And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but about Michaelmas
the Queen-Regent sent for her. At the Hotel de Saint-Pol matters were
much the same. Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage over
the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of Vienne, as
Queen Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder sons; I might here
trace out a curious similitude between the Valois and that
dragon-spawned race which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, since
the world was never at peace so long as any two of them existed. But
King Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, esteeming her
to be the wife of Presbyter John, the tyrant of Aethiopia. However,
ingenuity had just suggested card-playing for King Charles' amusement,
and he paid little attention nowadays to any one save his opponent at
this new game.
So the French King chirped his senile jests over the card-table, while
the King of England was besieging the French city of Rouen sedulously
and without mercy. In late autumn an armament from Ireland joined
Henry's forces.
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