27 FEBRUARY 1864, Page 19

EXPULSION OF THE ENGLISH FROM NORMAND Y, 1450.* MORE than

one Parliamentary leader has made the House smile sympathetically, by confessing that his acquaintance with the

* Narratives of the Expulsion of the English from Normandy, M.COCC.SLI1— m.cccc.k. Robertus Blonddli de Reductions Normannia ; Le Beemsorement de Nor- mendie. Par Berry, Heratnt du Roy. Conf.rences between the Ambassadors of France and England. Edited, from Manuscripts in the Imperial Library at Paris, by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, ILA., of University College, Durham. Published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, and Co. 1863. later Plantageuets has been chiefly derived from Shakespeare. Critics may sneer as they please at such a frank avowal ; they may pull the play of Henry VI. to pieces; they may prove that facts and characters are misrepresented, and that whole acts are not by Shakespeare at all ; but still the world will continue to call it his, and to remember it when the more sedate histories are forgotten. We do not look to it for any final judgment ; Jeanne Dare has long ago been rescued from its fiends ; even Jack Cade has been claimed by Irishmen as a worthy brother Celt, and he need not despair of finding some future Froude to set him up as a genuine Mortimer ; but the general scope of the drama is true enough, and it leaves a lively impression of the factions that dragged the bewildered Henry to and fro. We dare not dilate upon it here ; but our thoughts naturally reverted to it as we cut the leaves of the work before us, the Reduction of Normandy, by Robert Blondel, a Norman ecclesiastic, born about 1390. Not that he is by any means Shakespearian, his narrative is only interesting as a detailed contemporary record of an eventful year (1449-50), and his rhetorical flights are common-place. It appears, indeed, that Blondel had previously (in 1420) maintained the honours of his troubadourish name by a patriotic Latin poem, " Complanctus Bonorum Gallicorum ;" but even his editor (Mr. Stevenson) does not assert that he has read it. To his next work, " Oratio Historiniis," published in 1449, Mr. Stevenson ascribes the merits of demolishing our pretensions, and thus assisting in our expul- sion. At all events he gained a reputation at the French Court, and became a royal chaplain, and (about 1454) the tutor of the Duc de Berry. The year of his death is uncertain, but lie was alive in 1460. The text of this, the first printed edition of his history, is founded upon a MS. written about 1455, and conse- quently transcribed soon after the work was completed; its binding bears the intertwined crescents of Henry II. of France and Diana of Poitiers,* and it is still in the national library, the Bibliotheque Imperiule.

The Reduction of Normandy is divided into four books. It opens with the rupture of the truce between France and Eng- land, each side accusing the other, of course. But it is here necessary to turn to other authorities (with references to which, at least, Mr. Stevenson ought to have supplied us), in order to balance the partiality of Blondel. It was obviously the true interest of England to preserve the truce, and o? this the Duke of Somerset (then Governor of Normandy) was fully aware; for in 1548 be had made earnest applications to Parliament for aid, asserting that the fortresses were ill-manned and in a ruin- ous condition, and that the country was unable to support the charge of any more troops, whilst, on the other hand, the French were strengthening all their. border strongholds " against the tenor of the truce," and assembling and arming a body of more than forty thousand men. The succours were not granted to Normandy, and its frontiers were shortly after still more exposed by the cession of Maine and Anjou to the father and uncle of Margaret of Anjou; and yet this was the thne chosen (according to French writers) by the Duke of Somerset for deliberately breaking the truce. In March, 1449, the late Governor of Mans, Sir Francis de Surienne (an Arragonese by birth), instead of disbanding his garrison, seized upon the 'town of Fougeres, in Brittany. The French King applied to Somerset for restitution of the place, and an enormous sum in compensa- tion; but Somerset answered that he had already rebuked the Arragonese adventurer, that he had no authority over him, and that the French must negotiate with the Government in England. Somerset is accused of having secretly abetted De Surienne while pretending to disown him; but what is certain is that, while negotiations were pending, the Norman towns of Pont de PArche and Verneuil were surprised and formally occupied by Count Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans. Blondel's account of these transactions is significantly headed " De. Bello Insiclioso ;" the heading of his second book is" De Aped* Bello." Talbot now advances upon Verneuil and is face to face with Dunois, but retires to Rouen without a battle, and our author breaks out into exultant invectives against him; Town after town falls before the French captains, the citizens of Rouen rise against the garrison, and Somerset is forced to purchase a retreat to Caen upon disastrous terms, and to leave Talbot behind him as a surety for their fulfilment. We cannot wonder that the English Commons impeached the favourites of Margaret of Anjou when they heard that her father, the fiddler-king Road, had entered Rouen by the side of Charles VIIL • So described by Mr. Stevenson; but it is doubtful, atter all, whether this badge was not borne by Henry IL in conjunction with his Queen, Catherine do Maids.

