Up to the taking of Paris by the constable the Duke of Burgundy had kept himself in reserve, and had maintained a tacit neutrality towards England; he had merely been making, without noisy demonstration, preparations for an enterprise in which he, as Count of Flanders, was very much interested. The success of Richemont inspired him with a hope, and perhaps with a jealous desire, of showing his power and his patriotism as a Frenchman by making war, in his turn, upon the English, from whom he had by the treaty of Arras effected only a pacific separation. In June, 1436, he went and besieged Calais. This was attacking England at one of the points she was bent upon defending most obstinately. Philip had reckoned on the energetic cooperation of the cities of Flanders, and at the first blush the Flemings did display a strong inclination to support him in his enterprise. “When the English,” they said, “know that my lords of Ghent are on the way to attack them with all their might they will not await us; they will leave the city and flee away to England.” Neither the Flemings nor Philip had correctly estimated the importance which was attached in London to the possession of Calais. When the Duke of Gloucester, lord-protector of England, found this possession threatened, he sent a herald to defy the Duke of Burgundy and declare to him that, if he did not wait for battle beneath the walls of Calais, Humphrey of Gloucester would go after him even into his own dominions. “Tell your lord that he will not need to take so much trouble, and that he will find me here,” answered Philip proudly. His pride was over-confident. Whether it were only a people’s fickleness or intelligent appreciation of their own commercial interests in their relations with England, the Flemings grew speedily disgusted with the siege of Calais, complained of the tardiness in arrival of the fleet which Philip had despatched thither to close the port against English vessels, and, after having suffered several reverses by sorties of the English garrison, they ended by retiring with such precipitation that they abandoned part of their supplies and artillery. Philip, according to the expression of M. Henri Martin, was reduced to covering their retreat with his cavalry; and then he went away sorrowfully to Lille, to advise about the means of defending his Flemish lordships exposed to the reprisals of the English.
Thus the fortune of Burgundy was tottering whilst that of France was recovering itself. The constable’s easy occupation of Paris led the majority of the small places in the neighborhood, St. Denis, Chevreuse, Marcoussis, and Montlhery to decide either upon spontaneous surrender or allowing themselves to be taken after no great resistance. Charles VII., on his way through France to Lyon, in Dauphiny, Languedoc, Auvergne, and along the Loire, recovered several other towns, for instance, Chateau- Landon, Nemours, and Charny. He laid siege in person to Montereau, an important military post with which a recent and sinister reminiscence was connected. A great change now made itself apparent in the king’s behavior and disposition. He showed activity and vigilance, and was ready to expose himself without any care for fatigue or danger. On the day of the assault (10th of October, 1437) he went down into the trenches, remained there in water up to his waist, mounted the scaling- ladder sword in hand, and was one of the first assailants who penetrated over the top of the walls right into the place. After the surrender of the castle as well as the town of Montereau, he marched on Paris, and made his solemn re-entry there on the 12th of November, 1437, for the first time since in 1418 Tanneguy-Duchatel had carried him away, whilst still a child, wrapped in his bed-clothes. Charles was received and entertained as became a recovered and a victorious king; but he passed only three weeks there, and went away once more, on the 3d of December, to go and resume at Orleans first, and then at Bourges, the serious cares of government. It is said to have been at this royal entry into Paris that Agnes Sorel or Soreau, who was soon to have the name of Queen of Beauty, and to assume in French history an almost glorious though illegitimate position, appeared with brilliancy in the train of the queen, Mary of Anjou, to whom the king had appointed her a maid of honor. It is a question whether she did not even then exercise over Charles VII. that influence, serviceable alike to the honor of the king and of France, which was to inspire Francis I., a century later, with this gallant quatrain:
“If to win back poor captive France be aught,
More honor, gentle Agnes, is thy weed,
Than ere was due to deeds of virtue wrought
By cloistered nun or pious hermit-breed.”
It is worth while perhaps to remark that in 1437 Agnes Sorel was already twenty-seven.
