Meanwhile the war had been going on, and the allies had gained little by the capture of their most formidable opponent. Even Compiègne held out successfully |Character of the war.| through a six months’ siege. An Anglo-Burgundian army was defeated in Champagne, and Philip was chagrined to see the prize on which he had confidently reckoned lost to him for ever. In Normandy the English gained some successes, but these were counterbalanced by the loss of Melun. In 1431 hostilities were resumed in Champagne, Picardy, Artois, and Burgundy. It would be tedious and useless to describe the innumerable skirmishes and sieges in which, as a rule, only insignificant forces took part. With the disappearance of Jeanne Darc all restraint upon the brutal instincts of the soldiers had been removed. Most of the leaders were mercenary adventurers who fought, not out of devotion to one side or the other, but because their followers could only be kept together by plunder. The atrocities committed by the French troops were the greatest obstacle to the success of Charles VII. The people were everywhere inclined to return to their allegiance, but they hesitated to trust their lives and property to such defenders. The war was complicated by an important dispute about the succession in Lorraine. On the death of Charles I. in 1431 the duchy was claimed by his son-in-law, Réné of Anjou, who was already duke of Bar. But he was opposed by Antony of Vaudemont, a nephew of the late duke, who maintained that Lorraine was a male fief. Charles VII. sent assistance to his brother-in-law, while Philip the Good espoused the cause of Vaudemont. The Burgundians gained a complete victory in July 1431, when Réné was taken prisoner. But the Lorrainers were hostile to the count of Vaudemont, and in the end the dispute was compromised. Réné recovered his liberty, and his rival withdrew his claims to the duchy on condition that his son Frederick should marry Réné’s daughter, Yolande.

Bedford was fully conscious that the English cause was steadily losing ground in France. He tried to stimulate the loyalty of the Parisians by bringing over the young Henry VI. to be crowned in Paris. It was his answer to the coronation ceremony of Rheims. But it failed to produce the desired result. The French were indignant that the chief part in the ceremony was taken by Cardinal Beaufort, and not by a native prelate. The common people complained that there was no remission of taxes and no release of prisoners. Even more serious was the growing alienation of Burgundy. In 1432 occurred the death of Bedford’s wife, Anne |Rupture between Bedford and Burgundy.| of Burgundy. She was popular with the Parisians, whereas the regent was not, and she had always been a mediator between her husband and her brother. To make matters worse, within five months Bedford found a new bride in the person of Jacquetta of Luxemburg, daughter of the count of St. Pol, and niece of the captor of Joan of Arc. She was a vassal of Burgundy, and Philip was indignant that she should make so important a marriage without his consent. Cardinal Beaufort made vain attempts to effect a reconciliation between the two dukes. They were induced to come to St. Omer, but the interview did not take place, and the personal quarrel was never healed.

Meanwhile important events were taking place at the court of Charles VII. The ill-feeling against the omnipotent favourite, La Tremouille, had been steadily growing, and the queen’s mother, Yolande of Aragon, organised a conspiracy for his overthrow. The conspirators acted in |Fall of La Tremouille.| conjunction with the constable Richemont, who sent some of his trusty Bretons to aid them, but wisely abstained from interfering in person. The plot was successful. La Tremouille was surprised in his bed, and was kept in close captivity till he had ceased to be formidable. The king was terrified when he heard the news, but was consoled when he learned that the dreaded Richemont was not present. It was not till 1434 that Charles consented to be reconciled to the constable, whose rough exterior and brusque measures against former favourites had outweighed his loyal services to the national cause. From this time a new era opened for France. The Royal Council was reformed under the guidance of Yolande, and room was found in it for some of those bourgeois ministers, to whom was due the later reorganisation of the kingdom. Even Charles himself began to show unwonted energy, a change which unsupported tradition has assigned to the influence of his mistress, Agnes Sorel. French historians are never tired of insisting that France owed its salvation in the fifteenth century to two women, the one a saint and the other a sinner.

