v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 75 30. Recovery of Paris, 1436. — The loss of the Bur- gundian alliance carried with it the loss of Paris. Lisle Adam, who had before brought the Burgundians in, now admitted the royal forces, and the citizens rose in their favour. The English governor shut himself up in the Bastille, and was allowed to march out with the honours of war. France thus recovered her capital, and King Charles was persuaded to come to the city, where he was received with a show of welcome. But the city was in a piteous state. The constable was far more harsh than the English had been, for he had no subsistence for his garrison but what could be wrung from the burghers, and, as the English held Pontoise, and cut off all supplies, the famine was dreadful. The constable himself was fairly starved out, and was forced to leave the place to the guard of the burghers. 31. The Pragmatic Sanction, 1438. — The General Council of Basel was sitting at this time. In 1438 Charles VII. convoked a national synod at Bourges, which accepted the decrees of the Council, and drew up a Pragmatic Sanction, which denied to Rome the Annates, forbade appeals to the pope, and restored appointments to bene- fices to their own patrons and electors. 32. The Ordinance of Orleans, 1439. — As after the wars with Edward III., France was in misery from the lawless Free Lances, so at the close of the war with Henry VI. she was suffering from the soldiery, who were wont to hire themselves from either party, and in the meantime lived by rapine and plunder. Things were worse than ever, when a new spirit seemed to come on him. Borrowing the means from a great merchant of Bourges, Jacqjics Cceu?-, he equipped a band of troops to reinforce the constable, thus enabling him to take Meaux and open one road for the supply of Paris. Then, as the Ecorchenrs or flayers, as the lawless men at arms were called, were the real masters of the country, and chief causes of the distress, he convoked the States General at Orleans in 1439 to consider how to put an end to their atrocities. The constable De Richcvwnt represented that an army without pay must needs live by plunder, and it was therefore enacted that a tax should be levied for the maintenance of 9,000 soldiers. The amount for each troop was to be given to the captain, who was answerable for their behaviour to the ci-own, and had power of them for life or death. A great step was hereby taken towards
