 CHAPTER XXIV THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR Charles VII and Joan of Arc, 1422 to 1462, Part IX. But for all their rejoicing at the peace, the French king, lords, and commons had war still in their hearts, national feelings were waking up afresh, the successes of late years had revived their hopes, and the civil dissensions which were at that time disturbing England let favorable chances peep out. Charles VII and his advisors employed the leisure afforded by the truce in preparing for a renewal of the struggle. They were the first to begin it again, and from 1449 to 1451 it was pursued by the French king and nation with ever-increasing ardor, and with obstinate courage by the veteran English warriors astounded at no longer being victorious. Normandy and Aquitaine, which was beginning to be called Guyenne only, were throughout this period the constant and the chief theatre of war. Amongst the greatest number of fights and incidents which distinguished the three campaigns in those two provinces, the recapture of Rouen by Denois in October 1449, the battle of Formigny, one near Bayot, on the 15th of April, 1450, by the constable de Richemont, and the twofold capitulation of Bordeaux, first on the 28th of June, 1451, and next on the 9th of October, 1453, in order to submit to Charles VII, are the only events to which a place in history is due, for those were the days on which the question was solved touching the independence of the nation and the kingship in France. The Duke of Somerset and Lord Talbot were commanding in Rouen when Denois presented himself beneath its walls, in hopes that the inhabitants would open the gates to him. Some burgesses indeed had him apprised of a certain point in the walls at which they might be able to favour the entry of the French. Denois, at the same time making a faint of attacking in another quarter, arrived at the spot indicated with four thousand men. The archers drew up before the wall, the men at arms dismounted, the burgesses gave the signal, and the planting of scaling ladders began, but when hardly as many as fifty or sixty men had reached the top of the wall, the banner and troops of Talbot were seen advancing. He had been warned in time and had taken his measures. The assailants were repulsed, and Charles VII, who was just arriving at the camp, seeing the abortiveness of the attempt, went back to Pont de la Ré. But the English had no long joy of their success. They were too weak to make any effectual resistance, and they had no hope of any aid from England. Their leaders authorised the burgesses to demand of the king a safe conduct in order to treat. The conditions offered by Charles were agreeable to the burgesses, but not to the English, and when the archbishop bred them out in the hall of the mansion-house, Somerset and Talbot witnessed an outburst of joy which revealed to them all their peril. Faggots and benches at once began to rain down from the windows. The English shut themselves up precipitately in the castle, in the gate-towers, and in the great tower of the bridge, and the burgesses armed themselves and took possession during the night of the streets and the walls. De Noy, having received notice, arrived in force at the Martinville gate. The inhabitants begged him to march into the city as many men as he pleased. It shall be as you will, said De Noy. Three hundred men at arms and archers seemed sufficient. Charles VII returned before Rouen. The English asked Lee to withdraw without any loss of life or kit, and on condition, said the king, that they take nothing on the march without paying. We have not the wherewithal, they answered, and the king gave them a hundred francs. Negotiations were recommenced. The king required that Harfleur and all the places in the district of Caos should be given up to him. Ah! As for Harfleur that cannot be, said the Duke of Somerset. It is the first town which surrendered to our glorious king, Henry V, thirty-five years ago. There was further parley. The French consented to give up the demand for Harfleur, but they required that Talbot should remain as hostage until the conditions were fulfilled. The English protested. At last, however, they yielded, and undertook to pay fifty-thousand golden crowns to settle all accounts which they owed to the tradesmen in the city, and to give up all places in the district of Caen except Harfleur. The Duchess of Somerset and Lord Talbot remained as hostages, and on the tenth of November, fourteen-forty-nine, Charles entered Rouen in state, with the character of a victor who knew how to use victory with moderation. The battle of Formigny was at first very doubtful. In order to get from Vallon to Bayou and Caen, the English had to cross at the mouth of the Vier, great sands which were passable only at low tide. A weak body of French under command of the Count de Clermont had orders to cut them off from this passage. The English, however, succeeded in forcing it, but just as they were taking position, with the village of Formigny to cover their rear, the Constable de Richemont was seen coming up with three thousand men in fine order. The English were already strongly entrenched when the battle began. Let us go and look close at their faces, Admiral, said the Constable, Sire de Coteville. I doubt whether they will leave their entrenchments, replied the Admiral. I vow to God that with his grace they will not abide in them, rejoined the Constable, and he gave orders for the most vigorous assault. It lasted nearly three hours. The English were forced to fly at three points and lost thirty-seven hundred men. Several of their leaders were made prisoners. Those who were left retired in good order. Bayou, Avranche, Ken, Felaise, and Cherbourg fell one after the other into the hands of Charles VII. And by the end of August, fourteen-fifty, the whole of Normandy had been completely won back by France. The conquest of Guyenne, which was undertaken immediately after that of Normandy, was at the outset more easy and more speedy. Amongst the lords of southern France, several hardy patriots, such as John of Floyd, Count of Paragord, and Arnold Amineau, Sire d'Albert, of their own accord began the strife, and on the first of November, fourteen-fifty, inflicted a somewhat severe reverse upon the English near Blancforte. In the spring of the following year, Charles VII authorized the Count of Armagnac to take the field, and sent Denoy to assume the command-in-chief. An army of twenty-thousand men mustered under his orders, and in the course of May, fourteen-fifty-one, some of the principal places of Guyenne, such as Saint-Amyon, Bly, Francaque, Bourg-en-Mer, Liborne, and Dax were taken by assault or capitulated. Bordeaux and Bayon held out for some weeks, but on the twelfth of June a treaty concluded between the Bordeaux-Lys and Denoy secured to the three estates of the district the liberties and privileges which they had enjoyed under English supremacy, and it was further stipulated that, if by the twenty-fourth of June the city had not been suckered by English forces, the estates of Guyenne should recognize the sovereignty of King Charles. When the twenty-fourth of June came, a herald went up to one of the towers of the castle and shouted, Sucker from the King of England for them of Bordeaux. None replied to this appeal, so Bordeaux surrendered, and on the twenty-ninth of June Denoy took possession of it in the name of the King of France. The siege of Bayon, which was begun on the sixth of August, came to an end on the twentieth by means of a similar treaty. Guyenne was thus completely won. But the English still had a considerable following there. They had held it for three centuries, and they had always treated it well in respect of local liberties, agriculture, and commerce. Charles VII, on recovering it, was less wise. He determined to establish there forthwith the taxes, the laws, and the whole regimen of northern France, and the Bordeaux-lees were as prompt in protesting against these measures as the King was in employing them. In August 1452 a deputation from the three estates of the province waited upon Charles at Bourges, but did not obtain their demands. On their return to Bordeaux an insurrection was organized, and Peter de Montferrand, Sire de Les Barres, repaired to London and proposed to the English government to resume possession of Guyenne. On the twenty-second of October 1452 Talbot appeared before Bordeaux with a body of five thousand men. The inhabitants opened their gates to him, and he installed himself there as Lieutenant of the King of England, Henry VI. Nearly all the places in the neighborhood, with the exception of Borg and Bly, returned beneath this way of the English. Considerable reinforcements were sent to Talbot from England, and at the same time an English fleet threatened the coast of Normandy. But Charles VII was no longer the blind and indolent king he had been in his youth. Nor can the prompt and effectual energy he displayed in 1453 be any longer attributed to the influence of Agnes Sorrel, for she died on the ninth of February 1450. Charles left Richemont and Denois to hold Normandy, and in the early days of spring moved in person to the south of France with the strong army, and the principal Gaskon lords who two years previously had brought Guyenne back under his power. On the second of June 1453 he opened the campaign at St. John d'Angélie. Several places surrendered to him as soon as he appeared before their walls, and on the thirteenth of July he laid siege to Castillon on the Dordogne, which had shortly before fallen into the hands of the English. The Bordeauxleys grew alarmed and urged Talbot to oppose the advance of the French. We may very well let them come nearer yet, said the old warrior, then eighty years of age. Rest assured that, if it please God, I will fulfill my promise when I see that the time and the hour have come. On the night between the sixteenth and seventeenth of July, however, Talbot set out with his troops to raise the siege of Castillon. He marched all night and came suddenly in the early morning upon the French archers, quartered in an abbey, who formed the advance guard of their army, which was strongly entrenched before the place. A panic set in amongst this small body, and some of them took to flight. Ha! You would desert me, then? said Sire de Renaud, who was in command of them. Have I not promised you to live and die with you? They thereupon rallied and managed to join the camp. Talbot, content for the time with this petty success, sent for a chaplain to come and say mass, and whilst waiting for an opportunity to resume the fight, he permitted the tapping of some casks of wine which had been found in the abbey, and his men set themselves to drinking. A countryman of those parts came hurrying up, and said to Talbot, My Lord, the French are deserting their park and taking to flight. Now or never is the hour for fulfilling your promise. Talbot arose and left the mass, shouting, Never may I hear mass again if I put not to rout the French who are in Yonder Park. When he arrived in front of the Frenchman's entrenchment, my Lord said Sir Thomas Cunningham, an aged gentleman who had for a long time passed been his standard bearer, they have made a false report to you, observed the depth of the ditch and the faces of Yonder men. They don't look like retreating. My opinion is that for the present we should turn back. The country is for us. We have no lack of provisions, and with a little patience we shall starve out the French. Talbot flew into a passion, gave Sir Thomas a sword cut across the face, had his banner planted on the edge of the ditch, and began the attack. The banner was torn down, and Sir Thomas Cunningham killed. Dismount shouted Talbot to his men-at-arms, English and Gascogne. The French camp was defended by a more than usually strong artillery, a body of Bretons held in reserve advanced to sustain the shock of the English, and a shot from a culverine struck Talbot, who was already wounded in the face, shattering his thigh and brought him to the ground. Lord Lyle, his son, flew to raise him. Let me be, said Talbot, the day is the enemies, it will be no shame for thee to fly, for this is thy first battle. But the son remained with his father and was slain at his side. The defeat of the English was complete. Talbot's body, pierced with wounds, was left on the field of battle. He was so disfigured that, when the dead were removed, he was not recognized. Notice, however, was taken of an old man wearing a curress covered with red velvet. Notice it was presumed was he, and he was placed upon a shield and carried into the camp. An English herald came with a request that he might look for Lord Talbot's body. Would you know him? he was asked. Take me to see him. Joyfully answered the poor servant, thinking that his master was a prisoner and alive. When he saw him, he hesitated to identify him. He knelt down, put