FRANCE.

BURGUNDIANS AND ARMAGNACS.-The imbecility of Charles VI. left France without a ruler; but his uncles, after expelling the ministers, seized on the royal authority, and rendered the government odious by the divisions and quarrels which threatened the country with the greatest misfortunes. After some years of tyrannical administration, the state changed masters, without however receiving any change of fortune. Louis, duke of Orleans, his majesty's brother, supplanted his three uncles, and was proclaimed lieutenant-general of the kingdom. But this victory cost him dear, for when the Duke of Burgundy died, his son John-sans-Peur, a man of vindictive temper, resolved to destroy his father's rival; and the better to compass this end, he feigned to become reconciled to him. The two princes swore eternal friendship, and partook of the sacrament together; yet three days after, on 23d November 1407, Orleans was assassinated in the streets of Paris by the agents of the Duke of Burgundy. The murderer openly boasted of his crime, and a doctor of the Sorbonne was found to justify the deed. The unfortunate Louis left three legitimate sons, and the bastard Dunois, son of Mary of Enghien.

As these young men grew up, they determined to avenge their father's murder. Charles, the eldest, who had married the daughter of the Count of Armagnac, became the chief of the Orleanists, and from him they derived the name that characterized them in the civil wars which ensued. Hostilities began with the devastation of the environs of Paris, and to preserve this city, the Duke of Burgundy organized the faction of the Butchers, who, from the name of one of their chiefs, were denominated Cabochins, 1411. His rivals, now despairing of success, solicited the protection of Henry IV. of England, offering to fulfil the conditions of the treaty of Bretigny. This flagrant abandonment of the rights of France gave fresh power to the Duke of Burgundy, who induced the king to declare the Armagnacs enemies to the state. The royalist army marched into Berri against them, and a treaty was signed at Bourgess, which put an end to hostilities without bringing about a real conciliation; the fear of foreign invasion alone having temporarily united the two parties.

Meanwhile Henry V. had succeeded to the English crown, and on the refusal of the French princes to execute the treaty of Bretigny, he landed in Normandy with 30,000 men, took Harfleur, and endeavoured to march through Picardy to Calais. An army nearly ten times the amount of his own encountered him at Agincourt, 25th October 1415, and experienced a defeat more terrible than those of Cressy and Poitiers. Ten thousand French, among whom were seven princes and more than eight thousand gentlemen, perished on the field, while five princes and fourteen thousand men were made prisoners.

This loss increased in an extraordinary degree the unpopularity of the Armagnacs, and the Parisians took a very active part in the revolt against their party, great numbers of whom were put into confinement. In June 1418, the prisons were broken open, and all immured there were slain one by one as they came out. The Count of Armagnac, father-inlaw of the dauphin, the chancellor, seven prelates, with peers and magistrates of the parliament, were dragged from their dungeons and

massacred. In one prison some resistance was made; but the edifice being at last set on fire, the inmates surrendered; and the populace rushing in, compelled them to precipitate themselves out of the windows upon pikes held below. Three thousand five hundred persons are stated to have perished in three days.

The cruelty of the Burgundians was not atoned for by any valour or activity in their party, whose unpopularity was farther increased by the conclusion of a treaty with the English. Circumstances, however, occurred that induced the duke to seek a reconciliation with the dauphin, for which purpose a meeting was appointed to take place at the bridge of Montereau, on the Yonne, where he was assassinated by the attendants of the prince. The latter, though probably innocent of this treacherous act, was abandoned by the majority of the nation, and experienced a new enemy in Philip the Good, who had succeeded to the vast possessions of his father. The young duke, forming an alliance with Isabella of Bavaria and the king of England, procured Henry's signature to the treaty of Troyes, 1420, by which, on the marriage of the latter with Catherine, daughter of Charles VI., he was to be declared regent of the kingdom, and to succeed to the throne on that monarch's death, in despite of the claims of the dauphin. In the midst of his glory, and when his expectations of conquering all France were highest, Henry V. died at the castle of Vincennes in 1422; and the same year beheld the close of the unfortunate reign of Charles in circumstances of great depression.

CHARLES VII. was crowned at Poitiers, where he organized a parlia ment and university from among the members of those bodies who had left Paris when the English entered it in triumph. Amused by the little court he had assembled round him, he forgot the loss of his provinces amid balls and gayeties, which soon exhausted his scanty treasury. During these festivities, the Duke of Brittany declared for the English, and notwithstanding the victory of Marshal la Fayette at Baugé, in 1421, the Scottish auxiliary troops in the service of Charles were defeated at Crevant, and again at Verneuil, 1424; the city of Orleans, which defended the passage of the Loire, was already closely invested, and the king proposed to retire into the southern provinces, when several "unexpected events turned the current of affairs.**

