the national cause against the foreign conqueror. An event more powerful than any human eloquence occurred to give the _dauphin_ and his partisans earlier hopes. Towards the end of August, 1422, Henry V. fell ill; and, too stout-hearted to delude himself as to his condition, he thought no longer of anything but preparing himself for death. He had himself removed to Vincennes, called his councillors about him, and gave them his last royal instructions. “I leave you the government of France,” said he to his brother, the Duke of Bedford, “unless our brother of Burgundy have a mind to undertake it; for, above all things, I conjure you not to have any dissension with him. If that should happen God preserve you from it! --the affairs of this kingdom, which seem well advanced for us, would become bad.” As soon as he had done with politics he bade his doctors tell him how long he had still to live. One of them knelt down before his bed and said, “Sir, be thinking of your soul; it seemeth to us that, saving the divine mercy, you have not more than two hours.” The king summoned his confessor with the priests, and asked to have recited to him the penitential psalms. When they came to the twentieth versicle of the _Miserere,--Ut oedificentur muri Hierusalem_ (that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up),--He made them stop. “Ah!” said he, “if God had been pleased to let me live out my time, I would, after putting an end to the war in France, reducing the _dauphin_ to submission or driving him out of the kingdom in which I would have established a sound peace, have gone to conquer Jerusalem. The wars I have undertaken have had the approval of all the proper men and of the most holy personages; I commenced them and have prosecuted them without offence to God or peril to my soul.” These were his last words. The chanting of the psalms was resumed around him, and he expired on the 31st of August, 1422, at the age of thirty-four. A great soul and a great king; but a great example also of the boundless errors which may be fallen into by the greatest men when they pursue with arrogant confidence their own views, forgetting the laws of justice and the rights of other men.