The King of England readily entertained the overtures announced to him by

his herald. He had landed at Calais on the 22d of June, 1475, with an

army of from sixteen to eighteen thousand men thirsting for conquest and

pillage in France, and the Duke of Burgundy had promised to go and join

him with a considerable force; but the latter, after having appeared for

a moment at Calais to concert measures with his ally, returned no more,

and even hesitated about admitting the English into his towns of Artois

and Picardy. Edward waited for him nearly two months at Peronne, but in

vain. During this time Louis continued his attempts at negotiation. He

fixed his quarters at Amiens, and Edward came and encamped half a league

from the town. The king sent to him, it is said, three hundred wagons

laden with the best wines he could find, “the which train,” says

Commynes, “was almost an army as big as the English;” at the entrance of

the gate of Amiens Louis had caused to be set out two large tables

“laden with all sorts of good eatables and good wines; and at each of

these two tables he had caused to be seated five or six men of good

family, stout and fat, to make better sport for them who had a mind to

drink. When the English went into the town, wherever they put up they

had nothing to pay; there were nine or ten taverns, well supplied,

whither they went to eat and drink, and asked for what they pleased. And

this lasted three or four days.” An agreement was soon come to as to the

terms of peace. King Edward bound himself to withdraw with his army to

England so soon as Louis XI. should have paid him seventy-five thousand

crowns. Louis promised besides to pay annually to King Edward fifty

thousand crowns, in two payments, during the time that both princes were

alive. A truce for seven years was concluded; they made mutual promises

to lend each other aid if they were attacked by their enemies or by their

own subjects in rebellion; and Prince Charles, the eldest son of Louis

XI., was to marry Elizabeth, Edward’s daughter, when both should be of

marriageable age. Lastly, Queen Margaret of Anjou, who had been a

prisoner in England since the death of her husband, Henry VI., was to be

set at liberty, and removed to France, on renouncing all claim to the

crown of England. These conditions having been formulated, it was agreed

that the two kings should meet and sign them at Pecquigny, on the Somme,

three leagues from Amiens. Thither, accordingly, they repaired, on the

29th of August, 1475. Edward, as he drew near, doffed “his bonnet of

black velvet, whereon was a large fleur-de-lis in jewels, and bowed down

to within half a foot of the ground.” Louis made an equally deep

reverence, saying, “Sir my cousin, right welcome; there is no man in the

world I could more desire to see than I do you, and praised be God that

we are here assembled with such good intent.” The King of England

answered this speech “in good French enough,” says Commynes. The missal

was brought; the two kings swore and signed four distinct treaties; and

then they engaged in a long private conversation, after which Louis went

away to Amiens and Edward to his army, whither Louis sent to him “all

that he had need of, even to torches and candles.” As he went chatting

along the road with Commynes, Louis told him that he had found the King

of England so desirous of paying a visit to Paris that he had been

anything but pleased. “He is a right handsome king,” said he: “he is

very fond of women; and he might well meet at Paris some smitten one who

would know how to make him such pretty speeches as to render him desirous

of another visit. His predecessors were far too much in Normandy and

Paris; his comradeship is worth nothing on our side of the sea; on the

other side, over yonder, I should like very well to have him for good

brother and good friend.” Throughout the whole course of the negotiation

Louis had shown pliancy and magnificence; he had laden Edward’s chief

courtiers with presents; two thousand crowns by way of pension had been

allowed to his grand chamberlain, Lord Hastings, who would not give an

acknowledgment. “This gift comes of the king your master’s good pleasure,

and not at my request,” said he to Louis’s steward; “if you would have me

take it, you shall slip it here inside my sleeve, and have no letter or

voucher beyond; I do not wish to have people saying, ‘The grand

chamberlain of England was the King of France’s pensioner,’ or to have my

acknowledgments found in his exchequer-chamber.” Lord Hastings had not

always been so scrupulous, for, on the 15th of May, 1471, he had received

from the Duke of Burgundy a pension for which he had given an

acknowledgment. Another Englishman, whose name is not given by Commynes,

waxed wroth at hearing some one say, “Six hundred pipes of wine and a

pension given you by the king soon sent you back to England.” “That is

certainly what everybody said,” answered the Englishman, “that you might

have the laugh against us. But call you the money the king gives us

pension? Why, it is tribute; and, by St. George, you may perhaps talk so

much about it as to bring us down upon you again!” “There was nothing in

the world,” says Commynes, “of which the king was more fearful than lest

any word should escape him to make the English think that they were being

derided; at the same time that he was laboring to gain them over, he was

careful to humor their susceptibilities;” and Commynes, under his

schooling, had learned to understand them well: “They are rather slow

goers,” says he, “but you must have a little patience with them, and not

lose your temper. . . . I fancy that to many it might appear that the

king abased himself too much; but the wise might well hold that the

kingdom was in great danger, save for the intervention of God, who did

dispose the king’s mind to choose so wise a course, and did greatly

trouble that of the Duke of Burgundy. . . . Our king knew well the

nature of the King of England, who was very fond of his ease and his

pleasures: when he had concluded these treaties with him, he ordered that

the money should be found with the greatest expedition, and every one had

to lend somewhat to help to supply it on the spot. The king said that

there was nothing in the world he would not do to thrust the King of

England out of the realm, save only that he would never consent that the

English should have a bit of territory there; and, rather than suffer

that, he would put everything to jeopardy and risk.”

Commynes had good reason to say that the kingdom was in great peril. The

intentions of Charles the Rash tended to nothing short of bringing back

the English into France, in order to share it with them. He made no

concealment of it. “I am so fond of the kingdom,” said he, “that I would

make six of it in France.” He was passionately eager for the title of

king. He had put out feelers for it in the direction of Germany, and the

emperor, Frederic III., had promised it to him together with that of

vicar-general of the empire, on condition that his daughter, Mary of

Burgundy, married Duke Maximilian, Frederic’s son. Having been

unsuccessful on the Rhine, Charles turned once more towards the Thames,

and made alliance with Edward IV., King of England, with a view of

renewing the English invasion of France, flattering himself, of course,

that he would profit by it. To destroy the work of Joan of Arc and

Charles VII.--such was the design, a criminal and a shameful one for a

French prince, which was checkmated by the peace of Peequigny. Charles

himself acknowledged as much when, in his wrath at this treaty, he said,

“He had not sought to bring over the English into France for any need he

had of them, but to enable them to recover what belonged to them;” and

Louis XI. was a patriotic king when he declared that “there was nothing

in the world he would not do to thrust the King of England out of the

realm, and, rather than suffer the English to have a bit of territory in

France, he would put everything to jeopardy and risk.”

The Duke of Burgundy, as soon as he found out that the King of France

had, under the name of truce, made peace for seven years with the King of

England, and that Edward IV. had recrossed the Channel with his army, saw

that his attempts, so far, were a failure. Accordingly he too lost no

time in signing [on the 13th of September, 1475] a truce with King Louis

for nine years, and directing his ambition and aiming his blows against

other quarters than Western France. Two little states, his neighbors on

the east, Lorraine and Switzerland, became the object and the theatre of

his passion for war. Lorraine had at that time for its duke Rene II., of

the house of Anjou through his mother Yolande, a young prince who was

wavering, as so many others were, between France and Burgundy. Charles

suddenly entered Lorraine, took possession of several castles, had the

inhabitants who resisted hanged, besieged Nancy, which made a valiant

defence, and ended by conquering the capital as well as the

country-places, leaving Duke Rene no asylum but the court of Louis XI.,

of whom the Lorraine prince had begged a support, which Louis, after his

custom, had promised without rendering it effectual. Charles did not

stop there. He had already been more than once engaged in hostilities

with his neighbors the Swiss; and he now learned that they had just made

a sanguinary raid upon the district of Vaud, the domain of a petty prince

of the house of Savoy, and a devoted servant of the Duke of Burgundy.

Scarcely two months after the capture of Nancy, Charles set out, on the

11th of June, 1476, to go and avenge his client, and wreak his haughty

and turbulent humor upon these bold peasants of the Alps.

In spite of the truce he had but lately concluded with Charles the Rash,

the prudent Louis did not cease to keep an attentive watch upon him, and

to reap advantage, against him, from the leisure secured to the King of

France by his peace with the King of England and the Duke of Brittany. A

late occurrence had still further strengthened his position: his brother

Charles, who became Duke of Guienne, in 1469, after the treaty of

Peronne, had died on the 24th of May, 1472. There were sinister rumors

abroad touching his death. Louis was suspected, and even accused to the

Duke of Brittany, an intimate friend of the deceased prince, of having

poisoned his brother. He caused an inquiry to be instituted into the

matter; but the inquiry itself was accused of being incomplete and

inconclusive. “King Louis did not, possibly, cause his brother’s death,”

says M. de Barante, “but nobody thought him incapable of it.” The will

which Prince Charles had dictated a little before his death increased the

horror inspired by such a suspicion. He manifested in it a feeling of

affection and confidence towards the king his brother; he requested him

to treat his servants kindly; “and if in any way,” he added, “we have ever

offended our right dread and right well-beloved brother, we do beg him to

be pleased to forgive us; since, for our part, if ever in any matter he

hath offended us, we do affectionately pray the Divine Majesty to forgive

him, and with good courage and good will do we on our part forgive him.”

The Duke of Guienne at the same time appointed the king executor of his

will. If we acknowledge, however, that Louis was not incapable of such a

crime, it must be admitted that there is no trust-worthy proof of his

guilt. At any rate his brother’s death had important results for him.

