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The English besiege Quimperlé; its Capture prevented by Conclusion of a Truce, 1375

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Charles's Improvements in the Administration; he first forms a regular Army

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Alterations in the Value of the Coin

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Edward being on his Deathbed, French resume Hostilities, and

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Charles turns his Force to crush the King of Navarre

He seizes his two Agents, 1378

Duke of Lancaster at St. Maloes

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King Charles undertakes to annex Brittany, and subject it to a

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The Determination of the French to intercept it, disturbed by the Illness of King Charles, who expires September, 1380 552

HISTORY OF FRANCE.

CHAPTER I.

ATTEMPTS TO RESUSCITATE AN EMPIRE.

I.

THE noblest result of ages, the greatest achievement of CHAP. humanity, has been to found and to produce a nation. The ancient world, with few and insignificant exceptions, only knew empires, established by arms, and maintained by force. The existence of a nation, filling the large space between obvious and well-defined frontiers, and consisting of one race, or amalgamated races, bound together by a common tongue, common interests, sympathies and habits, acknowledging the one feeling of patriotism and trusting to one government to represent and act upon the feeling-this, the state in which a society of men can attain most greatness, peace, and happiness, intellectual development and material prosperity, is a phenomenon of modern times.

Empires prevailed in antiquity, because force then dominated and formed the only principle of government or of cohesion. Mankind resembled the waves of the sea or the sands of the desert, attached to no spot, and

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