[31] Doubtless a monkish exaggeration. [32] [At the siege of Arras the harquebus was used for the first time.] [33] This embellishment is of Monstrelet’s[n] contrivance. He places it apart from the account of the battle after the long list of the killed. Lefebvre, an eye-witness, could not make up his mind to copy Monstrelet in this place. [34] Lefebvre[j] and Monstrelet[n] are the authorities for this statement. De Barante[o] says without naming his source, “Henry V put a stop to the carnage and caused the wounded to receive relief.” [Tyler,[s] after reviewing the evidence, declares that “Henry did not stain his victory by any act of cruelty. His character comes out of the investigation untarnished by a suspicion of his having wantonly shed the blood of a single fellow-creature.”] [35] [For other views of the battle of Agincourt see our history of England.] [36] [But neither for that matter had, in person, the count d’Armagnac. The princes had refused the aid of any civic corps, and as Burgundy could command but the town folk of Flanders and Picardy, his offers of help were rejected. The responsibility of the battle lay therefore entirely with the Armagnacs; but, as Crowe[h] says, “to the honour of the Burgundian party, more of its princes, than of the Armagnacs, fell on the field of Agincourt.”] [37] [In 1402 letters-patent were issued by the king permitting the bourgeois of Paris to constitute themselves into a religious fraternity for the representation of the “Mystery of the Passion.” This is the origin of the modern tragic theatre. The “morality plays,” or comedies, were created by the clerks of the _basoche_--the corporation formed by the clerks of the _procureurs_ of the parliament of Paris. This body exercised extensive jurisdiction over its members--its head bore the title of “king.” In the reign of Charles VI playing-cards were perfected, and about 1420 Jan van Eyck, called Jean of Bruges, discovered a drying oil, which has caused him to be regarded as the inventor of oil painting. Hitherto men had used distemper, fresco, gum, paste, or white of egg.[b]] [38] [It was Sigismund’s grandfather, the blind King John of Bohemia, whose death at Crécy gave the famous motto, _Ich dien_, to the prince of Wales.] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. THE RESCUE OF THE REALM No longer on St. Denis will we cry, But Joan la Pucelle shall be France’s saint. --SHAKESPEARE. [Sidenote: [1422-1427 A.D.]]