Charles VI was carried to St. Denis, “poorly accompanied for a king of France. There were only his chamberlain, his chancellor, his confessor, and some subordinate officers.” One prince only attended the funeral, and that was the duke of Bedford. When the corpse was lowered into the grave, the ushers-at-arms broke their wands and threw them into the grave, and reversed their maces. Then Berri, king-at-arms of France, cried out, over the grave, “May it please God to have mercy on the soul of the very high and very excellent prince Charles, king of France, sixth of the name, our natural and sovereign lord.”[p] And then he added, “God grant long life to Henry, by the grace of God, king of France and of England, our sovereign lord.” About the same time at Mehun-sur-Yèvre, in Berri, some French knights unfurled the royal banner, crying, “Long live King Charles, seventh of the name, by the grace of God, king of France.”[b] WOES OF THE PEOPLE--THE _DANSE MACABRE_ [Sidenote: [1418-1424 A.D.]] After having spoken of the death of the king, we must mention that of the people. From 1418 to 1422, the depopulation was frightful. The history of those dismal years runs in a murderous circle; war leads to famine, famine to pestilence, and pestilence again brings round famine. It is like that night of the Exodus, in which the angel passes and repasses, touching each house with the sword. When men have come to that pass they weep no more; there is an end to tears, or there mingle even with tears gleams of hellish joy and savage laughter. It was the most tragical characteristic of the times that in the gloomiest moments there were alternations of frantic gaiety. The beginning of that long series of evils, “of that woeful dance,” as the Bourgeois de Paris[q] says, was the madness of Charles VI, and contemporaneously therewith the too famous masquerade of the satyrs, the piously burlesque mysteries, and the _basoche_ farces.[37] The year in which the duke of Orleans was murdered was distinguished by the organisation of the corporation of minstrels. That corporation, quite indispensable of course in so joyous a period, became important and respected. Treaties of peace were cried through the streets with a mighty strumming of violins; hardly any six months passed in which a peace was not cried and sung. The eldest son of Charles VI, the first dauphin, was an indefatigable player on the harp and the spinet. He had a great staff of musicians; and in addition to these, he used to call in the aid of the choir-boys of Notre Dame. He sang, danced, and “balled” (_balait_), night and day, and that even in the year of the Cabochians, whilst they were killing his friends. He killed himself, too, by dint of singing and dancing.