ll not have been forgotten. As for Mary, she
took up with one Jaquet de la Lain, a sort of muscular Methody of the
period, with a huge appetite for tournaments, and a habit of confessing
himself the last thing before he went to bed.[43] With such a hero, the
young duchess's amours were most likely innocent; and in all other ways
she was a suitable partner for the duke, and well fitted to enter into
his pleasures.

When the festivities at Saint Omer had come to an end, Charles and his
wife set forth by Ghent and Tournay. The towns gave him offerings of
money as he passed through, to help in the payment of his ransom. From
all sides, ladies and gentlemen thronged to offer him their services;
some gave him their sons for pages, some archers for a bodyguard; and by
the time he reached Tournay, he had a following of 300 horse. Everywhere
he was received as though he had been the king of France.[44] If he did
not come to imagine himself something of the sort, he certainly forgot
the existence of any one with a better claim to the title. He conducted
himself on the hypothesis that Charles VII. was another Charles VI. He
signed with enthusiasm that treaty of Arras, which left France almost at
the discretion of Burgundy. On December 18 he was still no further than
Bruges, where he entered into a private treaty with Philip; and it was
not until January 14, ten weeks after he disembarked in France, and
attended by a ruck of Burgundian gentlemen, that he arrived in Paris and
offered to present himself before Charles VII. The King sent word that
he might come, if he would, with a small retinue, but not with his
present following; and the duke, who was mightily on his high horse
after all the ovations he had received, took the King's attitude amiss,
and turned aside into Touraine, to receive more welcome and more
presents, and be convoyed by torchlight into faithful cities.

And so you see here was King Arthur home again, and matters nowise
mended in consequence. The best we can say is, that this last stage of
Charles's public life was of no long duration. His confidence was soon
knocked out of him in the contact with others. He began to find he was
an earthen vessel among many vessels of brass; he began to be shrewdly
aware that he was no King Arthur. In 1442, at Limoges, he made himself
the spokesman of the malcontent nobility. The King showed himself
humiliatingly indifferent to his counsels, and humiliatingly generous
towards hi