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province, necessitated the re-establishment of the higher CHAP. or princely aristocracy. The machinery of absolute monarchy had become completely disarranged. The royal seneschals were powerless, unless they added personal weight to their delegated functions. In order to levy money, raise troops, secure the adhesion or support of a province, the local authority was requisite of a chief who knew the province, and could command the respect of the nobles, as well as the support of the middle classes. A prince of the blood could best do this. Edward III. found it necessary to establish his son, the Black Prince, over the Gascons, who would obey no lesser vicegerent. The Duke of Anjou was for the same reason made governor of Languedoc. And when the old line of the Dukes of Burgundy failed, John and Charles raised their son and brother Philip to that important dignity. This is made, by modern French writers, a great reproach to both, as if they wantonly derogated from the policy of the Philips, and broke up the unity which these had established. Charles, however, was not a monarch to part with or delegate authority, if he himself could have exercised it. But the centralised government raised and attempted by the legists of the previous century, had become impossible. The provinces were not given away by the crown, but had fallen from it. Not only had each province its estates, such as Burgundy, Languedoc or Champagne, but counties such as Artois, and even districts like the Cotentin, assembled in their three orders apart, and voted their local subsidy for the ransom of John or the defence of the country. In order to stop the progress of this subdivision, it was necessary to have a royal and a princely vicegerent on the spot. And the kingdom was divided into governments and duchies, less from royal caprice or predilection than from the irresistible necessities of the times.

Great difficulty was experienced on both sides in

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CHAP. accomplishing even the first conditions of the Treaty of Bretigny. Considerable naval rivalry had sprung up during the war; so that the towns and the nobles of the French coast, La Rochelle and the population of Xaintonge, showed the greatest reluctance to rebecome English. For this shut out them and their ports from their natural communications with the interior, and placed them at the mercy of their rivals beyond sea. There existed another reason for the dislike of both towns and feudal chiefs to be compelled to transfer their allegiance and pay their homage to a new master. was that this act of homage was necessarily accompanied by very heavy fees, which mulcted towns and nobles, and thus forced them to compound for every change of government.* No wonder that both protested against being made over to a foreign sovereign; and declared that though compelled to do lip-service to the English monarch, they still remained French at heart.

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On the other hand, Edward, evacuating the fortresses and towns, which he held in the territories ceded to John, could not but disband the garrisons of mercenary troops. These collected in companies, persisted in hoisting the English or the Navarrese standard, and proceeded to war and pillage on their own account. The greatest number of them mustered in Champagne, under the name of the Tardvenus, or Last Arrived; and wasting the country, gradually moved south, first to Dijon, and then along the banks of the Soane. John ordered Jaques de Bourbon, then in Languedoc, to collect what forces he could muster to put down the brigands. These had taken post, to the number of

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16,000, on the hill of Brignais, a few miles from Lyons; CHAP. in which city Jaques de Bourbon assembled a far larger force, his van-guard under Cernolles, the Archpriest, as he was called, numbering alone 16,000. The companies on the hill appeared not more than a quarter of their real number, their chief force being concealed. Jaques de Bourbon, therefore, ordered an instant attack. The companies received the French with showers of large stones, of which the hill they occupied was a heap; and so vigorously were these missiles plied, that they kept the attacking army at bay, and even threw them into some disorder, when of a sudden the greater part of the force of the companies advancing in close column with their shortened pikes, "thick and bristling as a brush," says Froissart, took the royal troops in flank, and completely defeated them. Jaques de Bourbon and his son were so severely wounded that they subsequently died. The Arch-priest, also badly wounded, was taken with the greater part of the nobles present at the battle. The companies profited by the victory to capture the fortress of the Pont-St.-Esprit, which rendered them masters of the Rhone. From thence they made plundering excursions in every direction, especially towards Avignon, in which Pope and Cardinals were obliged carefully to keep themselves confined. His Holiness tried the old manoeuvre of preaching a crusade. But the noblesse were not to be tempted by papal indulgences to fight another battle of Brignais. And the brigands remained entire masters of that part of the country, until the Marquis of Montferrat hired their services against Milan. Nor was the west of France more tranquil. Bands from Brittany and Gascony ravaged both sides of the Loire; so that the communications between Paris, Orleans, and Chartres were completely intercepted.

Towards the end of 1361 the young Duke Philip of Burgundy expired, leaving no issue; his marriage with

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the young heiress of Flanders not having been consummated. The duke possessed not only Burgundy, but Franche Comté, Champagne, Artois, and Boulogne. Remote from England and from any alliance or intrigues hostile to the crown of France, the dukes of Burgundy had always been regarded by their sovereign relative with favour and without jealousy: hence their agglomeration of so many provinces by marriage. The old stock descended from the first Capetians was exhausted, leaving merely claimants who derived their rights through females. An ancestor of Duke Philip had three daughters, to whom the succession now reverted. The eldest had been Marguerite, the unfortunate queen of Louis Hutin, whose daughter, married to the King of Navarre, had conveyed to the representative of that family the best right to the Burgundian succession. King John, descended from the second sister, would admit no right to the King of Navarre, nor yet to the Count of Bar, descended from the third sister. John pleaded that he was nearer of kin than Charles of Navarre to the duke just deceased; and thus made use of the same claim to Burgundy that Edward the Third had done to France. John hastened to Dijon and installed himself there as duke, taking a solemn oath to respect all the privileges and rights of the duchy. Artois and Franche Comté returned to the Duchess Dowager of Flanders. John had no intention of uniting Burgundy to the crown, which he well knew would displease the Burgundians, accustomed from time immemorial to their native dukes and provincial independence. The truce which they concluded with Edward before the Treaty of Bretigny, is a proof how loose were the ties which bound them to Paris. John, therefore, some time after gave the duchy of Burgundy to his youngest son, Philip, who had been constantly by his side during the battle of Poitiers and his subsequent captivity. King John, indeed, assigned this reason for the gift. It was

fully acquiesced in by John's successor; and thus was founded that brilliant house of the Dukes of Burgundy of the second race, which reigned from the Scheldt to the Alps, and overshadowed and endangered the monarchy of France itself.

Desirous as John had been to escape from captivity, and to resume his power as king, he no sooner entered again upon the royal functions than they wearied and disgusted him; and his anxiety for the few remaining years of his reign was how to escape from them. These duties were neither pleasant nor glorious. His task was to persuade the populations between Loire and Garonne to fulfil the treaty of Bretigny, and surrender to the English. To rid the rest of his dominions of the mercenary companies was equally difficult. To raise money for the exigences of the state and for his own ransom was as impracticable, so unusual were the requirements, and so disinclined were the people to contribute to what seemed to be the national disgrace. In 1362, King John paid a visit to the Pope at Avignon, leaving his son Charles regent; and here he lingered during the whole winter and a greater part of the summer, engaged in pleasure more than in policy. For his assuming the cross along with the King of Cyprus at Avignon was rather a pretext for banqueting and ceremony than the prelude to serious enterprise. Nevertheless, this served as an excuse for demanding and expending money, which the regent, Charles, required for the defence of the kingdom against the Navarrese.

The King of Navarre, to whom fresh wrong had been done in the disposal of the Burgundian succession, was preparing for war, hiring the companies, and stirring up the English partisans. And whilst John was endeavouring to accomplish the stipulations of the treaty of Bretigny, several of his sons and nobles were already looking to a breach of them by a revival of the war. Many of them pined in England as hostages, although

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