CHAPTER XVI

REVIVAL OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY, 1435-1494

English disasters and loss of Paris—Prolongation of war—France

exhausted and demoralised—Necessity of reform—Ordinance of 1439—The

_Praguerie_ —Creation of a standing army—Peace party in

England—-Henry VI. marries Margaret of Anjou—Renewal of war—Conquest

of Normandy and Guienne—Last years of Charles VII.—Accession of

Louis XI.—His character and early actions—League of the Public

Weal—Treaty of Conflans—Charles the Bold and Liége—Louis recovers

Normandy—Interview at Péronne—Charles of France receives

Guienne—Relations of France and Burgundy with England—Renewal of war

between Louis and Charles—Death of the Duke of Guienne—Charles’s

acquisitions in Germany—Fate of St. Pol—War with the Swiss and death

of Charles the Bold—Mary of Burgundy marries Maximilian—Treaty of

Arras—Successes of Louis XI.—Regency of Anne of Beaujeu—Charles

VIII. marries Anne of Brittany—Question of Naples.

The death of Bedford and the treaty of Arras were events of decisive

importance. The English power in northern [Sidenote: English disasters

in 1435-6.] France had rested upon the Burgundian alliance, which was

now irretrievably lost. Philip, it is true, had not promised active aid

to Charles VII., and probably intended to observe a profitable

neutrality. But the English were too indignant at his desertion to allow

this. They insulted his envoys, maltreated his subjects who were

resident in England, and set themselves to inflict all the damage they

could upon Flemish trade. The result was that not only was Philip forced

into hostilities with his late allies, but the Flemish citizens,

hitherto the strongest link between him and England, urged on the war

and offered to take the whole burden of it upon themselves. The rupture

with Burgundy altered both the balance of military force and the

sentiments of the population in the northern provinces. A rising took

place in Normandy, and even Harfleur, the first conquest of Henry V.,

opened its gates to French troops. Many of the strong places in the Ile

de France were held by Burgundian commanders, and they followed their

duke’s example in going over to Charles VII. In 1436 the constable

Richemont was strong enough to attack Paris. The citizens had been

partisans of Burgundy rather than of England; they had been alienated by

recent measures of repression; and the French now commanded the

water-ways by which the normal supplies of food reached the capital. The

fear of famine impelled the [Sidenote: Loss of Paris.] citizens to a

course which they were eager to adopt upon other grounds. One of the

gates was opened to the constable, and the populace rose with shouts of

‘Peace! The king and the duke of Burgundy!’ The English garrison, after

taking refuge in the Bastille, was allowed to depart upon honourable

terms. The parliament and the other sovereign courts returned to their

old abodes, and Paris became once more the capital of France.

