Think that there are such horrors; that even now!430
Some city flames, and haply as in Rouen
Some famish'd babe on his dead mother's breast
Yet hangs for food. Oh God! I would not lose
iThese horrible feelings tho' they tear mine heart."
"When we had all betaken us to rest,435
Sleepless I lay, and in my mind revolv'd
The high-soul'd Warriors speech. Then rose the thought
Of all the miseries[1] that my early youth
Had seen in that beleager'd city, where
- ↑ Line 438 Holinshed says speaking of the siege of Rouen "If I should rehearse how deerelie dogs rats mise and cats were sold within the towne, and how greedilie they were by the poore people eaten and devoured, and how the people dailie died for fault of food, and yoong infants laie sucking in the streets on their mothers' breasts, being dead starved for hunger—the reader might lament their extreme miseries. p. 566.
Let us add to this the detestable history of a great commander under Charles VII of France, the bastard of Bourbon, who (after having committed the most execrable crimes during a series of years with impunity) was drowned in 1441 by the constable Richemont (a treacherous assassin, but a mirror of justice when compared to his noble contemporaries) on its being proved against him "Quod super ipsum maritum vi prostratum uxori, frustra repugnanti vim adtuleret."
"Ensuite il avoit fait battre et decouper le mari, tant que c'etoit pitie a voir.
Line 445 Harfleur
