The chief interest in the struggle lay in the efforts of the Armagnacs to get possession of Paris, the stronghold of Burgundian influence. In 1411 the princes advanced to besiege the city. The exigencies of the defence gave a temporary ascendency to the lower class of the citizens, who were the most enthusiastic partisans of Burgundy, and among them the lead was taken by the powerful guild |The Cabochiens in Paris.| of butchers. One Caboche, a flayer, acquired an unenviable eminence which gave to his associates the name of Cabochiens. For two years they were all-powerful in the city, and their history is marked by one of those extraordinary contrasts which are more familiar in the history of France than in any other country. On the one hand, their rule was disgraced by the brutal atrocities of a Paris mob at its worst. On the other hand, there must have been among their leaders men of virtue and capacity, who saw clearly the administrative evils under which France was suffering. On May 25, 1413, was issued the famous Cabochian ordinance, containing 258 articles, which has been warmly praised by more than one eminent historian as a wise and far-seeing measure of reform. But the authors of the ordinance hardly acted in its spirit, and it was so short-lived that it has no practical importance.
The horrors of Cabochian rule excited a strong reaction among the higher class of citizens, and the Armagnacs were |Armagnac victory in 1413.| enabled by their aid to enter Paris. The great ordinance was revoked in September 1413, and all offices were transferred to members of the victorious faction. The dauphin, who had quarrelled with his father-in-law, joined his former opponents, and this enabled them to claim that they were governing in the king’s name and interest. In 1414 the Armagnacs assumed the offensive, drove the duke of Burgundy from one town after another, and even invaded Artois. Before Arras a treaty was concluded which left Paris and the persons of the queen and the dauphin in the hands of the Armagnacs. John the Fearless, chagrined by his defeat, and excluded from all political influence, resumed those relations with the English to which he was impelled by Flemish interests. Henry V., who as Prince of Wales had shown himself disposed to aid the Burgundians in 1411, was now on the throne. He was free from some of the difficulties which had made his father |English invasion of France.| pursue a peace policy, and the condition of France offered him an irresistible temptation to renew the war. In 1415 he formally announced his intention of asserting his claim to the crown of France, and laid siege to Harfleur. The Armagnacs were by no means dismayed by the news. The militant instincts of an aristocracy were strong among them, and a victory over the English invaders would complete their triumph over the Burgundians. A feudal army was hastily collected under the constable d’Albret, and the offers of aid from Paris and other communes were haughtily rejected. The expected success was to be for the party, not for the nation. But the military ability of the nobles was not equal to their exclusiveness. A slight exertion would have relieved Harfleur, but the town was allowed to surrender on September |Fall of Harfleur.| 22. This was a considerable gain to the English; for Harfleur, though less defensible than Calais, was far better suited for aggressive purposes. It was the real key to Normandy, whereas the strength of Calais lay in its isolation. But the English army had suffered heavily during the siege, and prudence seemed to dictate that it should either return to England or spend the winter in Harfleur. Henry, however, trusting to the incapacity and disunion of his enemies, decided to lead his diminished army, not more than fifteen thousand at most, through a hostile country to Calais. The bridges on the Somme had been broken down, and the English made for the famous ford of Blanchetaque, where Edward III. had effected his crossing before the battle of Crecy. A prisoner declared that the ford was guarded by six thousand troops, and the English turned southwards to find another crossing. One place after another was found to be impracticable, and the army had passed Nesle before they discovered some marshy shallows which gave them the desired passage. They thus escaped the trap into which they had fallen, but their march had brought them to the south of the French army, which in overwhelming numbers blocked the way to Calais. It was necessary to fight or perish. In the |Battle of Agincourt.| battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415) the muddy state of the ground, the reckless insubordination of the French nobles, and the skill of the archers gave the English an extraordinarily easy victory. The losses on the French side were enormously increased by a massacre of the prisoners, which Henry ordered when the appearance of some camp-followers was taken as the approach of a new army. Among the slain were the constable d’Albret, the duke of Alençon, and the two brothers of John the Fearless, Antony of Brabant and Philip of Nevers. The duke himself had refused to join his opponents, and his brothers only arrived in time to share the defeat. The most important of the prisoners whose lives had been spared were the young Charles of Orleans and the count of Richemont, brother of the duke of Brittany. As far as Henry V. was concerned, he gained no immediate advantage in France, except the ability to continue his retreat. He hastened to Calais, and there embarked for England.