The fall of Paris seemed to herald the immediate collapse of the English

dominion in France. Yet the general expectation was disappointed, and

the war went on for another seventeen years. A number of causes combined

to retard the progress of the French arms. The assistance rendered by

the duke of Burgundy proved far less efficient than had been

anticipated. In the first heat of resentment at the treatment he

received from the English, Philip vowed a striking revenge, and in 1436

he advanced with a large force to the siege of Calais. But his troops

were mostly Flemings, who had never been very skilful in aggressive

warfare, and had lost most of their military aptitudes during the

comparative peace which they had enjoyed under Burgundian rule. The

siege was abandoned in disorder even before the arrival of Gloucester

with a relieving force. Philip was deeply chagrined at this humiliating

failure, and a quarrel with the commune of Bruges diverted his attention

from the war and induced him in 1439 to conclude a truce for the

Netherlands with the English. Even more serious than the loss of such a

powerful ally was the exhaustion and demoralisation of France. For

nearly thirty years the country had been the scene of a desolating war

which combined the worst horrors of civil strife and foreign invasion,

and added to them some evils which were peculiar to itself. The most

efficient military force on the French side was furnished by the

companies of adventurers which had been originally introduced by

Armagnac. The employment of these men proved a curse to France. They

recognised no authority except that of their own commanders, and their

loyalty to them was only purchased by the plunder which they were

allowed to extort with impartial greed from friend and foe. The horrible

tortures which they inflicted in order to compel the hapless peasants to

disclose their savings, are among the most revolting incidents of a

period in which horrors are the rule rather than the exception. The

significant name of _écorcheurs_ or flayers, applied to them by their

victims, has become almost a technical term. The country was depopulated

as well as despoiled, and the provinces in English occupation were the

worst sufferers. Financial difficulties on both sides were a prominent

cause of the prolongation of the war. Military operations on a large

scale were impossible. So-called battles were mere skirmishes. A force

of 2000 men was an army. Isolated leaders struck a blow here, or

captured a town there, merely to keep their soldiers employed and to

obtain booty, but not with the object of gaining any decisive advantage.

To many of these leaders the termination of the war meant ruin and

effacement, a result which they were by no means eager to hasten.

In order to equip France for the final effort that was needed to expel

the foreign conqueror from her soil, it was necessary to undertake those

administrative reforms which constitute the real glory of the reign of

Charles VII. [Sidenote: Ministers of Charles VII.] Charles is known in

history by the name of ‘_le bien servi_,’ and it is probably to the

ministers rather than to the king that the credit of the internal

progress of France is due. Richemont and Dunois carried out the arduous

task of transforming the free companies into a disciplined force under

royal control. The two brothers, Gaspard and Jean Bureau, improved the

French artillery till it became the best in Europe, a pre-eminence which

it retained for the rest of the century. But the most famous adviser of

Charles was the merchant of Bourges, Jacques Cœur. He owed his influence

to the great wealth which he acquired by trade with the Levant. Hitherto

the cities of Italy and the Catalans had been without serious rivals in

the Mediterranean. Jacques Cœur brought Marseilles into competition with

Venice, Genoa, and Barcelona. His loans to the monarchy enabled Charles

VII. to carry on the war when the exhaustion of the country made it

almost impossible to fill the exchequer by means of taxation. Charles

rewarded him with the office of _argentier_, or treasurer of the royal

household. In this capacity he took an active part in reforming the

financial administration, and especially in restoring the currency which

had been ruinously debased during the recent disorders.

By far the most important single measure of the reign was the

_Ordonnance sur la Gendarmerie_, published by the States-general at

Orleans in 1439. The preamble recites [Sidenote: Ordinance of 1439.]

that it is made ‘to remedy and put an end to the great excesses and

robberies committed by the _gens de guerre_, who have long lived and do

now live upon the people without order or justice.’ In the future no one

is to raise a company without royal licence, and all captains are to be

nominated by the king, who is to fix the number and arms of their

soldiers. Pillage is expressly forbidden, and jurisdiction over the

troops is placed in the hands of royal judges. For the payment of the

troops an important financial innovation is made. The nobles are

forbidden to impose a _taille_ or tallage on their domain, and the

_taille_ is to be a national tax paid to the king. Thus Charles VII.

received a revenue of 1,800,000 livres. There was nothing in the

ordinance to make this tax permanent, or to give to the king any power

of arbitrarily fixing the amount of the _taille_; but the permanence of

the _taille_ was held to be involved in the permanence of the military

force which it was granted to support. And the successors of Charles

VII. held that the right to levy the _taille_ without consent gave them

also the right to increase it without asking for any fresh grant. The

acquiescence of the French people was due to the sufferings they had

gone through. Worn out by the prolonged war and by the terrible

exactions of the free companies, they were eager to strengthen the hands

of the monarchy to which alone they could look for a restoration of

peace and order. The absolute control of the national force and the

national revenue, which the action of the States-general of Orleans

allowed the crown to assume, enabled the monarchy to erect a despotism

in France. Englishmen may hold that orderly government and national

independence were dearly purchased by the sacrifice of all securities

for constitutional liberty, but it is at least probable that if they had

ever found themselves in such an evil plight they would have concluded

the same bargain on the same terms.

