THE STRUGGLE WITH BURGUNDY.
1. Power of Burgundy.--All the troubles of France, for the last 80
years, had gone to increase the strength of the Dukes of Burgundy. The
county and duchy, of which Dijon was the capital, lay in the most
fertile district of France, and had, as we have seen, been conferred on
Philip the Bold. His marriage had given to him Flanders, with a gallant
nobility, and with the chief manufacturing cities of Northern Europe.
Philip's son, John the Fearless, had married a lady who ultimately
brought into the family the great imperial counties of Holland and
Zealand; and her son, Duke Philip the Good, by purchase or inheritance,
obtained possession of all the adjoining little fiefs forming the
country called the Netherlands, some belonging to the Empire, some to
France. Philip had turned the scale in the struggle between England and
France, and, as his reward, had won the cities on the Somme. He had
thus become the richest and most powerful prince in Europe, and seemed
on the point of founding a middle state lying between France and
Germany, his weak point being that the imperial fiefs in Lorraine and
Elsass lay between his dukedom of Burgundy and his counties in the
Netherlands. No European court equalled in splendour that of Philip. The
great cities of Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, and the rest, though full of
fierce and resolute men, paid him dues enough to make him the richest of
princes, and the Flemish knights were among the boldest in Europe. All
the arts of life, above all painting and domestic architecture,
nourished at Brussels; and nowhere were troops so well equipped,
burghers more prosperous, learning more widespread, than in his domains.
Here, too, were the most ceremonious courtesy, the most splendid
banquets, and the most wonderful display of jewels, plate, and
cloth-of-gold. Charles VII., a clever though a cold-hearted, indolent
man, let Philip alone, already seeing how the game would go for the
future; for when the dauphin had quarrelled with the reigning favourite,
and was kindly received on his flight to Burgundy, the old king sneered,
saying that the duke was fostering the fox who would steal his chickens.
2. Louis XI.'s Policy.--_Louis XI._ succeeded his father Charles in
1461. He was a man of great skill and craft, with an iron will, and
subtle though pitiless nature, who knew in what the greatness of a king
consisted, and worked out his ends mercilessly and unscrupulously. The
old feudal dukes and counts had all passed away, except the Duke of
Brittany; but the Dukes of Orleans, Burgundy, and Anjou held princely
appanages, and there was a turbulent nobility who had grown up during
the wars, foreign and civil, and been encouraged by the favouritism of
Charles VI. All these, feeling that Louis was their natural foe, united
against him in what was called the "League of the Public Good," with his
own brother, the Duke of Berry, and Count Charles of Charolais, who was
known as Charles the Bold, the son of Duke Philip of Burgundy, at their
head. Louis was actually defeated by Charles of Charolais in the battle
of Montlhéry; but he contrived so cleverly to break up the league, by
promises to each member and by sowing dissension among them, that he
ended by becoming more powerful than before.
3. Charles the Bold.--On the death of Philip the Good, in 1467,
Charles the Bold succeeded to the duchy of Burgundy. He pursued more
ardently the plan of forming a new kingdom of Burgundy, and had even
hopes of being chosen Emperor. First, however, he had to consolidate his
dominions, by making himself master of the countries which parted
Burgundy from the Netherlands. With this view he obtained Elsass in
pledge from its owner, a needy son of the house of Austria, who was
never likely to redeem it. Lorraine had been inherited by Yolande, the
wife of René, Duke of Anjou and titular King of Sicily, and had passed
from her to her daughter, who had married the nearest heir in the male
line, the Count of Vaudémont; but Charles the Bold unjustly seized the
dukedom, driving out the lawful heir, René de Vaudémont, son of this
marriage. Louis, meantime, was on the watch for every error of Charles,
and constantly sowing dangers in his path. Sometimes his mines exploded
too soon, as when he had actually put himself into Charles's power by
visiting him at Peronne at the very moment when his emissaries had
encouraged the city of Liège to rise in revolt against their bishop, an
ally of the duke; and he only bought his freedom by profuse promises,
and by aiding Charles in a most savage destruction of Liège. But after
this his caution prevailed. He gave secret support to the adherents of
René de Vaudémont, and intrigued with the Swiss, who were often at issue
with the Burgundian bailiffs and soldiery in Elsass--greedy, reckless
men, from whom the men of Elsass revolted in favour of their former
Austrian lord. Meantime Edward IV. of England, Charles's brother-in-law,
had planned with him an invasion of France and division of the kingdom,
and in 1475 actually crossed the sea with a splendid host; but while
Charles was prevented from joining him by the siege of Neuss, a city in
alliance with Sigismund of Austria, Louis met Edward on the bridge of
Pecquigny, and by cajolery, bribery, and accusations of Charles,
contrived to persuade him to carry home his army without striking a
blow. That meeting was a curious one. A wooden barrier, like a wild
beast's cage, was erected in the middle of the bridge, through which the
two kings kissed one another. Edward was the tallest and handsomest man
present, and splendidly attired. Louis was small and mean-looking, and
clad in an old blue suit, with a hat decorated with little leaden images
of the saints, but his smooth tongue quite overcame the duller intellect
of Edward; and in the mean time the English soldiers were feasted and
allowed their full swing, the French being strictly watched to prevent
all quarrels. So skilfully did Louis manage, that Edward consented to
make peace and return home.