his finger in the mouth of the corpse, and recognized Talbot by the loss of a molar tooth. Coming off immediately his coat of arms with the colors and bearings of Talbot. Ah, my lord and master, he cried. Can this be barely you? May God forgive your sins. For forty years and more have I been your officer at arms and worn your livery, and thus I give it back to you. And he covered with his coat of arms the stark-stripped body of the old hero. The English being beaten and Talbot dead, Castillon surrendered, and at unequal intervals Liborne, Saint Mignon, Chateauneuf de Medoc, Blankfort, Saint Maquere, Cadillac, and et cetera followed the example. At the commencement of October 1453 Bordeaux alone was still holding out. The promoters of the insurrection which had been concerted with the English, amongst others, Sire de Duris and Les Barres, protracted their resistance rather in their own self-defense than in response to the wishes of the population. The king's artillery threatened the place by land and by sea a king's fleet from Rochelle and the ports of Brittany blockaded the Gironde. The majority of the king's officers, says the contemporary historian Thomas Bazin, advised him to punish by at least the destruction of their walls the Bordeaux-lees who had recalled the English to their city. But Charles, more merciful and more soft-hearted, refused. He confined himself to withdrawing from Bordeaux her municipal privileges, which, however, she soon partially recovered, and to imposing upon her a fine of a hundred-thousand gold crowns, afterwards reduced to thirty-thousand. He caused to be built at the expense of the city two fortresses, Fort of the Isla and the Castle of Trompette, to keep in check so bold and fickle a population, and an amnesty was proclaimed for all but twenty specified persons who were banished. On these conditions the capitulation was concluded and signed on the 17th of October. The English re-embarked, and Charles, without entering Bordeaux, returned to Torrain. The English had no longer any possession in France but Calais and Guine. The Hundred Years' War was over. And to whom was the glory? Charles the Seventh himself decided the question. When in fourteen-fifty-five, twenty-four years after the death of Joan of Arc, he at Rome and at Rouen prosecuted her claims for restoration of her character, and did for her fame and her memory all that was still possible. He was but relieving his conscience from a load of ingratitude and remorse, which in general weighs lightly upon men, and especially upon kings. And he was discharging towards the maid of Dom Remy, the debt due by the French and the French kingship, when he thus proclaimed that to Joan above all they owed their deliverance and their independence. Before men and before God Charles was justified in so thinking. The moral are not the soul, but they are the most powerful forces which decide the fates of people. And Joan had roused the feelings of the soul, and given to the struggles between France and England its religious and national character. At Rem, when she repaired the therefore the king's coronation, she said of her own banner, It has a right to the honour, for it has been at the pains. She first amongst all had a right to the glory, for she had been the first to contribute to the success. Just to Joan of Arc, the constable de Richemont was the most effective and the most glorious among the liberators of France and of the king. He was a strict and stern warrior, unscrupulous and pitiless towards his enemies, especially towards such as he despised, severe in regard to himself, dignified in his manners, never guilty of swearing himself and punishing swearing as a breach of discipline amongst the troops placed under his orders. Like a true patriot and a royalist, he had more at heart his duty towards France and the king than he had his own personal interests. He was fond of war, and conducted it bravely and skillfully, without rashness but without timidity. Wherever the constable is, said Charles VII, there I am free from anxiety. He will do all that is possible. He set his title an office of constable of France above his rank as a great lord. And when, after the death of his brother, Duke Peter II, he himself became Duke of Brittany, he always had the constable's sword carried before him, saying, I wish to honour in my old age a function which did me honour in my youth. His good services were not confined to the wars of his time. He was one of the principal reformers of the military system in France by the substitution of regular troops for feudal service. He has not obtained, it is to be feared, in the history of the fifteenth century, the place which properly belongs to him. De Neuil, La Hire, Zantreil, and Marcelles de Boussac, and de Lafayette were, under Charles VII, brilliant warriors and useful servants of the King and of France. But in spite of their nightly renown, it is questionable if they can be reckoned, like the constable de Richemont, amongst the liberators of national independence. There are degrees of glory, and it is the duty of history not to distribute it too readily and as it were by handfuls. CHAPTER XXIV THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR Charles VII and Joan of Arc, 1422 to 1462, Part X Besides all these warriors we meet, under the sway of Charles VII, at first in a humble capacity and afterwards at his court, in his diplomatic service, and sometimes in his closest confidence, a man of quite a different origin and quite another profession, but one who nevertheless acquired by peaceful toil great riches and great influence, both brought to a melancholy termination by a conviction and a consequent ruin, from which, at the approach of old age, he was still striving to recover by means of fresh ventures. Jacques Coure was born at Borg at the close of the 14th century. His father was a furrier, already sufficiently well established and sufficiently rich, to allow of his son's marrying, in 1418, the provost's daughter of his own city. Some years afterwards, Jacques Coure underwent a troublesome trial for infraction of the rules touching the coinage of money, but thanks to a commutation of the penalty, graciously accorded by Charles VII, he got off with a fine, and from that time forward directed all his energies towards commerce. In 1432, a squire in the service of the Duke of Burgundy was travelling in the Holy Land, and met him at Damascus in company with several Venetians, Genoese, Florentine, and Catalan traders, with whom he was doing business. He was, says his contemporary Thomas Bazin, a man unlettered and of plebian family, but of great and ingenious mind, well versed in the practical affairs of that age. He was the first in all France to build in man ships which transported to Africa and to the East, woolen stuffs and other produce of the kingdom, penetrated as far as Egypt, and brought back with them silken stuffs in all manner of spices, which they distributed not only in France, but in Catalonia and the neighbouring countries, whereas here to forward was by means of the Venetians, the Genoese, or the Barcelonese, that such supplies found their way into France. Jacques Cour, temporarily established at Montpellier, became a great and a celebrated merchant. In 1433 Charles VII put into his hands the direction of the mint at Paris, and began to take his advice as to the administration of the Crown's finances. In 1440 he was appointed money-man to the king, a noble, together with his wife and children, commissioned soon afterwards to draw up new regulations for the manufacture of cloth at Bourges, and invested on his own private account with numerous commercial privileges. He had already at this period, it was said, three hundred manufacturing hands in his employment, and he was working at the same time silver, lead and copper mines situated in the environs of Theraire and Lyon. Between 1442 and 1446 he had one of his nephews sent as ambassador to Egypt, and obtained for the French consuls in the Levant the same advantages as were enjoyed by those of the most favoured nations. Not only his favour in the eyes of the king, but his administrative and even his political appointments went on constantly increasing. Between 1444 and 1446 the king several times named him one of his commissioners to the estates of Langdoc and for the installation of the new parliament of Toulouse. In 1446 he formed one of an embassy sent to Italy to try and acquire for the French the possession of Genoa, which was harassed by civil dissensions. In 1447 he received from Charles the Seventh a still more important commission, to bring about an arrangement between the two popes elected, one under the name of Felix the Fifth, and the other under that of Nicholas the Fifth, and he was successful. His immense wealth greatly contributed to his influence. Monsieur Pierre Clément, Jacques Cour et Charles, ou la France ou quinzième siècle, pages one through forty-six, has given a list of thirty-two estates and lordships which Jacques Cour had bought either in Barrie or in the neighbouring provinces. He possessed, besides four mansions and two hostels at Lyon, mansions at Boccaire, at Bezier, at Saint-Pourcin, at Marseille, and at Montpellier. And he had built for his own residence at Bourges the celebrated hostel which still exists as an admirable model of Gothic and national art in the fifteenth century, attempting combination with the art of Italian Renaissance. Monsieur Clément, in his table of Jacques Cour's wealth, does not count either the mines which he worked at various spots in France, nor the vast capital, unknown, which he turned to profit in his commercial enterprises. But on the other hand he names with certain, etc., forty-two court personages, or king's officers, indebted to Jacques Cour for large or small sums he had lent them. We will quote but two instances of Jacques Cour's financial connection, not with courtiers, however, but with the royal family and the king himself. Margaret of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin, who became Louis the Ninth, wrote with her own hand on the twentieth of July, fourteen-forty-four. We, Margaret, Dauphinès of Viennoise, do acknowledge to have received from Master Stephen Pettit, secretary of My Lord the King, and receiver-general of his finances for Languedoc and Guillen, two thousand livers of tours, to us given by my said Lord, and to us advanced by the hand of Jacques Cour, his money-man, we being but lately in Lorraine, for to get silk and stuff and sables to make robes for our person. In fourteen-forty-nine, when Charles the Seventh determined to drive the English from Normandy, his treasury was exhausted, and he had recourse to Jacques Cour. Sir, said the traitor to the king, what I have is yours, and lent him two hundred thousand crowns, the effect of which was, says Jacques du Clerc, that during this conquest all the men-at-arms of the King of France and all those who were in his service were paid their wages month by month. An original document dated fourteen-fifty, which exists in the Cabernet des Titres of the National Library, bears upon it a receipt for sixty thousand livers from Jacques Cour to the King's receiver-general in Normandy, in restitution of the like some lent me in ready money by the said Lord in the month of August last past, on occasion of the surrendering to his authority of the towns and castle of Cherbourg. At that time held by the English the ancient enemies of this realm. It was probably a partial repayment of the two hundred thousand crowns lent by Jacques Cour to the King at this juncture, according to all the contemporary chroniclers. Enormous and unexpected wealth excites envy and suspicion at the same time that it confers influence, and the envious, before long, became enemies. Sullen murmurs against Jacques Cour were raised in the King's own circle, and the way in which he had begun to make his fortune, the coinage of questionable money, furnished some specious ground for them. There is too general an inclination amongst potentates of the earth to give an easy ear to reasons, good or bad, for dispensing with the gratitude and respect otherwise due to those who serve them. Charles VII, after having long been the patron and debtor of Jacques Cour, all at once, in 1451, shared the suspicions aroused against him. The accusations of grave abuses and malversations in money matters was added one of even more importance. Agnes Sorrell had died eighteen months previously, February 9th, 1450, and on her deathbed she had appointed Jacques Cour one of the three executors of her will. In July 1451 Jacques was at Tyborg in Guyenne, once he wrote to his wife that he was in as good a case and was as well with the King as ever he had been, whatever anybody might say. Indeed on the 22nd of July Charles VII granted him a sum of 772 leavers of tours to help him keep up his condition and be more honorably equipped for his service. And