The bishop of the place and the inhabitants found that they had acted wickedly and had greatly incensed the prince, for which they were very repentant, but that was now of no avail, as they were not the masters of the town.[593] When the prince and his marshals had well considered the strength and force of Limoges, and knew the number of people that were in it, they agreed that The town to be undermined they could never take it by assault, but said they would attempt it by another manner. The prince was always accustomed to carry with him on his expeditions a large body of miners. These were immediately set to work and made great progress. The knights who were in the town soon perceived that they were undermining them, and on that account began to countermine to prevent the effect....

The Prince of Wales remained about a month, and not more, before the city of Limoges. He would not allow any assaults or skirmishing, but kept his miners steadily at work. The knights in the town perceived what they were about and made countermines to destroy them, but they failed in their attempt. When the miners of the prince (who, as they found themselves countermined, kept changing the line of direction of their own mine) had finished their business, they came to the prince and said, "My lord, we are ready, and will throw down, whenever it pleases you, a very large part of the wall into the ditch, through the breach of which you may enter the town at your ease and without danger."

This news was very agreeable to the prince, who replied: "I desire, then, that you prove your words to-morrow morning at six o'clock." The miners set fire to the combustibles in the mine, and on the morrow morning, as they had foretold the The English assault prince, they flung down a great piece of wall which filled the ditches. The English saw this with pleasure, for they were armed and prepared to enter the town. Those on foot did so and ran to the gate, which they destroyed, as well as the barriers, for there were no other defenses; and all this was done so suddenly that the inhabitants had not time to prevent it.

The prince, the duke of Lancaster, the earls of Cambridge and of Pembroke, sir Guiscard d'Angle and the others, with their men, rushed into the town. You would then have seen pillagers, active to do mischief, running through the town, slaying men, women, and children, according to their orders. It was a most melancholy business; for all ranks, ages, and sexes cast themselves on their knees before the prince, begging for mercy; but he was so inflamed with passion and revenge that he listened to none. But all were put to the sword, wherever they could be found, even those who were not guilty. For I know not Barbarity of the sack why the poor were not spared, who could not have had any part in the treason; but they suffered for it, and indeed more than those who had been the leaders of the treachery.

There was not that day in the city of Limoges any heart so hardened, or that had any sense of religion, that did not deeply bewail the unfortunate events passing before men's eyes; for upwards of three thousand men, women, and children were put to death that day. God have mercy on their souls, for they were truly martyrs.... The entire town was pillaged, burned, and totally destroyed. The English then departed, carrying with them their booty and prisoners.

78. The Treaties of Bretigny (1360) and Troyes (1420)

The most important documents in the diplomatic history of the Hundred Years' War are the texts of the treaty of London (1359), the treaty of Bretigny (1360), the truce of Paris (1396), the treaty of Troyes (1420), the treaty of Arras (1435), and the truce of Tours (1444). Brief extracts from two of these are given below. The treaty of Bretigny was negotiated soon after the refusal of the French to ratify the treaty of London. In November, 1359, King Edward III., with his son, Edward, the Black Prince, and the duke of Lancaster, crossed the Channel, marched on Rheims, and threatened Paris. Negotiations for a new peace were actively opened in April, 1360, after the English had established themselves at Montlhéri, south from Paris. The French king, John II., who had been taken prisoner at Poitiers (1356), gave full powers of negotiation to his son Charles, duke of Normandy and regent of the kingdom. For some time no definite conclusions were reached, owing chiefly to Edward's unwillingness to renounce his claim to the French throne. Late in April the negotiations were transferred to Chartres, subsequently to Bretigny. Finally, on the eighth of May, representatives of the two parties signed the so-called treaty of Bretigny. Although the instrument was promptly ratified by the French regent and by the Black Prince (and, if we may believe Froissart, by the two kings themselves), it was afterwards revised and accepted in a somewhat different form by the monarchs and their following assembled at Calais (October 24, 1360). The most important respect in which the second document differed from the first was the omission of Article 12 of the first treaty, in which Edward renounced his claim to the throne of France and the sovereignty of Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Brittany, and Flanders; nevertheless Edward, at Calais, made this renunciation in a separate convention, which for all practical purposes was regarded as a part of the treaty. The passages printed below are taken from the Calais text. Most of the thirty-nine articles composing the document are devoted to mere details. The war was renewed after a few years, and within two decades the English had lost all the territory guaranteed to them in 1360, except a few coast towns.

The treaty of Troyes (1420) belongs to one of the most stormy periods in all French history. The first two decades of the fifteenth century were marked by a cessation of the war with England (until its renewal in 1415), but also unfortunately by the outbreak of a desperate civil struggle between two great factions of the French people, the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. The Burgundians, led by Philip the Bold and John the Fearless (successive dukes of Burgundy), stood for a policy of friendship with England, while the Armagnacs, comprising the adherents of Charles, duke of Orleans, whose wife was a daughter of the count of Armagnac, advocated the continuation of the war with the English; though, in reality, the forces which kept the two factions apart were jealousy and ambition rather than any mere question of foreign relations. The way was prepared for a temporary Burgundian triumph by the notable victory of the English at Agincourt in 1415 and by the assassination of John the Fearless at Paris in 1419, which made peace impossible and drove the Burgundians openly into the arms of the English. Philip the Good, the new duke of Burgundy, became the avowed ally of the English king Henry V., who since 1417 had been slowly but surely conquering Normandy and now had the larger portion of it in his possession. Philip recognized Henry as the true heir to the French throne and in 1419 concluded with him two distinct treaties on that basis. Charles VI., the reigning king of France, was mentally unbalanced and the queen, who bitterly hated the Armagnacs (with whom her son, the Dauphin Charles, was actively identified), was easily persuaded by Duke Philip to acquiesce in a treaty by which the succession should be vested in the English king upon the death of Charles VI. The result was the treaty of Troyes, signed May 21, 1420. According to agreements already entered into by Philip and Henry, the latter was to marry Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. (the marriage was not mentioned in the treaty of Troyes, but it was clearly assumed), and he was to act as regent of France until Charles VI.'s death and then become king in his own name. Most of the thirty-one articles of the treaty were taken up with a definition of Henry's position and obligations as regent and prospective sovereign of France.

In due time the marriage of Henry and Catherine took place and Henry assumed the regency, though the Armagnacs, led by the Dauphin, refused absolutely to accept the settlement. War broke out, in the course of which (in 1422) Henry V. died and was succeeded by his infant son, Henry VI. In the same year Charles VI. also died, which meant that the young Henry would become king of France. With such a prospect the future of the country looked dark. Nevertheless, the death of Charles VI. and of Henry V. came in reality as a double blessing. Henry V. might long have kept the French in subjection and his position as Charles VI.'s son-in-law gave him some real claim to rule in France. But with the field cleared, as it was in 1422, opportunity was given for the Dauphin Charles (Charles VII.) to retrieve the fallen fortunes of his country—a task which, with more or less energy and skill, he managed in the long run to accomplish.

Sources—(a) Text in Eugène Cosneau, Les Grands Traités de la Guerre de Cent Ans ["The Great Treaties of the Hundred Years' War">[, Paris, 1889, pp. 39-68 passim.