But he himself was badly bred, knock-kneed, and bandy-legged;[576] a veritable king's son, if his looks only were considered, and yet it was impossible to swear to his descent.[577] Through his presence on the bridge at Montereau on that day, when, according to a wise man, it were better to have died than to have been there,[578] he had grown pale and trembling, looking dully at everything going to wrack and ruin around him.

After their victory of Verneuil and their partial conquest of Maine, the English had left him four years' respite.

But his friends, his defenders, his deliverers had alike been terrible.
Pious and humble, well content with his plain wife, he led a sad, anxious life in his chateaux on the Loire.

He was timid.

And well might he be so, for no sooner did he show friendship towards or confidence in one of the nobility than that noble was killed.