nevertheless, on the 31st of July, on the information of two persons of the court, who accused Jacques Cour of having poisoned Agnes Sorrell, Charles ordered his arrest and the seizure of his goods, on which he immediately levied a hundred thousand crowns for the purposes of the war. Commissioners extraordinary, taken from amongst the King's grand counsel, were charged to try him. And Charles VII declared, it is said, that if the said money man were not found liable to the charge of having poisoned or cause to be poisoned, Agnes Sorrell, he threw up and forgave all the other cases against him. The accusation of poisoning was soon acknowledged to be false, and the two informers were condemned as colluminators, but the trial was nevertheless proceeded with. Jacques Cour was accused of having sold arms to the infidels, of having coined light-crowns, of having pressed on board of his vessels at Montpellier, several individuals of whom one had thrown himself into the sea from desperation, and lastly of having appropriated to himself presents made to the King in several towns of Languedoc, and of having practiced in that country frequent exaction to the prejudice of the King as well as of his subjects. After twenty-two months of imprisonment, Jacques Cour, on the 29th of May, 1453, was convicted in the King's name on diverse charges of which several entailed a capital penalty. But whereas Pope Nicholas V had issued a rescript and made request in favor of Jacques Cour, and regard also being had to services received from him, Charles VII spared his life, on condition that he should pay to the King a hundred thousand crowns by way of restitution, three hundred thousand by way of fine, and should be kept in prison until the whole claim was satisfied. And the decree ended as follows. We have declared and do declare all the goods of the said Jacques Cour confiscated to us, and we have banished and do banish this Jacques Cour forever from this realm, reserving therein at our own good pleasure. After having spent nearly three years more in prison, convicted from dungeon to dungeon, Jacques Cour, thanks to the faithful and zealous affection of a few friends, managed to escape from bocair, to embark at Nice and to reach Rome, where Pope Nicholas V welcomed him with tokens of lively interest. Nicholas died shortly afterwards, just when he was preparing an expedition against the Turks. His successor, Callixtus III, carried out his design, and equipped a fleet of sixteen galleys. This fleet required a commander of energy, resolution, and celebrity. Jacques Cour had lived and fought with Dignoy, Zuntrail, Le Hire, and the most valiant French captains. He was known and popular in Italy and the Levant, and the Pope appointed him Captain General of the expedition. Charles VII's moneyman, ruined, convicted, and banished from France, sailed away at the head of the Pope's squadron of some Catalan pirates, to carry help against the Turks to Rhodes, Kios, Lesbos, Lumnos, and the whole Grecian archipelago. On arriving at Kios, in November 1456, he fell ill there, and perceiving his end approaching, he wrote to his king, to commend to him his children, and to beg that, considering the great wealth and honors he had in his time enjoyed in the king's service, it might be the king's good pleasure to give something to his children, in order that they, even those of whom who were secular, might be able to live honestly, without coming to want. He died at Chitz on the 25th of November 1456, and according to the historian Jean D'Aten, who had probably lived in the society of Jacques Cour's children, he remained interred in the church of the Cordelliers in that island, at the center of the choir. We have felt bound to represent with some detail the active and energetic life, prosperous for a long while and afterwards so grievous and hazardous up to its very last day, of this great French merchant at the close of the Middle Ages, who was the first to extend a far in Europe, Africa, and Asia, the commercial relations of France, and after the example of the great Italian merchants, to make an attempt to combine politics with commerce, and to promote at one in the same time the material interests of his country and the influence of his government. There can be no doubt but that Jacques Cour was unscrupulous and frequently visionary as a man of business, but at the same time he was inventive, able and bold, and whilst pursuing his own fortunes to the utmost, he contributed a great deal to develop, in the ways of peace, the commercial, industrial, diplomatic, and artistic enterprise of France. In his relations toward his king, Jacques Cour was to Charles VII a servant, often over-adventurist, slippery and compromising, but often also useful, full of resource, efficient, and devoted in the hour of difficulty. Charles VII was to Jacques Cour a selfish and ungrateful patron, who contemptuously deserted the man whose brains he had sucked and ruined him pitilessly, after having himself contributed to enrich him unscrupulously. CHAPTER XXI. OF VOLUME III. OF A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. THIS IS A LIBERVOX RECORDING. ALL LIBERVOX RECORDINGS ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO VOLUNTEER, PLEASE VISIT LIBERVOX.ORG. VOLUME III. OF A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES BY FRANCE WALGUISO. TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BLACK. CHAPTER XXIV. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. CHARLES VII AND JONAH VARK. 1422-1462. PART XI. We have now reached the end of events under this long rain. All that remains is to run over the substantial results of Charles VII's government, and the melancholy and brood of Leos of his later years, with his son, the turbulent, tricky, and wickedly able-born conspirator, who was to succeed him under the name of Louis XI. One fact is at the outset to be remarked upon. It, at the first blush, appears singular, but it admits of easy explanation. In the first nineteen years of his reign, from 1423 to 1442, Charles VII frequently convoked the State's general, at one time of Northern France, or Langdoy, at another of Southern France, or Langdoc. Twenty-four such assemblies took place during this period, at Bourges, at Sells and Barrie, at Le Puy and Vélée, at Men Sur Yèvre, at Chinon, at Solis-sur-Loire, at Tour, at Orléans, at Nevers, at Carcasson, and at different spots in Langdoc. It was the time of the great war between France on the one side, and England and Burgundy allied on the other, the time of intrigues incessantly recurring at court, and the time likewise of carelessness and indolence on the part of Charles VII, more devoted to his pleasures than regardless of his government. He had incessant need of State's general to supply him with money and men, and support him through the difficulties of his position. But when, dating from the Peace of Eres, September 21, 1435, Charles VII having become reconciled with the Duke of Burgundy, was Deliverer from Civil War, and was at grips with Numbot England, already half-beaten by the Divine Inspiration, the Triumph, and the Martyrdom of Joan of Arc, his posture and his behavior underwent a rare transformation. Without ceasing to be a coldly selfish and scandalously licentious king, he became practical, hardworking, statesman-like king, jealous and disposed to govern by himself, but at the same time watchful and skillful in availing himself of the able advisers who, whether it were by a happy accident or by his own choice, were grouped around him. He had his days and hours for dealing with all sorts of men, one hour with the clergy, another with the nobles, another with foreigners, another with mechanical folks, armors and gunners, in respect of all these persons he had a full remembrance of their cases and their appointed day. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday he worked with the Chancellor, and got through all claims connected with justice. On Wednesday he first of all gave audience to the marshals, captains and men of war. On the same day he held a Council of Finance, independently of another Council which was also held on the same subject every Friday. It was by such assiduous toil that Charles VII, in concert with his advisers, was able to take in hand and accomplish, in the military, financial and judicial system of the realm, those bold and at the same time prudent reforms which rested the country from the state of disorder, pillage and general insecurity to which it had been a prey, and commenced the era of that great monarchical administration, which in spite of many troubles and vicissitudes, was destined to be, during more than three centuries, the Government of France. The Constable de Richemont and Marcell de Lafayette were, in respect of military matters, Charles VII's principal advisers, and it was by their Council and with their cooperation that he substituted for feudal service and for the bans of wandering mercenaries, routiers, mustard and maintained by haphazard, a permanent army, regularly levied, provided for, paid and commanded, and charged with the duty of keeping order at home, and at the same time subserving abroad the interests and policy of the state. In connection with, and as a natural consequence of this military system, Charles VII, on his own sole authority, established certain permanent imposts with the object of making up any deficiency in the royal treasury, whilst waiting for a vote of such taxes extraordinary as might be demanded of the state's general. Jacques Coure, the two brothers' bureau, Martin Gouges, Michel Lalier, William Cousinot, and many other councillors of Berger origin, labored zealously to establish this administrative system, so prompt and freed from all independent discussion. Weary of wars, irregularities and sufferings, France, in the fifteenth century, asked for nothing but peace and security. And so soon as the kingship showed that it had an intention and was in a condition to provide her with them, the nation took little or no trouble about political guarantees, which as yet it knew neither how to establish nor how to exercise. Its right to them was not disputed in principle. They were merely permitted to fall into disuse. And Charles VII, who during the first half of his reign had twenty-four times assembled the state's general to ask them for taxes and soldiers, was able in the second to raise personally both soldiers and taxes, without drawing forth any complaint, hardly, save from his contemporary historian, the Bishop of Lizot, Thomas Bazin, who said, into such misery and servitude as fallen the realm of France, here to force so noble and free, that all the inhabitants are openly declared by the generals of finance and their clerks taxable at the will of the king, without anybody staring to murmur or even ask for mercy. There is at every juncture and in all ages of the world a certain amount, though varying very much, of good order, justice and security, without which men cannot get on. And when they lack it, either through the fault of those who govern them or through their own fault, they seek after it with the blind eyes of passion, and are ready to accept it, no matter what power may procure it for them or what price it may cost them. Charles VII was a prince neither to be respected nor to be loved, and during many years his reign had not been a prosperous one. But he re-quickened justice, which had been a long while dead, says a chronicler devoted to the Duke of Burgundy. He put an end to the tyrannies and exactions of the men at arms, and out of an infinity of murderers and robbers he formed men of resolution and honest life. He made regular paths in murderous woods and forests, all roads safe, all towns peaceful, all nationalities of his kingdom tranquil. He chastised the evil and honoured the good, and he was sparing of human blood. Let it be added, in accordance with contemporary testimony, that at the same time that he established an all but arbitrary rule in military and financial matters, Charles VII took care that practical justice, in the case of every individual, was promptly rendered to poor as well as rich, to small as well as great. He forbade all trafficking in the offices of the madricacy, and every time that a place became vacant in a parliament he made no nomination to it, save on the presentations of the court. Questions of military, financial, and judicial organisation were not the only ones which occupied the government of Charles VII. He attacked also ecclesiastical questions, which were at that period a subject of passionate discussion in Christian Europe, amongst the councils of the Church, and in the closets of princes. The celebrated ordinance, known by the name of Pragmatic Sanction, which Charles VII issued at Bourges on the 7th of July 1438, with the concurrence of a grand national council, Laic and Ecclesiastical, was directed towards the carrying out in the internal