France." (2) One day, at "Dover-on-the-Sea," he looked
across the straits, and saw the sandhills about Calais. And

it happened to him, he tells us in a ballade, to remember his
happiness over there in the past; and he was both sad and

merry at the recollection, and could not have his fill of
gazing on the shores of France. (3) Although guilty of

unpatriotic acts, he had never been exactly unpatriotic in
feeling. But his sojourn in England gave, for the time at

least, some consistency to what had been a very weak and
ineffectual prejudice. He must have been under the influence

of more than usually solemn considerations, when he proceeded
to turn Henry's puritanical homily after Agincourt into a

ballade, and reproach France, and himself by implication,
with pride, gluttony, idleness, unbridled covetousness, and

sensuality. (4) For the moment, he must really have been
thinking more of France than of Charles of Orleans.

(1) DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS.
(2) Works (ed. d'Hericault), i. 43.

(3) IBID. 143.
(4) Works (ed. d'Hericault), i. 190.

And another lesson he learned. He who was only to be
released in case of peace, begins to think upon the

disadvantages of war. "Pray for peace," is his refrain: a
strange enough subject for the ally of Bernard d'Armagnac.

(1) But this lesson was plain and practical; it had one side
in particular that was speciallyattractive for Charles; and

he did not hesitate to explain it in so many words.
"Everybody," he writes - I translateroughly - "everybody

should be much inclined to peace, for everybody has a deal to
gain by it." (2)

(1) IBID. 144.
(2) IBID. 158.

Charles made laudable endeavours to acquire English, and even
learned to write a rondel in that tongue of quite average

mediocrity. (1) He was for some time billeted on the unhappy
Suffolk, who received fourteen shillings and fourpence a day

for his expenses; and from the fact that Suffolk afterwards
visited Charles in France while he was negotiating the

marriage of Henry VI., as well as the terms of that
nobleman's impeachment, we may believe there was some not

unkindly intercourse between the prisoner and his gaoler: a
fact of considerable interest when we remember that Suffolk's

wife was the granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. (2)
Apart from this, and a mere catalogue of dates and places,

only one thing seems evident in the story of Charles's
captivity. It seems evident that, as these five-and-twenty

years drew on, he became less and less resigned.
Circumstances were against the growth of such a feeling. One

after another of his fellow-prisoners was ransomed and went
home. More than once he was himself permitted to visit

France; where he worked on abortive treaties and showed
himself more eager for his own deliverance than for the

profit of his native land. Resignation may follow after a
reasonable time upon despair; but if a man is persecuted by a

series of brief and irritating hopes, his mind no more
attains to a settled frame of resolution, than his eye would

grow familiar with a night of thunder and lightning. Years
after, when he was speaking at the trial of that Duke of

Alencon, who began life so hopefully as the boyish favourite
of Joan of Arc, he sought to prove that captivity was a

harder punishment than death. "For I have had experience
myself," he said; "and in my prison of England, for the

weariness, danger, and displeasure in which I then lay, I
have many a time wished I had been slain at the battle where

they took me." (3) This is a flourish, if you will, but it
is something more. His spirit would sometimes rise up in a

fine anger against the petty desires and contrarieties of
life. He would compare his own condition with the quiet and

dignified estate of the dead; and aspire to lie among his
comrades on the field of Agincourt, as the Psalmist prayed to

have the wings of a dove and dwell in the uttermost parts of
the sea. But such high thoughts came to Charles only in a

flash.
(1) M. Champollion-Figeac gives many in his editions of

Charles's works, most (as I should think) of very doubtful
authenticity, or worse.

(2) Rymer, x. 564. D'Hericault's MEMOIR, p. xli. Gairdner's
PASTON LETTERS, i. 27, 99.

(3) Champollion-Figeac, 377.
John the Fearless had been murdered in his turn on the bridge

of Montereau so far back as 1419. His son, Philip the Good -
partly to extinguish the feud, partly that he might do a

popular action, and partly, in view of his ambitious schemes,
to detach another great vassal from the throne of France -

had taken up the cause of Charles of Orleans, and negotiated
diligently for his release. In 1433 a Burgundian embassy was

admitted to an interview with the captive duke, in the
presence of Suffolk. Charles shook hands most affectionately

with the ambassadors. They asked after his health. "I am
well enough in body," he replied, "but far from well in mind.

I am dying of grief at having to pass the best days of my
life in prison, with none to sympathise." The talk falling

on the chances of peace, Charles referred to Suffolk if he
were not sincere and constant in his endeavours to bring it

about. "If peace depended on me," he said, "I should procure
it gladly, were it to cost me my life seven days after." We

may take this as showing what a large price he set, not so
much on peace, as on seven days of freedom. Seven days! - he

would make them seven years in the employment. Finally, he
assured the ambassadors of his good will to Philip of

Burgundy; squeezed one of them by the hand and nipped him
twice in the arm to signify things unspeakable before

Suffolk; and two days after sent them Suffolk's barber, one
Jean Carnet, a native of Lille, to testify more freely of his

sentiments. "As I speak French," said this emissary, "the
Duke of Orleans is more familiar with me than with any other

of the household; and I can bear witness he never said
anything against Duke Philip." (1) It will be remembered

that this person, with whom he was so anxious to stand well,
was no other than his hereditary enemy, the son of his

father's murderer. But the honest fellow bore no malice,
indeed not he. He began exchanging ballades with Philip,

whom he apostrophises as his companion, his cousin, and his
brother. He assures him that, soul and body, he is

altogether Burgundian; and protests that he has given his
heart in pledge to him. Regarded as the history of a

vendetta, it must be owned that Charles's life has points of
some originality. And yet there is an engaging frankness

about these ballades which disarms criticism. (2) You see
Charles throwing himself headforemost into the trap; you hear

Burgundy, in his answers begin to inspire him with his own
prejudices, and draw melancholy pictures of the misgovernment

of France. But Charles's own spirits are so high and so
amiable, and he is so thoroughly convinced his cousin is a

fine fellow, that one's scruples are carried away in the
torrent of his happiness and gratitude. And his would be a

sordid spirit who would not clap hands at the consummation
(Nov. 1440); when Charles, after having sworn on the

Sacrament that he would never again bear arms against
England, and pledged himself body and soul to the unpatriotic

faction in his own country, set out from London with a light
heart and a damaged integrity.

(1) Dom Plancher, iv. 178-9.
(2) Works, i. 157-63.