Quotes / The Hundred Years War

"Charles VII has often been accused of ingratitude to Jeanne, who had him crowned at Reims. He was certainly mistaken in believing in the sincerity of the Burgundian truce, and in not attempting to take Paris in September, 1429. In brief, Charles VII did not see an immediate advantage in prosecuting energetically the conquest of his kingdom. He did not know how to profit by all the consequences of the national movement that was aroused by Jeanne's advent. Abandoned in this fashion, the Maid could not but run the risks of every captain of the time, without the benefit of the power of being ransomed from implacable enemies.
But it is not just to pretend that Charles VII did nothing to get her out of the hands of her enemies. In the Morosini correspondence we find, under the date of December 15, 1430, that the news that the Maid had fallen into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy was so widespread that Charles, informed of it, had sent an embassy to Philippe te Bon to say to him that if there was nothing he could offer him to induce him to set her free, then he would exact vengeance for her upon his men that he had captive. Under the date of June 21, 1431, correspondents of the same banker affirm that "The English wished to burn her (Jeanne) as a heretic, in spite of the Dauphin of France who tried to bring threatening forces against the English." The King felt a "very bitter grief" upon the death of Jeanne, "promising to exact a terrible vengeance upon the English and women of England."
These last words show sufficiently what was felt and said by the good people of France. We know, too, that during the winter of 1430-1431, La Hire, master of Louviers, made frequent expeditions into the neighborhood of Rouen, and that he worried the English government. In March, 1431, an expedition against Rouen by Dunois was paid for by the King. Another attempt was made against the Chateau d'Eu."

—Pierre Champion, a French historian