[Footnote 173: One Glomyng was charged with having said, "What doth the King of England at siege before Rouen? An I were there with three thousand men, I would break his siege and make them of Rouen dock his tail." He said, moreover, that "he were not able to abide there, were it [not] that the Duke of Burgundy kept his enemies from him."--Donat. MS. 4601.] During this siege negociations were set on foot by the Dauphin for an alliance with Henry, who seemed to enter into the views of the ambassadors heartily;[174] but at the same time similar negociations were carried on between Henry and the King of France. In the (p. 229) management of these a curious dispute arose as to the language in which the conference should be carried on: the French required that their own should be the medium of communication; the English remonstrating, and requiring the Latin to be employed, that the Pope and other potentates might understand their proceedings. It was proposed that all writings should be in duplicate, one copy in French, the other in Latin; but Henry insisted that his ambassadors should sign only an English or a Latin copy. During these negociations the French ambassadors presented to the King the portrait of the Princess Katharine,[175] which he received with great satisfaction. The treaty, however, was broken off, and the Cardinal Des Ursins returned to Pope Martin at Avignon. It is painful to read the account of the siege of Rouen; misery in all its shapes is painted there.[176] Indeed, if the accounts we have received be true, so complicated a tale of wretchedness is scarcely upon record. But the details can give no satisfaction; they would only harrow up the feelings, without supplying any facts essential to the history of those months of (p. 230) human suffering. Henry was resolved neither to burn the town, nor to take it by storm; but to reduce it by starvation. At length his feelings overpowered this resolution, and he received the town upon conditions, on the 19th January 1419.[177] Thus was Rouen subdued to the Crown of England, two hundred and fifteen years after the conquest of it by Philip of France in the reign of King John. Stowe tells us, that to relieve this oppressed city Henry ordained it to be the chief chamber of all Normandy; and directed his exchequer, his treasury, and his coinage to be kept there. We have already seen that he caused his vast treasures before kept in Harfleur to be brought to Rouen.