READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453 -1900

CHAPTER II

AFFAIRS OF FRANCE AND BURGUNDY DOWN TO THE TRUCE OF 1472;

WITH A BRIEF VIEW OF ENGLISH AFFAIRS UNDER EDWARD IV

AFTER the expulsion of the English from France, the remainder of Charles VII’s reign affords few events of importance, besides his quarrel with his son, the Dauphin Louis, and the flight of the latter to the Court of Burgundy. Louis, after his relegation into Dauphiné, displayed in the government of that land, in a manner remarkable in so youthful a Prince, the same principles which afterwards guided his conduct as King of France.

He cultivated the friendship of the people, and endeavored to depress the nobles, whom he forbade to exercise the right of private war; he introduced many reforms into the administration of the country, which gave it the air of a little kingdom; he established a Parliament at Grenoble and a University at Valence; he coined money bearing his own superscription; he raised a considerable army, and he negotiated with foreign Princes on the footing of an independent Sovereign. Against his father he waged open war. The hatred and jealousy between Charles VII and his heir went on increasing, and in 1456 Charles resolved on reducing his rebellious son, and bringing Dauphiné under power of the Crown. Louis felt that, from the want of gens d'armes, he could bring no force into the field able to cope with his father’s, and under pretense of joining the expedition which the Duke of Burgundy talked of preparing against the Turks, he fled to the Court of that Sovereign, where he met with a magnificent reception.

Philip, however, would offer nothing but his mediation; and he even made a sort of apology to Charles VII for receiving Louis, protesting that he meant only the good both of father and son. But all negotiations proved unavailing, and Louis remained in Brabant, where he was treated with regal splendor: a residence was assigned him at Genappe, near Nivelle, with a monthly pension of 2,500 livres; and it was here that, to amuse his leisure hours, the Cent Nouvelles were composed, in imitation of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Charles VII was accustomed to say that the Duke was sheltering the fox that would at last devour his hens. The residence of Louis at the Court of Burgundy afforded him, indeed, ample opportunity to observe all the weak points of his future enemy, and the foundation was now laid of that antipathy between the heirs apparent of Burgundy and France, which afterwards proved of so much political importance. No characters could well be more dissimilar than those of the two young Princes. That of Louis offers the picture of a personage not often seen in the world—a royal cynic. Amidst the pomp and magnificence so preeminently cultivated at the Burgundian Court, Louis felt and displayed a profound contempt for all the trappings of state, and for everything that savored of chivalry. In public conferences and assemblies, whore the nobility and Crown vassals vied with one another in all the splendor of silk and velvet, gold and precious stones, Louis appeared in a short coat, an old doublet of grey fustian, and a scurvy felt hat. Such a temper was naturally accompanied with a turn for irony and raillery. Louis took no pride in his rank; the only thing on which he piqued himself was, being more dexterous and able than others. Yet his simple, or rather mean, way of life, did not arise from the love of hoarding, but from the desire of employing the money which he saved in undertakings that might be useful to his interests. Expediency was his only rule; and throughout his life he preferred diplomacy to arms. In disposition he was sly and dissembling, also cruel where he deemed it necessary for his purpose. But there was a singular, and apparently incongruous, trait in the character of this hard-hearted man of the world—he

was weakly superstitious: not according to the superstition of his age, which delighted in the splendor of public worship, in magnificent religious foundations, and in the glorification of the clergy, but a superstition trivial, debasing, centering wholly in himself. He cared little for the precepts of religion, and delighted in humiliating the clergy; yet he constantly wore round his neck a huge wooden paternoster. In short, he was directly opposed to the spirit of the middle ages, which it seemed to be his mission utterly to destroy.

Such a disposition, as it had led the Dauphin to hate and despise his father, the trifling, dissipated, extravagant Charles, so it now set him at variance with the Count of Charolais, the son and heir of Philip, afterwards known as Charles the Bold. That young Prince, though sedate and devout, was haughty, imperious, obstinate, and inflexible; a great admirer of that ancient chivalry which Louis despised; and finding his chief amusement in reading books relating to it. War was his favorite passion, and he delighted in feats of arms and in bodily-exercises. Like Louis, he was at variance with his father, being displeased with the favor shown by Philip to his ministers, the Croys, and on this subject a violent scene took place in 1457, when the old Duke was so enraged as to draw his sword upon his son. In pursuance of his habitual policy with regard to France, Philip the Good had compelled Charles to marry a French Princess, Isabella of Bourbon, though the Count of Charolais’s own views were directed towards a daughter of Richard, Duke of York, a connection which might have afforded him a prospect of the English throne.

After the flight of Louis, Charles VII took possession of Dauphiné, which was now finally joined to the French monarchy, and never again administered as a separate sovereignty. Charles did not feel himself strong enough to make war upon the Duke of Burgundy, but jealousy and hatred were rankling in his breast; he took every occasion to thwart Philip’s interests, and affected to treat him with a hauteur which must have been very galling to “the great Duke of the West”. Charles suffered no further serious disquietude from the English. A ray of glory might have been shed over his declining days had he known how to use the opportunity which fortune threw in his way by the making-over to him of the sovereignty of Genoa by the Doge Pietro Fregoso in 1458, when Charles, as already related, made John of Anjou Governor of that city. But the ill policy of the French King soon proved fatal to his dominion at Genoa. During the wars of the Roses in England, Charles naturally sided with Margaret of Anjou and the House of Lancaster, while the cause of York was espoused by the Duke of Burgundy. Charles was unreasonable enough to insist that the Genoese should aid Margaret with a fleet, and urged them to spend their blood and treasure, while he husbanded his own, in a cause to which they were perfectly indifferent. The anger of the Genoese was roused by this injustice; they rose and expelled the French Governor and garrison (March 9th, 1461); and an army which Charles dispatched against them in the following July was utterly defeated.

Towards the end of his life Charles VII seems to have contemplated disinheriting the rebellious Louis, and leaving the Crown to his second son, Charles, Duke of Berri, a purpose from which he is said to have been diverted by the counsel of Pope Pius II. His last days were passed in an alternation between a wretched listlessness and those sensual pleasures which hastened his end. At last he fell into so deep a state of dejection as to fancy that all the world, and especially his son, the Dauphin, were engaged in a league to poison him, and obstinately refusing all sustenance, he literally died of starvation, July 22nd, 1461.

ACCESSION OF LOUIS XI

The Dauphin, now Louis XI, was still at the Court of Burgundy when his father expired. With his characteristic dislike of pomp and magnificence, he declined Philip the Good's offer to escort him into France with a numerous retinue of knights; and he set off with only a few attendants to take possession of his new Kingdom. The contrast between the Sovereigns was strikingly displayed at Louis’s coronation, which took place shortly afterwards at Rheims. The Duke of Burgundy appeared there with the splendor worthy of an Emperor; whilst the French King, as he rode before in mean and shabby attire, resembled some valet sent to announce the approach of the Duke. The latter’s retinue, both men and horses, were almost buried under the weight of rich velvets adorned with jewels and massy golden chains; the very beasts of burden had velvet housings embroidered with the Duke’s arms, and silver bells tinkled on their necks. One hundred and forty superb chariots, over which floated Philip’s banners, conveyed his gold and silver plate, the money that was to be thrown, the wine that was to be distributed, to the populace; while fat Flemish bullocks and small sheep of the Ardennes, destined to supply the banquets, closed the procession. The King, on the other hand, in his ostentatious poverty, assumed a corresponding air of humble devotion. He was constantly on his knees; he could not be raised from them when he received the chrism of the sainte ampoule, or when the Duke of Burgundy, as premier Peer of France, put the crown upon his head. Yet amidst all this affected humility, Louis’s penetrating glance, the ironical smile that played about his lips, betrayed his true character to the intelligent observer.