The Armagnacs had destined for themselves all the glory of the expected victory, and they had to endure all the shame of the defeat. The Parisians openly exulted at |Continued party strife in France.| the humiliation of their oppressors, and prepared to welcome John the Fearless, who advanced as far as Lagni on his way to the capital. But the duke had lost much of the energy of his younger days. Bernard of Armagnac, who had played no part in recent events, hurried up from the south and took prompt measure to suppress the Burgundian sympathies of the citizens. He only arrived just in time. The dauphin, worn out by debauchery of every kind, died on December 18, and the heir of the throne was now John of Touraine, who was the creature of the Burgundian party. If John the Fearless had succeeded in reaching Paris, his hold on the government would have been secure. But he had lost his opportunity, and retired after four months of absolute inactivity. His enemies called him in derision John of Lagni.
In 1416 there was no renewal of the English invasion, and the attention of Henry VI. was fully occupied with diplomacy. Sigismund had quitted Constance with the professed intention of putting an end to the international quarrels which impeded the work of the council. But his visits to France and to England failed to effect the desired result. Their chief result was to ally Sigismund with Henry V. and to bring about a better understanding between the latter and the duke of Burgundy, who had found it difficult to maintain any alliance with England after the death of his two brothers at Agincourt. Meanwhile Armagnac continued a reign of terror in Paris. The citizens were disarmed, the chains and barriers in the streets were removed, and a strict system of espionage enabled the government to detect and punish any attempt to rebel. The atrocities of the Cabochiens were equalled by their opponents, and without the excuse that could be offered for the brutal action of a mob. The one difficulty in Armagnac’s way was the fact that the dauphin John was in the hands of the duke of Burgundy at Valenciennes. But in April 1417 the dauphin died so opportunely that Armagnac was suspected of having brought it about. The only surviving prince, Charles, was the son-in-law of Louis II. of Anjou, and had been brought up in bitter hostility to the Burgundians. The one influence over him that might stand in the way of Armagnac was that of his mother. In a lucid interval Charles VI. was induced to notice and resent his wife’s notorious misconduct, and Isabel of Bavaria was sent into disguised captivity at Tours. Indignant at this insult, she forgot the quarrel of a lifetime, sought the alliance of John the Fearless, and escaped from Tours with his aid. This encouraged the Burgundians to fresh exertions. The queen claimed to act as regent during her husband’s ‘occupation,’ as it was euphemistically called. At Amiens she and the duke of Burgundy established a council and a parliament in opposition to those in Paris, which were ‘subjected to the usurpers of the royal power.’ The civil war was carried on in a series of petty combats over the northern provinces, in which each side was equally discredited by acts of the grossest brutality.
The renewed outbreak of civil war encouraged Henry V. to enter Normandy again in 1417. Little resistance was offered to him, except at Caen, and a truce with |English in Normandy.| the duke of Brittany gave him a secure hold upon north-western France. The rapid success of the foreign invasion gave rise to negotiations between the French factions, and a treaty was on the verge of conclusion in May 1418, when it was broken off by Armagnac and his brutal colleague, Tannegui du Châtel. This was more than the Parisians could endure; the gates were opened to admit a body |Burgundians seize Paris.| of Burgundian cavalry, and the citizens rose with cries of ‘Burgundy and peace.’ Armagnac was discovered and slain, but the dauphin succeeded in escaping to Melun, where he was joined by Tannegui and other followers, who had made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to hold out in the Bastile. The revolution in Paris gave to the Burgundians the ascendency in the north, but the dauphin continued to call himself lieutenant-general for his father, and set up a council and a parliament in Poitiers.
One result of the revolution was to impose the burden of national defence upon the duke of Burgundy. The Parisians, although Burgundian, had not ceased to be Frenchmen, and their clamour compelled the duke to take measures against the English. He escorted the insane king to take the oriflamme from St. Denis, and he established a camp at Beauvais. |Fall of Rouen.| But he did nothing to relieve Rouen, which was offering a heroic resistance to Henry V., and the town was forced to capitulate on January 19, 1419. A systematic government was set up in Normandy as a dependency of the English crown.
The news of the fall of Rouen roused the national spirit of France. The two parliaments of Paris and Poitiers combined to demand internal peace in the face of |Negotiations between the factions.| the foreign foe. On May 14 a truce for three months was concluded. But the English successes continued, and the capture of Pontoise enabled them to threaten Paris. The pressure of imminent danger forced the rival factions into closer relations with each other, and it was agreed that a meeting should take place between the dauphin and John the Fearless for the final settlement of all differences. This was a great blow to the extreme Armagnacs, who dreaded the loss of power and the vengeance of Burgundy. Tannegui du Châtel and his associates determined by a desperate act to put an end to all |Murder of John of Burgundy.| prospects of pacification. The interview took place on September 10, 1419, on the bridge at Montereau, and John the Fearless was treacherously assassinated by the dauphin’s followers. Whether Charles himself was aware of the plot beforehand is open to question, but by continued association with the murderers he made himself an accomplice after the event.
