Louis of Orleans’ son Charles, better known as a poet than as a statesman or warrior, married for his second wife the daughter of the count of Armagnac of the south of France. The father-in-law was more energetic than Charles, and he headed the struggle with the Burgundians. The populace of Paris sided with the Burgundians, the court with the Armagnacs. For five years France, and especially Paris was rent with broils and battles. In Charles V’s day the corporations had grown strong enough to cause some concern to the king and the nobles. Now the powerful brotherhood of butchers entered with enthusiasm into the dissensions that were making Paris almost uninhabitable for the peacefully inclined. Accustomed to the sight of blood and its shedding they entered with enthusiasm into the reformation of the government and especially of such members of the Armagnac party as were prominent. Led by a slaughterer named Caboche they supported the Burgundians in every attack, always in the name of changes which the wisest men of the burghers saw to be beneficial, but which no one had the ability to bring to pass except by violence. The cry of “Armagnac” was enough to cause an attack on any passer in the street and many a private vengeance was accomplished by means of the party shout. So bad did conditions become that the steadiest of the _bourgeois_ at last summoned the Armagnacs to check the excesses of the Cabochiens. John the Fearless, who had been the real ruler, since he issued orders and proclamations purporting to come from the mad king, was driven out of the city. His going was a relief to Paris but to the country as a whole it brought disaster, for the duke was not slow in joining forces with the English who had seen their opportunity in the disturbed condition of their enemy’s land. Henry V had recently succeeded his father and had all a newcomer’s and a young man’s enthusiasm for renewing the English claim upon the French crown. He himself headed the army and in October, 1415, inflicted upon the French the crushing defeat of Agincourt wherein 10,000 Frenchmen lay dead upon the field. Never since Agincourt has the _oriflamme_ left the altar of Saint Denis.