After the coronation magnificent tournaments were celebrated at Paris, at one of which Louis contrived an exhibition that at once gratified his cynicism and gave presage of what he was meditating against the degenerate feudal lords. After the Count of Charolais and the rest of the nobles had jousted, and paraded before the spectators their splendid accoutrements, their jewelry, and their plumes, a strange champion, grotesquely attired, as well as his horse, in the skins of wild beasts, suddenly entered the lists, and dismounted one after another all those gorgeous knights; while the King, hidden behind some Parisian ladies, quietly enjoyed the spectacle from a window. He had selected and handsomely paid a tall and vigorous gendarme, who, mounted on a strong and fiery steed, overthrew all who ventured to oppose him.

Louis’s first acts foreshadowed the policy of his future reign—to lower the nobility, the Church, and everything that could offer a counterpoise to the royal authority. After the coronation banquet, Philip the Good had knelt down before him and solicited pardon for all who had offended him during his father’s life; and Louis, who could hardly refuse the first request of his benefactor, promised compliance, with certain exceptions. But he did not keep even this qualified promise, and Philip foretold the resistance of the persecuted nobles. The way in which Louis received the addresses of the clergy was in the highest degree rude and unmannerly. He stopped the Archbishop of Rheims, who was also Chancellor of France, at the first word; and his reception of the celebrated Cardinal Bessarion, whom the Pope had sent to compliment him, was still worse. The learned Byzantine had prepared a long and somewhat pedantic speech; but the King cut him short with a line from the Latin grammar: Barbara  Greca genus retinent quod habere solebant. On the other hand, he dispatched letters to his “good towns”, calling on the inhabitants to hold them well for the King—that is, against the governors, whom he suspected. These demonstrations did not remain mere idle words, but were soon followed up with corresponding acts. In order to curtail the jurisdiction of the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse, he created that of Bordeaux; he established at Bourges a rival University to that of Paris, which intercepted the students of the south; and he published several ordinances respecting ecclesiastical matters, claiming the disposal of benefices, and forbidding all appeals to the Pope. One of the most remarkable of these was the ordinance of July 20th, 1463, commanding the clergy to make within a year a return of all Church property, “in order that they may no longer encroach on our signorial rights, nor on those of our vassals”. He banished the Papal collectors, and seized the temporalities of two or three Cardinals; among them, those of the Cardinal of Avignon, one of the richest of pluralists, from whom he obtained the revenues of the bishoprics of Carcassonne and Usès, of the abbey of St. Jean d'Angely, and several others.

In order to degrade the aristocracy, Louis elevated farmers and lawyers to the rank of nobles. But his main efforts were directed against the holders of the large French fiefs, several of whom might be regarded as rivals to the Crown. After Burgundy, the principal of these was the Duke of Brittany, whose fief was dissimilar to those of the rest of France. There prevailed in Brittany a sort of clanship somewhat analogous to that of the Scotch Highlands; the Duke styled himself Duke “by the grace of God”; he spoke of his royal and ducal powers, and wore a crown instead of the ducal hat. The pretensions of the Dukes of Brittany to independence had been favored by the long struggle between France and England, and the question of homage to the Crown of France had been renewed at the accession of each Duke. The celebrated Constable Richemont, who had succeeded to the Duchy of Brittany in 1457, with the title of Arthur III, had done only simple homage: that is, he neither took off his belt nor bent his knee, but standing, and girt with his sword, he placed his hands between those of Charles VII, and pronounced the accustomed formula, which, however, was received with reservation by the French monarch. The latter claimed a liege homage, which would have obliged the Duke to follow his banner everywhere in war, and to sit in his courts of justice, in short, to be a Peer of France—a title by which the Dukes of Brittany would have thought themselves degraded. The question therefore was not one merely of rank and honor: it involved the more substantial points of feudal services and payments, as also what were called the droits régaliens, or the privilege of appointing to bishoprics and receiving the fruits and revenues during avoidances.

At the accession of Louis XI, Brittany was held by Duke Francis II, the nephew of Richemont, who demurred to the King’s demand of formal liege homage; and, in order to fortify himself against any attempt at compulsion, he contracted an alliance with the Duke of Normandy. The latter duchy, by a policy which it is difficult to explain, Louis had conferred on the Count of Charolais, together with a revenue of 36,000 livres and the Hotel de Nesle at Paris. Louis can hardly be suspected of gratitude. One motive might have been that Charolais was at variance with his father; or Normandy might have been considered more easy to reduce if placed in the hands of a sort of foreign Sovereign. Be this as it may, Louis, with his usual caution and foresight, did not immediately resort to open violence against the Duke of Brittany, but first of all proceeded to place the French Kingdom in such a state as might enable him to enforce his demands with safety. He first directed his views to the south, and, in an expedition which he undertook in 1462, he received the Catalan County of Rousillon in mortgage from the King of Aragon, and assigned it to the Count of Foix. This grant was accompanied with other acts calculated to make him popular among his subjects in those parts. Thus, he exempted Dauphiné from the game laws, and granted to Toulouse, which had suffered from a great fire, an exemption from taxes for a century. A little afterwards he renewed his alliance with the Swiss, or Old League of High Germany, and with Francis Sforza, Duke of Milan, to whom, as we have said, he abandoned all the French claims on Genoa and Savona, with reservation of the sovereignty. But what lay nearest his heart was the recovery of the towns on the Somme, which had been pledged to the Duke of Burgundy, and by which that potentate might have opened to the English the road to Paris.

By the Treaty of Arras, Louis was entitled to redeem these towns; but he seems to have promised the Count of Charolais that he would not do so during the lifetime of Charolais’s father. He preferred, however, that his money should go into the hands of Philip's favorites, the Croys, rather than into those of his heir; and Charolais protested in vain. Thus, in October, 1463, the towns of St. Quentin, Péronne, Amiens, Abbeville, in short, all those on the Somme and in Picardy, were redeemed and re-annexed to the Crown of France; but Orchies, Douay, and Lille, which had been pledged at an earlier period, remained in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. In order to raise the necessary sum of 400,000 crowns, the King, besides taxing his towns, also laid his hands on the sacred deposit in Notre-Dame, the money of suitors, widows, and wards placed there by the Parliament of Paris. Another measure of precaution was the truce which he concluded with Edward IV at Hesdin (October 27th, 1463). This Prince had mounted the throne only a few months before Louis, but the wars of the Roses still continued in England. Soon after his accession, Louis had lent some help to Henry VI; and on the other hand, a large naval expedition, under command of the Earl of Warwick, had been fitted out against France in 1462; but Warwick had contented himself with making a trifling descent at Brest.

