The kings were fighting for their lives, the great nobles were indistinguishable from brigands and the whole nation seemed to be relapsing into savagery.
The following year he was fighting the English, and in 1443 aided his father to suppress the revolt of the count of Armagnac. His first important command, however, was in the next year, when he led an army of from 15,000 to 20,000 mercenaries and brigands, - the product of the Hundred Years' War, - against the Swiss of the canton of Basel.
In order to put down the brigands who still infested the country and to check the raids of the Arabs on the frontier, he built or rebuilt fortresses, which were of material assistance to the Jews in the great revolt against Rome.
They ought to be hanged--the brigands!...
The Moslems might have endured a state of "infidels"; they could not endure a state of brigands.