Jean Poton de Xaintrailles
Jean Poton de Xaintrailles, a minor noble of Gascon origin, was one of the chief lieutenants of Joan of Arc. He served as royal bailiff in Berry and as seneschal of Limousin. In 1454 he was appointed a Marshal of France. Jean Poton was a leading figure on the French side in the Hundred Years War, he fought at the battle of Verneuil in 1424. His participation, along with Joan of Arc, in the battle at Orléans in 1427 led to the end of the Siege of Orléans, he was badly wounded during this battle. He was captured at the battle of Cravant and exchanged for John Talbot. Jean Poton fought numerous battles alongside Joan of Arc during the Loire Campaign, he remained a lifelong support for Joan of Arc. With La Hire, he tried, albeit in vain, to rescue Joan after she was captured. Believing Joan was being held captive in Compiègne, Jean Poton captured it, only to learn that the prisoner had been moved to Rouen, he served with Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans, the battles of Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire and Patay.
He raised the siege of Compiègne. In the latter phase of the Hundred Years War he was active in the reconquest of Normandy and the conquest of Guyenne with Étienne de Vignolles, better known as La Hire, including the action at Gerbevoy; when the standing army was created in 1445, Xaintrailles was appointed to command one of the twelve companies of the new army. He left his estate to the church. Xaintrailles is a minor figure in the "Catherine" novels of Juliette Benzoni. Military history of France
Siege of Orléans
The Siege of Orléans was the watershed of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. It was the French royal army's first major military victory to follow the crushing defeat at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the first while Joan of Arc was with the army; the siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the stages of the war. The city held symbolic significance to both sides of the conflict; the consensus among contemporaries was that the English regent, John of Lancaster, would have succeeded in realizing his brother the English king Henry V's dream of conquering all of France if Orléans fell. For half a year the English and their French allies appeared to be winning but the siege collapsed nine days after Joan's arrival; the siege of Orléans occurred during the Hundred Years' War, contested between the ruling houses of France and England for supremacy over France. The conflict had begun in 1337 when England's King Edward III decided to press his claim to the French throne, a claim based on his being the son of Isabella of France and thus of the contested French royal line.
Following a decisive victory at Agincourt in 1415, the English gained the upper hand in the conflict, occupying much of northern France. Under the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, England's Henry V became regent of France. By this treaty, Henry married Catherine, the daughter of the current French king, Charles VI, would succeed to the French throne upon Charles's death; the Dauphin of France, the son of the French king, was disinherited. Orléans is located on the Loire River in north-central France. During the time of this siege it was the northernmost city that remained loyal to the Valois French crown; the English and their Burgundian allies controlled the rest of northern France, including Paris. Orléans's position on a major river made it the last obstacle to a campaign into central France. England controlled France's southwestern coast; as the capital of the duchy of Orléans, this city held symbolic significance in early 15th century politics. The dukes of Orléans were at the head of a political faction known as the Armagnacs, who rejected the Treaty of Troyes and supported the claims of the disinherited and banished Dauphin Charles to the French throne.
This faction had been in existence for two generations. Its leader, the Duke of Orléans in line for the throne, was one of the few combatants from Agincourt who remained a prisoner of the English fourteen years after the battle. Under the customs of chivalry, a city that surrendered to an invading army without a struggle was entitled to lenient treatment from its new ruler. A city that resisted could expect a harsh occupation. Mass executions were not unknown in this type of situation. By late medieval reasoning, the city of Orléans had escalated the conflict and forced the use of violence upon the English, so a conquering lord would be just in exacting vengeance upon its citizens; the city's association with the Armagnac party made it unlikely to be spared. After the brief fallout over Hainaut in 1425–26, English and Burgundian arms renewed their alliance and offensive on the Dauphin's France in 1427; the Orléanais region southwest of Paris was of key importance, not only for controlling the Loire river, but to smoothly connect the English area of operations in the west and the Burgundian area of operations in the east.
French arms had been ineffective before the Anglo-Burgundian onslaught until the siege of Montargis in late 1427, when they managed to force it to be lifted. The relief of Montargis, the first effective French action in years, emboldened sporadic uprisings in the thinly-garrisoned English-occupied region of Maine to the west, threatening to undo recent English gains. However, the French failed to capitalize on the aftermath of Montargis, in large part because the French court was embroiled in an internal power struggle between the constable Arthur de Richemont and the chamberlain Georges de la Trémoille, a new favorite of the Dauphin Charles. Of the French military leaders, the "Bastard of Orléans", La Hire and Jean de Xaintrailles were partisans of La Trémoille, while Charles of Bourbon, Count of Clermont, the marshal Jean de Brosse and John Stewart of Darnley, were lined up with the constable; the inner French conflict had reached such a point that their partisans were fighting each other in the open field by mid-1428.
