarked from the shores of England, never to behold again his beloved country. He had for the last time sat in state in the Painted Chamber; knelt at the high altar of St. Paul's; presided over the revels at Westminster and Windsor; ridden through the familiar streets amid the shouts of his faithful people. He departed in high health and hope; the prospect had never seemed so fair; he was going to put a climax to his past glories-to exterminate his only remaining foe. With cheerful spirit he stepped upon his barge, and smilingly he looked back upon the chalky cliffs, as she receded from the shore. When he came back, it was to be beneath a shroud, surrounded by the sombre pomp of funereal obsequy, borne home to rest forever by his loving priests and barons, followed by the faltering steps of a young and most wretched Queen. The army disembarked on the following morning at Harfleur, and on the 12th Henry reached his Norman capital of Rouen. The Dauphin Charles had already resumed offensive operations.

Emerging from Anjou with a recuperated army, he had advanced toward Paris, and was, at the time of Henry's arrival, laying siege to Chartres, which obsti nately resisted his further progress. The approach of the Dauphin had given the Parisians great solicitude, but confidence was restored by the appearance of the fresh English army, under the King Regent himself. Henry sent a message to the garrison of Chartres to hold out till he could come up, and with his usual promptitude closely followed, with all his forces, on the heels of his couriers. He marched rapidly through Beauvais, Gisors, and Mantes, and avoiding Paris, directed his steps straight toward Chartres. The Dauphin was not so foolhardy as to await the attack of so formidable an army, and hastily retired from before the town toward the river Loire. Philip of Burgundy had been operating with a mixed force against some towns which held out for the Dauphin, and having achieved uniform success, joined Henry near Chartres. "Our brother of Burgundy," writes the King to his Council, "we find right a trusty, loving, and faithful brother unto us in all things."

Henry now divided his army into three divisions. With one he himself was to pertinaciously follow up the movements of the Dauphin in Touraine. The second was put under the command of Burgundy, and was to defend the metropolis. The third was intrusted to King James of Scotland, who was to lay siege to Dreux, and reduce whatever other towns remained in the power of the Armagnacs, and finally reunite his column with Henry. The King attempted in vain to bring Charles to an open engagement; the prince was a cunning strategist, and gave his adversary no opportunity to mass against him overwhelming odds in the

field. Henry advanced into Touraine; Charles retired in good order into Orleans. Henry pursued, but another retreat foiled him, and the Armagnacs next appeared in the county of Berri. Meanwhile James had reduced Dreux, and had rejoined the main body. Henry now ordered Burgundy to keep a jealous watch upon the Dauphin, and his army being exhausted and sick from the unusual heat, he returned deliberately to Paris.

Philip was more successful. Having for some time dogged the movements of the Dauphin, he at last forced him to receive battle at Blanche Tache, where he defeated him with great loss. The blow was so decisive as to render it unnecessary to pursue the campaign very ac tively any further for the present. Henry was received at Paris with an apparently sincere welcome. The French court doubtless much preferred him to Prince Charles, against whom the deadly hatred of his mother burned as fiercely as ever. The Parisians appeared to be content as long as they could pursue their avoca tions without interruption; and such was their love of chivalric prestige, that they looked upon Henry with unmixed admiration. As the husband of their favorite princess, also, he was regarded with especial favor. Still the King was well aware that only a continuance of his popularity, a wise moderation in administration, and concessions to the peculiar humor of the French character, would preserve the power which he had acquired by force of arms. He had not only to refrain from oppressive measures, he had to take meas ures which would be positively welcome. It was as hard a burden as the French people could bear in patience, to be subjected to the yoke of a foreign con queror; it was his part. and he clearly saw and acted

upon it, to make that yoke as invisible as possible. We therefore discover in his actions, at no time, either burdensome taxation, individual oppression, or more than a necessary restriction of popular liberty. His administration, carried on in the name of Charles the Sixth, was eminently mild and paternal. His levies and supplies were drawn, even though with great difficulty, from England; the French were obliged only to support the expenses of their own civil government. Henry constantly paid the most critical attention to the administration of justice, and the prompt enforcement of law and order. France had never, perhaps, known such an excellent system of judicature as their English Regent had instituted and sustained against formidable obstacles with all his power. There was, unquestionably, more constitutional order throughout the country than ever before, or for centuries after. Restitution was made as far as practicable for the ravages and devastations of war. The peaceful employments of the peasantry were encouraged with assiduity. The tyranny of feudal barons was checked. Able Frenchmen were chosen to conduct the departments of government. Even conspirators against the regency, nay, conspirators against the life of both sovereigns, received gentle punishment, and received pardons at the hands of their intended victim. Pros perity was once more restoring to war-stricken France her fair and fruitful resources, and her gentle hills and broad fields began again to smile under this sun of Lancaster. There can be no better proof of Henry's success as a statesman, than that no revolt, hardly a murmur, arose against him, a usurper and an Englishman, from a people who had been born amid insurrections, who had been taught that treason was often

virtuous, whose whole life had passed amid war, tumult, and anarchy, and who sought their pleasure in real dramas of assassination and fraternal bloodshed. To reduce a foreign and chronic insurrection to order and submission to the sovereign will, was his great task; and this he did whilst still assuming the personal command at the seat of war. No prince of ancient or modern history undertook a more elaborate work, or brought what they have undertaken to a more successful conclusion. The court at the Louvre, at the time of this second sojourn of Henry at the metropolis, still far outshone that at the Hotel St. Paul. The French nobles and courtiers still preferred the sunshine of his smile, and still recognized in him the true arbiter of knighthoods, vice royalties, and pensions. Charles was leading, on the whole, a comfortable life at his palace, existing in the depths of solitude, in the midst of his subjects. Isabella, though fond of ostentation and excitement, was fonder of revenge, and was complacent in her seclusion, comforted in the knowledge of the Dauphin's discomfiture. To Henry, the homage which he received in Paris was indifferent, and when he had completed his schemes of administration, he was impatient to resume his martial life.

The town of Meaux, but a few leagues from Paris, still held out, supplied by a strong Dauphinist garrison, and confident of its ability to resist the English and the Burgundians. Its fortress was built upon a solid cliff overhanging the river Maine, and was defended by double ramparts. The Bastard de Xaurus, perhaps the most intrepid of the Dauphin's lieutenants, was in command; under him were about one thousand men. Early in October Henry led his army thither, and disposed them for a siege, which he

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