The murder of John the Fearless was a fatal event for France. It revived the unity of the Burgundian party, which had been rapidly breaking up, and for the moment |Treaty of Troyes, 1420.| it subordinated all sentiment of nationality to the desire for revenge. The young duke Philip vowed that the dauphin, whom he regarded as his father’s assassin, should never sit upon the throne of France. Isabel of Bavaria, who had never loved her youngest son, did not scruple to join the duke in a close alliance with the English. The treaty of Troyes (May 21, 1420) excluded the dauphin from the succession, arranged that Henry V. should marry Katharine of France, that he and his descendants should be the heirs of Charles VI., and that Henry should be regent during the lifetime of his father-in-law. Normandy and all other English conquests were to be reunited to the French crown on Henry’s accession, and he swore to observe the laws and customs of France. Paris, already dominated by Burgundian partisans, and exposed to the danger of English attack from Pontoise, could make no resistance to an arrangement which proposed to subject France to an English dynasty.
The treaty of Troyes was a treaty with one of the factions in France; it was not a treaty with the French nation. In order to carry it out it was necessary to enforce |War in northern France.| the submission of the Armagnacs, who had the support of almost all the provinces south of the Loire, and also held a number of strong places north of that river. The reduction of the latter was the first task of the English and Burgundians. Some of them surrendered readily, but Melun held out for four months, and with its fall the campaign of 1420 ended. Henry V. returned to England, but was recalled by the news of a serious reverse. Thomas of Clarence, who had been left in command, was defeated and slain by a combined force of French and Scots at Baugé in Anjou (March 23, 1421), and a rising in favour of the dauphin took place in Picardy. Henry’s return restored victory to the English arms. While Philip of Burgundy put down the malcontents in Picardy, the English laid siege to Meaux, the chief Armagnac stronghold in northern France. With its surrender (March 22, 1422) the supremacy of the allies to the north of the Loire seemed to be assured. A few adventurers, at the head of mercenary forces, remained to pillage the country, but there was no longer any centre of organised resistance to the English. Their army was preparing to cross the river when it was recalled by the news that Henry V. had died of dysentery, at the early |Deaths of Henry V. and Charles VI.| age of thirty-four (August 31, 1422). Seven weeks later, the unfortunate Charles VI. was also carried to the grave, accompanied by the tears of his subjects, who remembered that if he had never ruled, so he had never oppressed them. None of his own family were present at the funeral, and the only mourner of princely rank was the Duke of Bedford, now regent of France for the infant Henry VI., who was solemnly proclaimed King of France and England.
For several years after 1422 there were two kings of France—Henry VI., represented by his uncle Bedford, with Paris as his capital; and Charles VII., a youth of twenty years of age, at Bourges. The position |Bedford and Charles VII.| of the latter had been completely changed by the treaty of Troyes. He was no longer the mere head of an unscrupulous and discredited faction, but the leader of a national cause. This washed out the stain of the murder of Montereau. There was hardly a French nation as yet, otherwise Henry V. had never conquered Normandy, but there was certainly a sentiment of nationality. A duke of Burgundy, half of whose possessions lay outside France, might be comparatively free from such a sentiment, but his French subjects were not. From the very first the result of the struggle was certain. All the permanent influences were in favour of Charles and against England. Only two things were necessary to secure the victory of Charles VII.—the national sentiment must be kindled into a blaze, which was done by Jeanne Darc, and Burgundy must be detached from England. This was sooner or later inevitable, both from the natural jarring of interests and from the pressure brought to bear upon the duke by his own followers. Henry VI. wore the crown of France, partly by virtue of the Burgundian alliance, and partly because the feeling of national union had been overpowered for a time by domestic feuds and by the misery which they had brought to the country. Directly this double basis collapsed, the English power fell. That it lasted as long as it did was due to the difference between the respective leaders. John of Bedford was a great soldier and a great diplomatist; there was no one on the French side who equalled him in either capacity. Charles VII. may have had scant justice dealt to him by historians, and his latest biographer would have us believe that he was a model of kingly virtues. But these virtues, such as they were, were developed by adversity. At the time when he assumed the royal title, he was too young to have much experience of government, his training had been against him, and he had been fatally compromised by the criminal violence of his associates. He was not personally a coward, but he disliked war, and he disliked publicity. Two important cities—Bourges and Poitiers—remained faithful to him, but he preferred the more congenial solitude of Loches and Chinon. He had excellent advisers. The council and parliament which he established at Poitiers comprised many of the ablest members of those institutions who had left Paris in 1418. So far as it was possible to conduct a civil government during the war, it was conducted well. But against these civilian advisers must be set the influence of brutal adventurers, such as Tannegui du Châtel, whose services he could not dispense with, and whom he was too feeble to restrain. Their gradual disappearance enabled him at last to free himself from the Armagnac party, and to render conspicuous services to France. But for the first seven years of his reign he had to contend with inferior instruments against superior force.