great weaknesses and deep-seated corruption in mind and character.
Nevertheless the revulsion against the treaty of Troyes was real and
serious, even in the very heart of the party attached to the Duke of
Burgundy. He was obliged to lay upon several of his servants formal
injunctions to swear to this peace, which seemed to them treason. He had
great difficulty in winning John of Luxembourg and his brother Louis,
Bishop of Therouenne, over to it. "It is your will," said they; "we will
take this oath; but if we do, we will keep it to the hour of death."
Many less powerful lords, who had lived a long while in the household of
Duke John the Fearless, quitted his son, and sorrowfully returned to
their own homes. They were treated as Armagnacs, but they persisted in
calling themselves good and loyal Frenchmen. In the duchy of Burgundy
the majority of the towns refused to take the oath to the King of
England. The most decisive and the most helpful proof of this awakening
of national feeling was the ease experienced by the _dauphin_, who was
one day to be Charles VII., in maintaining the war which, after the
treaty of Troyes, was, in his father's and his mother's name, made upon
him by the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy. This war lasted
more than three years. Several towns, amongst others, Melun, Crotoy,
Meaux, and St. Riquier, offered an obstinate resistance to the attacks of
the English and Burgundians. On the 23d of March, 1421, the _dauphin_'s
troops, commanded by Sire de la Fayette, gained a signal victory over
those of Henry V., whose brother, the Duke of Clarence, was killed in
action. It was in Perche, Anjou, Maine, on the banks of the Loire, and
in Southern France, that the _dauphin_ found most of his enterprising and
devoted partisans. The sojourn made by Henry V. at Paris, in December,
1420, with his wife, Queen Catherine, King Charles VI., Queen Isabel, and
the Duke of Burgundy, was not, in spite of galas and acclamations, a
substantial and durable success for him. His dignified but haughty
manners did not please the French; and he either could not or would not