regulations of the French Church, and in the relations either of the State with the Church in France, or of the Church of France with the Papacy, of reforms long since desired or dreaded by the different powers and interests. It would be impossible to touch here upon these difficult and delicate questions without going far beyond the limits imposed on the writer of this history. All that can be said is that there was no lack of a religious spirit, or of a liberal spirit, in the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII, and that the majority of the measures contained in it were adopted with the approbation of the greater part of the French clergy, as well as of educated laymen in France. In whatever light it is regarded, the government of Charles VII in the latter part of his reign brought him not only in France, but throughout Europe, a great deal of fame and power. When he had driven the English out of his kingdom, he was called Charles the Victorious, and when he had introduced into the internal regulations of the State so many important and effective reforms, he was called Charles the Well-Served. The sense that he had by nature, says his historian, Castellan, had been increased to twice as much again in his straightened fortunes, by long constraint in perilous dangers which sharpened his wits perforce. He as the King of Kings was said of him by the Doge of Venice, Francis Foscari, a good judge of policy. There is no doing without him. Nevertheless, at the close, so influential and so tranquil of his reign, Charles VII was in his individual and private life the most desolate, the most harassed, and the most unhappy man in his kingdom. In 1442 and 1450 he had lost the two women who had been, respectively, the most devoted and most useful, and the most delightful and dearest to him, his mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, Queen of Sicily, and his favorite, Agnes Sorrel. His avowed intimacy with Agnes, and even independently of her and after her death, the scandalous sly zentiousness of his morals had justly offended his virtuous wife, Mary of Anjou, the only lady of the royal establishment who survived him. She had brought him twelve children, and the eldest, the Dauphin Louis, after having from his very youth behaved in a fractious, hair-brained, turbulent way towards the King his father, had become at one time an open rebel, at another, a venomous conspirator and a dangerous enemy. At his birth in 1423 he had been named Louis in remembrance of his ancestor, Saint Louis, and in hopes that he would resemble him. In 1440, at seventeen years of age, he allied himself with the great lords who were displeased with the new military system established by Charles VII, and allowed himself to be drawn by them into the transient rebellion known by the name of Pragari. When the king, having put it down, refused to receive the rebels to favour, the Dauphin said to his father, My Lord, I must go back with them then, for so I promise them. Louis replied to King, the gates are open, and if they are not high enough I will have sixteen or twenty fathom of wall knocked down for you, that you may go wither it seems best to you. Charles VII had made his son, Mary, Margaret, steward of Scotland, that charming princess who was so smitten with the language and literature of France, that coming one day upon the poet Alain Chartier asleep on a bench, she kissed him on the forehead in the presence of her mightily astonished train, for he was very ugly. The Dauphin rendered his wife so wretched that she died in 1445 at the age of one and twenty, with these words upon her lips. Oh, fire on life, speak to me no more of it. In 1449, just when the king his father was taking up arms to drive the English out of Normandy, the Dauphin Louis, who was now living entirely in Dauphiny, concluded at Breoncône a secret league with the Duke of Savoy against the ministers of the King of France, his enemies. In 1456, in order to escape from the perils brought upon him by the plots which he, in the heart of Dauphiny, was incessantly hatching against his father, Louis fled from Grenoble and went to take refuge in Brussels with the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, who willingly received him, at the same time excusing himself to Charles the Seventh, on the ground of the respect he owed to the son of his suzerain, and putting at the disposal of Louis, his guest, a pension of thirty-six thousand libras. He has received the fox at his court, said Charles. He will soon see what will become of his chickens. But the pleasantries of the king did not chase away the sorrows of the father. My enemies have full trust in me, said Charles, but my son will have none. If he had but once spoken with me, he would have known full well that he ought to have neither doubts nor fears. On my royal word, if he will but come to me, when he has opened his heart and learned my intentions, he may go away again whithersoever it seems good to him. Charles, in his old age and his sorrow, forgot how distrustful and how fearful he himself had been. It is ever your pleasure, wrote one of his counselors to him in a burst of frankness, to be shut up in castles, wretched places, and all sorts of little closets, without showing yourself and listening to the complaints of your poor people. Charles VII had shown scarcely more confidence to his son than to his people. Louis yielded neither to words nor to sorrows of which proofs were reaching him nearly every day. He remained impassive at the Duke of Burgundies, where he seemed to be waiting with scandalous indifference for the news of his father's death. Charles sank into a state of profound melancholy in general distrust. He had his doctor, Adam Founy, put in prison, persuaded himself that his son had wished and was still wishing to poison him, and refused to take any kind of nourishment. No representation, no solicitation, could win him from his depression and obstinacy. It was in vain that Charles, Duke of Berry, his favourite child, offered to first taste the food set before him. It was in vain that his servants represented to him with tears, says Boussée, what madness it was to cause his own death for fear of dying. When at last he would have made an effort to eat, it was too late, and he must die. On the 2nd of July, 1461, he asked what day it was, and was told that it was St. Magdalene's Day. Ah, said he, I do laud my God, and thank him, for that it hath pleased him that the most sinful man in the world should die on the sinful woman's day. Damp Martin, said he, to the count of that name, who was leaning over his bed, I do beseech you that after my death he will serve so far as you can the little Lord, my son Charles. He called his confessor, received the sacraments, gave orders that he should be buried at Saint-Tenis beside the king's father, and expired. No more than his son Louis, though for different reasons, was his wife, Queen Mary of Anjou, at his side. She was living at Chinon, whether she had removed a long while before by order of the king her husband. Thus, deserted by them of his own household, and disgusted with his own life, died that king of whom a contemporary chronicler, whilst recommending his soul to God, remarked, when he was alive he was a right wise and valiant Lord, and he left his kingdom united, and in good case as to justice and tranquility. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Volume 3 of a popular history of France from the earliest times by François Guiseaux translated by Robert Black Chapter 25 Louis XI, 1461-1483, Part 1 Louis XI was thirty-eight years old, and had been living for five years in voluntary exile at the castle of Gennep in Hoinot, beyond the dominions of the king his father, and within those of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, when on the 23rd of July, 1461, the day after Charles the seventh death, he learned that he was king of France, he started at once to return to his own country and take possession of his kingdom. He arrived at Reims on the 14th of August, was solemnly crowned there on the 18th, in presence of the two courts of France and Burgundy, and on the 30th made his entry into Paris, within which he had not set food for six and twenty years. In 1482, twenty-one years afterwards, he, sick and almost dying in his turn at his castle of placeless tours, went nevertheless to Amboise, where his son, the Dauphin, who was about to become Charles the Eighth, and whom he had not seen for several years, was living. I do expressly enjoin upon you, said the father to the son, as my last counsel and my last instructions, not to change a single one of the chief officers of the crown. When my father, King Charles the Seventh, went to God, and I myself came to the throne, I disappointed. Deprived of their appointments, all the good and notable knights of the kingdom, who had aided and served my said father in conquering Normandy and Queen, in driving the English out of the kingdom, and in restoring it to peace and good order, for so I found it, and right-rich also. Therefrom much mischief came to me, for thence I had the war called the common wheel, which all but cost me my crown. With the experience and paternal care of an old man, whom the near prospect of death rendered perfectly disinterested, wholly selfish as his own life had been, Louis Hart was bent upon saving his son from the first error which he himself had committed on mounting the throne. Gentlemen, said Dounours, on rising from table at the funeral banquet, held at the Abbey of St. Denis, in honour of the obsequies of King Charles the Seventh. We have lost our master, let each look after himself. The old warrior foresaw that the new reign would not be like that which he had just ended. Charles the Seventh had been a prince of indolent disposition, more inclined to pleasure than ambition, whom the long and severe trials of his life had molded to government, without his having any passion for governing, and who had become in a quite way a wise and powerful king, without any eager desire to be incessantly an every-verse chief actor and master. His son Louis, on the contrary, was completely possessed with a craving for doing, talking, agitating, domineering and reaching, no matter by what means, the different and manifold ends he proposed to himself. Anything but repossessing in appearance, supported on long and sin chanks, vulgar in looks, and often designately ill-dressed, and undignified in his manners, though haughty in mind. He was powerful by the sheer force of a mind, marvelously lively, supple and airing, ready and inventive, and on a character, indefatigably active, and pursuing success as a passion, without any struple or embarrassment in the employment of means. His contemporaries, after observing his reign for some time, gave him the name of the universal spider, so relentlessly did he labor to weave a web of which he himself occupied the centre, and extended the filaments in all directions. As soon as he was king, he indulged himself with that first piece of vindictive satisfaction, of which he was in his last moments obliged to acknowledge the mistake. At Reims, at the time of his coronation, the aged and judicious duke Philip of Burgundy had begged him to forgive all those who had offended him. Louis promised to do so, with the exception, however, of seven persons whom he did not name. There were the most faithful and most able advisers of the king, his father, those who had best served Charles VII, even in his embroilments with the Dauphin, his conspiring and rebellious son, with Anthony de Chabanese, Count of Dumparton, Peter de Bries, Andrew de Laval, juvenile de Soursines, etc. Some lost their places, and were even, for a while, subjected to persecution. The others, remaining still at court, received their many marks of the king's disfavor. On the other hand, Louis made a show of treating graciously the men, who had most incurred and deserved disgrace at his father's hands, notably the Duke of Allent soon and the Count of Armagnas. Nor was it only in respect of persons that he departed from paternal tradition. He rejected it openly in the case of one of the most important acts of Charles VII's reign, the pragmatic sanction issued by the prince at Borses in 1438, touching the internal regulations of the Church of France and its relations towards the papacy. The popes, and especially Pius II, Louis XI's contemporary, had constantly and vigorously protested against that act. Barely four months after his accession, on the 27th of November 1461, Louis, in order to gain favor with the pope, abrogated the pragmatic sanction, and informed the pope of the fact in a letter full of devotion. There was great joy at Rome, and the pope replied to the king's letter in the strongest terms of gratitude and commendation. But Louis' courtasy had not been so disinterested as he was prompt. He had hoped that Pius II would abandon the cause of Ferdinand