Marshal Isle-Adam one day went to see him in camp on war-business.

The king considered that he did not present himself with sufficient ceremony.

"Isle-Adam," said he, "is that the robe of a marshal of France ?" "Sir, I had this whity-gray robe made to come hither by water aboard of Seine-boats." "Ha!" said the king, "look you a prince in the face when you speak to him ?" "Sir, it is the custom in France, that when one man speaks to another, of whatever rank and puissance that other may be, he passes for a sorry fellow, and but little honorable, if he dares not look him in the face." "It is not our fashion," said the king; and the subject dropped there.

A popular poet of the time, Alan Chattier, constituted himself censor of the moral corruption and interpreter of the patriotic paroxysms caused by the cold and harsh supremacy of this unbending foreigner, who set himself up for king of France, and had not one feeling in sympathy with the French.

Alan Chartier's _Quadriloge invectif_ is a lively and sometimes eloquent allegory, in which France personified implores her three children, the clergy, the chivalry, and the people, to forget their own quarrels and unite to save their mother whilst saving themselves; and this political pamphlet getting spread about amongst the provinces did good service to the national cause against the foreign conqueror.