On the 14th of August, 1415, an English fleet, having on board, together with King Henry V., six thousand men-at-arms, twenty-four thousand archers, powerful war-machines, and a multitude of artisans and “small folk,” came to land near Harfleur, not far from the mouth of the Seine. It was the most formidable expedition that had ever issued from the ports of England. The English spent several days in effecting their landing and setting up their siege-train around the walls of the city. “It would have been easy,” says the monk of St. Denis, “to hinder their operations, and the inhabitants of the town and neighborhood would have worked thereat with zeal, if they had not counted that the nobility of the district and the royal army commanded by the constable, Charles d’Albret, would come to their aid.” No one came. The burgesses and the small garrison of Harfleur made a gallant defence; but, on the 22d of September, not receiving from Vernon, where the king and the _dauphin_ were massing their troops, any other assistance than the advice to “take courage and trust to the king’s discretion,” they capitulated; and Henry V., after taking possession of the place, advanced into the country with an army already much reduced by sickness, looking for a favorable point at which to cross the Somme and push his invasion still farther. It was not until the 19th of October that he succeeded, at Bethencourt, near St. Quentin. Charles VI., who at that time had a lucid interval, after holding at Rouen a council of war, at which it was resolved to give the English battle, wished to repair with the _dauphin_, his son, to Bapaume, where the French army had taken position; but his uncle, the Duke of Berry, having still quite a lively recollection of the battle of Poitiers, fought fifty-nine’ years before, made opposition, saying, “Better lose the battle than the king and the battle.” All the princes of the royal blood and all the flower of the French nobility, except the king and his three sons, and the Dukes of Berry, Brittany, and Burgundy, joined the army. The Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and the Constable d’Albret, who was in command, sent to ask the King of England on what day and at what place he would be pleased to give them battle. “I do not shut myself up in walled towns,” replied Henry; “I shall be found at any time and any where ready to fight, if any attempt be made to cut off my march.” The French resolved to stop him between Agincourt and Framecourt, a little north of St. Paul and Hesdin. The encounter took place on the 25th of October, 1415. It was a monotonous and lamentable repetition of the disasters of Crecy and Poitiers; disasters almost inevitable, owing to the incapacity of the leaders and ever the same defects on the part of the French nobility, defects which rendered their valorous and generous qualities not only fruitless, but fatal. Never had that nobility been more numerous and more brilliant than in this premeditated struggle.