4. The Fall of Charles the Bold (1477).--Charles had become entangled
in many difficulties. He was a harsh, stern man, much disliked; and his
governors in Elsass were fierce, violent men, who used every pretext for
preying upon travellers. The Governor of Breisach, Hagenbach, had been
put to death in a popular rising, aided by the Swiss of Berne, in 1474;
and the men of Elsass themselves raised part of the sum for which the
country had been pledged, and revolted against Charles. The Swiss were
incited by Louis to join them; René of Lorraine made common cause with
them. In two great battles, Granson and Morat, Charles and all his
chivalry were beaten by the Swiss pikemen; but he pushed on the war.
Nancy, the chief city of Lorraine, had risen against him, and he
besieged it. On the night of the 5th of January, 1477, René led the
Swiss to relieve the town by falling in early morning on the besiegers'
camp. There was a terrible fight; the Burgundians were routed, and after
long search the corpse of Duke Charles was found in a frozen pool,
stripped, plundered, and covered with blood. He was the last of the male
line of Burgundy, and its great possessions broke up with his death. His
only child, Marie, did not inherit the French dukedom nor the county,
though most of the fiefs in the Low Countries, which could descend to
the female line, were her undisputed portion. Louis tried, by stirring
up her subjects, to force her into a marriage with his son Charles; but
she threw herself on the protection of the house of Austria, and
marrying Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick III., carried her
border lands to swell the power of his family.
5. Louis's Home Government.--Louis's system of repression of the
nobles went on all this time. His counsellors were of low birth (Oliver
le Daim, his barber, was the man he most trusted), his habits frugal,
his manners reserved and ironical; he was dreaded, hated, and
distrusted, and he became constantly more bitter, suspicious, and
merciless. Those who fell under his displeasure were imprisoned in iron
cages, or put to death; and the more turbulent families, such as the
house of Armagnac, were treated with frightful severity. But his was not
wanton violence. He acted on a regular system of depressing the lawless
nobility and increasing the royal authority, by bringing the power of
the cities forward, by trusting for protection to the standing army,
chiefly of hired Scots, Swiss, and Italians, and by saving money. By
this means he was able to purchase the counties of Roussillon and
Perpignan from the King of Aragon, thus making the Pyrenees his
frontier, and on several occasions he made his treasury fight his
battles instead of the swords of his knights. He lived in the castle of
Plessis les Tours, guarded by the utmost art of fortification, and
filled with hired Scottish archers of his guard, whom he preferred as
defenders to his own nobles. He was exceedingly unpopular with his
nobles; but the statesman and historian, Philip de Comines, who had gone
over to him from Charles of Burgundy, viewed him as the best and ablest
of kings. He did much to promote trade and manufacture, improved the
cities, fostered the university, and was in truth the first king since
Philip Augustus who had any real sense of statesmanship. But though the
burghers throve under him, and the lawless nobles were depressed, the
state of the peasants was not improved; feudal rights pressed heavily on
them, and they were little better than savages, ground down by burthens
imposed by their lords.
6. Provence and Brittany.--Louis had added much to the French
monarchy. He had won back Artois; he had seized the duchy and county of
Burgundy; he had bought Roussillon. His last acquisition was the county
of Provence. The second Angevin family, beginning with Louis, the son of
King John, had never succeeded in gaining a footing in Naples, though
they bore the royal title. They held, however, the imperial fief of
Provence, and Louis XI., whose mother had been of this family, obtained
from her two brothers, René and Charles, that Provence should be
bequeathed to him instead of passing to René's grandson, the Duke of
Lorraine. The Kings of France were thenceforth Counts of Provence; and
though the county was not viewed as part of the kingdom, it was
practically one with it. A yet greater acquisition was made soon after
Louis's death in 1483. The great Celtic duchy of Brittany fell to a
female, Anne of Brittany, and the address of Louis's daughter, the Lady
of Beaujeu, who was regent of the realm, prevailed to secure the hand of
the heiress for her brother, Charles VIII. Thus the crown of France had
by purchase, conquest, or inheritance, obtained all the great feudal
states that made up the country between the English Channel and the
Pyrenees; but each still remained a separate state, with different laws
and customs, and a separate parliament in each to register laws, and to
act as a court of justice.