of Aragon, acclaimant to the throne of Naples, and would uphold that of his rival, the French prince, John of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, whose champion Louis had declared himself. He bade his ambassador at Rome to remind the pope of the royal hopes. You know, said the ambassador to Pius II, it is only on this condition that the king, my master, abolished the pragmatic. He was pleased to desire that in his kingdom full obedience should be rendered to you. He demands, on the other hand, that you should be pleased to be a friend to France. Otherwise I have orders to bid all the French cardinals withdraw, and you cannot doubt but that they will obey. But Pius II was more proud than Louis XI's dare to be imperious. He answered, We are under very great obligations to the king of France. But that gives him no right to exact from us things, contrary to justice and to our honour. We have sent aid to Ferdinand by virtue of the treaties we have with him. Let the king your master compels the Duke of Anjou to lay down arms and prosecute his rights by course of justice. And if Ferdinand refuse to submit thereto, we will declare against him. But we cannot promise more. If the French who are at our court wish to withdraw, the gates are open to them. The king, a little ashamed at the fruitlessness of his concession and of his threat, had for an instant some desire to re-establish the pragmatic sanction for which the Parliament of Paris had taken up the cajoles. But all considered, he sought it better to put up in silence with his rebuff, and pay the penalty for a rush concession than to get involved with the court of Rome in a struggle of which he could not measure the gravity. And he contended himself with letting the Parliament maintain in principle and partially keep up the pragmatic. This was his first apprenticeship in that outward resignation and patience amidst his own mistakes of which he was destined to be called upon more than once in the course of his life to make a humble but skillful use. End of Chapter 25 Part 1 At the same time that, at the pinnacle of government and in his court, Louis was thus making his power felt, and was engaging a new set of servants, he was zealously endeavouring to win over, everywhere, the middle class and the populace. He left Rouen in the hands of its own inhabitants. In Guyenne, in Avernia, at Tour, he gave the Burgesses authority to assemble, and his orders to the royal agents were, whatever is done, see that it be answered for unto us by two of the most notable Burgesses of the principal cities. At Rem, the rumour ran that under King Louis there would be no more tax or tallyage. When deputations went before him to complain of the weight of imposts, he would say, I thank you, my dear and good friends, for making such remonstruses to me. I have nothing more at heart than to put an end to all sorts of exactions, and to reestablish my kingdom and its ancient liberties. I have just been passing five years in the countries of my uncle of Burgundy, and there I saw good cities mighty rich and full of inhabitants, and folks well clad, well housed, well off, lacking nothing. The commerce there is great, and the communes there have fine privileges. When I came into my own kingdom, I saw, on the contrary, houses and ruins, fields without tillage, men and women in rags, faces pinched and pale. It is a great pity, and my soul is filled with sorrow at it. All my desire is to apply a remedy thereto, and with God's help we will bring it to pass. The good folks departed, charmed with such familiarity, so prodigal of hope, but facts before long gave the lie to words. When the time came for renewing at Rem the claim for local taxes, the people showed opposition, and all the papers were burned in the open street. The king employed stratagem. In order not to encounter overt resistance, he caused a large number of his folks to disguise themselves as tillers or artisans, and so entering the town, they were masters of it before the people could think of defending themselves. The ring-leaders of the rebellion were drawn and quartered, and about a hundred persons were beheaded or hanged. At Angere, at Alencon, and at Ariac, there were similar outbursts similarly punished. From that moment it was easy to prognosticate that, with the new king, familiarity would not prevent severity or even cruelty. According to the requirements of the crisis, Louis had no more hesitation about violating than making promises, and all the while that he was seeking after popularity he intended to make his power felt at any price. How could he have done without heavy impulse and submission on the part of the taxpayers? For it was not only at home in his own kingdom that he desired to be chief actor and master. He pushed his ambitions and his activity abroad into diverse European states. In Italy he had his own claimant to the Throne of Naples, in opposition to the King of Aragon's. In Spain the Kings of Aragon and Castile were in a state of rivalry and war. A sedition broke out in Catalonia. Louis XI lent the King of Aragon 350,000 golden crowns to help him in raising 1,100 lances and reducing the rebels. Civil war was devastating England. The houses of York and Lancaster were disputing the crown. Louis XI kept up relations with both sides, and without embroiling himself with the Duke of York, who became Edward IV, he received at Chinon the heroic Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, and lent 20,000 pounds sterling to that prince, then disthroned, who undertook either to repay them within a year or to hand over Calais when he was re-established upon his throne to the King of France. In the same way John II, King of Aragon, had put Roussillon and Sardania into the hands of Louis XVI as a security for the loan of 350,000 crowns he had borrowed. Amidst all the plans and enterprises of his personal ambition, Louis was seriously concerned for the greatness of France, but he drew upon her resources and compromised her far beyond what was compatible with her real interests, by mixing himself up at every opportunity and by every sort of intrigue with the affairs and quarrels of the kings and peoples around him. In France itself he had quite enough of questions to be solved and perils to be surmounted, to absorb and satisfy the most vigilant and most active of men. Four princes of very unequal power, but all equal for independence and preponderance, Viz, Charles, Duke of Berry, his brother Francis II, Duke of Brittany, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, his uncle, and John, Duke of Bourbon, his brother-in-law, were vassals whom he found very troublesome, and ever on the point of becoming dangerous. It was not long before he had proof of it. In 1463, two years after Louis's accession, the Duke of Burgundy sent one of his most trusty servants, John of Croy, Sire de Chame, to complain of certain royal acts, contrary he said to the Treaty of Eris, which in 1435 had regulated the relations between Burgundy and the Crown. The envoy had great difficulty in getting audience of the king, who would not even listen for more than a single moment, and that as he was going out of his room, when almost without heating he said abruptly, What manner of man, then, is this Duke of Burgundy? Is he of other metal than the other lords of the realm? Yes, sir, replied Sime, he is of other metal, for he protected you and maintained you against the will of your father, King Charles, and against the opinion of all those who are opposed to you in the kingdom, which no other prince or lord would have dared to do. Louis went back into his room without a word. How dared you speak so to the king, said de Noe to Chame. Had I been fifty leagues away from here, said the Burgundian, and had I thought that the king had an idea only of addressing such words to me, I would have come back expressed to speak to him as I have spoken. The Duke of Brittany was less puissant and less proudly served than the Duke of Burgundy, but being vain and inconsiderate, he was incessantly attempting to exalt himself above his condition of vassal, and to raise his duchy into a sovereignty. And when his pretensions were rejected he entered, at one time with the king of England, and at another with the Duke of Burgundy and the malcontents of France, upon intrigues which amounted very nearly to treason against the king, his Souserain. Charles, Louis's younger brother, was a soft and mediocre but jealous and timidly ambitious prince. He remembered, moreover, the preference and the wishes manifested in his account by Charles the Seventh, their common father, on his deathbed, and he considered his position as Duke of Berry very inferior to the hopes he believed himself entitled to nourish. Duke John of Bourbon, on espousing a sister of Louis XI, had flattered himself that his marriage and the remembrance of the valor he had displayed, in fourteen fifty, at the battle of Formigny, would be worth to him at least the sort of constable, but Louis had refused to give it him. When all these great malcontents saw Louis' popularity on the decline, and the king engaged abroad in diverse political designs full of onerousness or embarrassment, they considered the moment to have come, and at the end of fourteen sixty-four formed together an alliance for to remonstrate with the king, says Coman, upon the bad order and injustice he kept up in his kingdom, considering themselves strong enough to force him if he would not mend his ways. And this war was called the common wheel, because it was undertaken under colour of being for the common wheel of the kingdom, which was soon converted into private wheel. The aged Duke of Burgundy, sensible and weary as he was, gave only a hesitating and slack adherence to the league, but his son Charles, Count of Carolais, entered into it passionately, and the father was no more in a condition to resist his son than he was inclined to follow him. The number of the declared malcontents increased rapidly, and the chiefs received at Paris itself, in the Church of Notre-Dame, the adhesion and the signatures of those who wished to join them. They all wore, for recognition's sake, a band of red silk around their wastes, and, there were more than five hundred, says Oliver de la Marche, a confidential servant of the Count of Carolais, princes as well as knights, dames, damsels and esquires, who were well acquainted with this alliance without the kings knowing anything, as yet, about it. It is difficult to believe the chronicler's last assertion. Louis XI, it is true, was more distrustful than farsighted, and though he placed but little reliance in his advisers and servants, he had so much confidence in himself, his own sagacity, and his own ability, that he easily deluded himself about the perils of his position. But the facts which have just been set forth were too serious and too patent to have escaped his notice. However that may be, he had no sooner obtained a clear insight into the League of the Princes, than he set to work with his usual activity and knowledge of the world to checkmate it. To rally together his own partisans and to separate his foes, such was the twofold end he pursued, at first with some success. In a meeting of the Princes which was held at tour, and in which friends and enemies were still mingled together, he used language which could not fail to meet their views. He was powerless, he said, to remedy the evils of the kingdom without the love and fealty of the princes of the blood and the other lords. They were the pillars of the state. Without their help, one man alone could not bear the weight of the crown. Many of those present declared their fealty. You are our king, our sovereign lord, said King Ren, Duke of Anjou. We thank you for the kind, gracious, and honest words you have just used to us. I say to you, on behalf of all our lords here present, that we will serve you in respect of and against everyone, according as it may please you to order us. Louis, by a manifesto, addressed himself also to the good towns and to all his kingdom. He deplored therein the enticements which had been suffered to draw away his brother, the Duke of Barrie, and other princes, churchmen, and nobles, who would never have consented to this league if they had borne in mind the horrible calamities of the kingdom, and especially the English, those ancient enemies, who might well come down again upon it as here to fore. They proclaim, said he, that they will abolish the imposts. That is what has always been declared by the seditious and rebellious. But instead of relieving, they ruin the poor people. Had I been willing to augment their pay and permit them to trample their vassals under foot as in time passed, they would never have given a thought to the common wheel. They pretend that they desire to establish order everywhere, and yet they cannot endure it anywhere. Whilst I, without drawing from my people more than