civil dissensions of the most obstinate character, found the question
renewed for her of French versus English king-ship and national
independence versus foreign conquest.

On the 14th of August, 1415, an English fleet, having on board, together
with King Henry V., six thousand men-at-arms, twenty-four thousand
archers, powerful war-machines, and a multitude of artisans and "small
folk," came to land near Harfleur, not far from the mouth of the Seine.
It was the most formidable expedition that had ever issued from the ports
of England. The English spent several days in effecting their landing
and setting up their siege-train around the walls of the city. "It would
have been easy," says the monk of St. Denis, "to hinder their operations,
and the inhabitants of the town and neighborhood would have worked
thereat with zeal, if they had not counted that the nobility of the
district and the royal army commanded by the constable, Charles d'Albret,
would come to their aid." No one came. The burgesses and the small
garrison of Harfleur made a gallant defence; but, on the 22d of
September, not receiving from Vernon, where the king and the _dauphin_
were massing their troops, any other assistance than the advice to "take
courage and trust to the king's discretion," they capitulated; and Henry
V., after taking possession of the place, advanced into the country with
an army already much reduced by sickness, looking for a favorable point
at which to cross the Somme and push his invasion still farther. It was
not until the 19th of October that he succeeded, at Bethencourt, near St.
Quentin. Charles VI., who at that time had a lucid interval, after
holding at Rouen a council of war, at which it was resolved to give the
English battle, wished to repair with the _dauphin_, his son, to Bapaume,
where the French army had taken position; but his uncle, the Duke of
Berry, having still quite a lively recollection of the battle of
Poitiers, fought fifty-nine' years before, made opposition, saying,