A variety of events of greater or less importance, such as an unsuc cessful expedition of the French to Tunis, under the Duke of Bourbon, the king's maternal uncle; a projected expedition against Tunis, and subsequently against Rome, by Charles himself; an unsuccessful attack on the Viscount of Milan by the Count of Armagnac ; a vain negociation for peace with England, which issued only in the prolongation of the existing truce ; and an illness of the king, the precursor, it is likely, of his subsequent malady, occupied the succeeding period to the spring of the year 1392. In that year an attempt was made to assassinate De Clisaon, and the Duke of Bretagne, if he did not instigate the crime, protected the criminal. This determined Charles to march against him; and it was in this march that the insanity manifested itself, which rendered Charles for the rest of his reign a mere tool in the hands of others. He had indeed brief lucid intervals, and there seemed, on one occasion, a prospect of recovery, when an accident at a masquerade, in 1393, by which he was nearly burnt to death, occasioned a relapse.
The period which succeeded the king's insanity was mainly occupied in a struggle for that power which he was no longer able to wield, between the Duke of Orleans, his brother, and the Duke of Burgogne, the most energetic and ambitious of his uncles. The latter established a preponderant authority, though not without many fluctuations. He chased from court and despoiled of his office the Constable de Clisson; who retired to his estates in Bretagne, and carried on hostilities against his old enemy, the duke of that province, until 1395, when a treaty terminated their difference. By an edict issued in 1394 the Jews were banished from France: this edict continued unrepealed for centuries. The year 1396 was marked by the marriage of Richard IL of England with the daughter of Charles ; but the deposition of the bridegroom, two or three years afterwards, and the tender age of the bride, rendered it only a marriage in form. The same year was marked by the unfortunate expedition of the Count of Nevers against the Turks, and by the submission of Genoa to France. The Genoese however ehook off the French yoke in 1409. The hatred which the Duke of Bourgogne entertained against the Duke of Orleans was marked by his encouraging the popular belief that the Duchess of Orleans had caused the king's disease by magic, and by his supporting the Genoese against the Viscount of Milan, the father of the duchess. Upon the death of the Duke of Bourgogne in 1404, his power, and his rivalry, descended to his son, more ambitious and unscrupulous than his father.
The death of the Duke of Bourgogne threw the reins of government for a time into the hands of the Duke of (Wane, to whom publio opinion imputed too great intimacy with the queen, and whose luxury and thoughtlessness exhausted the revenues of the crown, while his manifestations of hostility against Henry IV. of England would have led probably to a renewal of the war, had not Henry's attention been fully taken up in securing his usurped throne. It is to be observed that the hostilities between the two nations had been suspended by a succession of truces rather than closed by a definitive treaty. The Duke of Bourgogne, who was regarded by the commonalty, especially of Paris, as the champion of their liberties, having acquired, in 1405, possession of the persons of the king and the dauphin Louis, began to gain the ascendancy over Orleans ; a reconciliation, cordial in appear ance, was effected, but their hatred continued to rankle, until it was revealed by the murder of the latter by the former, in 1407.
We pass over the subsequent struggles between the factions of the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs, as the rival party was designated, the warfare and massacres to which they led, and the negotiations of the Armagnacs with the King of England, in order to come to the invasion of France by Henry V. of England, who had lately succeeded his father Henry IV. on the throne. Henry V. had negotiated for the hand of Catherine, daughter of Chnrlea, and demanded as her portion the arrears of the ransom of King John, and all the provinces which had been ceded to the English by the treaty of Bretigny; while Charles was not willing to give more than 800,000 crowns, and the duchy or principality of Aquitaine, as it had been possessed by Edward the Black Prince ; refusing to give up the other territories which by that treaty had been ceded to England. A rupture was evidently and the domestic troubles of France were increased by the dauphin, who at this conjuncture seized the reigns of government, and alieuated the leaders of both the contending factions. The Armagnacs however rallied round him for the defence of their country against foreign invasion, and to their party belonged the long list of nobles and gentlemen who fell in the disastrous battle of Agincourt (1415). The dauphin died shortly after this, and was survived little more than a year by his next brother, Jean, to whom the title devolved : on the death of Jean it came to a still younger brother, Charles, afterwards Charles VII. The Armagnac faction now predominated, and the peeleatinatee was exeroleed with remorselees oppreselveneas by the Cutest of Annagnee, unstable of France. 111s measure. stimulated the Pariaiane to support the Doke of Iturgogne, who was also aided by gee Queen Isabelle of Muerte, whom for her lieentiousness the Armagnac. bad exiled to Tours: the Bourguignons consequently anr priaal the capital, the dregs of the populace mu and ferociously muniered Armagnac and his partisans, including many bishops and pavans of rank, and many of inferior degree. The king fall into their hand., and the young dauphin was resorted only by the vigour and activity of Tannegui de Chalet (111S). The dauphin established his court at Poitiers; and the retained Paris; while Non =untie was overran, and its capital, Rouen, taken by Henry V.(1419). The 'subsequent asaassination of the Duke of Bourgogne at Mentereau threw his party foto the arms of the and led to the treaty of Troyes, by which the administration of France was placed in the hands of Henry V., and his animation to the throne, upon the death of Charles. was stipulated. He married the Princess Catherine, and preeeeuted the war vigorously and successfully against the dauphin, who was driven to take refuge in the southern provinces. During the abeam of Henry in England, an English army, under the Duke of Clarence, was defeated at Range, but on ifenrfe return the English regained their superiority, and held it till their king's death, 31st of August 1422. Charles survived him only a few weeks, dying on the 21st of October in the same year, after a long and disastrous reign of forty-two years.