One of the best informed, most impartial, and most sensible historians of that epoch, James Duclercq, merely says on this subject, King Charles, before he had peace with Duke Philip of Burgundy, led a right holy life and said his canonical hours. But after peace was made with the duke, though the king continued to serve God, he joined himself unto a young woman who was afterwards called Fair Agnes.
Nothing is gained by ignoring good even when it is found in company with evil, and there is no intention here of disputing the share of influence exercised by Agnes Sorel upon Charles VII.‘s regeneration in politics and war after the treaty of Arras. Nevertheless, in spite of the king’s successes at Montereau and during his passage through Central and Northern France, the condition of the country was still so bad in 1440, the disorder was so great, and the king so powerless to apply a remedy, that Richemont, disconsolate, was tempted to rid and disburden himself from the government of France and between the rivers [Seine and Loire, no doubt] and to go or send to the king for that purpose. But one day the prior of the Carthusians at Paris called on the constable and found him in his private chapel. “What need you, fair father?” asked Richemont. The prior answered that he wished to speak with my lord the constable. Richemont replied that it was he himself. “Pardon me, my lord,” said the prior, “I did not know you; I wish to speak to you, if you please.” “Gladly,” said Richemont. “Well, my lord, you yesterday held counsel and considered about disburdening yourself from the government and office you hold hereabouts.” “How know you that? Who told you?” “My lord, I do not know it through any person of your council, and do not put yourself out to learn who told me, for it was one of my brethren. My lord, do not do this thing; and be not troubled, for God will help you.” “Ah! fair father, how can that be? The king has no mind to aid me or grant me men or money; and the men-at-arms hate me because I have justice done on them, and they have no mind to obey me.” “My lord, they will do what you desire; and the king will give you orders to go and lay siege to Meaux, and will send you men and money.” “Ah! fair father, Meaux is so strong! How can it be done? The King of England was there for nine months before it.” “My lord, be not you troubled; you will not be there so long; keep having good hope in God and He will help you. Be ever humble and grow not proud; you will take Meaux ere long; your men will grow proud; they will then have somewhat to suffer; but you will come out of it to your honor.”
The good prior was right. Meaux was taken; and when the constable went to tell the news at Paris the king made him “great cheer.” There was a continuance of war to the north of the Loire; and amidst many alternations of successes and reverses the national cause made great way there. Charles resolved, in 1442, to undertake an expedition to the south of the Loire, in Aquitaine, where the English were still dominant; and he was successful. He took from the English Tartas, Saint-Sever, Marmande, La Reole, Blaye, and Bourg-sur-Mer. Their ally, Count John d’Armagnac, submitted to the King of France. These successes cost Charles VII. the brave La Hire, who died at Montauban of his wounds. On returning to Normandy, where he had left Dunois, Charles, in 1443, conducted a prosperous campaign there. The English leaders were getting weary of a war without any definite issue; and they had proposals made to Charles for a truce, accompanied with a demand on the part of their young king, Henry VI., for the hand of a French princess, Margaret of Anjou, daughter of King Rena, who wore the three crowns of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, without possessing any one of the kingdoms. The truce and the marriage were concluded at Tours, in 1444. Neither of the arrangements was popular in England; the English people, who had only a far-off touch of suffering from the war, considered that their government made too many concessions to France. In France, too, there was some murmuring; the king, it was said, did not press his advantages with sufficient vigor; everybody was in a hurry to see all Aquitaine reconquered. “But a joy that was boundless and impossible to describe,” says Thomas Bazin, the most intelligent of the contemporary historians, “spread abroad through the whole population of the Gauls. Having been a prey for so long to incessant terrors, and shut up within the walls of their towns like convicts in a prison, they rejoiced like people restored to freedom after a long and bitter slavery. Companies of both sexes were seen going forth into the country and visiting temples or oratories dedicated to the saints, to pay the vows which they had made in their distress. One fact especially was admirable and the work of God Himself: before the truce so violent had been the hatred between the two sides, both men-at-arms and people, that none, whether soldier or burgher, could without risk to life go out and pass from one place to another unless under the protection of a safe-conduct. But, so soon as the truce was proclaimed, every one went and came at pleasure, in full liberty and security, whether in the same district or in districts under divided rule; and even those who, before the proclamation of the truce, seemed to take no pleasure in anything but a savage outpouring of human blood, now took delight in the sweets of peace, and passed the days in holiday-making and dancing with enemies who but lately had been as bloodthirsty as themselves.”
