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tifying it. He sent all the knights captive to England, CHAP. and expelled a certain number of the other French townsmen, replacing them by English. He induced thirty-six rich citizens of London, with their families, to settle there, with three hundred of lesser condition, bestowing upon them several privileges and advantages. He fixed at Calais the staple of tin, lead, and woollen cloth, and prohibited all persons from exporting or shipping these commodities to England, unless they took oath to unship them at Calais. Eustace of St. Pierre was amongst the French citizens who remained and recovered their property, on transferring their allegiance to the English king. His heirs afterwards forfeited the property by refusing this allegiance.

The

The Papal legates seized this opportunity of renewing their efforts to bring about an accommodation between the monarchs. The capture of Calais, indeed, rendered terms of peace more difficult to arrange; but that event, with the campaign which preceded it, rendered a peace desirable on both sides. Edward consented, although Rymer contains many proofs of his intention. to sail again to the continent and renew the war. truce was at first concluded for two months, but was extended from time to time, the monarchs being occupied with other cares. It was a cessation but from great expeditions and large armies, for partisans on both sides did not relax in their schemes to surprise and their efforts to hurt. Although Scotland was included in the truce, Douglas would not keep the peace; neither would French or English in Gascony. The brigands, as foot soldiers were called, associated in bands of thirty or forty, to pillage towns, surprise castles, and then sell them for large sums. King Philip did not disdain thus to purchase the castle of Combourne from the brigand, Bacon, for 24,000 livres. This brigand, says Froissart," was as well armed and mounted as any

CHAP. knight in the army, and in as great honour with the king."

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The truce was not even observed between the now hostile towns of Calais and St. Omers. Geoffrey of Charny, who commanded for Philip in the latter place, hearing that Edward had entrusted the command in Calais to an Italian, Aimery di Pavia, made offers of many thousand florins, if he would betray the town. Pavia pretended to consent, but warned Edward, who came with his son, the Black Prince, and a body of archers and men-at-arms. Pavia, by the king's order, allowed a division of the French to pass the bridge and enter the fortifications, where they were instantly surrounded and taken prisoners. And then Edward and his son attacked the French under Charny, routing, slaying, and capturing the greater number. The king himself in the fray had a personal encounter with Eustace de Ribeaumont, whom he compelled to surrender, and to whom he afterwards presented a chaplet adorned with pearls, as a token of friendship and admiration.

In Brittany the lieutenants of King Philip were not more successful than at Calais. Charles of Blois himself had set the truce at nought by an attack upon the castle of Roche Darien. Whilst thus engaged, he was come upon unawares by the forces of the De Montfort party, his army routed, himself severely wounded, and taken prisoner. From Brittany he was sent to Eng

land.

A more general renewal of the war was rendered impossible by the eruption of the plague, which in the summer of 1348 carried off large numbers, first in the south of France, from whence it extended to Paris and the towns of the north. Tumours under the arm and in the groin were the peculiarities of the disease, which almost always proved fatal. Out of twenty persons in a village, says a chronicler, not two remained. The

towns of the south were especially depopulated, such as Narbonne, Montpelier, and Avignon. The Laura of Petrarch was amongst the victims. According to Boccacio, 100,000 persons perished at Florence. Eight hundred died each day in Paris; where the loss could thus not have been less. The continuator of Nangis bears testimony to the noble courage of the sisters of the Hospital of Paris, who never flagged in their exertions, though their numbers were several times renewed during the pestilence. Amongst the consequences of the epidemic are mentioned a great scarcity of provisions and a complete suspense of education from the lack of teachers.

Whilst France was thus ravaged by pestilence and humiliated by defeat, Philip succeeded in annexing to the monarchy the important province of Dauphiné, which lay between its possessions of Burgundy and Provence, and gave France the entire region westward of the Alps. The two contiguous principalities and dynasties of Savoy and of Dauphiné had started up and grown together in continued rivalry. Although the Savoy princes were defeated in one great battle, they were still more than a match for the dauphins, as the princes who kept their court at Vienne were called from the arms they had assumed. The dauphin had recourse to the aid of the King of France; and, by degrees, the protection which these afforded grew into suzerainty. Humbert, the last dauphin, was a strange and capricious character; he had the misfortune to have let fall from a window of his castle his only son, the child being dashed to pieces as he fell. This misfortune disturbed the reason of the prince, who determined to proceed to the Holy Land, and sell or mortgage his possessions in order to raise funds for the purpose. He began by selling lands, which he possessed in Normandy, to John, duke of this province. At last the dauphin consented to sell the reversion of the principality. He

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CHAP. agreed to appoint the second son of Philip of Valois, Philip of Orleans, as his future heir, in the event of his having no children.

This treaty, so advantageous to France, was concluded in 1343, and Humbert took his departure for Palestine. None ever expected to see the return of so witless a prince. The dauphin, however, did return, not only to resume the government of his paternal dominion, but to regret the reckless manner in which he had alienated the independence of Dauphiné. He began to seek to extricate himself from his engagements. Edward the Third tried to induce the Emperor of Germany to confer upon Humbert the title of King; but, surrounded by the power and the emissaries of France, the dauphin was not able to shake off his dependency. He was finally induced to transfer his adoption to Charles, son of John, Duke of Normandy, heir to the French throne. This was the future Charles the Fifth. Having accomplished this act, Humbert withdrew to a convent, whilst young Charles assumed the title of Dauphin, and the possession of that rich province.

The plague of this year had been peculiarly fatal to princesses. Edward lost a daughter, whom he was sending to be betrothed to a prince of Castille. The Queen of France, Jeanne of Burgundy, the Duchess of Normandy, wife of Prince John, and daughter of the King of Bohemia, the Queen of Navarre, daughter of Louis Hutin, perished under its influence. But no sooner had the pestilence disappeared, than marriage and its accompanying festivities became the order of the day. "The world," says the Chronicler, "was renewed, but, unfortunately, not bettered; the enemies of France and of the Church no fewer, or less powerful."

King Philip espoused a young wife, daughter of the Queen of Navarre, just deceased. This princess, Blanche by name, had been destined to the Duke of Normandy; but the king, his father, found her beautiful, and married

her himself. The Duke of Normandy married a Duchess of Burgundy, and the Dauphin, Charles, espoused a daughter of the Duke of Bourbon. Thus were celebrated the marriages of three generations of princes.

Philip of Valois did not long survive his inarriage with Blanche. He took ill, and expired at Nogent in August, 1350. The continuator of Nangis relates, that he called his sons, the Duke of Normandy, and Philip of Orleans, afterwards of Valois, to his bedside, and pointed out to them the validity of his right to the crown, and the necessity of defending it strenuously, and without any concession, against Edward of England, with whom the truce was about to expire.

Philip of Valois was the first prince of truly chivalrous spirit that ascended the throne of France. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded at a period when chivalry was insufficient either to illustrate the warrior or achieve great results in war. Unfortunately, too, he derived from his predecessors those unscrupulous habits of wreaking vengeance and spilling blood, which they were taught to consider their sovereign right. As if royal power and descent cancelled every crime, and consecrated even the basest treachery and felony. French kings are lauded by their countrymen for having considered themselves above feudalism. Feudalism, however, had its laws of honour and its sense of right; with these, unfortunately, French kings too soon and too completely dispensed.

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