After these precautions Louis prepared to strike a blow against the Duke of Brittany, who on his side had not been improvident or idle. He had confirmed his alliance with the Count of Charolais, as Duke of Normandy (March, 1461); he was negotiating with Edward IV, to whom he promised to transfer the homage of Brittany; and he entered into a league with the malcontent Dukes of Bourbon and Berri, and with John of Anjou, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, son of René, titular King of the Sicilies. To crush so dangerous a vassal, Louis caused an army to assemble gradually and secretly on the frontier of Brittany; and hethen announced to Francis II that he would no longer be permitted to style himself Duke “by the grace of God” nor to exercise the prerogatives of a sovereign Prince. The Duke of Brittany did not venture directly to reject these commands; but he alleged the necessity of consulting the States, and the whole matter was referred to an assembly to meet at Chinon in September, by which nothing was concluded.

Louis knew that his policy had roused the distrust and hatred of the French nobility, and that a great confederacy was organizing against him. His dissembling yet decisive character inspired the nobles with fear; and Pierre de Brezé concentrated this feeling in an epigram, when he remarked that the King’s horse did not carry him alone, but all his council. Not that Louis repelled advice; on the contrary, he gave everybody an attentive hearing, but ended by deciding for himself. The lurking discontent wanted only an occasion to explode, which was soon afforded by a hasty step of the King's. Louis was aware that Romillé, Vice-Chancellor of Brittany, was one of the chief agents in hatching the confederacy against him; that he was accustomed to travel about disguised as a monk, and was now at Gorcum, in Holland, with the Count of Charolais. The King, therefore, resolved to seize him and his papers, and it is said the Count of Charolais also; and he dispatched thither the Bastard of Rubempré, a notoriously bold and desperate character, in a smuggling vessel; but Rubempré’s appearance in the streets of Gorcum excited suspicion, and he was apprehended. The Duke of Burgundy was informed that Louis, guided by certain astrologers, who had foretold the Duke’s approaching death, had resolved on kidnapping his successor; and the King's known addiction to astrology lent color to the charge. To clear his honor the King sent an embassy to the Court of Philip, consisting of the Count d'Eu, the Archbishop of Narbonne, and the Chancellor, Pierre de Morvilliers. The last discharged his mission with insolence. He reproached the Count of Charolais with his connection with the Duke of Brittany, demanded that Rubempré should be released, and that Olivier de la Marche, who had incriminated the King, should be surrendered, as well as a Jacobin friar, who had abused him in his sermons. When the Ambassadors were departing the Count of Charolais bade the Archbishop of Narbonne recommend him very humbly to the King, and tell him that he had received a fine reprimand from his Chancellor, but that Louis should repent of it before a year was past.

This breach with Burgundy encouraged the French nobles to fly to arms. They communicated with one another by means of envoys, who were recognized by a knot of red silk at their girdles; and towards the end of 1464 was concluded at Paris the confederacy known as the Ligue, or Emprise du Bien Public; a name, as Sismondi observes, which shows that some deference was beginning to be paid to public opinion. More than five hundred princes, lords, and ladies, are said to have enrolled themselves in this League. It was favored by the clergy, whom Louis had offended by the measures before adverted to as well as by excluding Bishops from the Parliament of Paris; and they allowed the agents of the nobles to meet in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Philip the Good, fearing the rash and headstrong temper of his son, at first stood aloof from this confederacy: and it was only on persuasion of his nephew, John, Duke of Bourbon, that he was at length induced to join it. Bourbon, who had done good service against the English, had been alienated from the King by the refusal of the constableship on the death of Richemont, as well as by being deprived of the government of Guienne. The Duchy of Bourbon lies in the heart of the French Kingdom, but John also possessed many lands in the south, so that his territory might be said to reach from Bordeaux to Savoy. Among other principal leaders besides the Duke of Brittany, were the Duke of Alençon, the Count of Armagnac, and John of Anjou, who had joined the League much against the inclination of his father, King René. The Angevin House of Provence and Lorraine had been hurt by the surrender of Genoa, which diminished their chance of recovering Naples; while the Orleans family had also been offended by the King’s alliance with Francesco Sforza, the old Duke Charles claiming Milan, as we have said, through his mother, Valentina Visconti. The confederates published violent manifestoes, in which they denounced the acts of the King, and they declared that their revolt had no other object than the good of the people. The King on his side dispatched letters through the kingdom in which he pointed out the evils which would spring from this “false and damnable rebellion”; and he asserted, perhaps with truth, that if he had consented to increase the pensions of the nobles, and allowed them to oppress their vassals as before, they would never have thought of the public weal.

CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE.

Stratagem and negotiation, Louis’s familiar arts, were now of no avail; it was necessary to oppose force by force, and he applied himself to the levying of an army. He increased the pay of the military, and, to meet this charge, he laid on taxes which considerably damaged his popularity. Abroad he entered into alliances with the Bohemians and with Venice, and he endeavored to conciliate the Pope; but the only foreign aid which he actually received was from the Duke of Milan and the King of Naples, who were naturally pleased that he should support them against the pretensions of his own vassals. Francesco Sforza sent his son, Galeazzo Maria, with troops; and King Ferdinand dispatched some galleys to cruise on the coast of Provence. Louis also courted the Medici; and it was now that he allowed Pietro to insert the lilies of France in his armorial bearings—a favor that was probably bought. It was at this conjuncture (June, 1461), that, in order to procure rapid intelligence from all parts of the realm, Louis first established posts, in imitation of those of ancient Rome, with relays of horses at every four leagues; a very necessary step towards his policy of centralization.

In March, 1405, the King’s brother, Charles, Duke of Berri, from whom he had been some time estranged, joined the League, and went into Brittany. This was the signal for the civil war which ensued, known as the guerre du bien public, or War of the Public Weal; and in May, almost the whole Kingdom, except Lyon, Dauphiné, the greater part of Auvergne, Languedoc, and Guienne, had risen in arms. The King first led his forces against Bourbon; but learning that the Duke of Brittany was in his rear, and that the Count of Charolais was marching on Paris at the head of 26,000 men, he hastened towards the north. The Duke of Brittany was on the Loire, Charolais on the Somme; and their design was to form a junction in the Isle of France, and occupy Paris. Charolais’s military character was precipitate and rash, and his natural imprudence was increased by his father’s advice to strike hard, accompanied with a promise that ho himself, if necessary, would come to his aid at the head of 100,000 men. Charolais penetrated to Paris without waiting for the Duke of Brittany; but his army was ill organized and disciplined, and the Parisians made a valiant defense. Whilst the Count was hesitating whether to retreat or to await the arrival of his confederates, Louis unexpectedly approached, the Oriflamme glittering in his ranks, which, during the domination of the English, had lain forgotten. This is the last time that the appearance of this celebrated standard is recorded. Louis attacked the Burgundian army at Montlhéry, July 16th, 1465. The accounts given of this battle by the two contemporary chroniclers, Philip do Comines and Olivier de la Marche, are not easily to be reconciled. Both leaders are said to have displayed personal valor, and both claimed the victory. Charolais remained in possession of the field, but he retired next day to Etampes, where he was joined by the Dukes of Brittany and Berri, while Louis seemed to have reaped the more substantial advantage of the day, as he lost fewer men, and entered Paris as a conqueror.