Not only did it set him free from all fresh embarrassment in that

direction, but it also restored to him the beautiful province of Guienne,

and many a royal client. He treated the friends of Prince Charles,

whether they had or had not been heretofore his own, with marked

attention. He re-established at Bordeaux the parliament he had removed

to Poitiers; he pardoned the towns of Pdzenas and Montignac for some late

seditions; and, lastly, he took advantage of this incident to pacify and

satisfy this portion of the kingdom. Of the great feudal chieftains who,

in 1464, had formed against him the League of the common weal, the Duke

of Burgundy was the only one left on the scene, and in a condition to put

him in peril.

But though here was for the future his only real adversary, Louis XI.

continued, and with reason, to regard the Duke of Burgundy as his most

formidable foe, and never ceased to look about for means and allies

wherewith to encounter him. He could no longer count upon the

co-operation, more or less general, of the Flemings. His behavior to the

Liegese after the incident at Peronne, and his share in the disaster

which befell Liege, had lost him all his credit in the Flemish cities.

The Flemings, besides, had been disheartened and disgusted at the idea of

compromising themselves for or against their Burgundian prince. When

they saw him entering upon the campaign in Lorraine and Switzerland, they

themselves declared to him what he might or might not expect from them.

“If he were pressed,” they said, “by the Germans or the Swiss, and had

not with him enough men to make his way back freely to his own borders,

he had only to let them know, and they would expose their persons and

their property to go after him and fetch him back safely within his said

borders, but as for making war again at his instance, they were not free

to aid him any more with either men or money.” Louis XI., then, had

nothing to expect from the Flemings any more; but for two years past, and

so soon as he observed the commencement of hostilities between the Duke

of Burgundy and the Swiss, he had paved the way for other alliances in

that quarter. In 1473 he had sent “to the most high and mighty lords and

most dear friends of ours, them of the league and city of Berne and of

the great and little league of Germany, ambassadors charged to make

proposals to them, if they would come to an understanding to be friends

of friends and foes of foes” (make an offensive and defensive alliance).

The proposal was brought before the diet of the cantons assembled at

Lucerne. The King of France “regretted that the Duke of Burgundy would

not leave the Swiss in peace; he promised that his advice and support,

whether in men or in money, should not be wanting to them; he offered to

each canton an annual friendly donation of two thousand livres; and he

engaged not to summon their valiant warriors to take service save in case

of pressing need, and unless Switzerland were herself at war.” The

question was discussed with animation; the cantons were divided; some

would have nothing to do with either the alliance or the money of Louis

XI., of whom they spoke with great distrust and antipathy; others

insisted upon the importance of being supported by the King of France in

their quarrels with the Duke of Burgundy, and scornfully repudiated the

fear that the influence and money of Louis would bring a taint upon the

independence and the good morals of their country. The latter opinion

carried the day; and, on the 2d of October, 1474, conformably with a

treaty concluded, on the 10th of the previous January, between the King

of France and the league of Swiss cantons, the canton of Berne made to

the French legation the following announcement: “If, in the future, the

said lords of the league asked help from the King of France against the

Duke of Burgundy, and if the said lord king, being engaged in his own

wars, could not help them with men, in this case he should cause to be

lodged and handed over to them, in the city of Lyons, twenty thousand

Rhenish florins every quarter of a year, as long as the war actually

continued; and we, on our part, do promise, on our faith and honor, that

every time and however many times the said lord king shall ask help from

the said lords of the league, we will take care that they do help him and

aid him with six thousand men in his wars and expeditions, according to

the tenor of the late alliance and union made between them, howbeit on

payment.”

A Bernese messenger carried this announcement to the Burgundian camp

before the fortress of Neuss, and delivered it into the hands of Duke

Charles himself, whose only remark, as he ground his teeth, was, “Ah!

Berne! Berne!” At the be-ginning of January, 1476, he left Nancy, of

which he had recently gained possession, returned to Besancon, and

started thence on the 6th of February to take the field with an army

amounting, it is said, to thirty or forty thousand men, provided with a

powerful artillery and accompanied by an immense baggage-train, wherein

Charles delighted to display his riches and magnificence in contrast with

the simplicity and roughness of his personal habits. At the rumor of

such an armament the Swiss attempted to keep off the war from their

country. “I have heard tell,” says Commynes, “by a knight of theirs, who

had been sent by them to the said duke, that he told him that against

them he could gain nothing, for that their country was very barren and

poor; that there were no good prisoners to make, and that the spurs and

the horses’ bits in his own army were worth more money than all the

people of their territory could pay in ransom even if they were taken.”

Charles, however, gave no heed, saw nothing in their representations but

an additional reason for hurrying on his movements with confidence, and

on the 19th of February arrived before Granson, a little town in the

district of Vaud, where war had already begun.

Louis XI. watched all these incidents closely, keeping agents everywhere,

treating secretly with everybody, with the Duke of Burgundy as well as

with the Swiss, knowing perfectly well what he wanted, but holding

himself ready to face anything, no matter what the event might be. When

he saw that the crisis was coming, he started from Tours and went to take

up his quarters at Lyons, close to the theatre of war and within an easy

distance for speedy information and prompt action. Scarcely had he

arrived, on the 4th of March, when he learned that, on the day but one

before, Duke Charles had been tremendously beaten by the Swiss at

Granson; the squadrons of his chivalry had not been able to make any

impression upon the battalions of Berne, Schwitz, Soleure, and Fribourg,

armed with pikes eighteen feet long; and at sight of the mountaineers

marching with huge strides and lowered heads upon their foes and

heralding their advance by the lowings of the bull of Uri and the cow of

Unterwalden, two enormous instruments made of buffalo-horn, and given, it

was said, to their ancestors by Charlemagne, the whole Burgundian army,

seized with panic, had dispersed in all directions, “like smoke before

the northern blast.” Charles himself had been forced to fly with only

five horsemen, it is said, for escort, leaving all his camp, artillery,

treasure, oratory, jewels, down to his very cap garnished with precious

stones and his collar of the Golden Fleece, in the hands of the “poor

Swiss,” astounded at their booty and having no suspicion of its value.

“They sold the silver plate for a few pence, taking it for pewter,” says

M. de Barante. Those magnificent silks and velvets, that cloth of gold

and damask, that Flanders lace, and those carpets from Arras which were

found heaped up in chests, were cut in pieces and distributed by the ell,

like common canvas in a village shop. The duke’s large diamond which he

wore round his neck, and which had once upon a time glittered in the

crown of the Great Mogul, was found on the road, inside a little box set

with fine pearls. The man who picked it up kept the box and threw away

the diamond as a mere bit of glass. Afterwards he thought better of it;

went to look for the stone, found it under a wagon, and sold it for a

crown to a clergyman of the neighborhood. “There was nothing saved but

the bare life,” says Commynes.

That even the bare life was saved was a source of sorrow to Louis XI.

in the very midst of his joy at the defeat. He was, nevertheless, most

proper in his behavior and language towards Duke Charles, who sent to him

Sire de Contay “with humble and gracious words, which was contrary to his

nature and his custom,” says Commynes; “but see how an hour’s time

changed him; he prayed the king to be pleased to observe loyally the

truce concluded between them, he excused himself for not having appeared

at the interview which was to have taken place at Auxerre, and he bound

himself to be present, shortly, either there or elsewhere, according to

the king’s good pleasure.” Louis promised him all he asked, “for,” adds

Commynes, “it did not seem to him time, as yet, to do other-wise;” and he

gave the duke the good advice “to return home and bide there quietly,

rather than go on stubbornly warring with yon folks of the Alps, so poor

that there was nought to gain by taking their lands, but valiant and

obstinate in battle.” Louis might give this advice fearlessly, being

quite certain that Charles would not follow it. The latter’s defeat at

Granson had thrown him into a state of gloomy irritation. At Lausanne,

where he staid for some time, he had “a great sickness, proceeding,” says

Commynes, “from grief and sadness on account of this shame that he had

suffered; and, to tell the truth, I think that never since was his

understanding so good as it had been before this battle.” Before he fell

ill, on the 12th of March, Charles issued orders from his camp before

Lausanne to his lieutenant at Luxembourg to put under arrest “and visit

with the extreme penalty of death, without waiting for other command from

us, all the men-at-arms, archers, cross-bowmen, infantry, or other

soldiery” who had fled or dispersed after the disaster at Granson; “and

as to those who be newly coming into our service it is ordered by us that

they, on pain of the same punishment, do march towards us with all

diligence; and if they make any delay, our pleasure is that you proceed

against them in the manner hereinabove declared without fail in any way.”

With such fiery and ruthless energy Charles collected a fresh army,

having a strength, it is said, of from twenty-five to thirty thousand

men, Burgundians, Flemings, Italians, and English; and after having

reviewed it on the platform above Lausanne, he set out on the 27th of

May, 1476, and pitched his camp on the 10th of June before the little

town of Morat, six leagues from Berne, giving notice everywhere that it

was war to the death that he intended. The Swiss were expecting it, and

were prepared for it. The energy of pride was going to be pitted against

the energy of patriotism. “The Duke of Burgundy is here with all his

forces, his Italian mercenaries and some traitors of Germans,” said the

letter written to the Bernese by the governor of Morat, Adrian of

Bubenberg; “the gentlemen of the magistracy, of the council, and of the

burgherhood may be free from fear and hurry, and may set at rest the

minds of all our confederates: I will defend Morat;” and he swore to the

garrison and the inhabitants that he would put to death the first who

should speak of surrender. Morat had been for ten days holding out

against the whole army of the Burgundians; the confederate Swiss were

arriving successively at Berne; and the men of Zurich alone were late.

