of prowess
and it was impossible for him to be one of those chivalrous knights
who make war for the love of it. His grandfather before him, who had
been equally lacking in chivalrous graces, had greatly damaged the
English. The grandson had not Charles V's wisdom, but he also was not
free from guile and was inclined to believe that more may be gained by
the signing of a treaty than at the point of the lance.[584]

[Footnote 584: P. de Fenin, _Memoires_, p. 222. De Beaucourt,
_Histoire de Charles VII_, Introduction. E. Charles, _Le caractere de
Charles VII_, in _Revue contemporaine_, vol. xxii, pp. 300-328.]

Concerning his poverty ridiculous stories were in circulation. It was
said that a shoemaker, to whom he could not pay ready money, had torn
from his leg the new gaiter he had just put on, and gone off, leaving
the King with his old ones.[585] It was related how one day La Hire
and Saintrailles, coming to see him, had found him dining with the
Queen, with two chickens and a sheep's tail as their only
entertainment.[586] But these were merely good stories. The King still
possessed domains wide and rich; Auvergne, Lyonnais, Dauphine,
Touraine, Anjou, all the provinces south of the Loire, except Guyenne
and Gascony.[587]

[Footnote 585: Le doyen de Saint-Thibaud, _Tableau des rois de
France_, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 325.]

[Footnote 586: Martial d'Auvergne, _Les vigiles de Charles VII_, ed.
Coustelier, 1724 (2 vols. in 12mo), vol. i, p. 56.]

[Footnote 587: L. Drapeyron, _Jeanne d'Arc et Philippe le Bon_, in
_Revue de geographie_, November, 1886, p. 331.]

His great resource was to convoke the States General. The nobility
gave nothing, alleging that it was beneath their dignity to pay money.
When, notwithstanding their poverty, the clergy did contribute
something, it was still, always the third estate that bore more than
its share of the financial burden. That extraordinary tax, the
_taille_,[588] became annual. The King summoned the Estates every
year, sometimes twice a year. They met not without difficulty.[589]
The roads were dangerous. At every corner travellers might be robbed
or murdered. The officers, who journeyed from town to town collecting
the taxes, had an armed escort for fear of the Scots and other
men-at-arms in the King's service.[590]

[Footnote 588: _Taille_, so called from a notched stick (Eng. tally),
used by the tax-collector, the number of notches indicating the amount
of the tax due. Ther