The close of the fourteenth century saw no hope anywhere, only gathering storms. In France, to the prudent Charles V. succeeded the mad fool Charles VI. In England the strong King Edward III. was followed by the incompetent Richard II. In Germany the Emperor Charles IV., a statesman, had as his successor the drunken sot Wenceslas. In England the Wars of the Roses were looming in the future. Agincourt proved more disastrous to England than to France. There was hopeless turmoil everywhere. As Luther said when a somewhat similar condition existed in Germany--"God, tiring of the game, has thrown the cards on the table." In France the free Companies ran riot unrestrained. About them one word. The engagement of mercenaries in the war between England and France had begun early. As Michelet says: "The population of the North saw appear among them mercenary soldiers, the _routiers_, for the most part in the service of England. Some came from Brabant, some from Aquitaine; the Basque Marcader was one of the principal lieutenants of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. The mountaineers of the South, who to-day descend into France and Spain to gain a little money by huxtering, did so in the Middle Ages, but then, their sole industry was war. They maltreated priests as they did peasants, dressed their wives in consecrated vestments, beat the clergy, and made them sing mass in mockery. It was also one of their amusements to defile and break the images of Christ, to smash the legs and arms, treating Him worse than did the Jews. These _routiers_ were dear to the princes precisely on account of their impiety, which rendered them insensible to ecclesiastical censures." [Footnote: _Histoire de France_, ii. p. 362. The first to introduce them was Henry Courtmantel when he rebelled against his father. On his death in 1163 they disbanded, and then reunited under elected captains, and pillaged the country.]