Regarded as the history of a
vendetta, it must be owned that Charles's life has points of some
originality. And yet there is an engaging frankness about these ballades
which disarms criticism. [39] You see Charles throwing himself
head-foremost into the trap; you hear Burgundy, in his answers, begin to
inspire him with his own prejudices, and draw melancholy pictures of the
misgovernment of France. But Charles's own spirits are so high and so
amiable, and he is so thoroughly convinced his cousin is a fine fellow,
that one's scruples are carried away in the torrent of his happiness and
gratitude. And his would be a sordid spirit who would not clap hands at
the consummation (Nov. 1440); when Charles, after having sworn on the
Sacrament that he would never again bear arms against England, and
pledged himself body and soul to the unpatriotic faction in his own
country, set out from London with a light heart and a damaged integrity. In the magnificent copy of Charles's poems, given by our Henry VII. to
Elizabeth of York on the occasion of their marriage, a large
illumination figures at the head of one of the pages, which, in
chronological perspective, is almost a history of his imprisonment. It
gives a view of London with all its spires, the river passing through
the old bridge and busy with boats. One side of the white Tower has been
taken out, and we can see, as under a sort of shrine, the paved room
where the duke sits writing. He occupies a high-backed bench in front of
a great chimney; red and black ink are before him; and the upper end of
the apartment is guarded by many halberdiers, with the red cross of
England on their breast. On the next side of the tower he appears again,
leaning out of window and gazing on the river; doubtless there blows
just then "a pleasant wind from out the land of France," and some ship
comes up the river: "the ship of good news." At the door we find him yet
again; this time embracing a messenger, while a groom stands by holding
two saddled horses. And yet farther to the left, a cavalcade defiles out
of the tower; the duke is on his way at last towards "the sunshine of
France." III

During the five-and-twenty years of his captivity Charles had not lost
in the esteem of his fellow-countrymen. For so young a man, the head of
so great a house and so numerous a party, to be taken prisoner as he
rode in the vanguard of France, and stereotyped for all men in this
heroic attitude, was to taste untimeously the honours of the grave. Of
him, as of the dead, it would be ungenerous to speak evil; what little
energy he had displayed would be remembered with piety, when all that he
had done amiss was courteously forgotten. As English folk looked for
Arthur; as Danes awaited the coming of Ogier; as Somersetshire peasants
or sergeants of the Old Guard expected the return of Monmouth or
Napoleon; the countrymen of Charles of Orleans looked over the straits
towards his English prison with desire and confidence. Events had so
fallen out while he was rhyming ballades, that he had become the type of
all that was most truly patriotic. The remnants of his old party had
been the chief defenders of the unity of France. His enemies of Burgundy
had been notoriously favourers and furtherers of English domination. People forgot that his brother still lay by the heels for an unpatriotic
treaty with England, because Charles himself had been taken prisoner
patriotically fighting against it. That Henry V. had left special orders
against his liberation served to increase the wistful pity with which he
was regarded. And when, in defiance of all contemporary virtue, and
against express pledges, the English carried war into their prisoner's
fief, not only France, but all thinking men in Christendom, were roused
to indignation against the oppressors, and sympathy with the victim. It
was little wonder if he came to bulk somewhat largely in the imagination
of the best of those at home. Charles le Boutteillier, when (as the
story goes) he slew Clarence at Beaugé, was only seeking an exchange for
Charles of Orleans. [40] It was one of Joan of Arc's declared intentions
to deliver the captive duke. If there was no other way, she meant to
cross the seas and bring him home by force. And she professed before her
judges a sure knowledge that Charles of Orleans was beloved of God. [41]

Alas! it was not at all as a deliverer that Charles returned to France. He was nearly fifty years old. Many changes had been accomplished since,
at twenty-three, he was taken on the field of Agincourt. But of all
these he was profoundly ignorant, or had only heard of them in the
discoloured reports of Philip of Burgundy. He had the ideas of a former
generation, and sought to correct them by the scandal of a factious
party. With such qualifications he came back eager for the domination,
the pleasures, and the display that befitted his princely birth. A long
disuse of all political activity combined with the flatteries of his new
friends to fill him with an overweening conceit of his own capacity and
influence. If aught had gone wrong in his absence, it seemed quite
natural men should look to him for its redress. Was not King Arthur come
again? The Duke of Burgundy received him with politic honours. He took his
guest by his foible for pageantry, all the easier as it was a foible of
his own; and Charles walked right out of prison into much the same
atmosphere of trumpeting and bell-ringing as he had left behind when he
went in. Fifteen days after his deliverance he was married to Mary of
Cleves, at St. Omer. The marriage was celebrated with the usual pomp of
the Burgundian court; there were joustings, and illuminations, and
animals that spouted wine; and many nobles dined together, _comme en
brigade_, and were served abundantly with many rich and curious
dishes. [42] It must have reminded Charles not a little of his first
marriage at Compiègne; only then he was two years the junior of his
bride, and this time he was five-and-thirty years her senior. It will be
a fine question which marriage promises more: for a boy of fifteen to
lead off with a lass of seventeen, or a man of fifty to make a match of
it with a child of fifteen. But there was something bitter in both. The
lamentations of Isabella will 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.