Their fellow-countryman, Hans Waldmann, wrote to them, “We positively

must give battle or we are lost, every one of us. The Burgundians are

three times more numerous than they were at Granson, but we shall manage

to pull through. With God’s help great honor awaits us. Do not fail to

come as quickly as possible.” On the 21st of June, in the evening, the

Zurichers arrived. “Ha!” the duke was just saying, “have these hounds

lost heart, pray? I was told that we were about to get at them.” Next

day, the 22d of June, after a pelting rain and with the first gleams of

the returning sun, the Swiss attacked the Burgundian camp. A man-at-arms

came and told the duke, who would not believe it, and dismissed the

messenger with a coarse insult, but hurried, nevertheless, to the point

of attack. The battle was desperate; but before the close of the day it

was hopelessly lost by the Burgundians. Charles had still three thousand

horse, but he saw them break up, and he himself had great difficulty in

getting away, with merely a dozen men behind him, and reaching Merges,

twelve leagues from Morat. Eight or ten thousand of his men had fallen,

more than half, it is said, killed in cold blood after the fight. Never

had the Swiss been so dead set against their foes; and “as cruel as at

Morat” was for a long while a common expression.

“The king,” says Commynes, “always willingly gave somewhat to him who was

the first to bring him some great news, without forgetting the messenger,

and he took pleasure in speaking thereof before the news came, saying, ‘I

will give so much to him who first brings me such and such news.’ My

lord of Bouchage and I (being together) had the first message about the

battle of Morat, and told it both together to the king, who gave each of

us two hundred marks of silver.” Next day Louis, as prudent in the hour

of joy as of reverse, wrote to Count de Dampmartin, who was in command of

his troops concentrated at Senlis, with orders to hold himself in

readiness for any event, but still carefully observe the truce with the

Duke of Burgundy. Charles at that time was thinking but little of Louis

and their truce; driven to despair by the disaster at Morat, but more

dead set than ever on the struggle, he repaired from Morges to Gex, and

from Gex to Salins, and summoned successively, in July and August, at

Salins, at Dijon, at Brussels, and at Luxembourg the estates of his

various domains, making to all of them an appeal, at the same time

supplicatory and imperious, calling upon them for a fresh army with which

to recommence the war with the Swiss, and fresh subsidies with which to

pay it. “If ever,” said he, “you have desired to serve us and do us

pleasure, see to doing and accomplishing all that is bidden you; make no

default in anything whatsoever, and he henceforth in dread of the

punishments which may ensue.” But there was everywhere a feeling of

disgust with the service of Duke Charles; there was no more desire of

serving him and no more fear of disobeying him; he encountered almost

everywhere nothing but objections, complaints, and refusals, or else a

silence and an inactivity which were still worse. Indignant, dismayed,

and dumbfounded at such desertion, Charles retired to his castle of La

Riviere, between Pontarlier and Joux, and shut himself up there for more

than six weeks, without, however, giving up the attempt to collect

soldiers. “Howbeit,” says Commynes, “he made but little of it; he kept

himself quite solitary, and he seemed to do it from sheer obstinacy more

than anything else. His natural heat was so great that he used to drink

no wine, generally took barley-water in the morning and ate preserved

rose-leaves to keep himself cool; but sorrow changed his complexion so

much that he was obliged to drink good strong wine without water, and, to

bring the blood back to his heart, burning tow was put into cupping-

glasses, and they were applied thus heated to the region of the heart.

Such are the passions of those who have never felt adversity, especially

of proud princes who know not how to discover any remedy. The first

refuge, in such a case, is to have recourse to God, to consider whether

one have offended Him in aught, and to confess one’s misdeeds. After

that, what does great good is to converse with some friend, and not be

ashamed to show one’s grief before him, for that lightens and comforts

the heart; and not at any rate to take the course the duke took of

concealing himself and keeping himself solitary; he was so terrible to

his own folks that none durst come forward to give him any comfort or

counsel; but all left him to do as he pleased, feeling that, if they made

him any remonstrance, it would be the worse for them.”

But events take no account of the fears and weaknesses of men. Charles

learned before long that the Swiss were not his most threatening foes,

and that he had something else to do instead of going after them amongst

their mountains. During his two campaigns against them, the Duke of

Lorraine, Rend II., whom he had despoiled of his dominions and driven

from Nancy, had been wandering amongst neighboring princes and people in

France, Germany, and Switzerland, at the courts of Louis XI. and the

Emperor Frederic III., on visits to the patricians of Berne, and in the

free towns of the Rhine. He was young, sprightly, amiable, and brave; he

had nowhere met with great assistance, but he had been well received, and

certain promises had been made him. When he saw the contest so hotly

commenced between the Duke of Burgundy and the Swiss, he resolutely put

himself at the service of the republican mountaineers, fought for them in

their ranks, and powerfully contributed to their victory at Morat. The

defeat of Charles and his retreat to his castle of La Riviere gave Rend

new hopes, and gained him some credit amongst the powers which had

hitherto merely testified towards him a good will of but little value;

and his partisans in Lorraine recovered confidence in his for-tunes. One

day, as he was at his prayers in a church, a rich widow, Madame Walther,

came up to him in her mantle and hood, made him a deep reverence, and

handed him a purse of gold to help him in winning back his duchy. The

city of Strasbourg gave him some cannon, four hundred cavalry, and eight

hundred infantry; Louis XI. lent him some money; and Rend before long

found himself in a position to raise a small army and retake Epinal,

Saint-Did, Vaudemont, and the majority of the small towns in Lorraine.

He then went and laid siege to Nancy. The Duke of Burgundy had left

there as governor John de Rubemprd, lord of Bievres, with a feeble

garrison, which numbered amongst its ranks three hundred English, picked

men. Sire de Bievres sent message after message to Charles, who did not

even reply to him. The town was short of provisions; the garrison was

dispirited; and the commander of the English was killed. Sire de

Bievres, a loyal servant, but a soldier of but little energy, determined

to capitulate. On the 6th of October, 1476, he evacuated the place at

the head of his men, all safe in person and property. At sight of him

Rend dismounted, and handsomely went forward to meet him, saying, “Sir,

my good uncle, I thank you for having so courteously governed my duchy;

if you find it agreeable to remain with me, you shall fare the same as

myself.” “Sir,” answered Sire de Bievres, “I hope that you will not

think ill of me for this war; I very much wish that my lord of Burgundy

had never begun it, and I am much afraid that neither he nor I will see

the end of it.”

Sire de Bievres had no idea how true a prophet he was. Almost at the

very moment when he was capitulating, Duke Charles, throwing off his

sombre apathy, was once more entering Lorraine with all the troops he

could collect, and on the 22d of October he in his turn went and laid

siege to Nancy. Duke Rend, not considering himself in a position to

maintain the contest with only such forces as he had with him, determined

to quit Nancy in person and go in search of re-enforcements at a

distance, at the same time leaving in the town a not very numerous but a

devoted garrison, which, together with the inhabitants, promised to hold

out for two months. And it did hold out whilst Rend was visiting

Strasbourg, Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne, presenting himself before the

councils of these petty republics with, in order to please them, a tame

bear behind him, which he left at the doors, and promising, thanks to

Louis XI.’s agents in Switzerland, extraordinary pay. He thus obtained

auxiliaries to the number of eight thousand fighting men. He had,

moreover, in the very camp of the Duke of Burgundy, a secret ally, an

Italian condottiere, the Count of Campo-Basso, who, either from personal

hatred or on grounds of interest, was betraying the master to whom he had

bound himself. The year before, he had made an offer to Louis XI. to go

over to him with his troops during a battle, or to hand over to him the

Duke of Burgundy, dead or alive. Louis mistrusted the traitor, and sent

Charles notice of the offers made by Campo-Basso. But Charles mistrusted

Louis’s information, and kept Campo-Basso in his service. A little

before the battle of Morat Louis had thought better of his scruples or

his doubts, and had accepted, with the compensation of a pension, the

kind offices of Campo-Basso. When the war took place in Lorraine, the

condottiere, whom Duke Charles had one day grossly insulted, entered into

communication with Duke Rend also, and took secret measures for insuring

the failure of the Burgundian attempts upon Nancy. Such was the position

of the two princes and the two armies, when, on the 4th of June, 1477,

Rend, having returned with re-enforcements to Lorraine, found himself

confronted with Charles, who was still intent upon the siege of Nancy.

The Duke of Burgundy assembled his captains. “Well!” said he, “since

these drunken scoundrels are upon us, and are coming here to look for

meat and drink, what ought we to do?” The majority of those present were

of opinion that the right thing to do was to fall back into the duchy of

Luxembourg, there to recruit the enfeebled army. “Duke Rene,” they said,

“is poor; he will not be able to bear very long the expense of the war,

and his allies will leave him as soon as he has no more money; wait but

a little, and success is certain.” Charles flew into a passion. “My

father and I,” said he, “knew how to thrash these Lorrainers; and we will

make them remember it. By St. George! I will not fly before a boy,

before Rend of Vaudemont, who is coming at the head of this scum. He has

not so many men with him as people think; the Germans have no idea of

leaving their stoves in winter. This evening we will deliver the assault

against the town, and to-morrow we will give battle.”