The English availed themselves of French paralysis to raise fresh reinforcements in England in early 1428, raising a new force of 2,700 men, brought over by Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury, regarded as the most effective English commander of the time. These were bolstered by new levies raised in Normandy and Paris, joined by auxiliaries from Burgundy and vassal domains in Picardie and Champagne, to a total strength as great as 10,000. At the council of war in the spring of 1428, the English regent John, Duke of Bedford determined the direction of English arms would be towards the west, to stomp out the fires in the Maine and lay siege to Angers; the city of Orléans was not on the menu – indeed, Bedford had secured a private deal with Dunois, whose attentions were focused on the Richemont-La Trémoille conflict raging violently in the Berri. As Charles, Duke of Orléans was at the time in English captivity, it would have been contrary to the customs of knightly war to seize the possessions of a prisoner.
Bedford agreed to leave Orléans alone, for some reason, changed his mind shortly after the arrival of English reinforcements under Salisbury in July 1428. In a memorandum written i
Charles VII of France
Charles VII, called the Victorious or the Well-Served, was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461, the fifth from the House of Valois. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of France under desperate circumstances. Forces of the Kingdom of England and the Duchy of Burgundy occupied Guyenne and northern France, including Paris, the most populous city, Reims, the city in which the French kings were traditionally crowned. In addition, his father Charles VI had disinherited him in 1420 and recognized Henry V of England and his heirs as the legitimate successors to the French crown instead. At the same time, a civil war raged in France between the Burgundian party. With his court removed to Bourges, south of the Loire River, Charles was disparagingly called the “King of Bourges”, because the area around this city was one of the few remaining regions left to him. However, his political and military position improved with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a spiritual leader in France.
Joan of Arc and other charismatic figures led French troops to lift the siege of Orléans, as well as other strategic cities on the Loire river, to crush the English at the battle of Patay. With the local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates, which enabled the coronation of Charles VII in 1429 at Reims Cathedral; this long-awaited event boosted French morale. Following the battle of Castillon in 1453, the French expelled the English from all their continental possessions except for the Pale of Calais; the last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the future Louis XI of France. Born at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the royal residence in Paris, Charles was given the title of comte de Ponthieu at his birth in 1403, he was the eleventh child and fifth son of Charles VI of Isabeau of Bavaria. His four elder brothers, Charles and John had each held the title of Dauphin of France in turn. All died childless. After his accession to the title of Dauphin, Charles had to face threats to his inheritance, he was forced to flee from Paris on 29 May 1418 after the partisans of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had entered the city the previous night.
By 1419, Charles had established a Parlement in Poitiers. On 11 July of that same year and John the Fearless attempted a reconciliation by signing, on a small bridge near Pouilly-le-Fort, not far from Melun where Charles was staying, the Treaty of Pouilly-le-Fort known under name of Paix du Ponceau, they decided that a further meeting should take place the following 10 September. On that date, they met on the bridge at Montereau; the Duke assumed that the meeting would be peaceful and diplomatic, thus he brought only a small escort with him. The Dauphin's men reacted to the Duke's arrival by killing him. Charles' level of involvement has remained uncertain to this day. Although he claimed to have been unaware of his men's intentions, this was considered unlikely by those who heard of the murder; the assassination marked the end of any attempt of a reconciliation between the two factions Armagnacs and Burgundians, thus playing into the hands of Henry V of England. Charles was required by a treaty with Philip the Good, the son of John the Fearless, to pay penance for the murder, which he never did.
At the death of his father, Charles VI, the succession was cast into doubt. The Treaty of Troyes, signed by Charles VI in 1420, mandated that the throne pass to the infant King Henry VI of England, the son of the deceased Henry V and Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI. For those who did not recognize the treaty and believed the Dauphin Charles to be of legitimate birth, he was considered to be the rightful heir to the throne. For those who did not recognize his legitimacy, the rightful heir was recognized as Charles, Duke of Orléans, cousin of the Dauphin, in English captivity. Only the supporters of Henry VI and the Dauphin Charles were able to enlist sufficient military force to press for their candidates; the English in control of northern France, were able to enforce the claim of their king in the regions of France that they occupied. Northern France, including Paris, was thus ruled by an English regent, Henry V's brother, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, based in Normandy.