JOAN OF ARC.-On the death of Henry V. of England, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester had been appointed guardians of his son, Henry VI.; the former to have the regency of France, the latter that of England. At this epoch there appeared one of the most remarkable enthu siasts that history has commemorated. Joan of Arc, a village girl of Domremy in Lorraine, was the daughter of poor and industrious parents. Her early years had been employed in tending cattle, and the solitude in which much of her time was passed seems to have fostered a disposition naturally religious and enthusiastic. The degradation of her country had so deeply impressed her mind, that she was persuaded heaven had commissioned her to effect its deliverance. Encouraged, as she

*Few states have ever been in a more wretched condition than France at this period. To the north of the Loire the country appeared to be one vast scene of desolation,theft and open robbery being the chief occupations of the inhabitants. Charles was acknowledged king only by the central provinces, and by Languedoc, Poitou, and Dauphiny.

fondly imagined, by angelic voices, she determined to declare to the king her mission; and though she met with great opposition, at length appeared before Charles, who at first treated her as a visionary. Persisting, however, in her declaration that she was delegated by Catherine, her patron saint, to raise the siege of Orleans, and to crown her native monarch in Rheims, at that time in the hands of the enemy, she obtained a party of troops for the relief of the besieged town, 1428. With the veteran Dunois at her side, she succeeded in making her way into the city, when the assailants retired, a prey to superstitious terrors, not less strongly felt by Talbot and Chandos than by the meanest soldiers under their command. In the course of the next year, she had the gratification of seeing her sovereign consecrated in the cathedral of Rheims. She was soon after taken prisoner by the Burgundians, while endeavouring to raise the siege of Compiegne; and John of Luxemburg surrendered her to the Duke of Bedford for a large sum of money. At Rouen she was burned on a charge of witchcraft in 1431, it having been declared that the defeats of the English "were caused by the unlawful doubt that they had of a disciple and limb of the fiend, called the Pucelle, who had used false enchantments and sorcery.'

With the king every thing now appeared to prosper: the Duke of Burgundy entered into an alliance with him; his victorious troops reentered Paris in 1437; and if a few other places remained in the hands of the English, it was owing entirely to the discontent of the dauphin, Louis, and some turbulent nobles. A brief civil war, called the Praguerie, interrupted for a season the triumphant progress of his arms; and in 1444, a suspension of hostilities, concluded at Tours, left several towns in possession of the enemy for a brief period. Charles took advantage of this interval of repose to re-organize his army, and to negotiate the marriage of Margaret of Anjou with Henry VI.,-a union unfavourable to England, as it caused both the loss of the French provinces and civil wars that lasted half a century. The queen brought no dowry to her husband, who, although crowned in his infancy King of France and England, was fated to expire dethroned. The Duke of Suffolk, who had risen to high rank by the favour of the king, found it necessary to make peace with France, and even renounced, in his master's name, all title to Maine and Anjou. As he did not venture to make a public avowal of these shameful transactions, he still maintained garrisons in the two provinces; but Charles, who did not understand the policy of Suffolk, renewed hostilities in 1448. Dunois conquered all Normandy; while Richemont destroyed at Formigny the only English army that could arrest his progress. The taking of Rouen, Cherbourg, and Harfleur, in 1450, and, next year, of Bayonne and Bordeaux, left Calais alone in the hands of Henry VI. Thus France became suddenly

*If the cruel fate of Joan of Arc be a stain on the glory of England, what can be said of Charles VII. and his friends, who abandoned her to languish in captivity, and to perish at the stake? No ransom was offered for her, no attempt made to alleviate the rigour of her confinement, no notice was taken of her execution. An ingenious writer in the Monthly Magazine has recently endeavoured to prove that she did not suffer execution, and that she was afterwards received at Orleans with due honours; that she was acknowledged by her brothers Jean and Pierre, and afterwards married to a gentleman of the house of Ambois, in 1436; and that, on their solicitation, her sentence was annulled in 1456. The curious in such matters are referred to the work of M. Palluche, Problême Hist. sur la Pucelle d'Orléans, or to the last volume of the Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc, surnommée la Pucelle, by Lebrun de Charmettes, 4 vols. Paris, 1817.

freed from her foreign enemies. Charles recompensed the faithful instruments of his success; and a profound peace, with a paternal government and wise legislation, promised to heal the wounds of the country, when the king found his life endangered by the wickedness of his son, which in some degree accelerated his death in 1461.

Charles VII. was a good king, but, in the earlier part of his life, appears to have been of an easy disposition, so that it was remarked of him, that no one could lose a kingdom with greater gayety. But when the tide of affairs turned, and success followed the enthusiastic appearance of Joan of Arc, he equalled his greatest captains in activity and courage. It was he who first provided for the security of the throne and kingdom by a standing army, and by his vigour asserted the supremacy of the law. The bastard of Bourbon, condemned to death, was put into a sack and thrown into the river. The Duke of Alençon, accused of corresponding with the English, was sentenced to die; and though the extreme penalty was remitted in consequence of his royal blood, he was confined in the castle of Loches, near Tours. Charles endeavoured to assimilate the customs of the different provinces; and the celebrated Pragmatic Sanction, long the bulwark of the Gallican church, was his work.