And the next day, January the 5th, the battle did take place, in the

plain of Nancy. The Duke of Burgundy assumed his armor very early in the

morning. When he put on his helmet, the gilt lion, which formed the

crest of it, fell off. “That is a sign from God!” said he; but,

nevertheless, he went and drew up his army in line of battle. The day

but one before, Campo-Basso had drawn off his troops to a considerable

distance; and he presented himself before Duke Rene, having taken off his

red scarf and his cross of St. Andrew, and being quite ready, he said, to

give proofs of his zeal on the spot. Rene spoke about it to his Swiss

captains. “We have no mind,” said they, “to have this traitor of an

Italian fighting beside us; our fathers never made use of such folk or

such practices in order to conquer.” And Campo-Basso held aloof. The

battle began in gloomy weather, and beneath heavy flakes of snow, lasted

but a short time, and was not at all murderous in the actual conflict,

but the pursuit was terrible. Campo-Basso and his troops held the bridge

of Bouxieres, by which the Burgundian fugitives would want to pass; and

the Lorrainerss of Rend and his Swiss and German allies scoured the

country, killing all with whom they fell in. Rend returned to Nancy in

the midst of a population whom his victory had delivered from famine as

well as war. “To show him what sufferings they had endured,” says M. de

Barante, “they conceived the idea of piling up in a heap, before the door

of his hostel, the heads of the horses, dogs, mules, cats, and other

unclean animals which had for several weeks past been the only food of

the besieged.” When the first burst of joy was over, the question was,

what had become of the Duke of Burgundy; nobody had a notion; and his

body was not found amongst the dead in any of the places where his most

valiant and faithful warriors had fallen. The rumor ran that he was not

dead; some said that one of his servants had picked him up wounded on the

field of battle, and was taking care of him, none knew where; and

according to others, a German lord had made him prisoner, and carried him

off beyond the Rhine. “Take good heed,” said many people, “how ye

comport yourselves otherwise than if he were still alive, for his

vengeance would be terrible on his return.” On the evening of the day

after the battle, the Count of Campo-Basso brought to Duke Rend a young

Roman page who, he said, had from a distance seen his master fall, and

could easily find the spot again. Under his guidance a move was made

towards a pond hard by the town; and there, half buried in the slush of

the pond, were some dead bodies, lying stripped. A poor washerwoman,

amongst the rest, had joined in the search; she saw the glitter of a

jewel in the ring upon one of the fingers of a corpse whose face was not

visible; she went forward, turned the body over, and at once cried, “Ah!

my prince!” There was a rush to the spot immediately. As the head was

being detached from the ice to which it stuck, the skin came off, and a

large wound was discovered. On examining the body with care, it was

unhesitatingly recognized to be that of Charles, by his doctor, by his

chaplain, by Oliver de la Marche, his chamberlain, and by several grooms

of the chamber; and certain marks, such as the scar of the wound he had

received at Montlhery, and the loss of two teeth, put their assertion

beyond a doubt. As soon as Duke Rend knew that they had at last found

the body of the Duke of Burgundy, he had it removed to the town, and laid

on a bed of state of black velvet, under a canopy of black satin. It was

dressed in a garment of white satin; a ducal crown, set with precious

stones, was placed on the disfigured brow; the lower limbs were cased in

scarlet, and on the heels were gilded spurs. The Duke of Lorraine went

and sprinkled holy water on the corpse of his unhappy rival, and, taking

the dead hand beneath the pall, “Ah! dear cousin,” said he, with tears in

his _eyes_.

For the time that I knew him he was not cruel; but he became so before

his death, and that was a bad omen for a long existence. He was very

sumptuous in dress and in all other matters, and a little too much so.

He showed very great honor to ambassadors and foreign folks; they were

right well feasted and entertained by him. He was desirous of great

glory, and it was that more than ought else that brought him into his

wars; he would have been right glad to be like to those ancient princes

of whom there has been so much talk after their death; he was as bold a

man as any that reigned in his day. . . . After the long felicity and

great riches of this house of Burgundy, and after three great princes,

good and wise, who had lasted six score years and more in good sense and

virtue, God gave this people the Duke Charles, who kept them constantly

in great war, travail, and expense, and almost as much in winter as in

summer. Many rich and comfortable folks were dead or ruined in prison

during these wars. The great losses began in front of Neuss, and

continued through three or four battles up to the hour of his death; and

at that hour all the strength of his country was sapped; and dead, or

ruined, or captive, were all who could or would have defended the

dominions and the honor of his house. Thus it seems that this loss was

an equal set-off to the time of their felicity. “Please God to forgive

Duke Charles his sins!”

[Illustration: The Corpse of Charles the Rash Discovered----236]

To this pious wish of Commynes, after so judicious a sketch, we may add

another: Please God that people may no more suffer themselves to be taken

captive by the corrupting and ruinous pleasures procured for them by

their masters’ grand but wicked or foolish enterprises, and may learn to

give to the men who govern them a glory in proportion to the wisdom and

justice of their deeds, and by no means to the noise they make and the

risks they sow broadcast around them!

The news of the death of Charles the Rash was for Louis XI. an unexpected

and unhoped-for blessing, and one in which he could scarcely believe.

The news reached him on the 9th of January, at the castle of Plessis-les-

Tours, by the medium of a courier sent to him by George de la Tremoille,

Sire de Craon, commanding his troops on the frontier of Lorraine.

“Insomuch as this house of Burgundy was greater and more powerful than the

others,” says Commynes, “was the pleasure great for the king more than

all the others together; it was the joy of seeing himself set above all

those he hated, and above his principal foes; it might well seem to him

that he would never in his life meet any to gainsay him in his kingdom,

or in the neighborhood near him.” He replied the same day to Sire de

Craon, “Sir Count, my good friend, I have received your letters, and the

good news you have brought to my knowledge, for which I thank you as much

as I am able. Now is the time for you to employ all your five natural

wits to put the duchy and countship of Burgundy in my hands. And, to

that end, place yourself with your band and the governor of Champagne, if

so be that the Duke of Burgundy is dead, within the said country, and

take care, for the dear love you bear me, that you maintain amongst the

men of war the best order, just as if you were inside Paris; and make

known to them that I am minded to treat them and keep them better than

any in my kingdom; and that, in respect of our god-daughter, I have an

intention of completing the marriage that I have already had in

contemplation between my lord the _dauphin_ and her. Sir Count, I

consider it understood that you will not enter the said country, or make

mention of that which is written above, unless the Duke of Burgundy be

dead. And, in any case, I pray you to serve me in accordance with the

confidence I have in you. And adieu!”

Beneath the discreet reserve inspired by a remnant of doubt concerning

the death of his enemy, this letter contained the essence of Louis XI.’s

grand and very natural stroke of policy. Charles the Rash had left only

a daughter, Mary of Burgundy, sole heiress of all his dominions. To

annex this magnificent heritage to the crown of France by the marriage of

the heiress with the _dauphin_ who was one day to be Charles VIII., was

clearly for the best interests of the nation as well as of the French

kingship, and such had, accordingly, been Louis XI.’s first idea. “When

the Duke of Burgundy was still alive,” says Commynes, “many a time spoke

the king to me of what he would do if the duke should happen to die; and

he spoke most reasonably, saying that he would try to make a match

between his son (who is now our king) and the said duke’s daughter (who

was afterwards Duchess of Austria); and if she were not minded to hear of

it for that my lord, the _dauphin_, was much younger than she, he would

essay to get her married to some younger lord of this realm, for to keep

her and her subjects in amity, and to recover without dispute that which

he claimed as his; and still was the said lord on this subject a week

before he knew of the said duke’s death. . . . Howbeit it seems that

the king our master took not hold of matters by the end by which he

should have taken hold for to come out triumphant, and to add to his

crown all those great lordships, either by sound title or by marriage, as

easily he might have done.”

Commynes does not explain or specify clearly the mistake with which he

reproaches his master. Louis XI., in spite of his sound sense and

correct appreciation, generally, of the political interests of France and

of his crown, allowed himself on this great occasion to be swayed by

secondary considerations and personal questions. His son’s marriage with

the heiress of Burgundy might cause some embarrassment in his relations

with Edward IV., King of England, to whom he had promised the _dauphin_

as a husband for his daughter Elizabeth, who was already sometimes

called, in England, the Dauphiness. In 1477, at the death of the duke

her father, Mary of Burgundy was twenty years old, and Charles, the

_dauphin_, was barely eight. There was another question, a point of

feudal law, as to whether Burgundy, properly so called, was a fief which

women could inherit, or a fief which, in default of a male heir, must

lapse to the suzerain. Several of the Flemish towns which belonged to

the Duke of Burgundy were weary of his wars and his violence, and showed

an inclination to pass over to the sway of the King of France. All these

facts offered pretexts, opportunities, and chances of success for that

course of egotistical pretension and cunning intrigue in which Louis

delighted and felt confident of his ability; and into it he plunged after

the death of Charles the Rash. Though he still spoke of his desire of

marrying his son, the _dauphin_, to Mary of Burgundy, it was no longer

his dominant and ever-present idea. Instead of taking pains to win the

good will and the heart of Mary herself, he labored with his usual zeal

and address to dispute her rights, to despoil her brusquely of one or

another town in her dominions, to tamper with her servants, or excite

against them the wrath of the populace. Two of the most devoted and most

able amongst them, Hugonet, chancellor of Burgundy, and Sire

d’Humbercourt, were the victims of Louis XI.’s hostile manoeuvres and

of blind hatred on the part of the Ghentese; and all the Princess Mary’s

passionate entreaties were powerless both with the king and with the

Flemings to save them from the scaffold. And so Mary, alternately

threatened or duped, attacked in her just rights or outraged in her

affections, being driven to extremity, exhibited a resolution never to

become the daughter of a prince unworthy of the confidence she, poor

orphan, had placed in the spiritual tie which marked him out as her

protector. “I understand,” said she, “that my father had arranged my

marriage with the emperor’s son; I have no mind for any other.” Louis in

his alarm tried all sorts of means, seductive and violent, to prevent

such a reverse. He went in person amongst the Walloon and Flemish

provinces belonging to Mary. “That I come into this country,” said he to

the inhabitants of Quesnoy, “is for nothing but the interests of Mdlle.