The quarrel between Bedford and Burgundy and the suppression of feuds and jealousies at the court of Charles removed the most obvious difficulties which had |Treaty of Arras, 1435.| hitherto impeded a reconciliation between the French king and Philip the Good. Strenuous negotiations resulted in an agreement that a congress should meet at Arras in July 1435. The English were to be invited to accept reasonable terms, and if they refused Philip was to do all in his power to restore peace to the kingdom. The inevitable result of the congress was easy to foresee. Beaufort and the English envoys rejected the first French demand that Henry VI. should resign the crown of France, and quitted Arras. It only remained to arrange matters with Philip, who was in a position to dictate his own terms. It was the suzerain who sued for pardon and the vassal who granted it. The duke demanded and received the counties of Auxerre and Macon in perpetuity for himself and his heirs, the towns on the river Somme, which on certain conditions might be redeemed by the French king, and the recognition of his claims to the county of Boulogne, which had been contested by the heirs of the late duchess of Berri. In addition, Philip was to be freed from all homage and subjection to Charles VII. during their common lifetime. If Charles died first, Philip was to do homage to his successor; but if Philip died first, his heir would become the vassal of Charles VII. On these exorbitant conditions Philip agreed to forget all past wrongs, i.e. the death of his father, to which Charles virtually pleaded guilty, and to enter into a defensive alliance against the English. The treaty, which put an end to the long feud between Burgundians and Armagnacs, was signed on September 21, 1435. A week earlier Bedford had died. He had lived long enough to witness the collapse of the foundation on which the edifice rested, to whose construction he had devoted all his abilities and exertions.

CHAPTER XVI
REVIVAL OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY, 1435-1494

English disasters and loss of Paris—Prolongation of war—France exhausted and demoralised—Necessity of reform—Ordinance of 1439—The Praguerie —Creation of a standing army—Peace party in England—-Henry VI. marries Margaret of Anjou—Renewal of war—Conquest of Normandy and Guienne—Last years of Charles VII.—Accession of Louis XI.—His character and early actions—League of the Public Weal—Treaty of Conflans—Charles the Bold and Liége—Louis recovers Normandy—Interview at Péronne—Charles of France receives Guienne—Relations of France and Burgundy with England—Renewal of war between Louis and Charles—Death of the Duke of Guienne—Charles’s acquisitions in Germany—Fate of St. Pol—War with the Swiss and death of Charles the Bold—Mary of Burgundy marries Maximilian—Treaty of Arras—Successes of Louis XI.—Regency of Anne of Beaujeu—Charles VIII. marries Anne of Brittany—Question of Naples.

The death of Bedford and the treaty of Arras were events of decisive importance. The English power in northern |English disasters in 1435-6.| France had rested upon the Burgundian alliance, which was now irretrievably lost. Philip, it is true, had not promised active aid to Charles VII., and probably intended to observe a profitable neutrality. But the English were too indignant at his desertion to allow this. They insulted his envoys, maltreated his subjects who were resident in England, and set themselves to inflict all the damage they could upon Flemish trade. The result was that not only was Philip forced into hostilities with his late allies, but the Flemish citizens, hitherto the strongest link between him and England, urged on the war and offered to take the whole burden of it upon themselves. The rupture with Burgundy altered both the balance of military force and the sentiments of the population in the northern provinces. A rising took place in Normandy, and even Harfleur, the first conquest of Henry V., opened its gates to French troops. Many of the strong places in the Ile de France were held by Burgundian commanders, and they followed their duke’s example in going over to Charles VII. In 1436 the constable Richemont was strong enough to attack Paris. The citizens had been partisans of Burgundy rather than of England; they had been alienated by recent measures of repression; and the French now commanded the water-ways by which the normal supplies of food reached the capital. The fear of famine impelled the |Loss of Paris.| citizens to a course which they were eager to adopt upon other grounds. One of the gates was opened to the constable, and the populace rose with shouts of ‘Peace! The king and the duke of Burgundy!’ The English garrison, after taking refuge in the Bastille, was allowed to depart upon honourable terms. The parliament and the other sovereign courts returned to their old abodes, and Paris became once more the capital of France.

