[A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot]@TWC D-Link book
A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times

CHAPTER XXIV
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Like a true patriot and royalist, he had more at heart his duty towards France and the king than he had his own personal interests.

He was fond of war, and conducted it bravely and skilfully, without rashness, but without timidity: "Wherever the constable is," said Charles VII., "there I am free from anxiety; he will do all that is possible!" He set his title and office of constable of France above his rank as a great lord; and when, after the death of his brother, Duke Peter II., he himself became Duke of Brittany, he always had the constable's sword carried before him, saying, "I wish to honor in my old age a function which did me honor in my youth." His good services were not confined to the wars of his time; he was one of the principal reformers of the military system in France by the substitution of regular troops for feudal service.

He has not obtained, it is to be feared, in the history of the fifteenth century, the place which properly belongs to him.
Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, and Marshals De Boussac and De La Fayette were, under Charles VII., brilliant warriors and useful servants of the king and of Fiance; but, in spite of their knightly renown, it is questionable if they can be reckoned, like the constable De Richemont, amongst the liberators of national independence.

There are degrees of glory, and it is the duty of history not to distribute it too readily and as it were by handfuls.
Besides all these warriors, we meet, under the sway of Charles VII., at first in a humble capacity and afterwards at his court, in his diplomatic service and sometimes in his closest confidence, a man of quite a different origin and quite another profession, but one who nevertheless acquired by peaceful toil great riches and great influence, both brought to a melancholy termination by a conviction and a consequent ruin from which at the approach of old age he was still striving to recover by means of fresh ventures.

Jacques Coeur was born at Bourges at the close of the fourteenth century.


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