But for all their rejoicing at the peace, the French, king, lords, and commons, had war still in their hearts; national feelings were waking up afresh; the successes of late years had revived their hopes; and the civil dissensions which were at that time disturbing England let favorable chances peep out. Charles VII. and his advisers employed the leisure afforded by the truce in preparing for a renewal of the struggle. They were the first to begin it again; and from 1449 to 1451 it was pursued by the French king and nation with ever-increasing ardor, and with obstinate courage by the veteran English warriors astounded at no longer being victorious. Normandy and Aquitaine, which was beginning to be called Guyenne only, were throughout this period the constant and the chief theatre of war. Amongst the greatest number of fights and incidents which distinguished the three campaigns in those two provinces, the recapture of Rouen by Dunois in October, 1449, the battle of Formigny, won near Bayeux on the 15th of April, 1450, by the constable De Richemont, and the twofold capitulation of Bordeaux, first on the 28th of June, 1451, and next on the 9th of October, 1453, in order to submit to Charles VII., are the only events to which a place in history is due, for those were the days on which the question was solved touching the independence of the nation and the kingship in France. The Duke of Somerset and Lord Talbot were commanding in Rouen when Dunois presented himself beneath its walls, in hopes that the inhabitants would open the gates to him. Some burgesses, indeed, had him apprised of a certain point in the walls at which they might be able to favor the entry of the French. Dunois, at the same time making a feint of attacking in another quarter, arrived at the spot indicated with four thousand men. The archers drew up before the wall; the men-at-arms dismounted; the burgesses gave the signal, and the planting of scaling-ladders began; but when hardly as many as fifty or sixty men had reached the top of the wall the banner and troops of Talbot were seen advancing. He had been warned in time and had taken his measures. The assailants were repulsed; and Charles VII., who was just arriving at the camp, seeing the abortiveness of the attempt, went back to Pont-de-l’Arehe. But the English had no long joy of their success. They were too weak to make any effectual resistance, and they had no hope of any aid from England. Their leaders authorized the burgesses to demand of the king a safe-conduct in order to treat. The conditions offered by Charles were agreeable to the burgesses, but not to the English; and when the archbishop read them out in the hall of the mansion-house, Somerset and Talbot witnessed an outburst of joy which revealed to them all their peril. Fagots and benches at once began to rain down from the windows; the English shut themselves up precipitately in the castle, in the gate-towers, and in the great tower of the bridge; and the burgesses armed themselves and took possession during the night of the streets and the walls. Dunois, having received notice, arrived in force at the Martainville gate. The inhabitants begged him to march into the city as many men as he pleased. “It shall be as you will,” said Dunois. Three hundred men-at-arms and archers seemed sufficient. Charles VII returned before Rouen; the English asked leave to withdraw without loss of life or kit; and “on condition,” said the king “that they take nothing on the march without paying.” “We have not the wherewithal,” they answered; and the king gave them a hundred francs. Negotiations were recommenced. The king required that Harfleur and all the places in the district of Caux should be given up to him. “Ah! as for Harfleur, that cannot be,” said the Duke of Somerset; “it is the first town which surrendered to our glorious king, Henry V., thirty-five years ago.” There was further parley. The French consented to give up the demand for Harfleur; but they required that Talbot should remain as a hostage until the conditions were fulfilled. The English protested. At last, however, they yielded, and undertook to pay fifty thousand golden crowns to settle all accounts which they owed to the tradesmen in the city, and to give up all places in the district of Caen except Harfleur. The Duchess of Somerset and Lord Talbot remained as hostages; and on the 10th of November, 1449, Charles entered Rouen in state, with the character of a victor who knew how to use victory with moderation.