Louis XI., 1461.—The reign of this monarch was one continued struggle against the great vassals. He had scarcely ascended the throne before he displaced all his father's ministers, and restored those who had been disgraced. The result of these measures tending to repress the nobility, was the formation of a league "for the public good," at the head of which was placed Charles, duke of Berri, a youth not more than sixteen, 1464. The battle of Montlhéri, fought the next year, was indecisive; but as Paris remained faithful, the king's power was unshaken. He thought it prudent, however, to come to terms with his antagonists; and the treaties of Conflans and Saint Maur were concluded. The conditions were fulfilled by neither party; in fact, Louis never intended to observe them, wishing merely to gain time for sowing dissension among the confederate princes. Misunderstandings between the Duke of Brit tany and the new ruler of Normandy soon furnished the desired opportunity; and Monsieur (for so the king's brother began to be called) lost his government within a few weeks of his investiture, 1465.

CHARLES THE BOLD.. A more formidable danger threatened Louis when the dukedom of Burgundy fell to Charles, count of Charolais, on the death of his father Philip the Good in 1467. The French king was marching against the Duke of Brittany, who persisted in holding certain towns in Normandy, which had been declared by the assembly at Tours to be a fief inseparable from the crown, when Charles hastened from his residence in Brussels to the support of his ally. On reaching the Somme, he learnt that negotiations had been commenced, and that his imposing force would be compelled to remain inactive. While he was waiting for the arrangement of affairs, Louis roused a formidable enemy in his states, which compelled him to retire. The bishopric of Liege, containing twenty-six towns, yielded reluctant obedience to a prelate nominated by the duke; for, although it was situated in the Low Countries, it was a fief of the empire. Louis, by his emissaries, excited the people to revolt, at the same time that he accepted an invitation to meet Charles at Peronne, in 1468. To this place the king resorted with few attendants; and when the news of the insurrection at Liege, with the murder of the bishop, reached the duke, he kept Louis a prisoner until he signed a treaty confirming those of Arras and Conflans. After a des

perate resistance, the insurgents were compelled to submit. Their town was carried by assault; the inhabitants were drowned or massacred without distinction of person or sex; and the city itself was burnt to the ground.

The destruction of Liege and the abolition of the privileges of Ghent, allowed Charles to turn his views abroad. At this period new commotions were taking place in England, in which the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy interposed,-Louis favouring Lancaster, as the French party; while Charles, married to the sister of Edward IV., supported the Yorkists. The objects of the ambitious duke were twofold: he wished to re-establish the ancient kingdom of Burgundy, by re-uniting to his present dominions the states of Lorraine, Provence, Dauphiny, and Switzerland; and, secondly, he aimed, in concert with the English, at the dismemberment of France and the conquest of Champagne and Nivernois.

Charles entered Lorraine with 40,000 men, and, having reduced it, turned his arms against the Swiss, 1476. His valiant cavalry were defeated at Granson, and at Morat, by a half-disciplined army of peasants. Before he had recovered from these reverses, René of Vaudeinont reconquered Lorraine; and the duke was roused from the melancholy state into which he had fallen, to attempt its reduction anew. With all the forces he could muster he hastened to besiege Nancy, leaving an Italian, named Campo-Basso, to direct the operations; and this traitor having deserted with a portion of the troops under his command, Charles was forced to give battle with scarcely 4000 men. On the 5th January 1477, during a heavy fall of snow, the duke began the engagement; his small army was soon overwhelmed by numbers, and he himself fell, after having performed prodigies of valour. "Thus perished," says Duclos, "at the age of forty-four years, Charles, last duke of Burgundy, who had no virtues but those of a soldier. He was ambitious, daring, and rash, the enemy of peace, and always thirsting for blood. He ruined his house by his foolish enterprises, caused the misery of his subjects, and merited his misfortunes."

Louis immediately seized on the towns along the Somme, on Burgundy as a male fief (for Charles had left only a daughter, Mary), and on Besançon, altogether nearly two-thirds of the late duke's territories. Flanders and Artois having declared in favour of the princess, the king proceeded against them, when the youthful heiress was subjected to the insolence of the revolted burghers of Ghent, who wished her to marry Adolphus of Gueldres, an object of universal execration. But this person dying in battle, Mary, to shield herself from further persecution, united herself, in 1477, to Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick III., and hence commenced the rivalry of the houses of France and Austria. Louis, on discovering the error he had committed in allowing her to espouse a foreigner, marched into Flanders, and, after a temporary advantage, was defeated at Guinegate. Negotiations, truces, and intrigues followed, interrupted only by the death of the archduchess, who left two children; Philip, whose marriage with Joanna of Castile gave Spain to the house of Austria, and a princess named Margaret. Maximilian lost all by the death of his wife; and the citizens of Ghent, assuming the guardianship of her children, forced the archduke to make peace with Louis. By the treaty of Arras, in 1482, it was stipulated that Margaret