was drawn by the late king, pay my men at arms well, and keep them in a good state of discipline. Louis, in his latter words, was a little too boastful. He had very much augmented the imposts without assembling the estates, and without caring for the old public liberties. If he frequently repressed local tyranny on the part of the lords, he did not deny himself the practice of it. Amongst other tastes he was passionately fond of the chase, and wherever he lived he put it down amongst his neighbors, noble or other, without any regard for rites of lordship. Hounds, hawking birds, nets, snares, all the implements of hunting were forbidden. He even went so far, it is said, on one occasion, as to have two gentlemen's ears cut off for killing a hare on their own property. Nevertheless, the publication of his manifesto did him good service. Avernia, Dauphini, Langdok, Lyon, and Bordeaux turned a deaf ear to all temptations from the League of Princes. Paris, above all, remained faithful to the king. Orders were given at the hotel de Ville that the principal gates of the city should be walled up, and that there should be a nightly watch on the ramparts, and burgesses were warned to lay in provisions of arms and victual. Marshal Joaquin Rouelle, Lord of Gramache, arrived at Paris on the 30th of June, 1465, at the head of a body of men at arms, to protect the city against the count of Carolais, who was coming up, and the king himself, not content with dispatching four of his chief officers to thank the Parisians for their loyal zeal, wrote to them that he would send the queen to lie in at Paris, the city he loved most in the world. Louis would have been glad to have nothing to do but to negotiate and talk. Though he was personally brave, he did not like war and its unforeseen issues. He belonged to the class of ambitious despots who prefer stratagem to force. But the very ableist speeches and artifices, even if they do not remain entirely fruitless, are not sufficient to reduce matters promptly to order, when great interests are threatened, passions violently excited, and factions let loose in the arena. Between the League of the Common Wheel and Louis XI there was a question too great to be, at the very outset, settled peacefully. It was feudalism in decline at grips with the kingship, which had been growing greater and greater for two centuries. The lords did not trust the king's promises, and one amongst those lords was too powerful to yield without a fight. At the beginning Louis had, in Auvergne and in Barrie, some successes, which decided a few of the rebels, the most insignificant, to accept truces and enter upon Parley. But the great princes, the dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, and Barrie, waxed more and more angry. The aged Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good himself, sobered and wearied as he was, threw himself passionately into the struggle. Go, said he to his son, Count Charles of Carolais, maintain thine honour well, and if thou have need of a hundred thousand more men to deliver thee from difficulty, I will myself lead them to thee. Charles marched promptly on Paris. Louis on his side moved thither, with the design and in the hope of getting in there without fighting. But the Burgundians, posted at Saint-Denis and the environs, barred his approach. His Sénéchal, Peter de Bries, advised him to first attack the Bretons, who were advancing to join the Burgundians. Louis, looking at him somewhat mistrustfully, said, You too, Sir Sénéchal, have signed this League of the Common Wheel. Hi, Sir, answered Bries with a laugh. They have my signature, but you have myself. Would you be afraid to try conclusions with the Burgundians, continued the King? Nay, verily, replied the Sénéchal, I will let that be seen in the first battle. Louis continued his march on Paris. The two armies met at Montserie, on the 16th of July 1465. Bries, who commanded the King's advance guard, immediately went into action, and was one of the first to be killed. Louis came up to his assistance with troops in rather loose order. The affair became hot and general, the French for a moment wavered, and a rumour ran through the ranks that the King had just been killed. No, my friends, said Louis, taking off his helmet. No, I am not dead. Defend your King with good courage. The wavering was transferred to the Burgundians. Count Charles himself was so closely pressed that a Frenchman at arms had his hand on him saying, yield you, my lord, I know you well, let not yourself be slain. A rescue, cried Charles, I will not leave you, my friends, unless by death. I am here to live and die with you. He was wounded by a sword thrust which entered his neck between his helmet and his breastplate, badly fastened. Disorders set in on both sides, without either being certain how things were, or being able to consider itself victorious. Night came on, and French and Burgundians encamped before Montserie. The Count of Carolais sat down on two heaps of straw and had his wound dressed. Around him were the stripped corpses of the slain. As they were being moved to make room for him, a poor wounded creature, somewhat revived by the motion, recovered consciousness and asked for a drink. The Count made them pour wine down his throat a drop of his own mixture, the Count made them pour down his throat a drop of his own mixture, for he never drank wine. The wounded man came completely to himself and recovered. It was one of the archers of his guard. Next day was brought to Charles that the Bretons were coming up, with their own duke, the Duke of Barry, and Count Dunoy at their head. He went as far as a tome to meet them, and informed them of what had just happened. The Duke of Barry was very much distressed. It was a great pity, he said, that so many people had been killed. He heartily wished that the war had never been begun. Did you hear, said the Count of Carolay to his servants, how yonder fellow talks? He is upset at the sight of seven or eight hundred wounded men going about the town, folks who are nothing to him, and whom he does not even know. He would be still more upset if the matter touched him nearly. He is just the sort of fellow to readily make his own terms and leave us stuck in the mud. We must secure other friends. And he forthwith made one of his people post off to England, to draw closer the alliance between Burgundy and Edward IV. End of Chapter 25 Part 2 Chapter 25 Part 3 of Volume 3 of a popular history of France when the earliest times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume 3 of a popular history of France when the earliest times by François Grisot Translated by Robert Black Chapter 25 Louis XI. 1461-1483 Part 3 Louis, meanwhile, after passing a day at Corbille, had once more, on the 18th of July, entered Paris, the object of his cheap solicitude. He dismounted at his lieutenants the sigh of demeans, and asked for some supper. Several persons, Burgesses and their wives, took supper with him. He excited their lively interest by describing to them the battle of Montherie, the danger he had run there, and the scenes which had been enacted, adopting at one time a pathetic and at another a bantering tone, and exciting by turns the emotion and the laughter of his audience. In three days he said he would return to fight his enemies, in order to finish the war. But he had not enough of men at arms, and all had not at that moment such good spirits as he. He passed a fortnight in Paris, devoting himself solely to the task of winning the hearts of the Parisians, reducing imposts, giving audience to everybody, lending a favourable ear to every opinion offered him, making no inquiry as to who had been more or less faithful to him, showing clemency without appearing to be aware of it, and not punishing with severity even those who had served as guides to the Burgundians in the pillaging of the villages around Paris. A crier of the chateau, who had gone crying about the streets, the day on which the Burgundians attacked the gate of Saint-Denis, was sentenced only to a month's imprisonment, bread and water, and a flogging. He was marched through the city in a nightman's cart, and the king, meeting the procession called out as he passed to the executioner, strike hard and spare not that ribald, he has well deserved it. Meanwhile the Burgundians were approaching Paris and pressing it more closely every day. Their different allies in the league were coming up with troops to join him, including even some of those who, after having suffered reverses in Auvergne, had concluded truces with the king. The forces scattered around Paris amounted, it is said, to fifty thousand men, and occupied Charenten, Conflon, Saint-Mar, and Saint-Denis, making ready for a serious attack upon the place. Louis, notwithstanding his firm persuasion that things always went ill whenever he was not present in person, left Paris for Rouen to call out and bring up the regulars and reserves of Normandy. In his absence interviews and parlies took place between besiegers and besieged. The former found partisans among the inhabitants of Paris in the Hotel de Ville itself. The Count de Danois made capital of all the grievances of the league against the king's government, and declared that, if the city refused to receive the princes, the authors of this refusal would have to answer for whatever misery, loss, and damage might come of it. And in spite of all efforts on the part of the king's officers and friends, some wavering was manifested in certain quarters. But there arrived from Normandy considerable reinforcements, announcing the early return of the king. And in fact he entered Paris on the twenty-eighth of August, the mass of the people testifying their joy and singing noel. Louis made as if he knew nothing of what had happened in his absence, and gave nobody a black look. Only four or five burgesses, too much compromised by their relations with the besiegers, were banished to Orléans. Sharp skirmishes were frequent all round the place. There was cannonating on both sides, and some balls from Paris came tumbling about the quarters of the Count of Carolais, and killed a few of his people before his very door. But Louis did not care to risk a battle. He was much impressed by the enemy's strength, and by the weakness of which glimpses had been seen in Paris during his absence. Whilst men of war were fighting here and there, he opened negotiations. Local and temporary truces were accepted, and agents of the king had conferences with others from the chiefs of the League. The princes showed so exacting a spirit that there was no treating on such conditions, and Louis determined to see whether he could not succeed better than his agents. He had an interview of two hours' duration in front of the St. Anthony Gate, with the Count of Saint-Poy, a confidant of the Count of Carolais. On his return he found before the gate some burgesses waiting for news. Well, my friends, said he, the Burgundians will not give you so much trouble any more as they have given you in the past. That is all very well, sir, replied an attorney of the Châtelet. But, meanwhile, they eat our grapes and gather our vintage without any hindrance. Still, said the king, that is better than if they were to come and drink your wine and your cellars. The month of September passed thus in parlies without result. Bad news came from Rouen. The League had a party in that city. Louis felt that the Count of Carolais was the real head of the opposition, and the only one with whom anything definite could be arrived at. He resolved to make a direct attempt upon him, for he had confidence in the influence he could obtain over people when he chatted and treated in person with them. One day he got aboard of a little boat with five or six of his officers, and went over to the left bank of the Seine. There the Count of Carolais was awaiting him. Will you ensure me, brother? said the king as he stepped ashore. Yes, my lord, as a brother, said the Count. The king embraced him and went on. I quite see, brother, that you are a gentleman and of the House of France. How so, my lord? When I sent my ambassadors lately, in fourteen sixty-four, to Lille on an errand to my uncle, your father and yourself, and when my chancellor, that fool of a morvillier, made you such a fine speech, you sent me word by the archbishop of Narbonne that I should repent me of the word spoken to you by that Montvillier. And that before a year was over. Peak due, you've kept your promise, and before the end of the year has come. I like to have to do with folks who hold to what they promise. This, he said laughingly, knowing well that this language was just the sort of flattery to touch the Count of Carolais. They walked for a long while together on the river's bank, to the great curiosity of their people, who were surprised to see them conversing on such good terms. They talked of possible conditions of peace, both of them