de Burgundy, my well-beloved cousin and god-daughter. . . . Of her

wicked advisers some would have her espouse the son of the Duke of

Cleves; but he is a prince of far too little lustre for so illustrious a

princess; I know that he has a bad sore on his leg; he is a drunkard,

like all Germans, and, after drinking, he will break his glass over her

head, and beat her. Others would ally her with the English, the

kingdom’s old enemies, who all lead bad lives: there are some who would

give her for her husband the emperor’s son, but those princes of the

imperial house are the most avaricious in the world; they will carry off

Mdlle. de Burgundy to Germany, a strange land and a coarse, where she

will know no consolation, whilst your land of Hainault will be left

without any lord to govern and defend it. If my fair cousin were well

advised, she would espouse the _dauphin_; you speak French, you Walloon

people; you want a prince of France, not a German. As for me, I esteem

the folks of Hainault more than any nation in the world; there is none

more noble, and in my sight a hind of Hainault is worth more than a grand

gentleman of any other country.” At the very time that he was using such

flattering language to the good folks of Hainault, he was writing to the

Count de Dampmartin, whom he had charged with the repression of

insurrection in the country-parts of Ghent and Bruges, “Sir Grand Master,

I send you some mowers to cut down the crop you wot off; put them, I pray

you, to work, and spare not some casks of wine to set them drinking, and

to make them drunk. I pray you, my friend, let there be no need to

return a second time to do the mowing, for you are as much crown-officer

as I am, and, if I am king, you are grand master.” Dampmartin executed

the king’s orders without scruple; and at the season of harvest the

Flemish country-places were devastated. “Little birds of heaven,” cries

the Flemish chronicler Molinet, “ye who are wont to haunt our fields and

rejoice our hearts with your amorous notes, now seek out other countries;

get ye hence from our tillages, for the king of the mowers of France hath

done worse to us than do the tempests.”

All the efforts of Louis XI., his winning speeches, and his ruinous

deeds, did not succeed in averting the serious check he dreaded. On the

18th of August, 1477, seven months after the battle of Nancy and the

death of Charles the Rash, Arch-duke Maximilian, son of the Emperor

Frederick III., arrived at Ghent to wed Mary of Burgundy. “The moment he

caught sight of his betrothed,” say the Flemish chroniclers, “they both

bent down to the ground and turned as pale as death--a sign of mutual

love according to some, an omen of unhappiness according to others.”

Next day, August 19, the marriage was celebrated with great simplicity in

the chapel of the Hotel de Ville; and Maximilian swore to respect the

privileges of Ghent. A few days afterwards he renewed the same oath at

Bruges, in the midst of decorations bearing the modest device, “Most

glorious prince, defend us lest we perish” (Gloriosissime princeps,

defende nos ne pereamus). Not only did Louis XI. thus fail in his first

wise design of incorporating with France, by means of a marriage between

his son the _dauphin_ and Princess Mary, the heritage of the Dukes of

Burgundy, but he suffered the heiress and a great part of the heritage

to pass into the hands of the son of the German emperor; and thereby he

paved the way for that determined rivalry between the houses of France

and Austria, which was a source of so many dangers and woes to both

states during three centuries. It is said that in 1745, when Louis XV.,

after the battle of Fontenoy, entered Bruges cathedral, he remarked, as

he gazed on the tombs of the Austro-Burgundian princes, “There is the

origin of all our wars.” In vain, when the marriage of Maximilian and

Mary was completed, did Louis XI. attempt to struggle against his new and

dangerous neighbor; his campaigns in the Flemish provinces, in 1478 and

1479, had no great result; he lost, on the 7th of August, 1479, the

battle of Guinegate, between St. Omer and Therouanne; and before long,

tired of war, which was not his favorite theatre for the display of his

abilities, he ended by concluding with Maximilian a truce at first, and

then a peace, which in spite of some conditionals favorable to France,

left the principal and the fatal consequences of the Austro-Burgundian

marriage to take full effect. This event marked the stoppage of that

great, national policy which had prevailed during the first part of Louis

XI.’s reign. Joan of Arc and Charles VII. had driven the English from

France; and for sixteen years Louis XI. had, by fighting and gradually

destroying the great vassals who made alliance with them, prevented them

from regaining a footing there. That was work as salutary as it was

glorious for the nation and the French kingship. At the death of Charles

the Rash, the work was accomplished; Louis XI. was the only power left in

France, without any great peril from without, and without any great rival

within; but he then fell under the sway of mistaken ideas and a vicious

spirit. The infinite resources of his mind, the agreeableness of his

conversation, his perseverance combined with the pliancy of his will, the

services he was rendering France, the successes he in the long ruin

frequently obtained, and his ready apparent resignation under his

reverses, for a while made up for or palliated his faults, his

falsehoods, his perfidies, his iniquities; but when evil is predominant

at the bottom of a man’s soul, he cannot do without youth and success;

he cannot make head against age and decay, reverse of fortune and the

approach of death; and so Louis XI. when old in years, master-power still

though beaten in his last game of policy, appeared to all as he really

was and as he had been prediscerned to be by only such eminent observers

as Commynes, that is, a crooked, swindling, utterly selfish, vindictive,

cruel man. Not only did he hunt down implacably the men who, after

having served him, had betrayed or deserted him; he revelled in the

vengeance he took and the sufferings he inflicted on them. He had raised

to the highest rank both in state and church the son of a cobbler, or,

according to others, of a tailor, one John de Balue, born in 1421, at the

market-town of Angles, in Poitou. After having chosen him, as an

intelligent and a clever young priest, for his secretary and almoner,

Louis made him successively clerical councillor in the parliament of

Paris, then Bishop of Evreux, and afterwards cardinal; and he employed

him in his most private affairs. It was a hobby of his thus to make the

fortunes of men born in the lowest stations, hoping that, since they

would owe everything to him, they would never depend on any but him. It

is scarcely credible that so keen and contemptuous a judge of human

nature could have reckoned on dependence as a pledge of fidelity. And in

this case Louis was, at any rate, mistaken; Balue was a traitor to him,

and in 1468, at the very time of the incident at Peronne, he was secretly

in the service of Duke Charles of Burgundy, and betrayed to him the

interests and secrets of his master and benefactor. In 1469 Louis

obtained material proof of the treachery; and he immediately had Balue

arrested and put on his trial. The cardinal confessed everything, asking

only to see the king. Louis gave him an interview on the way from

Amboise to Notre-Dame de Clery; and they were observed, it is said,

conversing for two hours, as they walked together on the road. The trial

and condemnation of a cardinal by a civil tribunal was a serious business

with the court of Rome. The king sent commissioners to Pope Paul II.:

the pope complained of the procedure, but amicably and without

persistence. The cardinal was in prison at Loches; and Louis resolved to

leave him there forever, without any more fuss. But at the same time

that, out of regard for the dignity of cardinal, which he had himself

requested of the pope for the culprit, he dispensed with the legal

condemnation to capital punishment, he was bent upon satisfying his

vengeance, and upon making Balue suffer in person for his crime. He

therefore had him confined in a cage, “eight feet broad,” says Commynes,

“and only one foot higher than a man’s stature, covered with iron plates

outside and inside, and fitted with terrible bars.” There is still to be

seen in Loches castle, under the name of the Balue cage, that instrument

of prison-torture which the cardinal, it is said, himself invented. In

it he passed eleven years, and it was not until 1480 that he was let out,

at the solicitation of Pope Sixtus IV., to whom Louis XI., being old and

ill, thought he could not possibly refuse this favor. He remembered,

perhaps, at that time how that, sixteen years before, in writing to his

lieutenant-general in Poitou to hand over to Balue, Bishop of Evreux, the

property of a certain abbey, he said, “He is a devilish good bishop just

now; I know not what he will be here-after.”

[Illustration: The Balue Cage----245]

He was still more pitiless towards a man more formidable and less

subordinate, both in character and origin, than Cardinal Balue. Louis of

Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol, had been from his youth up engaged in the

wars and intrigues of the sovereigns and great feudal lords of Western

Europe--France, England, Germany, Burgundy, Brittany, and Lorraine. From

1433 to 1475 he served and betrayed them all in turn, seeking and

obtaining favors, incurring and braving rancor, at one time on one side

and at another time on another, acting as constable of France and as

diplomatic agent for the Duke of Burgundy, raising troops and taking

towns for Louis XI., for Charles the Rash, for Edward IV., for the German

emperor, and trying nearly always to keep for himself what he had taken

on another’s account. The truth is, that he was constantly occupied with

the idea of making for himself an independent dominion, and becoming a

great sovereign. “He was,” says Duclos, “powerful from his possessions,

a great captain, more ambitious than politic, and, from his ingratitude

and his perfidies, worthy of his tragic end.” His various patrons grew

tired at last of being incessantly taken up with and then abandoned,

served and then betrayed; and they mutually interchanged proofs of the

desertions and treasons to which they had been victims. In 1475 Louis

of Luxembourg saw a storm threatening; and he made application for a

safe-conduct to Charles the Rash, who had been the friend of his youth.

