Alan Chartier, whilst deploring the public woes,
excited the popular feeling. Conspiracies soon followed the songs. One
was set on foot at Paris to deliver the city to king Charles VII., but it
was stifled ruthlessly; several burgesses were beheaded, and one woman
was burned. In several great provincial cities, at Troyes and at Rheims,
the same ferment showed itself, and drew down the same severity. William
Prieuse, superior of the Carmelites, was accused of propagating
sentiments favorable to the _dauphin_, as the English called Charles VII.
Being brought, in spite of the privileges of his gown, before John
Cauchon, lieutenant of the captain of Rheims [related probably to Peter
Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who nine years afterwards was to sentence
Joan of Arc to be burned], he stoutly replied, "Never was English king of
France, and never shall be." The country had no mind to believe in the
conquest it was undergoing; and the Duke of Burgundy, the most puissant
ally of the English, sulkily went on eluding the consequences of the
anti-national alliance he had accepted.

Such being the disposition of conquerors and conquered, the war, though
still carried on with great spirit, could not, and in fact did not, bring
about any decisive result from 1422 to 1429. Towns were alternately
taken, lost, and retaken, at one time by the French, at another by the
English or Burgundians; petty encounters and even important engagements
took place with vicissitudes of success and reverses on both sides. At
Crevant-sur-Yonne, on the 31st of July, 1423, and at Verneuil, in
Normandy, on the 17th of August, 1424, the French were beaten, and their
faithful allies, the Scots, suffered considerable loss. In the latter
affair, however, several Norman lords deserted the English flag, refusing
to fight against the King of France. On the 26th of September, 1423, at
La Gravelle, in Maine, the French were victorious, and Du Guesclin was
commemorated in their victory. Anne de Laval, granddaughter of the great
Breton warrior, and mistress of a castle hard by the scene of action,
sent thither her son, Andrew de Laval, a child twelve years of age, and,
as she buckled with her own hands the sword which his ancestor had worn,
she said to him, "God make thee as valiant as he whose sword this was!"
The boy received the order of knighthood on the field of battle, and
became afterwards a marshal of France. Little bands, made up of
volunteers, attempt