About the middle of August, the army of the League, which had received large reinforcements, and had been joined by many of the confederate princes, reappeared before Paris. Louis had gone into Normandy to hasten the levies in that quarter, and meanwhile the Duke of Berri invited the Parisians to a negotiation at Beauté-sur-Marne, where he endeavored, though without success, to persuade them to open their gates to him. In a few days Louis returned with the Norman levies; but though the hostile armies lay opposed to each other till September, only a few unimportant skirmishes took place. As Louis was master of the Seine down to the sea, he could always command a supply of provisions, and was therefore in no hurry to risk a battle; he trusted rather to delay, and the effects which he hoped to produce through intrigue and address on princes of such dissimilar characters and interests as those now leagued against him. He also relied on some diversions that were making in his favor.

Galeazzo Maria Sforza had entered Dauphiné with 5,000 men, and the citizens of Liege, with whom Louis had signed a treaty at the breaking out of the war, had risen against the Duke of Burgundy, and after sending him a defiance at Brussels, had laid siege to Limburg. The King also had incited the inhabitants of Dinant to war; and they had ravaged the County of Namur, and hung up on a gallows before the gates of Bouvignes, an effigy of Charolais, with an insulting inscription, designating him as a bastard of the old Bishop of Liege. These were blows struck in the heart of the enemy's dominions; the Count of Charolais became anxious to make his peace with Louis, in order that he might be able to chastise the insolence of his rebellious subjects; and negotiations between the King and the League were opened at Charenton. Louis, who had no pride, or at all events never suffered it to interfere with his interests, flattered the vanity of Charolais by going thither in person, without asking for securities or hostages. He even condescended to say that the Count had fulfilled the promise made to his ambassadors—namely, that their master should repent his insolence before a year was expired, for he confessed that he repented of it already.

Rouen had opened its gates to the Duke of Bourbon; the example had been followed by some other towns of Normandy, and the demands of the princes and nobles became so extravagant, that Louis at first refused to listen to them. They were all, however, for the private advantage of the confederates; not a word about the “public weal”, except that they stipulated for an assembly to consider of some reforms. Francesco Sforza advised Louis to concede everything, in order to dissipate this formidable conspiracy, and to fulfill the conditions or not, according to circumstances. But Louis was not behind the subtlest Italian as a diplomatist. He improved upon this advice, and granted even more than the confederates asked; seeing that the more he now conceded, the more ready would the people be to help him hereafter. He distinguished the Duke of Burgundy from the other members of the League, and concluded with him a separate treaty at Conflans, October 5th. The terms seemed most disadvantageous to the Crown of France; that especially by which the Count of Charolais recovered for himself, and his next heir, the towns of Picardy, with liberty to the King of France, after the demise of both, to repurchase them for 200,000 gold crowns.

The treaty with the other princes was signed at St. Maur des Fosses, October 29th. The King’s facility was calculated to rouse suspicion; but the nobles were carried away by the advantages offered them, as well as by the example of Charolais. Nothing was said by them respecting the Etats Généraux, who might have questioned the concessions they had obtained; but in order to save appearances, they stipulated that the King should call an Assembly of Notables, to consist of twelve prelates, twelve knights and squires, and twelve lawyers. At the very time he was making these concessions, Louis entered a formal protest against them in the Parliament of Paris, as extorted by force, and therefore null and void; and the Parliament on their side registered the protest with reservations, declaring themselves under constraint.

By the failure of the League of the Public Good—for the treaty of St. Maur, notwithstanding its vast concessions, must be regarded as the consummation of its failure—not only was the fate of the French nobility decided, but also the future color of the French constitution. The barons of England, uniting their cause with that of the commons against King John, established their own influence and the liberty of all. The French nobility, standing by themselves, and contending at once with King and people, finally lost every remnant of power, and paved the way for democracy and despotism. But their success would perhaps have been still more fatal to France. Under an aristocratical oligarchy public liberty might have been still more compromised; while France, instead of becoming a compact and powerful monarchy, would probably, like Germany, have had the elements of its strength dissipated among a confederacy of feudal Princes.

The first employment of Louis after his deliverance from immediate danger was to upset the treaty by which he had effected it. With this view he entered privately into negotiations with the princes and nobles. He seemed mindful of the old fable of the bundle of rods, fragile separately, though infrangible while united. To conciliate Bourbon, the King made him his Lieutenant in the south, and conferred on the Bastard of Bourbon the office of Admiral of France. The renowned Dunois, the old Bastard of Orleans, was detached from the interests of that House by giving his son the hand of Agnes of Savoy. The Constable St. Pol, uncle to the Queen of England, was seduced by the prospect of advantageous marriages for himself and family. Even the Count of Charolais, now a widower, was propitiated by the offer of the hand of Louis’s infant daughter, Anne, afterwards the celebrated Anne of France, with Champagne and the Laonnois as a dowry. But most of these promises Louis had no intention to keep, and his treacherous projects were favored by the mutual jealousy of the Princes. The Dukes of Brittany and Normandy (Charolais) quarreled on their journey from Paris to Rouen. Duke Francis wanted to seize the governorship of that city, and the principal offices, civil and military, of Normandy, in order to indemnify himself for the expenses of the war. He appealed to force, and was supported by the King, who ceded to him the droits régaliens of that province, made him a present of 120,000 gold crowns, and came to his assistance with an army. Their united force soon reduced Normandy, the towns of which made no defense, and that land was declared re-annexed to the French Crown (Jan. 21st, 1466). This event was accompanied with a double perfidy. The King neglected to fulfill his promise of bestowing Normandy on his brother the Duke of Berri, and the offer of Anne was transferred to John of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, but with no better intention of fulfilling it. In this state of things, small attention was paid to the provisions of the treaty. The Notables, charged with the reformation of abuses, assembled, indeed, but were so selected as to leave the King nothing to fear from their proceedings.

Meanwhile the Count of Charolais was employed in punishing the towns of Liège and Dinant, in whose favor Louis had made no stipulations in the Treaty of Conflans, though it was he who had incited them to war. He sacrificed Liege to his desire of conciliating Bourbon, whose brother Louis had been made Bishop of that principality by influence of Philip the Good; and in order that Louis might re-enter his bishopric, from which he had been expelled, it was necessary that the King should withdraw his protection from the insurgent citizens. The Liège towns were reduced, condemned in heavy fines, and compelled to recognize the Duke of Burgundy as their hereditary protector. From this arrangement, however, the town of Dinant was specially excepted; and in August (1466), Charolais appeared before Dinant with a large army, battered it with his artillery, sacked it, razed it to the ground, and massacred the inhabitants in cold blood, 800 of whom, tied together in couples, were thrown into the Meuse. This horrible example procured the renewed submission of Liège.

DEATH OF PHILIP THE GOOD AND UNPOPULARITY OF CHARLES THE BOLD.