The fall of Paris seemed to herald the immediate collapse of the English dominion in France. Yet the general expectation was disappointed, and the war went on for another seventeen years. A number of causes combined to retard the progress of the French arms. The assistance rendered by the duke of Burgundy proved far less efficient than had been anticipated. In the first heat of resentment at the treatment he received from the English, Philip vowed a striking revenge, and in 1436 he advanced with a large force to the siege of Calais. But his troops were mostly Flemings, who had never been very skilful in aggressive warfare, and had lost most of their military aptitudes during the comparative peace which they had enjoyed under Burgundian rule. The siege was abandoned in disorder even before the arrival of Gloucester with a relieving force. Philip was deeply chagrined at this humiliating failure, and a quarrel with the commune of Bruges diverted his attention from the war and induced him in 1439 to conclude a truce for the Netherlands with the English. Even more serious than the loss of such a powerful ally was the exhaustion and demoralisation of France. For nearly thirty years the country had been the scene of a desolating war which combined the worst horrors of civil strife and foreign invasion, and added to them some evils which were peculiar to itself. The most efficient military force on the French side was furnished by the companies of adventurers which had been originally introduced by Armagnac. The employment of these men proved a curse to France. They recognised no authority except that of their own commanders, and their loyalty to them was only purchased by the plunder which they were allowed to extort with impartial greed from friend and foe. The horrible tortures which they inflicted in order to compel the hapless peasants to disclose their savings, are among the most revolting incidents of a period in which horrors are the rule rather than the exception. The significant name of écorcheurs or flayers, applied to them by their victims, has become almost a technical term. The country was depopulated as well as despoiled, and the provinces in English occupation were the worst sufferers. Financial difficulties on both sides were a prominent cause of the prolongation of the war. Military operations on a large scale were impossible. So-called battles were mere skirmishes. A force of 2000 men was an army. Isolated leaders struck a blow here, or captured a town there, merely to keep their soldiers employed and to obtain booty, but not with the object of gaining any decisive advantage. To many of these leaders the termination of the war meant ruin and effacement, a result which they were by no means eager to hasten.

In order to equip France for the final effort that was needed to expel the foreign conqueror from her soil, it was necessary to undertake those administrative reforms which constitute the real glory of the reign of Charles VII. |Ministers of Charles VII.| Charles is known in history by the name of ‘le bien servi,’ and it is probably to the ministers rather than to the king that the credit of the internal progress of France is due. Richemont and Dunois carried out the arduous task of transforming the free companies into a disciplined force under royal control. The two brothers, Gaspard and Jean Bureau, improved the French artillery till it became the best in Europe, a pre-eminence which it retained for the rest of the century. But the most famous adviser of Charles was the merchant of Bourges, Jacques Cœur. He owed his influence to the great wealth which he acquired by trade with the Levant. Hitherto the cities of Italy and the Catalans had been without serious rivals in the Mediterranean. Jacques Cœur brought Marseilles into competition with Venice, Genoa, and Barcelona. His loans to the monarchy enabled Charles VII. to carry on the war when the exhaustion of the country made it almost impossible to fill the exchequer by means of taxation. Charles rewarded him with the office of argentier, or treasurer of the royal household. In this capacity he took an active part in reforming the financial administration, and especially in restoring the currency which had been ruinously debased during the recent disorders.

By far the most important single measure of the reign was the Ordonnance sur la Gendarmerie, published by the States-general at Orleans in 1439. The preamble recites |Ordinance of 1439.| that it is made ‘to remedy and put an end to the great excesses and robberies committed by the gens de guerre, who have long lived and do now live upon the people without order or justice.’ In the future no one is to raise a company without royal licence, and all captains are to be nominated by the king, who is to fix the number and arms of their soldiers. Pillage is expressly forbidden, and jurisdiction over the troops is placed in the hands of royal judges. For the payment of the troops an important financial innovation is made. The nobles are forbidden to impose a taille or tallage on their domain, and the taille is to be a national tax paid to the king. Thus Charles VII. received a revenue of 1,800,000 livres. There was nothing in the ordinance to make this tax permanent, or to give to the king any power of arbitrarily fixing the amount of the taille; but the permanence of the taille was held to be involved in the permanence of the military force which it was granted to support. And the successors of Charles VII. held that the right to levy the taille without consent gave them also the right to increase it without asking for any fresh grant. The acquiescence of the French people was due to the sufferings they had gone through. Worn out by the prolonged war and by the terrible exactions of the free companies, they were eager to strengthen the hands of the monarchy to which alone they could look for a restoration of peace and order. The absolute control of the national force and the national revenue, which the action of the States-general of Orleans allowed the crown to assume, enabled the monarchy to erect a despotism in France. Englishmen may hold that orderly government and national independence were dearly purchased by the sacrifice of all securities for constitutional liberty, but it is at least probable that if they had ever found themselves in such an evil plight they would have concluded the same bargain on the same terms.