ce
of his mother. He assumed the title of regent in December 1418, but his
authority in northern France was paralysed in 1419 by the murder of John
the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, in his presence at Montereau. Although
the deed was not apparently premeditated, as the English and Burgundians
declared, it ruined Charles's cause for the time. He was disinherited by
the treaty of Troyes in 1420, and at the time of his father's death in
1422 had retired to Mehun-sur-Yevre, near Bourges, which had been the
nominal seat of government since 1418. He was recognized as king in
Touraine, Berry and Poitou, in Languedoc and other provinces of southern
France; but the English power in the north was presently increased by
the provinces of Champagne and Maine, as the result of the victories of
Crevant (1423) and Verneuil (1424). The Armagnac administrators who had
been driven out of Paris by the duke of Bedford gathered round the young
king, nicknamed the "king of Bourges," but he was weak in body and mind,
and was under the domination of Jean Louvet and Tanguy du Chastel, the
instigators of the murder of John the Fearless, and other discredited
partisans. The power of these favourites was shaken by the influence of
the queen's mother, Yolande of Aragon, duchess of Anjou. She sought the
alliance of John V., duke of Brittany, who, however, vacillated
throughout his life between the English and French alliance, concerned
chiefly to maintain the independence of his duchy. His brother, Arthur
of Brittany, earl of Richmond (comte de Richemont), was reconciled with
the king, and became constable in 1425, with the avowed intention of
making peace between Charles VII. and the duke of Burgundy. Richemont
caused the assassination of Charles's favourites Pierre de Giac and Le
Camus de Beaulieu, and imposed one of his own choosing, Georges de la
Tremoille, an adventurer who rapidly usurped the constable's power. For
five years (1427-1432) a private war between these two exhausted the
Armagnac forces, and central France returned to anarchy.

Meanwhile Bedford had established settled government throughout the
north of France, and in 1428 he advanced to the siege of Orleans. For
the movement which was to lead to the deliverance of France from the
English invaders, see JOAN OF ARC. The siege of Orleans was raised by
her efforts on the 8th of May 1429, and two months later Charles VII.
was crowned at Reims. Charles's intimate counsellors, La Tremoille a