Charolais must not bear alone the execration merited by these atrocious acts. The old Duke Philip was present before Dinant, and, though he was deemed more merciful than his son, he refused to listen to any conditions. It was one of the last acts of his reign; he died June 15th, 1467. His title of “the Good” was derived from a certain sensual good humor, which often passes with the vulgar for good nature, and supplies the place of virtue. By his last will he directed that his heart should be carried to Jerusalem; for the Asiatic Princes at this time leagued against the Sultan Mahomet II had promised to place him on the throne of that visionary Kingdom. By the accession of Charles to his father’s dominions, Louis foresaw that a war with Burgundy would soon become inevitable; and in contemplation of it, he used every art to increase his popularity among his own subjects. He particularly cultivated the friendship of the Parisians, spoke familiarly with all, dined and supped with the principal magistrates and citizens, and engaged his Queen to make bathing parties with their wives. From his former intimacy with Charles, he was well acquainted with all the weak points in his character, and he prepared to take advantage of them. That Prince, who has obtained the surnames of “the Terrible”, “the Bold”, and “the Bash”, was of middle stature, dark complexion, and commanding aspect. In many respects he was the reverse of his father. He was temperate and true to his marriage vow, warlike, inured to hardship and fatigue, but improvident, overbearing, and cruel. While Philip was regretted, his son soon became universally hated by the people, for his hostility to their municipal privileges, and the heavy taxes which he imposed upon them; by the nobles, for the haughtiness of his manners, and the inexorable severity with which he punished their excesses. Peace, order, and economy were the things chiefly coveted by the commercial Netherlander: Philip had studied to maintain them, but by Charles they were neglected. The luxury and splendor of the Court and nobles were excessive, while the middle and commercial classes, though wealthy, were frugal and orderly in their mode of living; and they were particularly annoyed by the troops, commanded for the most part by bastard sons of the nobility, who lived almost at free quarters upon them. The elements of discontent were, therefore, sufficiently abundant; and, in order to foment it, Louis retained agents in the principal Burgundian towns.

Soon after his accession, Charles had repaired to Ghent, when the citizens, discontented with a tax called the Cueillette, rose in insurrection, subjected the Duke to a kind of durance, and compelled him to repeal the obnoxious tax. This example operated in other towns, and Louis availed himself of the conjuncture to excite fresh disturbances in Liege. But that town was again soon reduced by Charles; Louis, as usual, having abandoned it to its fate. The state of the western provinces of the French Kingdom rendered it highly inexpedient for Louis to provoke immediate hostilities with the Duke of Burgundy. That Prince, in spite of their recent quarrels, was again leagued with the Duke of Brittany, at whose Court the Duke of Berri, enraged at his disappointment respecting Normandy, was now residing; and all the King’s endeavors to conciliate his brother proved unsuccessful. The Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany were negotiating with Edward IV of England, and towards the close of 1467 the long-protracted endeavors of these Princes were brought to a fortunate conclusion. A marriage was arranged between Charles and Margaret of York, Edward’s sister, which was celebrated with great pomp at Bruges in July, 1468; and thus the blood of the House of Burgundy was once more mixed with that of the Plantagenets. Edward promised 3000 English archers to assist in an invasion of Normandy, on condition that the places conquered should be made over to England.

TREATY OF ANCENIS

But before any fruits could be derived from this alliance, Louis had contrived to render harmless the league between the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. In accordance with his usual policy, he appealed against the princes to the people, and summoned the States General to meet at Tours in April, 1468. Their composition was more than usually democratic. Most of the Peers of France were absent, whilst 192 deputies attended from sixty-four of the principal towns of the realm. The indignation roused by the alliance of the Dukes with England operated in favors of the King. The Assembly, although it complained of many domestic grievances, unanimously disapproved a separation of Normandy from the Grown; and they were of opinion that “Monsieur Charles” (the Duke of Berri) ought to be very well satisfied with his brother’s handsome offer of a pension of 60,000 livres, seeing that an edict of Charles the Wise assigned only 12,000 to a younger son. Armed with this decision of his States, Louis hastened to strike a blow against Brittany, before the English succors could arrive. Besides the dread inspired by his arms, the King had gained by his liberalities the Sire de Lescun, the chief counselor and favorite of Duke Francis, who persuaded his master to a truce, and finally to subscribe the peace of Ancenis, September 10th, 1468, by which he abjured all alliances except the King’s, and submitted the question of “Monsieur Charles’s appanage to the arbitration of the Duke of Calabria and of the Chancellor of Brittany. The Duke of Berri subsequently acceded to this treaty.

One motive with Francis for entering into it was the non-appearance of the Duke of Burgundy. Charles had been retarded by fresh symptoms of an outbreak at Liege; whither had returned, armed with clubs and other rustic weapons, a crowd of half-naked, half-starved fugitives, who had been living in the woods. When Charles arrived on the Somme, nothing could equal his surprise at receiving a copy of the treaty: he could not be persuaded but that it was a stratagem contrived to arrest his advance, and he was on the point of hanging for an impostor the herald who brought the document. But when the truth, by further confirmation, at length stared him in the face, he displayed a readiness to negotiate; and the King himself, although he seemed to have Charles at an advantage, according to his habitual policy, preferred diplomacy to arms. His reliance, however, on his own superior dexterity brought him into a very awkward dilemma. He resolved on personally visiting Charles at Péronne, as he had previously done at Charenton during the War of the Public Weal: though he had no security but a letter of the Duke’s, in which he said, that happen what might, the King should come, remain, and depart in safety.

On October 10th, the day after Louis’s arrival at Péronne, news came to the Duke of Burgundy that the citizens of Liège had surprised Tongres on the night of St. Denis (8th to 9th October), and killed the Bishop of Liège and several canons in presence of Louis’s agents. At this news Charles affected a violent rage, and confined Louis in the castle, whence he could descry the tower where Charles the Simple had died as the prisoner of Herbert of Vermandois. The Duke’s courtiers begged him not to spare “the universal spider”, now at last caught in his own web; but Charles would have trained nothing by the King’s death, and he contented himself with extorting from him some very hard conditions. Louis was required to confirm the treaties of Arras and Conflans, to convert the Duke of Burgundy’s dependence on the French Crown into a mere empty homage for separate provinces, to abrogate the appellate jurisdiction of the Paris Parliament in Flanders, to abandon the revenues of Picardy, and to confer on his brother, the Duke of Berri, the provinces of Champagne and Brie instead of Normandy. Louis subscribed these terms, October 14, but with the secret determination, in this case perhaps in some degree justified, to break them on the first opportunity. The Duke of Burgundy, aware of the King’s superstition, would not receive his oath except on a piece of the Cross of St. Lô, which Louis always carried with him. This precious relic, which derived its name from having been long kept in the church of St. Lô at Angers, was reputed to be a portion of the true Cross; it had always accompanied Charlemagne on his journeys, and Louis was known to entertain the opinion that if he perjured himself upon it he would die within the year.

But the hardest condition of all, if Louis retained any moral sense or feeling of honor, was, that he was compelled to accompany the Duke of Burgundy to Liège, and to behold the chastisement of those very citizens whom his own arts had excited to rebellion. He carried out, however, to the last the new character he had assumed of Charles’s friend. Far from appearing at Liège as a mere forced and unwilling spectator, he exhibited himself before the town with the cross of St. Andrew in his hat, and to the citizens’ cry of Vive la France! responded with a shout of Vive Bourgogne! Yet on this occasion he displayed as much military courage as moral cowardice, and repulsed a sortie from the town with great coolness, when the Duke had quite lost his head.