displaying considerable pliancy, save the king touching the Duchy of Normandy, which he would not at any price, he said, confer on his brother the Duke of Barrie, and the Count of Carolais touching his enmity towards the House of Croix, with which he was determined not to be reconciled. At parting, the king invited the Count to Paris, where he would make him great cheer. My lord, said Charles, I have made a vow not to enter any good town until my return. The king smiled, gave fifty golden crowns for distribution, to drink his health, amongst the Count's archers, and once more got aboard of his boat. Shortly after getting back to Paris he learned that Normandy was lost to him. The widow of the Sénéchal, de Brise, lately killed at Montserie, forgetful of all the king's kindnesses and against the will of her own son, whom Louis had appointed Sénéchal of Normandy after his father's death, had just handed over Rouen to the Duke of Bourbon, one of the most determined chiefs of the league. Louis at once took his course. He sent to demand an interview with the Count of Carolais, and repaired to confland with a hundred scots of his guard. There was a second edition of the Walk Together. Charles knew nothing as yet about the surrender of Rouen, and Louis lost no time in telling him of it before he had leisure for reflection and for magnifying his pretensions. Since the Normans, said he, have of themselves felt disposed for such a novelty, so be it. I should never of my own free will have conferred such an appendage on my brother, but as the thing is done I give my consent. And he at the same time assented to all the other conditions which had formed the subject of conversation. In proportion to the resignation displayed by the King, was the joy of the Count of Carolais at seeing himself so near to peace. Everything was going wrong with his army. Provisions were short, murmurs and dissensions were setting in, and the League of Common Wheel was on the point of ending in a shameful catastrophe. Whilst strolling and conferring with cordiality the two princes kept advancing towards Paris. Without noticing it they passed within the entrance of a strong palisade which the King had caused to be erected in front of the city walls, and which marked the boundary line. All on a sudden they stopped, both of them, disconcerted. The Burgundian found himself within the hostile camp, but he kept a good countenance and simply continued the conversation. Amongst his army, however, when he was observed to be away so long, there was already a feeling of deep anxiety. The Chieftains had met together. If this young Prince, said the Marshal of Burgundy, has gone to his own ruin like a fool, let us not ruin his house. Let every man retire to his quarters and hold himself in readiness without disturbing himself about what may happen. By keeping together we are in a condition to fall back on the marches of Hanalt, Picardy, or Burgundy. The veteran warrior mounted his horse and rode forward in the direction of Paris to see whether Count Charles were coming back or not. It was not long before he saw a troop of forty or fifty horse moving towards him. They were the Burgundian Prince and an escort of the King's own guard. Charles dismissed the escort and came up to the Marshal saying, Don't say a word. I acknowledge my folly, but I saw it too late. I was already close to the works. Everybody can see that I was not there, said the Marshal. If I had been it would never have happened. You know, Your Highness, that I am only on loan to you as long as your father lives. Charles made no reply and returned to his own camp, where all congratulated him and rendered homage to the King's honorable conduct. Negotiations for peace were opened forthwith. There was no difficulty about them. Louis was ready to make sacrifices as soon as he recognized the necessity for them, being quite determined, however, in his heart, to recall them as soon as Fortune came back to him. Two distinct treaties were concluded—one at Conflon on the 5th of October, 1455, between Louis and the Count of Carol-A, and the other at St. Mar on the 29th of October between Louis and the other princes of the League. By one or the other of the treaties the King granted nearly every demand that had been made upon him. To the Count of Carol-A he gave up all the towns of importance and pickery. To the Duke of Barrie he gave the Duchy of Normandy, with entire sovereignty, and the other princes, independently of the different territories that had been conceded to them, all received large sums in ready money. The conditions of peace had already been agreed to, when the Burgundians went so far as to summon, into the bargain, the strong place of Beauvais. Louis quietly complained to Charles. If you wanted this town, said he, you should have asked me for it, and I would have given it to you, but peace is made and it ought to be absurd. Charles openly disavowed the deed. When peace was proclaimed, on the 30th of October, the King went to Vincennes to receive the homage of his brother Charles for the Duchy of Normandy, and that of the Count of Carol-A for the lands of pickery. The Count asked the King to give up to him, for that day the Castle of Vincennes for the security of all. Louis made no objection, and the gates and apartments of the Castle were guarded by the Count's own people. But the Parisians, whose favour Louis had won, were alarmed on his account. Twenty-two thousand men of the city militia marched towards the outskirts of Vincennes, and obliged the King to return and sleep at Paris. He went almost alone to the grand review which the Count of Carol-A held of his army before giving word for marching away, and passed from rank to rank, speaking graciously to his late enemy. The King and the Count, on separating, embraced one another, the Count saying, in a loud voice, Gentlemen, you and I are at the command of the King, my sovereign Lord, who is here present, to serve him whence however there shall be need. When the treaties of Conflon and St. Marre were put before the Parliament to be registered, the Parliament at first refused, and the Exchequer Chamber followed suit. But the King insisted in the name of necessity, and the registration took place, subject to a declaration on the part of the Parliament that it was forced to obey. Louis, at bottom, was not sorry for this resistance, and himself made a secret protest against the treaties he had just signed. At the outset of the negotiations it had been agreed that thirty-six notables, twelve prelates, twelve knights, and twelve members of the Council, should assemble to inquire into the errors committed in the Government of the Kingdom, and to apply remedies. They were to meet on the fifteenth of December, and to have terminated their labours in two months at the least, and in three months and ten days at the most. The King promised on his word to abide firmly and stably by what they should decree. But this commission was nearly a year behind time in assembling, and even when it was assembled, its labours were so slow and so futile, that the Count de Dant-Martin was quite justified in writing to the Count of Carolais, become by his father's death Duke of Burgundy, the League of Common Wheel has become nothing but the League of Common Woe. Scarcely were the treaties signed, and the Princes returned each to his own dominions when a quarrel arose between the Duke of Brittany and the new Duke of Normandy. Louis, who was watching for dissensions between his enemies, went at once to see the Duke of Brittany, and made with him a private convention for mutual security. Then having his movements free, he suddenly entered Normandy to retake possession of it as a province which, notwithstanding the session of it just made to his brother, the King of France could not dispense with. Evreau, Jisour, Gornet, Louvier, and even Rouen fell, without much resistance, again into his power. The Duke of Barry made a vigorous appeal for support to his late ally, the Duke of Burgundy, in order to remain master of the new Duchy which had been conferred upon him under the late treaties. The Count of Carolais was at that time taking up, little by little, the government of the Burgundian dominions in the name of his father, the aged Duke Philip, who was ill and near his end, but by pleading his own engagements, and especially his ever renewed struggle with his Flemish subjects, the Liges, the Count escaped from the necessity of satisfying the Duke of Barry. by François Guizot, translated by Robert Black. In order to be safe in the direction of Burgundy, as well as that of Brittany, Louis had entered into negotiations with Edward IV, King of England, and had made him offers, perhaps even promises, which seemed to trench upon the right ceded by the Treaty of Confluent to the Duke of Burgundy, as to certain districts of Piccadilly. The Count of Charolais was informed of it, and in his impetuous hurrah, he wrote to King Louis, dubbing him simply, sir, instead of giving him, according to the usage between Vassal and Sousaïne, the title of my most dreadlord. May it please you to wit, that some time ago I was apprised of a matter of which I cannot be too much astounded. It is with great sorrow that I name it to you, when I remember the fair expressions I have all through this year had from you, both in writing and by word of mouth. It is certain that Parlais has been held between your people and those of the King of England, that you have thought proper to assign to them the district of Coe and the city of Rouen, that you have promised to obtain from them Abbeville and the Countship of Pontieu, and that you have concluded with them certain alliances against me and my country, whilst making them all large offers to my prejudice. Of what is yours, sir, you may dispose according to your pleasure, but it seems to me that you might do better than wish to take from my hands what is mine in order to give it to the English or to any other foreign nation. I pray you, therefore, sir, if such overtures have been made by your people, to be pleased not to consent thereto in any way, but to put a stop to the whole. To the end the time may remain your most humble servant, as I desire to be. Louis returned no answer to this letter. He contented himself with sending to the commission of thirty-six notables, then in session at a tomf for the purpose of considering the reform of the kingdom, a request to represent to the Count of Charrolet the impropriety of such language, and to appeal for the punishment of the persons who had suggested it to him. The Count made some awkward excuses at the same time that he persisted in complaining of the king's obstinate pretensions and underhand ways. A serious incident now happened which for a while distracted the attention of the two rivals from their mutual recommendations. Duke Philip the Good, who had for some time past been visibly declining in body and mind, was visited at Bruges by a stroke of apoplexy soon discovered to be fatal. His son, the Count of Charrolet, was at Ghent. At the first whisper of danger he mounted his horse, and without a moment's halt arrived at Bruges on the fifteenth of June, fourteen-sixty-seven, and ran to his father's room, who had already lost speech and consciousness. Father, father, cried the Count on his knees and sobbing, give me your blessing, and if I have offended you, forgive me. My lord, added the Bishop of Bethlehem the dying man's confessor, if you only hear us, bear witness by some sign. The Duke turned his eyes a little towards his son, and seemed to feebly press his hand. This was his last effort of life, and in the evening, after some hours of passive agony, he died. His son flung himself upon the bed. He shrieked, he wept, he wrung his hands, says George Châtelet, one of the aged Duke's oldest and most trusted servants, and for many a long day tears were mingled with all his words every time he spoke to those who had been in the service of the dead so much so that everyone marveled at his immeasurable grief. It had never heretofore been thought that he could feel a quarter of the sorrow he showed, for he was thought to have a sterner heart, whatever cause there might have been, but nature overcame him. Nor was it to his son alone that Duke Philip had been so good and left so many grounds for sorrow. With you we lose, was the saying amongst the crowd that followed the procession through the streets, with you we lose our good old Duke, the best, the gentlest, the friendliest of princes, our peace and eek, our joy. Amidst such fearful storms you at last brought us out into tranquility and good order, you set justice on her seat and gave free course to commerce, and now you are dead, and we are orphans. Many voices it is said added in a lower tone, you leave us in hands whereof the weight is unknown to us, we know not into what perils we may be brought by the power that is to be over us, over us so accustomed to