But had our Ministers been as patriotic as they were factious, and sent tenfold supplies of men and money to Somerset, they could not now (as Michelet remarks) have enabled " that sorry General" to hold a France that was determined to be French. The entire population of Normandy trampled the red cross, and flaunted the white cross, and chanted " Noel" to greet the advent of their native sovereign. One poor hope remained for the relief of Caen. Sir Thomas Kyrie} landed with some 4,000 men, and gained a few successes ; but on the 15th of April he was totally routed at Formigny (near Bayeux) ; and the reduction of Normandy was finally completed by the surrender of Cherbourg on the 12th of August, 1450. As for the poor Duke of Brittany, he was left to get back Fougeres as he could ; and for 10,000 crowns Do Surienne restored it, and denounced Somerset as his accomplice. This arch mischief-maker then entered the French service (see p. 322), and there are not wanting some who hold that he bad acted all along on a secret understanding with the French Court.

Blondel's narrative is seldom picturesque, but 238 pages devoted to the events of a year and five months can hardly fail to contain many details which are interesting to the student. For instance, we find that Maitre Girault, who lost and regained two ctdverins at the battle of Formigny (p. 172), was the same engineer that managed to batter Cherbourg on its weakest side by running works out into the sea (p. 234). Charles VII., though a confirmed voluptuary, was incited by Agnes Sorel to leave her now and then ; and in his intervals of activity he paid careful attention to his artillery. He placed it under the chief command of two able brothers, Parisians of plebeian birth, Jean and Jaspar Bureau, and they are said to have been the first to use balls of iron instead of stone. Jean Bureau is here men- tioned at the sieges of Falaise and Domfront (pp. 238, 231). With such officers as these, and his men-at-arms and " free archers" (see p. 48), Charles formed the nucleus of a standing army attached to the King alone, and paved the way for the autocracy of his devout son Louis XI. and his successors. Blondel is rarely tired of inveighing against the " barbarians," and their almost octogenarian chief, " Heros de Talbot" (not at all a term of compliment, but simply meaning Baron Talbot), and he half grudges him the enjoyment of his stipulated release, and his Pilgrimage to Rome in the year of jubilee 1450 (p. 230) ; but on one occasion Blondel relaxes in favour of our nation, telling how Alianor, Duchess of Somerset, leapt from her bed in her night-gown (nuda in camisia, absque secreta tuniea), and hid her physician, Jean de Tyffeigne, in her chamber curtains, to save him from the furious Gallophobia of her husband (p.27), " for England," he adds, "brings forth impious and untruthful men, but women famed for piety and truth." This rose among the briars was one of the last of the Beauchamps, and an aunt of Richard Neville, the Kingmaker.

The original matter in this volume concludes (as we have inti- mated) at p. 238, but the volume consists altogether of 514 pages. It may have been advisable to reprint Berry's Recouvrement de Normendie, and the negotiations relative to the surprise of Fon- geres; but the French of these texts is so extremely easy, that to swell them by translations into 276 pages appears to be rather a work of superfluity.