Liège was taken by assault on Sunday, October 30th, when the Duke of Burgundy exhibited the most deliberate cruelty in his treatment of the citizens. Those who had survived the assault and sack were proceeded against for weeks, nay months, afterwards, with a show of judicial inquiry; but few escaped except those who could purchase their lives, and thousands were either hanged or drowned in the Meuse. The town was burnt with the exception of the religions edifices and the houses belonging to the clergy, and gens d'armes were dispatched into the Ardennes to make an end of those miserable fugitives who had not already died of cold and hunger.

Louis had been permitted to return to France, November 2nd, more vexed perhaps at being overreached than at the loss of his honor: but for the present, at least, he considered it advisable to carry out the stipulations of Péronne; and he ordered the treaty to be published at Paris, and to be registered by the Parliament. Yet with all his cynicism he could not help feeling his degradation. He displayed an unaccustomed sensitiveness to public opinion, especially that of his capital, and passed on to Tours instead of entering Paris. On the other hand, Charles the Bold now began to push those ambitious projects of founding a Burgundian Kingdom which had been entertained by his father; and with that view he entered into negotiations with the Austrian Duke Sigismund of Tyrol, surnamed the Weak, who was then staying in the Netherlands. In consideration of a sum of 80,000 ducats, Sigismund pledged to Charles in 1469 all the rights and possessions of the House of Habsburg in Alsace, the Breisgau, the Sundgau, the forest towns of the Rhine, and the lordship of Pfirt, or Ferrette. Charles thought of nothing less than overthrowing the King of France, and even obtaining the Imperial crown after the death of Frederick III; little dreaming that his aspiring aims were only preparing the way for his own destruction.

CARDINAL BALUE

An unguarded expression of the Duke of Burgundy’s seemed to the superstitions yet unscrupulous mind of Louis to afford him a loophole of escape from his oath. He had suddenly asked the Duke at parting what he should do in case his brother were not content with the portion assigned him? And Charles had carelessly answered that he must satisfy him in some other way, and that he left the matter to them. Regarding this answer as absolving him from his terrible oath, Louis offered his brother the Duchy of Guienne in place of Champagne and Brie; but the Duke of Berri, who was at that time governed by the counsels of Cardinal Balue, would by no means consent to the exchange. Balue, a roguish simoniacal priest, whom Louis had raised from low condition to the height of trust and power, had sold himself to the Duke of Burgundy, and it is suspected to have been through his machinations that Louis was entrapped at Péronne: after which, finding that he had lost the King's confidence, he attached himself to the Duke of Berri.

This was far from being the only instance in which Louis was betrayed by his ministers; for, clever and unprincipled himself, he selected his advisers for the same qualities. He was a great admirer of Italian politics, and especially of the government of Venice, in whose principles he had employed two Venetians to instruct him. A certain flexibility of conscience was in his view a recommendation of a states­man, provided it were combined with the requisite dexterity and audacity; and thus, for instance, Pierre de Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, was actually under prosecution for malversation in his judicial functions as conseiller-clerc in the Parliament of Paris, at the very time when he was made Chancellor. It was, therefore, no wonder that Louis was often deceived, for which he had nobody but himself to blame. On discovering Balue’s treachery, he caused him to be apprehended, together with the Bishop of Verdun, his creature; he sequestered the Cardinal’s enormous wealth, and he requested the Pope to send Apostolic Vicars into France to try the Roman prelate. But the Court of Rome replied that a Roman Cardinal could be tried only in Consistory; and Louis, afraid to put Balue to death, subjected him to a punishment which the Cardinal himself is said to have suggested in the ease of another criminal, and which had been long in use in Spain and Italy.

Louis confined him in an iron cage eight feet square, in the Castle of Loches, in Touraine, where he remained ten years without being brought to trial. The Bishop of Verdun was sent to the Bastille. After the removal of these counselors, the King effected an arrangement with the Duke of Berri, April 1109; the latter consenting to accept Guienne in compensation for Normandy, and binding himself by oath on the Cross of St. Lô not to marry Charles’s daughter, the heiress of Burgundy. By this arrangement Louis removed his brother from the sphere of the Duke of Burgundy’s influence, rendered him an object of suspicion to the Duke of Brittany, and opposed him to the English, whose views were still directed towards Guienne.

LOUIS XI, WARWICK AND EDWARD IV

The Duke of Burgundy expected that his brother-in-law, Edward IV, would make a descent on Guienne in 1470; but this was prevented by the insurrection of the Duke of Clarence, undertaken at the instigation of Warwick, whose daughter that Prince had married. The secret history of the Courts of England and France at this period is so important that we must take up the subject a little earlier. After the marriage of Edward IV with Elizabeth Woodville, in 1464, the advancement of Elizabeth’s family gave great umbrage to many of the old nobility, and especially to the Earl of Warwick, who had also other causes of discontent. That powerful nobleman, with his two brothers, the Archbishop of York and Lord Montague, now Earl of Northumberland, had hitherto governed the kingdom, but since the appearance of this rival family, the King seemed to have grown weary of Warwick’s counsels.

The first open symptom of coldness, however, between Edward and that nobleman arose on the occasion of the marriage of Margaret of York and the Duke of Burgundy, before mentioned. Warwick had advised a union with a French Prince, and Edward had authorized him to negotiate with Louis on the subject; for which purpose Warwick proceeded to Rouen, in 1467. Here he was treated by the French King in the most intimate and confidential manner. The wall between their lodgings was pierced, in order that they might confer at all hours unobserved; Louis, by his presents and flattering attentions, converted Warwick into a lasting friend, and from this time they appear to have kept up a constant secret correspondence. At the very same time the Bastard of Burgundy was in London, employed, it was suspected, in negotiating the marriage which afterwards took place between Charles and Margaret. Warwick returned in a month or two, accompanied by certain French ambassadors, whose object it was to prevent this marriage and the alliance that must spring from it between Edward and Charles, now become, by the death of his father, Duke of Burgundy; and they offered Edward an annual pension from the King of France, as well as to refer his claims to Normandy and Aquitaine to the decision of the Pope. Bribery and corruption were Louis's familiar arts; and it is not improbable that the bearer of such a message to his Sovereign was himself not insensible to the charms of gold: a supposition which would at least explain much that is acknowledged to be unaccountable in Warwick’s conduct. Edward disdainfully rejected the proposals of France, and Warwick retired in discontent to his castle at Middleham, in Yorkshire. In his absence he was accused of being a secret partisan of the House of Lancaster at the French Court, and a watch was set upon his actions; but a reconciliation took place between him and Edward; Warwick again appeared at Court in 1468, and even escorted Margaret through London on her way to her husband in Flanders.