“Tell him,” replied Charles to the messenger, “that he has forfeited his

paper and his hope as well;” and he gave orders to detain him. As soon

as Louis XI. knew whither the constable had retired, he demanded of the

Duke of Burgundy to give him up, as had been agreed between them. “I

have need,” said he, “for my heavy business, of a head like his;” and he

added, with a ghastly smile, “it is only the head I want; the body may

stay where it is.” On the 24th of November, 1475, the constable was,

accordingly, given up to the king; and on the 27th, was brought to Paris.

His trial, begun forthwith, was soon over; he himself acknowledged the

greater part of what was imputed to him; and on the 19th of December he

was brought up from the Bastille before the parliament. “My lord of St.

Pol,” said the chancellor to him, “you have always passed for being the

firmest lord in the realm; you must not belie yourself to-day, when you

have more need than ever of firmness and courage;” and he read to him the

decree which sentenced him to lose his head that very day on the Place de

Greve. “That is a mighty hard sentence,” said the constable; “I pray God

that I may see Him to-day.” And he underwent execution with serene and

pious firmness. He was of an epoch when the most criminal enterprises

did not always preclude piety. Louis XI. did not look after the

constable’s accomplices. “He flew at the heads,” says Duclos, “and was

set on making great examples; he was convinced that noble blood, when it

is guilty, should be shed rather than common blood. Nevertheless there

was considered to be something indecent in the cession by the king to the

Duke of Burgundy of the constable’s possessions. It seemed like the

price of the blood of an unhappy man, who, being rightfully sacrificed

only to justice and public tranquillity, appeared to be so to vengeance,

ambition, and avarice.”

In August, 1477, the battle of Nancy had been fought; Charles the Rash

had been killed; and the line of the Dukes of Burgundy had been

extinguished. Louis XI. remained master of the battle-field on which the

great risks and great scenes of his life had been passed through. It

seemed as if he ought to fear nothing now, and that the day for clemency

had come. But such was not the king’s opinion; two cruel passions,

suspicion and vengeance, had taken possession of his soul; he remained

convinced, not without reason, that nearly all the great feudal lords who

had been his foes were continuing to conspire against him, and that he

ought not, on his side, ever to cease from striving against thorn. The

trial of the constable, St. Pol, had confirmed all his suspicions; he had

discovered thereby traces and almost proofs of a design for a long time

past conceived and pursued by the constable and his associates--the

design of seizing the king, keeping him prisoner, and setting his son,

the _dauphin_, on the throne, with a regency composed of a council of

lords. Amongst the declared or presumed adherents of this project, the

king had found James d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, the companion and

friend of his youth; for his father, the Count of Pardiac, had been

governor to Louis, at that time _dauphin_. Louis, on becoming king, had

loaded James d’Armagnac with favors; had raised his countship of Nemours

to a duchy-peerage of France; had married him to Louise of Anjou,

daughter of the Count of Maine and niece of King Rend. The new Duke of

Nemours entered, nevertheless, into the League of Common Weal against the

king. Having been included, in 1465, with the other chiefs of the league

in the treaty of Conflans, and reconciled with the king, the Duke of

Nemours made oath to him, in the Sainte-Chapelle, to always be to him a

good, faithful, and loyal subject, and thereby obtained the governorship

of Paris and Ile-de-France. But, in 1469, he took part in the revolt of

his cousin, Count John d’Armagnac, who was supposed to be in

communication with the English; and having been vanquished by the Count

de Dampmartin, he had need of a fresh pardon from the king, which he

obtained on renouncing the privileges of the peerage if he should offend

again. He then withdrew within his own domains, and there lived in

tranquillity and popularity, but still keeping up secret relations with

his old associates, especially with the Duke of Burgundy and the

constable of St. Pol. In 1476, during the Duke of Burgundy’s first

campaign against the Swiss, the more or less active participation of the

Duke of Nemours with the king’s enemies appeared to Louis so grave, that

he gave orders to his son-in-law, Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, to

go and besiege him in his castle of Carlat, in Auvergne. The Duke of

Nemours was taken prisoner there and carried off to Vienne, in Dauphiny,

where the king then happened to be. In spite of the prisoner’s

entreaties, Louis absolutely refused to see him, and had him confined in

the tower of Pierre-Encise. The Duke of Nemours was so disquieted at his

position and the king’s wrath, that his wife, Louise of Anjou, who was in

her confinement at Carlat, had a fit of terror and died there; and he

himself, shut up at Pierre-Encise, in a dark and damp dungeon, found his

hair turn white in a few days. He was not mistaken about the gravity of

the danger. Louis was both alarmed at these incessantly renewed

conspiracies of the great lords and vexed at the futility of his pardons.

He was determined to intimidate his enemies by a grand example, and

avenge his kingly self-respect by bringing his power home to the ingrates

who made no account of his indulgence. He ordered that the Duke of

Nemours should be removed from Pierre-Encise to Paris, and put in the

Bastille, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1476, and that

commissioners should set about his trial. The king complained of the

gentleness with which the prisoner had been treated on arrival, and wrote

to one of the commissioners, “It seems to me that you have but one thing

to do; that is, to find out what guarantees the Duke of Nemours had given

the constable of being at one with him in making the Duke of Burgundy

regent, putting me to death, seizing my lord the _dauphin_, and taking

the authority and government of the realm. He must he made to speak

clearly on this point, and must get hell (be put to the torture) in good

earnest. I am not pleased at what you tell me as to the irons having

been taken off his legs, as to his being let out from his cage, and as to

his being taken to the mass to which the women go. Whatever the

chancellor or others may say, take care that he budge not from his cage,

that he be never let out save to give him hell (torture him), and that he

suffer hell (torture) in his own chamber.” The Duke of Nemours protested

against the choice of commissioners, and claimed, as a peer of the realm,

his right to be tried by the parliament. When put to the torture he

ended by saying, “I wish to conceal nothing from the king; I will tell

him the truth as to all I know.” “My most dread and sovereign lord,” he

himself wrote to Louis, “I have been so misdoing towards you and towards

God that I quite see that I am undone unless your grace and pity be

extended to me; the which, accordingly, most humbly and in great

bitterness and contrition of heart, I do beseech you to bestow upon me

liberally;” and he put the simple signature, “Poor James.” “He confessed

that he had been cognizant of the constable’s designs; but he added that,

whilst thanking him for the kind offers made to himself, and whilst

testifying his desire that the lords might at last get their guarantees,

he had declared what great obligations and great oaths he was under to

the king, against the which he would not go; he, moreover, had told the

constable he had no money at the moment to dispose of, no relative to

whom he was inclined to trust himself or whom he could exert himself to

win over, not even M. d’Albret, his cousin.” In such confessions there

was enough to stop upright and fair judges from the infliction of capital

punishment, but not enough to reassure and move the heart of Louis XI.

On the chancellor’s representations he consented to have the business

sent before the parliament; but the peers of the realm were not invited

to it. The king summoned the parliament to Noyon, to be nearer his own

residence; and he ordered that the trial should be brought to a

conclusion in that town, and that the original commissioners who had

commenced proceedings, as well as thirteen other magistrates and officers

of the king denoted by their posts, should sit with the lords of the

parliament, and deliberate with them.

In spite of so many arbitrary precautions and violations of justice, the

will of Louis XI. met, even in a parliament thus distorted, with some

resistance. Three of the commissioners added to the court abstained from

taking any part in the proceedings; three of the councillors pronounced

against the penalty of death; and the king’s own son-in-law, Sire de

Beaujeu, who presided, confined himself to collecting the votes without

delivering an opinion, and to announcing the decision. It was to the

effect that “James d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, was guilty of high

treason, and, as such, deprived of all honors, dignities, and

prerogatives, and sentenced to be beheaded and executed according to

justice.” Furthermore the court declared all his possessions confiscated

and lapsed to the king. The sentence, determined upon at Noyon on the

10th of July, 1477, was made known to the Duke of Nemours on the 4th of

August, in the Bastille, and carried out, the same day, in front of the

market-place. A disgusting detail, reproduced by several modern writers,

has almost been received into history. Louis XI., it is said, ordered

the children of the Duke of Nemours to be placed under the scaffold, and

be sprinkled with their father’s blood. None of his contemporaries, even

the most hostile to Louis XI., and even amongst those who, at the states-

general held in 1484, one of them after his death, raised their voices

against the trial of the Duke of Nemours, and in favor of his children,

has made any mention of this pretended atrocity. Amongst the men who

have reigned and governed ably, Louis XI. is one of those who could be

most justly taxed with cruel indifference when cruelty might be useful to

him; but the more ground there is for severe judgment upon the chieftains

of nations, the stronger is the interdict against overstepping the limit

justified and authorized by facts.

The same rule of historical equity makes it incumbent upon us to remark

that, in spite of his feelings of suspicion and revenge, Louis XI. could

perfectly well appreciate the men of honor in whom he was able to have

confidence, and would actually confide in them even contrary to ordinary

probabilities. He numbered amongst his most distinguished servants

three men who had begun by serving his enemies, and whom he conquered,

so to speak, by his penetration and his firm mental grasp of policy.

The first was Philip of Chabannes, Count de Dampmartin, an able and

faithful military leader under Charles VII., so suspected by Louis XI.

at his accession, that, when weary of living in apprehension and

retirement he came, in 1463, and presented himself to the king, who was

on his way to Bordeaux, “Ask you justice or mercy?” demanded Louis.