In his adolescent years, Charles was noted for his flamboyant style of leadership. At one point after becoming Dauphin, he led an army against the English dressed in the red and blue that represented his family. However, in July 1421, upon learning that Henry V was preparing from Mantes to attack with a much larger army, he withdrew from the siege of Chartres in order to avoid defeat, he went south of the Loire River under the protection of Yolande of Aragon, known as "Queen of the Four Kingdoms" and, on 22 April 1422, married her daughter, Marie of Anjou, to whom he had been engaged since December 1413 in a ceremony at the Louvre Palace. Charles, claimed the title King of Franc
Hulk
The Hulk is a fictional superhero appearing in publications by the American publisher Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of The Incredible Hulk. In his comic book appearances, the character is both the Hulk, a green-skinned and muscular humanoid possessing a vast degree of physical strength, his alter ego Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak withdrawn, reserved physicist, the two existing as independent personalities and resenting of the other. Following his accidental exposure to gamma rays during the detonation of an experimental bomb, Banner is physically transformed into the Hulk when subjected to emotional stress, at or against his will leading to destructive rampages and conflicts that complicate Banner's civilian life; the Hulk's level of strength is conveyed as proportionate to his level of anger. Portrayed as a raging savage, the Hulk has been represented with other personalities based on Banner's fractured psyche, from a mindless, destructive force, to a brilliant warrior, or genius scientist in his own right.
Despite both Hulk and Banner's desire for solitude, the character has a large supporting cast, including Banner's lover Betty Ross, his friend Rick Jones, his cousin She-Hulk, sons Hiro-Kala and Skaar, his co-founders of the superhero team the Avengers. However, his uncontrollable power has brought him into conflict with his fellow others. Lee stated that the Hulk's creation was inspired by a combination of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although the Hulk's coloration has varied throughout the character's publication history, the most usual color is green, he has two main catchphrases: "Hulk is strongest one there is!" and the better-known "Hulk smash!", which has founded the basis for numerous pop culture memes. One of the most iconic characters in popular culture, the character has appeared on a variety of merchandise, such as clothing and collectable items, inspired real-world structures, been referenced in a number of media. Banner and the Hulk have been adapted in live-action and video game incarnations.
The most notable of these were the 1970s The Incredible Hulk television series, in which the character was portrayed by Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. The character was first played in a live-action feature film by Eric Bana, with Edward Norton and Mark Ruffalo portraying the character in the films The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the Hulk first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1, written by writer-editor Stan Lee, penciled and co-plotted by Jack Kirby, inked by Paul Reinman. Lee cites influence from Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the Hulk's creation: It was patently apparent that Thing was the most popular character in Fantastic Four.... For a long time I'd been aware of the fact that people were more to favor someone, less than perfect.... It's a safe bet that you remember Quasimodo, but how can you name any of the heroic, more glamorous characters in The Hunchback of Notre Dame?
And there's Frankenstein... I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Frankenstein monster. No one could convince me that he was the bad guy.... He never wanted to hurt anyone. I decided I might as well borrow from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well—our protagonist would change from his normal identity to his superhuman alter ego and back again. Kirby, commenting upon his influences in drawing the character, recalled as inspiration the tale of a mother who rescues her child, trapped beneath a car. Lee has compared Hulk to the Golem of Jewish mythology. In The Science of Superheroes and Weinberg see the Hulk as a reaction to the Cold War and the threat of nuclear attack, an interpretation shared by Weinstein in Up, Up and Oy Vey; this interpretation corresponds with other popularized fictional media created during this time period, which took advantage of the prevailing sense among Americans that nuclear power could produce monsters and mutants. In the debut, Lee chose grey for the Hulk because he wanted a color that did not suggest any particular ethnic group.
Colorist Stan Goldberg, had problems with the grey coloring, resulting in different shades of grey, green, in the issue. After seeing the first published issue, Lee chose to change the skin color to green. Green was used in retellings of the origin, with reprints of the original story being recolored for the next two decades, until The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #302 reintroduced the grey Hulk in flashbacks set close to the origin story. An exception is the early trade paperback, Origins of Marvel Comics, from 1974, which explains the difficulties in keeping the grey color consistent in a Stan Lee written prologue, reprints the origin story keeping the grey coloration. Since December 1984, reprints of the first issue have displayed the original grey coloring, with the fictional canon specifying that the Hulk's skin had been grey. Lee gave the Hulk's alter ego the alliterative name "Bruce Banner" because he found he had less difficulty remembering alliterative names. Despite this, in stories he misremembered the character's name and referred to him as "Bob Banner", an error which readers picked up on.
