After this had been read, they told him not to be uneasy at any thing, for that henceforward the townsmen would supply him with so many engines of war, and other means of defence, that no harm should come to him or to their town.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] He had been confined in the bastile by Louis XI.
[2] Lord de Bueil,—Anthony count of Sancerre.
CHAP. II.
THE KING OF FRANCE RECOVERS THE DUCHY OF NORMANDY FROM HIS BROTHER, CHARLES DUKE OF BERRY.—THE LORD D'ESTERNAY IS DROWNED, AND SEVERAL OFFICERS IN NORMANDY ARE EXECUTED OR BANISHED.—THE DUKE OF BERRY LEAVES NORMANDY.—AND SIR JOHN DE LORRAINE, THINKING TO FOLLOW HIM, IS MADE PRISONER AND CARRIED TO THE KING.
On Monday, the last day but one of December, the king of France, returning from lower Normandy, came to Pont Audemer, and thence to la Champagne du Neufbourg, near Conches. He sent the duke of Bourbon to Louviers,—and on the first of January, that town submitted to the duke of Bourbon for the king. This same day the king entered it, in the afternoon when the lord d'Esternay was brought him by the men of the grand master,—and he was immediately after drowned in the river Eure, and the augustin monk with him, by the officer of the provost-marshal. The body of the lord d'Esternay was afterwards taken out of the river, and buried in the church of our Lady at Louviers, where his obsequies were performed.
At this period, very many officers of Normandy, were executed or drowned by the provost-marshal, on account of their having interfered in the dissensions between the king and his brother. On the king's departure from Louviers, he laid siege to the town of Pont de l'Arche, four leagues distant from Rouen; and on the 6th of January it was proclaimed in Paris, that all purveyors, who had been accustomed to supply the army with provisions, should repair thither instantly with forage,—and, also, that the pioneers should make themselves ready to march from Pont de l'Arche on the morrow, under the command of sir Denis Giber, one of the four sheriffs of Paris who had been appointed to conduct them.
On the Wednesday, a detachment of the king's army, that had gone on a foraging party, took four men at arms belonging to the duke of Berry, but who had formerly belonged to the king. One was called le Petit Bailiff, and had been in the company of Joachim Rohault marshal of France, and an accomplice in the betraying Pontoise to the Bretons. When brought before the king, they were ordered to be beheaded instantly; but they offered, on their lives being spared, to cause Pont de l'Arche to be surrendered,—and as the duke of Bourbon and other lords seconded their offer, the king pardoned them.
This same day, the king entered Pont de l'Arche with his army, the garrison having retreated from the town into the castle: among them was master John Hebert, superintendant of the french finances. Three days after, the castle likewise surrendered to the king.