the remainder from a foreign yoke. Nor was this her sole danger.
The princes who possessed the grand fiefs of the crown, and, in
particular, the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, had come to wear
their feudal bonds so lightly that they had no scruple in lifting
the standard against their liege and sovereign lord, the King of
France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they reigned as
absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of Burgundy,
possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest and
richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful,
as to yield nothing to the crown, either in splendour or in strength.

In imitation of the grand feudatories, each inferior vassal of
the crown assumed as much independence as his distance from the
sovereign power, the extent of his fief, or the strength of his
chateau enabled him to maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer
amenable to the exercise of the law, perpetrated with impunity the
wildest excesses of fantastic oppression and cruelty. In Auvergne
alone, a report was made of more than three hundred of these
independent nobles, to whom incest, murder, and rapine were the
most ordinary and familiar actions.

Besides these evils, another, springing out of the long continued
wars betwixt the French and English, added no small misery to this
distracted kingdom. Numerous bodies of soldiers, collected into
bands, under officers chosen by themselves, from among the bravest
and most successful adventurers, had been formed in various parts
of France out of the refuse of all other countries. These hireling
combatants sold their swords for a time to the best bidder; and,
when such service was not to be had, they made war on their own
account, seizing castles and towers, which they used as the places