The discrepancy was resolved by giving the character the official full name
Charles, Duke of Orléans
Charles of Orléans was Duke of Orléans from 1407, following the murder of his father, Louis I, Duke of Orléans, on the orders of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. He was Duke of Valois, Count of Beaumont-sur-Oise and of Blois, Lord of Coucy, the inheritor of Asti in Italy via his mother Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, he is now remembered as an accomplished medieval poet owing to the more than five hundred extant poems he produced, written in both French and English, during his 25 years spent as a prisoner of war and after his return to France. Charles was born in Paris. Acceding to the duchy at the age of thirteen after his father had been assassinated, he was expected to carry on his father's leadership against the Burgundians, a French faction which supported the Duke of Burgundy; the latter was never punished for his role in Louis' assassination, Charles had to watch as his grief-stricken mother Valentina Visconti succumbed to illness not long afterwards.
At her deathbed and the other boys of the family were made to swear the traditional oath of vengeance for their father's murder. During the early years of his reign as duke, the orphaned Charles was influenced by the guidance of his father-in-law, Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, for which reason Charles' faction came to be known as the Armagnacs. After war with the Kingdom of England was renewed in 1415, Charles was one of the many French noblemen at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415, he was discovered unwounded but trapped under a pile of corpses, incapacitated by the weight of his own armour. He was taken prisoner by the English, spent the next twenty-four years being moved from one castle to another in England, including the Tower of London, Pontefract Castle – the castle where England's young King Richard II, cousin once removed of the incumbent English King Henry V, had been imprisoned and died 15 years earlier at the age of 33; the conditions of his confinement were not strict.
However, he was not offered release in exchange for a ransom, since the English King Henry V had left instructions forbidding any release: Charles was the natural head of the Armagnac faction and in the line of succession to the French throne, was therefore deemed too important to be returned to circulation. After his capture, his entire library was moved by Yolande of Aragon to Saumur, to prevent it from falling into enemy hands It was during these twenty-four years that Charles would write most of his poetry, including melancholy works which seem to be commenting on the captivity itself, such as En la forêt de longue attente, he is credited with writing the first Valentine's Day poem. The majority of his output consists of two books, one in French and the other in English, in the ballade and rondeau fixed forms. Though once controversial, it is now abundantly clear that Charles wrote the English poems which he left behind when he was released in 1440, his acceptance in the English canon has been slow.
A. E. B. Coldiron has argued that the problem relates to his "approach to the erotic, his use of puns and rhetorical devices, his formal complexity and experimentation, his stance or voice: all these place him well outside the fifteenth-century literary milieu in which he found himself in England."One of his poems Is she not passing fair?, translated by Louisa Stuart Costello, was set to music by Edward Elgar. Claude Debussy set three of his poems to music in his Trois Chansons de Charles d'Orléans, L.92, for unaccompanied mixed choir. Freed in 1440 by the efforts of his former enemies, Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, he set foot on French soil again after 25 years, by now a middle aged man at 46 and "speaking better English than French," according to the English chronicler Raphael Holinshed. Philip the Good had made it a condition that the murder of Charles' father Louis of Orleans by Philip's own father, John the Fearless, would not be avenged.
Charles agreed to this condition prior to his release. Meeting the Duchess of Burgundy after disembarking, the gallant Charles said: "M'Lady, I make myself your prisoner." At the celebration of his third marriage, with Marie of Cleves, he was created a Knight of the Golden Fleece. His subsequent return to Orléans was marked by a splendid celebration organised by the citizens, he made an unsuccessful attempt to press his claims to Asti in Italy, before settling down as a celebrated patron of the arts. He died at Amboise in his 71st year. Charles married three times, his first wife Isabella of Valois, whom he married in Compiègne in 1406, died in childbirth. Their daughter, Joan married John II of Alençon in 1424 in Blois. Afterwards, he married Bonne of Armagnac, the daughter of Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, in 1410. Bonne died; the couple had no issue. On his return to France in 1440, Charles married Marie of Cleves in Saint-Omer and had three children: Marie of Orléans. Married Jean of Foix in 1476.
