Excerpt from The Historians of Scotland, Vol. 10

The fifteenth century dawned in France upon a scene of the most deplorable anarchy and wretchedness. The hundred years' war with England was fast drawing to its climax of disaster for France. The spirit of patriotism which such a war might have aroused had been crushed by the misrule of a line of incapable kings. The people, ground down by the constant exactions of the crown, and driven to desperation by the tyranny of the nobles, had repeatedly risen in revolts characterised by the most brutal atrocities, and these again had been suppressed with relentless cruelty. During the brief intervals of truce companies of disbanded soldiers scoured the country, commit ting the most frightful crimes, and living upon the plunder of the defenceless peasantry. To crown all, the madness of King Charles v1. Led to a struggle for the reins of government between the parties of Burgundy and Armagnac, which plunged the country into the horrors of a civil war stained with mutual treachery and assassination.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.