Note 78 — Chapter XX

Footnote 78: The words of the writer of that history are too clear and forcible to justify us in merely quoting their substance. The very title of his chapter directs our attention to the point. "Henry, King of England, constrained by his subjects to renew his pretension to the crown of France, makes a great movement." "The present year, on the incidents of which I proceed to remark, seems to me not less full of troubles and evils than any of those which preceded it. It commenced by a rumour, sudden but true, and which spread itself everywhere, that the English, impatient of repose, blaming for carelessness and want of heart the repose and inactivity of their King Henry, had compelled him to arouse himself, and to revive by the same means the pretensions of some of his predecessors on the crown of France." "Les Anglais, impatiens de repos à leur ordinance, blâmans de nonchalance et de manque de coeur le repos et l'oisiveté de leur Roi Henri, l'avaient obligé de se reveiller."—M. Laboureur, Life of Charles VI, translated from the Latin of a contemporary ecclesiastic. Whatever be the degree of authority to which this author is entitled, whilst he supplies the letters on which the accusation alone is founded, he as expressly contradicts, by positive assertion, the inference now drawn from those letters.(back)