Clarence’s marriage with Isabel, daughter of Warwick, took place at Calais, in July, 1400, against the will of King Edward. At this very time an insurrection broke out in Yorkshire, in which county the Nevilles possessed their principal interest. The Earl of Northumberland, Warwick’s brother, though he defeated the rebels, did not efficiently quell the rising; and the insurgents were subsequently headed by two kinsmen of Warwick, Lords Fitzhugh and Latimer, who openly avowed their aim to be the removal of the Woodvilles. The King now summoned Clarence and Warwick to meet him at Nottingham, where he told Warwick that he did not believe the reports that were circulated against him. But soon after the royalists were defeated by the insurgents, when Earl Rivers and Sir John Woodville, the father and brother of Queen Elizabeth, being captured, were executed, by the order, or pretended order, of Clarence and Warwick. The two last, together with the Archbishop of York, now sought the King at Olney, and in fact made him their prisoner, and he was placed at Middleham, under custody of the Archbishop.

There are still some circumstances in Warwick’s conduct at this period which it is difficult to explain, even on the assumption that he was the secret and bribed partisan of Louis and the House of Lancaster. Such was his putting down the insurrection in Scotland, in favors of Henry VI, in August, 1469; which, if that assumption be adopted, can only be attributed to his not being yet thoroughly decided. For the release of Edward IV, a little after, an explanation has been offered. It appears from the Chronicle of John of Wavrin, a contemporary writer, that the Duke of Burgundy addressed a threatening letter to the mayor and citizens of London, in case they did not behave loyally to their King, and that Warwick, though feigning to know nothing of the letter, permitted Edward to depart to London. It is probable enough that the large commerce which the Londoners enjoyed with the Low Countries would have rendered a war with the Duke of Burgundy highly unpopular; and they may have remonstrated with Warwick and procured the liberation of Edward. A reconciliation now took place, which seemed to be sincere: Edward granted a pardon to Warwick, Clarence, and all the other rebels, and promised his youthful daughter to the son of Northumberland.

BATTLES OF BARNET AND TEWKESBURY.

Early in 1470 the project above referred to of invading France in concert with the Duke of Burgundy was agitated; but suspicion still prevailed between the King and Warwick, and the expedition was prevented by an insurrection in Lincolnshire, headed by Sir Robert Welles, and supported by Clarence and Warwick. The rebels were defeated; Warwick and Clarence were proclaimed traitors, and sailed for Calais with a few ships, but Warwick’s lieutenant in that place, instead of admitting him, fired on and repulsed his little fleet. Warwick then sought an asylum from Louis, who placed Harneur at his disposal (May 1470); and his ships, on their way to that port, seized and carried fifteen Flemish coasting vessels into the Seine, and publicly sold at Rouen the goods captured from the Duke of Burgundy’s subjects. Charles the Bold remonstrated with Louis, who promised satisfaction, but at the same time instructed his Admiral to repel any attack that the Duke’s fleet might make on the English ships. Louis was not prepared, however, for an open rupture with that Prince, and with a view to conciliate him, he sent, in July, an embassy to St. Omer, which Charles received with more than his usual haughtiness. He had caused a throne to be erected higher than any ever raised for King or Emperor; the canopy was of gold, the steps were covered with black velvet, and upon them were ranged in due order his nobles, his knights of the Golden Fleece, and the great officers of his state and household. Although the French ambassadors fell upon their knees, Charles did not even deign to salute them, but with his hand making a sign to them to rise, addressed them in a speech interlarded with oaths; refused to listen to their proposals, and finally dismissed them from his presence with marks of the greatest anger.

Meanwhile Louis had succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between Warwick and Margaret of Anjou, who was then residing in France. The powerful Earl had put her friends to death, had thrown her husband into prison, and proclaimed her infant son a bastard born in adultery; yet, such are the victories often achieved by political interest over the most sensitive feelings of human nature, an alliance was effected between these once mortal enemies, and it was agreed that this very son of Margaret’s, the last hope of the House of Lancaster, should be married to Warwick’s second daughter. In order to effect this reconciliation, Louis had assured Margaret that he was more beholden to Warwick than to any man living: an extraordinary confession, which strongly confirms the suspicions of the Earl’s integrity. An armament was then prepared in the French ports: Warwick, accompanied by the Admiral of France, landed at Dartmouth; the standard of the Red Rose was again displayed in England; and in the short space of eleven days was accomplished that surprising revolution which restored Henry VI to the throne.

Edward IV, abandoned both by nobles and people, fled to Lynn in Norfolk, where he embarked for Holland (September, 1470). The Duke of Burgundy afforded his brother-in-law an asylum, but at once declared that he could not openly interfere in the affairs of England; and he acknowledged the restored Henry. This revolution encouraged Louis to dispute the validity of the Treaty of Péronne. In spite of his order that it should be registered, the Parliament of Paris had demurred to do so, on the ground that its provisions were at variance with the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, and consequently ipso facto null and void; and they proceeded to resume their jurisdiction in Flanders, which the treaty had abrogated, by summoning Flemish subjects before them, and by receiving appeals from Flemish tribunals. These proceedings threw Charles into transports of rage. He caused the French summoning officers to be imprisoned, and put to death such of his subjects as had appealed to the Paris Parliament. But Louis proceeded steadily in his plans. His next step was to declare certain bailiwicks, for which the Duke of Burgundy should have done homage, escheated to the Crown; and as he turned a deaf ear to all Charles’s remonstrances on the subject, the latter called upon the Dukes of Lorraine and Brittany, who had been securities for the due execution of the treaty, to enforce its provisions. The King, who had made up his mind to proceed to extremities, in order to support his cause by the public voice of the nation, summoned an assembly of Notables to meet at Tours, to whom he submitted the whole question (November, 1470). This assembly declared the Treaty of Péronne to be null and void, and pronounced the Duke of Burgundy guilty of high treason on a long list of charges that had been brought against him; in pursuance of which verdict the Parliament of Paris was instructed to proceed against Charles, and an officer was dispatched to Ghent to summon him to appear before that tribunal. The astonishment and rage of the haughty Duke at this summons may be readily imagined. With savage eyes he glared in silence on the messenger, then cast him into prison; but after a few days sent him back without an answer. The conjuncture was unpropitious for Charles. His finances were burdened by the aid he was secretly lending to Edward IV for the recovery of his throne; and the fate of the expedition undertaken by that Prince, which we need only briefly recall to the reader's memory, was still undecided. Edward, accompanied by his brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, sailed from Veere in Zealand, March 10th, 1471, with some Netherland vessels and a force of 2,000 men; and having landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, he marched to London, entered that city without opposition, and re-committed Henry VI to the Tower. Warwick dispatched Clarence against his brothers; but that Prince, as Edward knew before he sailed, had returned to his allegiance, and instead of opposing the King’s advance, joined him near Coventry with all his forces. Warwick, who had himself marched against Edward, was defeated and slain at Barnet, April 14th. On the very same day Queen Margaret and the Prince of Wales, accompanied by a small French force, had landed at Weymouth, and were afterwards joined by the Cornish and Devon partisans of the Red Rose and by the remains of Warwick’s army. But Edward defeated them at Tewkesbury, May 4th, before they could form a junction with the Welsh; the young Edward, Prince of Wales, who was captured together with his mother, was murdered, almost in the King’s presence, by Clarence and Gloucester, and Margaret was thrown into the Tower, in which fortress her unfortunate husband died a few days after, murdered, it has been supposed, but without adequate or indeed probable testimony, by the hand of Gloucester.