yours, under which we, most of us, were born and grew up. What the people were anxiously forecasting, Louis foresaw with certainty and took his measures accordingly. A few days after the death of Philip the Good, several of the principal Flemish cities, Gent, First and then Liege, rose against the new Duke of Burgundy in defence of their liberties, already ignored or threatened. The intrigues of Louis were not unconnected with these solicitations. He would undoubtedly have been very glad to have seen his most formidable enemy beset at the very commencement of his ducal reign, by serious embarrassments, and obliged to let the King of France settle without trouble his differences with his brother, Duke Charles of Berry, and with the Duke of Brittany. But the new Duke of Burgundy was speedily triumphant over the Flemish insurrections, and after these successes, at the close of the year 1467, he was so powerful and so unfettered in his movements that Louis might, with good reason, fear the formation of a fresh league amongst his great neighbours in coalition against him, and perhaps even in communication with the English who were ever ready to seek in France allies for the furtherance of their attempts to regain their the fortunes rested through them by Joan of Arc and Charles VII. In view of such a position, Louis formed a resolution, unpalatable no doubt, to one so jealous of his own power, but indicative of intelligence and boldness. He confronted the difficulties of home government in order to prevent perils from without. The remembrance had not yet faded of the energy displayed, and the services rendered in the first part of Charles VII's reign by the state's general. A wish was manifested for their resuscitation, and they were spoken of, even in the popular dogarral, as the most effectual remedy for the evils of the period. But what says Paris? She is deaf and dumb. Dare she not speak? Nor she nor parliament. The clergy. Oh, the clergy are kept mum. Upon your oath? Yes, on the sacrament. The nobles, then, the nobles are still worse, and justice hath no balances nor weights. Who, then, may hope to mitigate this curse? Who, prithee, who? Why France's three estates. Be pleased, O Prince, to grant alleviation. To whom? To the good citizen, who waits? For what? The right of governing the nation. Through whom? Pray whom? Why France's three estates. In the face of the evil Louis felt no fear of the remedy. He summoned the State General to a meeting at Tour on the 1st of April, 1468. Twenty-eight lords in person, besides representatives of several others who were unable to be there themselves, and a hundred and ninety-two deputies elected by sixty-four towns met in session. The Chancellor, Juvenel des Orsins, explained in presence of the King the object of the meeting. It is to take cognizance of the differences which have arisen between the King and Sir Charles, his brother, in respect of the Duchy of Normandy, and the Appanage of the said Sir Charles, likewise the great excesses and encroachments which the Duke of Brittany have committed against the King by seizing his places and subjects, and making open war upon him, and thirdly, the communication which is said to be kept up by the Duke of Brittany with the English in order to bring them down upon this country, and hand over to them the places he doth hold in Normandy, whereupon we are of opinion that the people of the three estates should give their good advice and counsel. After this official programme, the King and his Councillors withdrew. The estates deliberated during seven or eight sessions and came to an agreement, without any opposition or difficulty whatever, that as touching the Duchy of Normandy, it ought not to and cannot be separated from the Crown in any way whatsoever, but must remain united, annexed, and conjoined thereto inseparably. Further, any arrangement of the Duke of Brittany with the English is a thing downable, pernicious, and of most evil consequences, and one which is not to be permitted, suffered, or tolerated in any way. Lastly, if so shalt, the Duke of Brittany or others did make war on the King our sovereign Lord, or have any treaty or connection with his enemies, the King is bound to proceed against them who should do so, according to what must be done in such case with the tranquility and security of the realm, and, as often so ever as the said cases may occur, the people of the estates have agreed and consented, do agree and consent, that, without waiting for other assemblage or congregation of the estates, the King have power to do all that comports with order and justice. The said estates promising and agreeing to serve and aid the King, touching these matters, to obey him with all their might, and to live and die with him in this quarrel. Louis XI himself could demand no more. Had they been more experienced and farsighted, the state's general of 1468 would not have been disposed to resign, even temporarily, into the hands of the kingship, their rights, and their part in the government of the country. But they showed patriotism and good sense in defending the integrity of the kingdom, national unity, and public order against the selfish ambition and disorderly violence of feudalism. Fortified by their burst of attachment, Louis, by the Treaty of Encinie, signed on 10 September 1468, put an end to his differences with Francis II Duke of Brittany, who gave up his alliance with the House of Burgundy, and undertook to prevail upon Duke Charles of France to accept an arbitration for the purpose of settling before two years were over, the question of his territorial appenage in the place of Normandy. In the meanwhile, a pension of 60,000 leave was to be paid by the crown to that prince. Thus, Louis was left with the new Duke, Charles of Burgundy, as the only adversary he had to face. His advisors were divided as to the course to be taken with his formidable rassle. Was he to be dealt with by war or by negotiation? Count de Damartin, Marshal de Rouen, and nearly all the military men earnestly advised war. Leave it to us, they said. We will give the king a good account of this Duke of Burgundy, plague upon it, what do these Burgundians mean? They have called in the English and made alliance with them in order to give us battle. They have handed over the country to fire and sword. They have driven the king from his lordship. We have suffered too much, we must have revenge. Down upon them, in the name of the devil, down upon them. The king makes a sheep of himself, and bargains for his wool and his skin, as if he had not wear withal to defend himself. Death! If we were in his place, we would rather risk the whole kingdom than let ourselves be treated in this fashion. But the king did not like to risk the kingdom, and he had more confidence in negotiation than in war. Two of his principal advisors, the constable de Saint Paul and the cardinal de la Ballou, bishop of Evre, were of his opinion and urged him to the top of his bent. Of them he especially made use in his more or less secret relations with the Duke of Burgundy, and he charged them to sound him with respect to a personal interview between himself and the Duke. It has been very well remarked by Monsieur de Barraint in his histoire de durée de Burgundy, that Louis had a great idea of the influence he gained over people by his wits and his language. He was always convinced that people never said what ought to be said, and that they did not set to work the right way. It was a certain way of pleasing him to give him promise of a success which he would owe to himself alone, and the constable and the cardinal did not fail to do so. They found that Duke of Burgundy very little disposed to accept the king's overtures. By Saint George, said he, I ask nothing but what is just and reasonable. I desire the fulfilment of the treaties of Arra and of Conflain to which the king has sworn. I make no war on him. It is he who is coming to make it on me, but should he bring all the forces of his kingdom, I will not budge from here or recall the length of my foot. My predecessors have seen themselves in worse plight and have not been dismayed. Neither the constable de Saint-Paul nor the cardinal de la Ballue said anything to the king about this rough disposition on the part of Duke Charles. They both, in their own personal interest, desired the interview and did not care to bring to light anything that might be an obstacle to it. Louis persisted in his desire and sent to ask the Duke for a letter of safe conduct. Charles wrote with his own hand on the 8th of October 1468 as follows. My lord, if it is your pleasure to come to this town of Poheon for to see us, I swear to you and promise you, by my faith and on my honour, that you may come, remain, sojourn, and go back safely to the places of Chaunis and Noyl, at your pleasure, as many times as it may please you, freely and frankly, without any hindrance to you or to any of your folks from me or others in any case whatever and whatsoever may happen. When this letter arrived at Noyl, an extreme surprise and alarm were displayed about Louis, the interview appeared to be a mad idea. The vice-juron, Vidam, of Amiens, came hurrying up with a countryman who declared on his life that my lord of Burgundy wished for it only to make an attempt upon the king's person. The king's greatest enemies, it was said, were already or soon would be with the Duke, and the captains vehemently reiterated their objections. But, Louis held to his purpose and started for Noyl on the 2nd of October, taking with him the constable, the cardinal, his confessor, and, for all his escort, four score of his faithful Scots and sixty men-at-arms. This knowing gossip, as his contemporaries called him, had fits of rashness and audacious vanity. Duke Charles went to meet him outside the town. They embraced one another and returned on foot to Perron, chatting familiarly, and the king with his hand resting on the Duke's shoulders in token of amity. Louis had quarters at the house of the Chamberlain of the town. The castle of Perron being, it was said, in too bad a state and too ill-furnished for his reception. On the very day that the king entered Perron, the Duke's army, commanded by the Marshal of Burgundy, arrived from the opposite side and encamped beneath the walls. Several former servants of the king, now not on good terms with him, accompanied the Burgundian army. As soon as the king was apprised of the arrival of these folks, says Commine, he had a great fright and sent to beg of the Duke of Burgundy that he might be lodged at the castle, seeing that all those who had come were evil disposed towards him. The Duke was very much rejoiced thereat, had him lodged there, and sadly assured him that he had no cause for doubt. Next day, Palaise began between the councillors of the two princes. They did not appear much disposed to come to an understanding, and a little soundness of spirit was beginning to show itself on both sides, when they came news which excited a grand commotion. King Louis, on coming to Perron, had not considered, says Commine, that he had sent two ambassadors to the folks of Liege to excite them against the Duke. Nevertheless, the said ambassadors had advanced masters so well that they had already made a great mass of rebels. The Liegees came and took by surprise the town of Tonga, wherein were the Bishop of Liege and the Lord of Umbercoch, whom they took also, slaying more over some servants of the said Bishop. The fugitives who reported this news at Perron made the matter a great deal worse than it was. They had no doubt, they said, but that the Bishop and Seal of Umbercoch had also been murdered, and Charles had no more doubt about it than they. His fury was extreme. He strode to and fro everywhere relating the news from Liege. So the King, said he, came here only to deceive me. It is he who, by his ambassadors, excited these bad folks of Liege, but, by St George, they shall be severely punished for it, and he himself shall have cause to repent. He gave immediate orders to have the gates of the town and of the castle closed and guarded by the archers, but being a little troubled nevertheless as to the effect which will be produced by this order, he gave us his reason for it, that he was quite determined to have recovered a box full of golden jewels which had been stolen from him. I verily believe, says Comming, that at just then the Duke had found those whom he addressed ready to encourage him or advise him to do the King a bad turn, he would have done it. But at that time I was still with the said Duke. I served him as Chamberlain, and I slept in his room when I pleased, for such was the usage of that house. With me there were none at this speech of the Duke's save two grooms of the Chamber, one called Charles de Vizen, the Nated of Dijon, an honest man, and one who had great credit with his master, and were exasperated naught but ass-waged according to our power.