“Justice, sir,” was the answer. “Very well, then,” replied the king,

“I banish you forever from the kingdom.” And he issued an order to that

effect, at the same time giving Dampmartin a large sum to supply the

wants of exile. It is credible that Louis already knew the worth of the

man, and wished in this way to render their reconciliation more easy.

Three years afterwards, in 1466, he restored to Dampmartin his

possessions together with express marks of royal favor, and twelve years

later, in 1478, in spite of certain gusts of doubt and disquietude which

had passed across his mind as to Dampmartin under circumstances critical

for both of them, the king wrote to him, “Sir Grand Master, I have

received your letters, and I do assure you, by the faith of my body,

that I am right joyous that you provided so well for your affair at

Quesnoy, for one would have said that you and the rest of the old ones

were no longer any good in an affair of war, and we and the rest of the

young ones would have gotten the honor for ourselves. Search, I pray

you, to the very roots the case of those who would have betrayed us, and

punish them so well that they shall never do you harm. I have always

told you that you have no need to ask me for leave to go and do your

business, for I am sure that you would not abandon mine without having

provided for everything. Wherefore, I put myself in your hands, and you

can go away without leave. All goes well; and I am much better pleased

at your holding your own so well than if you had risked a loss of two to

one. And so, farewell!” In 1465, another man of war, Odet d’Aydie,

Lord of Lescun in Warn, had commanded at Montlhery the troops of the

Dukes of Berry and Brittany against Louis XI.; and, in 1469, the king,

who had found means of making his acquaintance, and who “was wiser,”

says Commynes, “in the conduct of such treaties than any other prince of

his time,” resolved to employ him in his difficult relations with his

brother Charles, then Duke of Guienne, “promising him that he and his

servants, and he especially, should profit thereby.” Three years

afterwards, in 1472, Louis made Lescun Count of Comminges, “wherein he

showed good judgment,” adds Commynes, “saying that no peril would come

of putting in his hands that which he did put, for never, during those

past dissensions, had the said Lescun a mind to have any communication

with the English, or to consent that the places of Normandy should be

handed over to them;” and to the end of his life Louis XI. kept up the

confidence which Lescun had inspired by his judicious fidelity in the

case of this great question. There is no need to make any addition to

the name of Philip de Commynes, the most precious of the politic

conquests made by Louis in the matter of eminent counsellors, to whom he

remained as faithful as they were themselves faithful and useful to him.

The _Memoires of Commynes_ are the most striking proof of the rare and

unfettered political intellect placed by the future historian at the

king’s service, and of the estimation in which the king had wit enough

to hold it.

Louis XI. rendered to France, four centuries ago, during a reign of

twenty-two years, three great services, the traces and influence of which

exist to this day. He prosecuted steadily the work of Joan of Arc and

Charles VII., the expulsion of a foreign kingship and the triumph of

national independence and national dignity. By means of the provinces

which he successively won, wholly or partly, Burgundy, Franche-Comte,

Artois, Provence, Anjou, Roussillon, and Barrois, he caused France to

make a great stride towards territorial unity within her natural

boundaries. By the defeat he inflicted on the great vassals, the favor

he showed the middle classes, and the use he had the sense to make of

this new social force, he contributed powerfully to the formation of the

French nation, and to its unity under a national government. Feudal

society had not an idea of how to form itself into a nation, or

discipline its forces under one head; Louis XI. proved its political

weakness, determined its fall, and labored to place in its stead France

and monarchy. Herein are the great facts of his reign, and the proofs of

his superior mind.

But side by side with these powerful symptoms of a new regimen appeared

also the vices of which that regimen contained the germ, and those of the

man himself who was laboring to found it. Feudal society, perceiving

itself to be threatened, at one time attacked Louis XI. with passion, at

another entered into violent disputes against him; and Louis, in order to

struggle with it, employed all the practices, at one time crafty and at

another violent, that belong to absolute power. Craft usually

predominated in his proceedings, violence being often too perilous

for him to risk it; he did not consider himself in a condition to say

brazen-facedly, “Might before right;” but he disregarded right in the

case of his adversaries, and he did not deny himself any artifice, any

lie, any baseness, however specious, in order to trick them or ruin them

secretly, when he did not feel himself in a position to crush them at a

blow. “The end justifies the means”--that was his maxim; and the end,

in his case, was sometimes a great and legitimate political object,

nothing less than the dominant interest of France, but far more often his

own personal interest, something necessary to his own success or his own

gratification. No loftiness, no greatness of soul, was natural to him;

and the more experience of life he had, the more he became selfish and

devoid of moral sense and of sympathy with other men, whether rivals,

tools, or subjects. All found out before long, not only how little

account he made of them, but also what cruel pleasure he sometimes took

in making them conscious of his disdain and his power. He was

“familiar,” but not by no means “vulgar;” he was in conversation able and

agreeable, with a mixture, however, of petulance and indiscretion, even

when he was meditating some perfidy; and “there is much need,” he used to

say, “that my tongue should sometimes serve me; it has hurt me often

enough.” The most puerile superstitions, as well as those most akin to a

blind piety, found their way into his mind. When he received any bad

news, he would cast aside forever the dress he was wearing when the news

came; and of death he had a dread which was carried to the extent of

pusillanimity and ridiculousness. “Whilst he was every day,” says M. de

Barante, “becoming more suspicious, more absolute, more terrible to his

children, to the princes of the blood, to his old servants, and to his

wisest counsellors, there was one man who, without any fear of his wrath,

treated him with brutal rudeness. This was James Cattier, his doctor.

When the king would sometimes complain of it before certain confidential

servants, ‘I know very well,’ Cattier would say, that some fine morning

you’ll send me where you’ve sent so many others; but, ‘sdeath, you’ll not

live a week after!’” Then the king would coax him, overwhelm him with

caresses, raise his salary to ten thousand crowns a month, make him a

present of rich lordships; and he ended by making him premier president

of the Court of Exchequer. All churches and all sanctuaries of any small

celebrity were recipients of his oblations, and it was not the salvation

of his soul, but life and health, that he asked for in return. One day

there was being repeated, on his account and in his presence, an orison

to St. Eutropius, who was implored to grant health to the soul and health

to the body. “The latter will be enough,” said the king; “it is not

right to bother the saint for too many things at once.” He showed great

devotion for images which had received benediction, and often had one of

them sewn upon his hat. Hawkers used to come and bring them to him; and

one day he gave a hundred and sixty livres to a pedler who had in his

pack one that had received benediction at Aix-la-Chapelle.

[Illustration: Louis XI. at his Devotions----255]

Whatever may have been, in the middle ages, the taste and the custom in

respect of such practices, they were regarded with less respect in the

fifteenth than in the twelfth century, and many people scoffed at the

trust that Louis XI. placed in them, or doubted his sincerity.

Whether they were sincere or assumed, the superstitions of Louis XI. did

not prevent him from appreciating and promoting the progress of

civilization, towards which the fifteenth century saw the first real

general impulse. He favored the free development of industry and trade;

he protected printing, in its infancy, and scientific studies, especially

the study of medicine; by his authorization, it is said, the operation

for the stone was tried, for the first time in France, upon a criminal

under sentence of death, who recovered, and was pardoned; and he welcomed

the philological scholars who were at this time laboring to diffuse

through Western Europe the works of Greek and Roman antiquity. He

instituted, at first for his own and before long for the public service,

post-horses and the letter-post within his kingdom. Towards intellectual

and social movement he had not the mistrust and antipathy of an old,

one-grooved, worn-out, unproductive despotism; his kingly despotism was

new, and, one might almost say, innovational, for it sprang and was

growing up from the ruins of feudal rights and liberties which had

inevitably ended in monarchy. But despotism’s good services are

short-lived; it has no need to last long before it generates iniquity and

tyranny; and that of Louis XI., in the latter part of his reign, bore its

natural, unavoidable fruits. “His mistrust,” says M. de Barante, “became

horrible, and almost insane; every year he had surrounded his castle of

Plessis with more walls, ditches, and rails. On the towers were iron

sheds, a shelter from arrows, and even artillery. More than eighteen

hundred of those planks bristling with nails, called caltrops, were

distributed over the yonder side of the ditch. There were every day four

hundred crossbow-men on duty, with orders to fire on whosoever

approached. Every suspected passer-by was seized, and carried off to

Tristan l’Hermite, the provost-marshal. No great proofs were required

for a swing on the gibbet, or for the inside of a sack and a plunge in

the Loire. . . . Men who, like Sire de Commynes, had been the king’s

servants, and who had lived in his confidence, had no doubt but that he

had committed cruelties and perpetrated the blackest treachery; still

they asked themselves whether there had not been a necessity, and whether

he had not, in the first instance, been the object of criminal

machinations against which he had to defend himself. . . . But,

throughout the kingdom, the multitude of his subjects who had not

received kindnesses from him, nor lived in familiarity with him, nor

known of the ability displayed in his plans, nor enjoyed the wit of his

conversation, judged only by that which came out before their eyes; the

imposts had been made much heavier, without any consent on the part of

the states-general; the talliages, which under Charles VII. brought in

only eighteen hundred thousand livres, rose, under Louis XI., to

thirty-seven hundred thousand; the kingdom was ruined, and the people

were at the last extremity of misery; the prisons were full; none was

secure of life or property; the greatest in the land, and even the

princes of the blood, were not safe in their own houses.