Louis, meanwhile, had commenced hostilities with the Duke of Burgundy, though not in an open and vigorous manner, but by instructing the Constable Dammartin to inflict what injury he could. Charles on his side had invaded France with a large army, burnt Pequigny, crossed the Somme, and laid siege to Amiens, when all of a sudden, without any apparent motive, except perhaps the uncertain state of things in England, he began to negotiate with the King, and on April 4th a provisional truce of three months was concluded. Louis, besides his habitual dislike of war, was induced to agree to this suspension of arms from his knowledge that his brother, as well as the Duke of Brittany, was in correspondence with Charles. The truce, which was subsequently prolonged till June 13th, 1472, brought a good deal of obloquy on the King: the Duke of Brittany called him the roi couard, and the Parisians vented their contempt and ridicule in libels and abusive ballads. Louis combated this feeling by striving to render himself popular. He visited the leading citizens, showed himself at the Hotel de Ville, and on St. John’s day lighted with his own hand the accustomed bon­fire. By such arts did he secure the affection of the volatile Parisians.

Edward’s success in England turned the scale in favors of the Duke of Burgundy, and, instead of Louis receiving, as he had expected, 10,000 English archers from Henry VI, the might of England was now ranged on the side of Burgundy. Nevertheless, Charles observed the truce, though both parties stood watching each other, and resorted to all the arts of cabal and intrigue. The chief source of Louis's anxiety was the conduct of his brother. After their reconciliation, the King had presented the Duke of Berri, now called Duke of Guienne, with the order of St. Michael, which he had recently instituted. These orders were not then regarded as merely honorary. The members of them were obliged to the observance of very strict duties towards the head and chapter of their order, and bound themselves by oath not to enter any other; and hence the acceptance by the Duke of Brittany of the Burgundian order of the Golden Fleece was naturally regarded by Louis as an act of hostility. But, notwithstanding this pledge of reconciliation with Louis, by accepting the order of St. Michael, the Duke of Guienne had kept up his connection with Charles. The birth of a Dauphin in June, 1470, afterwards Charles VIII, by disappointing any hopes which the Duke of Guienne might have entertained of succeeding to the Crown of France, naturally rendered him more disposed to seize all present advantages. Contrary to the oath which he had taken, he was now in warm pursuit of Charles's daughter Mary, the heiress of Burgundy; though, in order to throw dust into the King’s eyes, he pretended to be seeking the hand of a daughter of the Count of Foix.

Charles the Bold, taking advantage of the embarrassed state of the King’s relations, both foreign and domestic, pressed the conversion of the truce into a peace, October 3rd, 1471, by which, among other advantageous conditions, the Duke recovered the towns of Amiens, St. Quentin, Roye, and Montdidier. But Louis delayed to ratify the treaty; Charles continued to intrigue with the French princes, and in 1472 the league was reorganized. At the head of it were the Dukes of Guienne and Brittany, the Count of Foix, heir presumptive of Navarre, and even the King’s own sister, the Duchess of Savoy. Nearly all the south of France seemed ready to arm against the King. But the grand project of the league, the marriage of the Duke of Guienne to Mary of Burgundy, was distasteful to their ally, Edward IV, as, in case of the death of the infant Dauphin, it would have invested the Duke of Guienne with a power very formidable to England; and Edward made it a condition of his joining the league that they should abandon a project which, indeed, was not very palatable to the Duke of Burgundy himself.

While matters were in this state the Duke of Guienne died, at Bordeaux, May 24th, 1472. He had long been in an ill state of health; but his death happened so opportunely for the King that it was immediately ascribed to poison, though the suspicion seems to rest on no adequate foundation. Louis had made every preparation to take advantage of his brother’s death: large bodies of troops had been assembled on the borders of Poitou and Saintonge; parties had been organized in Bordeaux and the other principal cities; and no sooner had the Duke expired than the King’s captains entered Guienne, and without striking a blow reduced that great province to obedience under the Crown. The government of it was then entrusted to the Lord of Beaujeu, brother of the Duke of Bourbon. Fortified by this event, the King refused to ratify the treaty and Charles the Bold, burning with rage and mortification, prepared for immediate war. His military force, which was modeled on that of France, was of the most formidable description. He could bring into the field 2,200 lances, each attended by a squire, an arm-bearer, and eight heavily armed foot soldiers; also 4,000 archers, 600 musqueteers, and 600 artillerymen, making a total of near 30,000 men. Having crossed the Somme, Charles took Nesle by storm, a small place defended by only five hundred francs-archers; who, little accustomed to regular warfare, had let fly some arrows during a parley and killed a herald. When master of the town, Charles took terrible vengeance. Entering on horseback a church where the archers and many of the inhabitants had taken refuge, he encouraged his men to slaughter them in cold blood. On the following day he ordered the town to be burnt, and such of the archers as had escaped his fury to be hanged or mutilated. These and similar deeds obtained for him the name of “Charles the Terrible”. The Duke then proceeded to Roye, which immediately capitulated; and it was here that he first published his declaration of war against the King, in a violent manifesto, in which he accused Louis of attempting his life, as well as of poisoning his own brother. The progress of the Duke was arrested at Beauvais, which, although unfortified, made so obstinate a defense, that towards the end of July he was obliged to abandon his attempt upon it. He then proceeded into Normandy, where he took and burned several towns and committed terrible devastation. But he was unable to make himself master of Rouen; his army had dwindled down to 8,000 men; and as the season was drawing to a close, he began a retreat in September,

Meanwhile the arms of the King had not been unattended with success. The French garrisons in Amiens and St. Quentin had made incursions far into the Netherlands, and other bodies of French troops had overrun and ravaged Burgundy and Franche-Comté. Louis himself, at the head of a large force, had not only prevented the Duke of Brittany from forming a junction with Charles the Bold, but had even penetrated as far as Nantes. Ho was at the same time making conquests more congenial to his temper and habits. He had gained over Lescun, the chief counselor of the Duke of Brittany; and it was about the same time that Philip de Comines abandoned the service of Charles the Bold for that of the King, with whom he had become acquainted at Péronne. Comines foresaw that the violence, cruelty, and obstinacy of Charles must ultimately work his destruction, whilst he found every day fresh reason to admire the prudence and ability of Louis. Notwithstanding his successes, Louis concluded a year’s truce with, the Duke of Brittany, and another of five months with Charles the Bold (November 3rd, 1472), during which affairs were to remain in statu quo. The truce was frequently renewed, for Charles, after this repulse, changed his whole line of policy, and abandoning his designs against France, endeavored to extend his power on the side of Germany. Louis, on the other hand, was seeking to enrich his subjects by the benefits of commerce. In 1472, by his granting to the town of La Rochelle the singular privilege of liberty to trade with the English and other enemies of the State, even while they should be waging war with France, that city became a sort of independent maritime republic. In the following year Louis concluded treaties with Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg, and other Hanseatic towns, the commercial rivals of the Netherlands, which were admitted to an unrestricted trade with France.

CHAPTER III

AFFAIRS OF FRANCE AND BURGUNDYCONTINUED TO DOWN TO THE YEAR 1493