The populace freely manifested their joy at being rid of the English.

"It was plain to see," was the saving, "that they were not in France to remain; not one of them had been seen to sow a field with corn or build a house; they destroyed their quarters without a thought of repairing them; they had not restored, peradventure, a single fireplace.

There was only their regent, the Duke of Bedford, who was fond of building and making the poor people work; he would have liked peace; but the nature of those English is to be always at war with their neighbors, and accordingly they all made a bad end; thank God there have already died in France more than seventy thousand of them." Up to the taking of Paris by the constable the Duke of Burgundy had kept himself in reserve, and had maintained a tacit neutrality towards England; he had merely been making, without noisy demonstration, preparations for an enterprise in which he, as Count of Flanders, was very much interested.

The success of Richemont inspired him with a hope, and perhaps with a jealous desire, of showing his power and his patriotism as a Frenchman by making war, in his turn, upon the English, from whom he had by the treaty of Arras effected only a pacific separation.

In June, 1436, he went and besieged Calais.