menaced Perigueux. One little town after another was pillaged. He
intercepted the merchants on the roads. At S. Laurent-du-Manoir his
captains added outrage to injury, for they took all the women of the
place, and cut off their skirts at the knees; and one who made
strenuous resistance they killed.

In 1385, the Seneschal of Perigord, in the name of the King of France,
ordered Archibald to desist from his acts of violence. When he refused,
his lands were declared confiscated. But who was to bell the cat? He
mocked at the sentence, and was roused to fresh incursions and
pillages. At last in 1391 the Parliament acted, and summoned the Count
to appear along with twenty-three of his accomplices before its bar "to
answer for having overrun with his troops the suburbs of Perigueux; for
having assaulted the city, and neighbouring places; for having wounded
and killed a great many persons; for having incarcerated others to
extort a ransom from them; for having, like common highwaymen, seized
cattle, fired granges, mills, houses; and for having committed crimes
so infamous, so ferocious, that one would feel pain to disclose them."

Archibald paid not the slightest regard to the summons or to the
sentence pronounced against him _in contumaciam_. The law could
not enforce its judgment, and six years later in 1397 he died. The King
refused to recognise his son Archibald VI. as Count of Perigord, but
Archibald disregarded the refusal, and openly sided with the English.
He successfully resisted the troops sent against him, and continued in
the same courses as his father. At last he was brought to bay in
Montignac, where he was constrained to capitulate. He was sent to
Charles VI., but effected his escape and fled to London in 1399. Thence
he returned in 1404, and captured Auberoche, much about the time of the
English victory at Agincourt. He died in undisturbed possession of his