In July, several prelates, lords, churchmen, and counsellors, that the king had sent for to make some new regulations in all the courts of justice, and to reform some abuses, arrived at Paris, to whom the king gave full power and authority; and by virtue of the same, he nominated and appointed twenty-one commissioners, of which M. Charles d’Orleans, and the Counts of Dunois and Longueville were chief commissioners; and even these commissioners had no powers of acting, unless thirteen of them, besides their presidents the Counts de Dunois and Longueville, were assembled together; and in pursuance of the commission that had been granted them, they began their sittings on Tuesday the 16th, and were called by the people the reformers of the nation. This was just a year since the battle between the king and the Count de Charolois at Mont l’Hery. About this time a war broke out between the Liegeois and the Duke of Burgundy, upon which he immediately took the field with his whole army, and being a little indisposed, was carried in a litter, commanding his son the Count de Charolois, with all the nobles and officers that were with him, to march forward with a strong detachment to invest Dinant, and leave him to come up with the rest of the army. Upon his arrival the town was formally besieged, which occasioned several sallies and bloody actions on both sides, much to the disadvantage of the Burgundians in the beginning of the siege, but at last, whether by force of arms or treason, the town was taken by the Burgundians, who, only reserving a few of the chief citizens, whom they made prisoners of war, turned out men, women, and children, and gave the town up to be plundered by their soldiers. Nor were they contented with this; they set fire to the churches and the houses, and having burnt and consumed everything they could lay their hands on, they ordered the walls to be demolished, and the fortifications to be blown up, by which means the poor inhabitants were reduced to extreme want and necessity, and abundance of young women were forced to betake themselves to a vile and shameful way of living. In August and September in the same year, the heats were so violent as to breed the plague and several other contagious distempers in France, which swept away, in a little space of time, above forty thousand people in Paris and the neighbouring towns. Some persons of note and learning died also of it, amongst whom we may reckon M. Arnoul, the king’s astrologer, a very worthy, learned, and facetious person, several eminent physicians, and abundance of officers belonging to the city.