A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
page 57 of 392 (14%)
page 57 of 392 (14%)
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Nevers; and he sent forthwith a herald to the King of England, who was
still at Calais, with orders to say, that in consequence of the death of his brother, the Duke of Brabant, who was no vassal of France, and held nothing in fief there, he, the Duke of Burgundy, did defy him mortally (fire and sword) and sent him his gauntlet. "I will not accept the gauntlet of so noble and puissant a prince as the Duke of Burgundy," was Henry V.'s soft answer; "I am of no account compared with him. If I have had the victory over the nobles of France, it is by God's grace. The death of the Duke of Brabant hath been an affliction to me; but I do assure thee that neither I nor my people did cause his death. Take back to thy master his gauntlet; if he will be at Boulogne on the 15th of January next, I will prove to him by the testimony of my prisoners and two of my friends, that it was the French who accomplished his brother's destruction." The Duke of Burgundy, as a matter of course, let his quarrel with the King of England drop, and occupied himself for the future only in recovering his power in France. He set out on the march for Paris, proclaiming everywhere that he was assembling his army solely for the purpose of avenging the kingdom, chastising the English, and aiding the king with his counsels and his forces. The sentiment of nationality was so strongly aroused that politicians most anxious about their own personal interests, and about them alone, found themselves obliged to pay homage to it. Unfortunately, it was, so far as Duke John was concerned, only a superficial and transitory homage. There is no repentance so rarely seen as that of selfishness in pride and power. The four years which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and the death of John the Fearless were filled with nothing but fresh and still more tragic explosions of hatred |
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