. lxxi _et seq._]

[Footnote 244: _Ibid._, proofs and illustrations, li, p. 97.]

The following year was bad for the Dauphin Charles, for the French and
Scottish horsemen of his party met with the worst possible treatment
at Verneuil. This year the Damoiseau of Commercy turned Burgundian and
was none the better or the worse for it.[245] Captain La Hire was
still fighting in Bar, but now it was against the young son of Madame
Yolande, the Dauphin Charles's brother-in-law, Rene d'Anjou, who had
lately come of age and was now invested with the Duchy of Bar. At the
point of the lance Captain La Hire was demanding certain sums of money
that the Cardinal Duke of Bar owed him.[246]

[Footnote 245: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp.
16, 17.]

[Footnote 246: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, appendix, lxii.]

At the same time Robert, Sire de Baudricourt, was fighting with Jean
de Vergy, lord of Saint-Dizier, Seneschal of Burgundy.[247] It was a
fine war. On both sides the combatants laid hands on bread, wine,
money, silver-plate, clothes, cattle big and little, and what could
not be carried off was burnt. Men, women, and children were put to
ransom. In most of the villages of Bassigny agriculture was suspended,
nearly all the mills were destroyed.[248]

[Footnote 247: Du Chesne, _Genealogie de la maison de Vergy_, Paris,
1625, folio. _Nouvelle biographie generale_, vol. xlv, p. 1125.]

[Footnote 248: S. Luce, Domremy and Vaucouleurs, from 1412 to 1425, in
_Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. iii.]

Ten, twenty, thirty bands of Burgundians were ravaging the castellany
of Vaucouleurs, laying it waste with fire and sword. The peasants hid
their horses by day, and by night got up to take them to graze. At
Domremy life was one perpetual alarm.[249] All day and all night there
was a watchman stationed on the square tower of the monastery. Every
villager, and, if the prevailing custom were observed, even the
priest, took his turn as watchman, peering for the glint of lances
through the dust and sunlight down the white ribbon of the road,
searching the horrid depths of the wood, and by night trembling to see
the villages on the horizon bursting into flame. At the approach of
men-at-arms the watchman would ring a noisy peal of those bells, which
in turn celebrated births, mourned for the dead, summoned the people
to prayer, dispelled storms of thunder and lightning, and warned of
danger. Half clothed the awakened vi