An unexpected event occurred at this time to give a little more heart to

Louis XI., who was now very ill, and to mingle with his gloomy broodings

a gleam of future prospects. Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the

Rash, died at Bruges on the 27th of March, 1482, leaving to her husband,

Maximilian of Austria, a daughter, hardly three years of age, Princess

Marguerite by name, heiress to the Burgundian-Flemish dominions which had

not come into the possession of the King of France. Louis, as soon as he

heard the news, conceived the idea and the hope of making up for the

reverse he had experienced five years previously through the marriage of

Mary of Burgundy. He would arrange espousals between his son, the

_dauphin_, Charles, thirteen years old, and the infant princess left by

Mary, and thus recover for the crown of France the beautiful domains he

had allowed to slip from him. A negotiation was opened at once on the

subject between Louis, Maximilian, and the estates of Flanders, and, on

the 23d of December, 1482, it resulted in a treaty, concluded at Arras,

which arranged for the marriage, and regulated the mutual conditions. In

January, 1483, the ambassadors from the estates of Flanders and from

Maximilian, who then for the first time assumed the title of archduke,

came to France for the ratification of the treaty. Having been first

received with great marks of satisfaction at Paris, they repaired to

Plessis-les-Tours. Great was their surprise at seeing this melancholy

abode, this sort of prison, into which “there was no admittance save

after so many formalities and precautions.” When they had waited a

while, they were introduced, in the evening, into a room badly lighted.

In a dark corner was the king, seated in an arm-chair. They moved

towards him; and then, in a weak and trembling voice, but still, as it

seemed, in a bantering tone, Louis asked pardon of the Abbot of St.

Peter of Ghent and of the other ambassadors for not being able to rise

and greet them. After having heard what they had to say, and having held

a short conversation with them, he sent for the Gospels for to make oath.

He excused himself for being obliged to take the holy volume in his left

hand, for his right was paralyzed and his arm supported in a sling.

Then, holding the volume of the Gospels, he raised it up painfully, and

placing upon it the elbow of his right arm, he made oath. Thus appeared

in the eyes of the Flemings that king who had done them so much harm, and

who was obtaining of them so good a treaty by the fear with which he

inspired them, all dying as he was.

On the 2d of June following, the infant princess, Marguerite of Austria,

was brought by a solemn embassy to Paris first, and then, on the 23d of

June, to Amboise, where her betrothal to the _dauphin_, Charles, was

celebrated. Louis XI. did not feel fit for removal to Amboise; and he

would not even receive at Plessis-les-Tours the new Flemish embassy.

Assuredly neither the king nor any of the actors in this regal scene

foresaw that this marriage, which they with reason looked upon as a

triumph of French policy, would never be consummated; that, at the

request of the court of France, the pope would annul the betrothal; and

that, nine years after its celebration, in 1492, the Austrian princess,

after having been brought up at Amboise under the guardianship of the

Duchess of Bourbon, Anne, eldest daughter of Louis XI., would be sent

back to her father, Emperor Maximilian, by her affianced, Charles VIII.,

then King of France, who preferred to become the husband of a French

princess with a French province for dowry, Anne, Duchess of Brittany.

[Illustration: Views of the Castle of Plessis-les-Tours----258]

It was in March, 1481, that Louis XI. had his first attack of that

apoplexy, which, after several repeated strokes, reduced him to such a

state of weakness that in June, 1483, he felt himself and declared

himself not in a fit state to be present at his son’s betrothal. Two

months afterwards, on the 25th of August, St. Louis’s day, he had a fresh

stroke, and lost all consciousness and speech. He soon recovered them;

but remained so weak that he could not raise his hand to his mouth, and,

under the conviction that he was a dead man, he sent for his son-in-law,

Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu; and “Go,” said he, “to Amboise, to the

king, my son; I have intrusted him as well as the government of the

kingdom to your charge and my daughter’s care. You know all I have

enjoined upon him; watch and see that it be observed. Let him show favor

and confidence towards those who have done me good service and whom I

have named to him. You know, too, of whom he should beware, and who must

not be suffered to come near him.” He sent for the chancellor from

Paris, and bade him go and take the seals to the king. “Go to the king,”

he said to the captains of his guards, to his archers, to his huntsmen,

to all his household. “His speech never failed him after it had come

back to him,” says Commynes, “nor his senses; he was constantly saying

something of great sense and never in all his illness, which lasted from

Monday to Saturday evening, did he complain, as do all sorts of folk

when they feel ill. . . . “Notwithstanding all those commands he

recovered heart,” adds Commynes, “and had good hope of escaping.” In

conversation at odd times with some of his servants, and even with

Commynes himself, he had begged them, whenever they saw that he was very

ill, not to mention that cruel word death; he had even made a covenant

with them, that they should say no more to him than, “Don’t talk much,”

which would be sufficient warning. But his doctor, James Coettier, and

his barber, Oliver the Devil, whom he had ennobled and enriched under

the name of Oliver le Daim, did not treat him with so much indulgence.

“They notified his death to him in brief and harsh terms,” says

Commynes; “‘Sir, we must do our duty; have no longer hope in your holy

man of Calabria or in other matters, for assuredly all is over with you;

think of your soul; there is no help for it.’ ‘I have hope in God that

He will aid me,’ answered Louis, coldly; ‘peradventure I am not so ill

as you think.’

“He endured with manly virtue so cruel a sentence,” says Commynes, “and

everything, even to death, more than any man I ever saw die; he spoke as

coolly as if he had never been ill.” He gave minute orders about his

funeral, sepulchre, and tomb. He would be laid at Notre-Dame de Clery,

and not, like his ancestors, at St. Denis; his statue was to be gilt

bronze, kneeling, face to the altar, head uncovered, and hands clasped

within his hat, as was his ordinary custom. Not having died on the

battle-field and sword in hand, he would be dressed in hunting-garb,

with jack-boots, a hunting-horn, slung over his shoulder, his hound

lying beside him, his order of St. Michael round his neck, and his sword

at his side. As to the likeness, he asked to be represented, not as he

was in his latter days, bald, bow-backed, and wasted, but as he was in

his youth and in the vigor of his age, face pretty full, nose aquiline,

hair long, and falling down behind to his shoulders. After having taken

all these pains about himself after his death, he gave his chief

remaining thoughts to France and his son. “Orders must be sent,” said

he, “to M. d’Esquerdes [Philip de Crevecoeur, Baron d’Esquerdes, a

distinguished warrior, who, after the death of Charles the Rash, had,

through the agency of Commynes, gone over to the service of Louis XI.,

and was in command of his army] to attempt no doings as to Calais. We

had thought to drive out the English from this the last corner they hold

in the kingdom; but such matters are too weighty; all that business ends

with me. M. d’Esquerdes must give up such designs, and come and guard

my son without budging from his side for at least six months. Let an

end be put, also, to all our disputes with Brittany, and let this Duke

Francis be allowed to live in peace without any more causing him trouble

or fear. This is the way in which we, must now deal with all our

neighbors. Five or six good years of peace are needful for the kingdom.

My poor people have suffered too much; they are in great desolation. If

God had been pleased to grant me life, I should have put it all to

rights; it was my thought and my desire, let my son be strictly charged

to remain at peace, especially whilst he is so young. At a later time,

when he is older, and when the kingdom is in good case, he shall do as

he pleases about it.”

[Illustration: Louis XI----260]

On Saturday, August 30, 1483, between seven and eight in the evening,

Louis XI. expired, saying, “Our Lady of Embrun, my good mistress, have

pity upon me; the mercies of the Lord will I sing forever (misericordias

Domini in ceternum cantabo).”

“It was a great cause of joy throughout the kingdom,” says M. de Barante

with truth, in his _Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne_: “this moment had

been impatiently waited for as a deliverance, and as the ending of so

many woes and fears. For a long time past no King of France had been so

heavy on his people or so hated by them.”

This was certainly just, and at the same time ungrateful.

Louis XI. had rendered France great service, but in a manner void of

frankness, dignity, or lustre; he had made the contemporary generation

pay dearly for it by reason of the spectacle he presented of trickery,

perfidy, and vindictive cruelty, and by his arbitrary and tyrannical

exercise of kingly power. People are not content to have useful service;

they must admire or love; and Louis XI. inspired France with neither of

those sentiments. He has had the good fortune to be described and

appraised, in his own day too, by the most distinguished and independent

of his councillors, Philip de Commynes, and, three centuries afterwards,

by one of the most thoughtful and the soundest intellects amongst the

philosophers of the eighteenth century, Duclos, who, moreover, had the

advantage of being historiographer of France, and of having studied the

history of that reign in authentic documents. We reproduce here the two

judgments, the agreement of which is remarkable:--

“God,” says Commynes, “had created our king more wise, liberal, and full

of manly virtue than the princes who reigned with him and in his day, and

who were his enemies and neighbors. In all there was good and evil, for

they were men; but without flattery, in him were more things appertaining

to the office of king than in any of the rest. I saw them nearly all,

and knew what they could do.”

“Louis XI.,” says Duclos, “was far from being without reproach; few

princes have deserved so much; but it may be said that he was equally

celebrated for his vices and his virtues, and that, everything being put

in the balance, he was a king.”

We will be more exacting than Commynes and Duclos; we will not consent to

apply to Louis XI. the words liberal, virtuous, and virtue; he had nor

greatness of soul, nor uprightness of character, nor kindness of heart;

he was neither a great king nor a good king; but we may assent to Duclos’

last word--he was a king.