Louis XII of France Anne of Orléans, Abbess of Fontevrault and Poitiers. Kingdom of France – Duchy of Orléans: Grand Master and Knight of the Order of the Porcupine Duchy of Burgundy: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece Charles appears as "Duke of Orléans" in William Shakespeare's Henry V. In the 2012 television adaptation The Hollow Crown, Charles is played by French actor Stanley Weber and is inaccurately po
Louis-Félix Amiel
Louis Félix Amiel, a French portrait painter, was born at Castelnaudary in 1802. He was a pupil of Baron Gros, died at Joinville-le-Pont in 1864; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Michael. "Amiel, Louis Félix". In Graves, Robert Edmund. Bryan's Dictionary of Engravers. I. London: George Bell & Sons
Battle of Patay
The Battle of Patay was the culminating engagement of the Loire Campaign of the Hundred Years' War between the French and English in north-central France. It was a decisive victory for the French and with heavy losses inflicted on the corps of veteran English longbowmen; this victory was to the French. Although credited to Joan of Arc, most of the fighting was done by the vanguard of the French army as English units fled, the main portions of the French army were unable to catch up to the vanguard as it continued to pursue the English for several miles. After the English abandoned the Siege of Orléans on 8 May 1429, the survivors of the besieging forces withdrew to nearby garrisons along the Loire. A month having gathered men and supplies for the forthcoming campaign, the French army, under the nominal command of the Duke of Alençon, set out to capture these positions and the bridges they controlled. On 12 June they took Jargeau by storm captured the bridge at Meung-sur-Loire and marched on, without attacking the nearby castle, to lay siege to Beaugency on 15 June.
An English reinforcement army under Sir John Fastolf, which had set off from Paris following the defeat at Orléans, now joined forces with survivors of the besieging army under Lord Talbot and Lord Scales at Meung-sur-Loire. Talbot urged an immediate attack to relieve Beaugency, but was opposed by the more cautious Fastolf, reluctant to seek a pitched battle against the more numerous French; the garrison of Beaugency, unaware of the arrival of Fastolf's reinforcements and discouraged by the reinforcement of the French by a Breton contingent under Arthur de Richemont, surrendered on 18 June. Talbot agreed to Fastolf's proposal to retreat towards Paris. Learning of this movement, the French set off in pursuit, intercepted the English army near the village of Patay. In this battle, the English employed the same methods used in the victories at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415, deploying an army composed predominantly of longbowmen behind a barrier of sharpened stakes driven into the ground to obstruct any attack by cavalry.
Becoming aware of the French approach, Talbot sent a force of archers to ambush them from a patch of woods along the road. Dissatisfied, Talbot attempted to redeploy his men, setting up 500 longbowmen in a hidden location which would block the main road. However, they were attacked before they had a chance to prepare their position by the vanguard of about 1,500 mounted men-at-arms under La Hire and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles and swiftly overwhelmed, leading to the exposure of the other English units which were spread out along the road; the English archers had inadvertently disclosed their position to French scouts before their preparations were complete when a lone stag wandered onto a nearby field and the archers raised a hunting cry. Fastolf's unit attempted to join up with the English vanguard but the latter fled, forcing Fastolf to follow suit; the rest of the battle was a prolonged mopping-up operation against the fleeing English units, with little organized resistance. In the rout and mop-up the English lost over 2,000 men out of a force of about 5,000, many of them archers.
By contrast the French lost only about one hundred men. Fastolf, the only English commander who remained on horseback, managed to escape. Talbot and Sir Thomas Rempston were captured. Talbot accused Fastolf of deserting his comrades in the face of the enemy, a charge which he pursued vigorously once he had negotiated his release from captivity. Fastolf hotly denied the charge and was cleared of the charge by a special chapter of the Order of the Garter; the virtual destruction of the English field army in central France and the loss of many of their principal veteran commanders, had devastating consequences for the English position in France, from which it would never recover. During the following weeks the French, facing negligible resistance, were able to swiftly regain swathes of territory to the south and north of Paris, to march to Reims, where the Dauphin was crowned as King Charles VII of France on 17 July. Allmand, Christopher; the Hundred Years War: England and France at War c. 1300–1450.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-31923-4. Barker, Juliet. Conquest: The English Kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674065604. Cooper, Stephen; the Real Falstaff, Sir John Fastolf and the Hundred Years War. Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 9781848841239. Devries, Kelly. Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1805-5. Green, David; the Hundred Years War: A People's History. Yale University Press. Leveel, Pierre. "Charles VII, la Touraine et les Etats Generaux". Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine. Société archéologique de Touraine. Pernoud, Regine. Wheeler, Bonnie, ed. Joan of Arc: Her Story. Translated by Adams, Jeremy duQuesnay. St. Martin's Griffin. Richey, Stephen W.. Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-98103-7
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