CHAPTER VII.

Imprisonment of the Duke of Orleans-King Henry again invades France-Siege of Rouen-Murder of the Duke of Burgundy.

THE wretched state of his army prevented Henry from taking any immediate advantage from his victory, and he found that his purpose would, for the present, be better effected by intrigue than by fighting. Nearly two years passed before he returned to France, and during that period he was continually tampering with the Duke of Burgundy, seeking, and, as in the end it proved, not ineffectually, to attach him to his interests.

Among the prisoners taken at the battle of Agincourt was the Duke of Orleans, the son of the murdered duke, who remained captive in England for five-and-twenty years. During this long residence in England he perfectly learned the language;

and whilst he was shut up in the Tower, he wrote many poems, several of them in English; and there is at this day, in the British Museum, a beautifully written manuscript of these poems, ornamented with many paintings, one representing the duke writing in his prison in the Tower, which I have copied for you. He was not, however, always confined in the Tower, being sometimes permitted to go where he pleased on giving his parole, or word of honour, not to attempt to escape out of England; but he spent a long time in close confinement, which he whiled away by amusing himself by writing, as I have just mentioned.

His absence did not, however, break up the party of the Armagnacs, who still opposed all the attempts of the Duke of Burgundy to repossess himself of the government of France. Thus two years passed on, that kingdom being in a more wretched condition than ever. During this period Louis, the Dauphin we have hitherto spoken of, died, and his next brother, the Duke of

Touraine, who then became heir to the crown, dying soon after, Charles, then a youth of sixteen years old, the fourth son of the king, assumed the title of Dauphin, and eventually ascended the throne.

In the summer of 1417, Henry again invaded Normandy at the head of twenty-five thousand men, and subdued many places, among others the important town of Cherbourg; and Caen, which he took by storm; and during the whole of that and the succeeding year, he continued steadily increasing his advantages. Meantime the queen, who had received a great affront from the Armagnacs, had joined heartily with the Duke of Burgundy, and showed herself willing to sacrifice every thing, husband, son, and country, for the gratification of her revenge. A certain knight, called BoisBourdon, who was a great favourite with the queen, had given offence to the king, and was seized and executed by the advice of Armagnac, who had also taken possession of the treasures which the queen had

amassed for her own purposes, and had applied them to the public service; and, to crown all, had caused her to be banished to the city of Tours, for fear of her interfering in the affairs of state should she remain in Paris. These were deep injuries, which were not the less felt because they were deserved, for the queen was a very unworthy woman, and had acted in many ways in an infamous manner towards her unhappy husband.

When she joined Burgundy, she lent her whole influence, which was not inconsiderable, to the support of his cause; and from that time he began again to regain that authority in the kingdom which he had lost. In 1418, by the contrivance of one of his captains, called L'Isle-Adam, he gained possession of Paris, and his arrival there was as usual signalized by the most atrocious enormities. The Dauphin, who was in the city at the time, escaped by the aid of the Provost Tanneguy Chatel, who quickly followed him; but the populace

rising, broke open the prisons, where those of the Armagnac party, who had been taken when the city was won, were confined, and, dragging them forth, massacred them without mercy, to the amount of sixteen hundred, or thereabouts. Among the slain were the Count d'Armagnac, constable of the kingdom, the chancellor, four bishops, one abbot, and many men of high degree. "Many," says Monstrelet, "were shocked and astonished at such cruel conduct; but they dared not say any thing, except Well done, my boys!' The bodies of the constable, the chancellor, and of Raymonnet de la Guerie, were stripped naked, tied together with a cord, and dragged for three days, by the blackguards of Paris, through the streets. The body of the constable had the breadth of two fingers of his skin cut off crosswise, like to a bend in heraldry, by way of derision; and they were thus publicly exposed, quite naked, to the sight of all; on the fourth day, they were dragged out of Paris on a hurdle, and