But though the mass of the people were ready to welcome any addition to

the royal power, the French nobles were sufficiently keen-sighted to

perceive the dangers [Sidenote: The Praguerie.] which it involved to

their hereditary privileges. The ordinance of 1439 expressly deprived

them of three valued rights: the power of taxing their own domain, the

maintenance of troops under their own authority, and the carrying on of

private war, which was enumerated among the causes of disorder which

must be suppressed by the royal troops. It was necessary to strike at

once before the monarchy became too strong. In 1440 a formidable

conspiracy was formed under the leadership of the dukes of Bourbon and

Alençon. Nearly all the great nobles of France were concerned in it,

except the duke of Burgundy, who was occupied with his own affairs, and

the two brothers-in-law of the king, Réné le Bon and Charles of Maine.

Even Dunois allowed himself to be seduced from the royal cause by the

desire to uphold the interests of his class. La Tremouille emerged from

his obscurity to seize a last opportunity of injuring the country and

overthrowing the hated constable. In the very forefront of the

conspirators was the dauphin, Louis, who had quarrelled with his father

on the ground that his mother was insulted by the ostentatious pomp of

Agnes Sorel, and whose restless ambition demanded a share in the

government. Like many another heir to a throne, Louis found himself as

prince allied with a cause of which as king he became the strenuous

opponent. The ‘Praguerie,’as the rising was called, in allusion to the

recent disturbances in Bohemia, seemed at first sight to be

irresistible, especially as the captains of the companies joined in the

movement. But the king showed unexpected energy and decision; the people

rallied to his side, and the selfish coalition against national

interests broke to pieces. Many of the leaders escaped punishment by

betraying their associates, and Louis was banished to his province of

Dauphiné.

The suppression of the Praguerie enabled the government to take the

necessary steps for carrying out the ordinance of 1439. By 1445 fifteen

companies had been [Sidenote: Creation of a standing army.] created,

each under a captain selected by the king. A company contained a hundred

lances, and a lance implied six persons, viz., the man-at-arms, his

page, three archers, and a _coutillier_, a soldier armed with a _coutil_

or dagger worn at the side. Thus the total number of the _gens

d’ordonnance_, as they were called, was nine thousand. Each captain on

appointment had to take the following oath: ‘I promise and swear by God

and Our Lady that I will maintain justice—that I will allow no

pillage—that I will unsparingly punish all those under my charge who are

guilty of such offence, and that I will make reparation for the injuries

that come to my knowledge.’ The _gens d’ordonnance_ were a cavalry

force, and three years later an ordinance of 1448 instituted a body of

infantry, the _francs archiers_. Each parish was to equip at the common

expense a single archer. During peace the cost of his maintenance was

borne by the parish, but when he was on service he was to receive pay

from the crown. They were called ‘free’ archers because they were exempt

from the _taille_ and other obligations. Besides these troops, the king

had his Scottish Guard, which had grown up during the intimate

connection with Scotland in the early years of the reign and received

its final organisation in 1445. There was also an efficient body of

artillerymen and engineers, the creation of the brothers Bureau. That

these military reforms were admirably suited to their purpose is proved

both by the complete cessation of complaints about military outrages,

and by the extraordinarily rapid successes of the French troops when

active hostilities were resumed.

While France was occupied with these reforms and with the ecclesiastical

disputes connected with the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (see p. 237),

England in [Sidenote: Parties in England.] her turn was becoming more

and more involved in those internal dissensions which developed into the

Wars of the Roses. The personal quarrel between Gloucester and Cardinal

Beaufort proved the origin of a lasting party struggle. After the treaty

of Arras, Beaufort and his supporters had seen clearly that the conquest

of France was impossible and had urged the conclusion of peace as the

only means of preserving a part of the provinces acquired by Henry V.

and Bedford. On the other hand, Gloucester, backed by the unreasoning

sentiment of the mob, had urged the disgrace of surrender and the

necessity of a dogged prosecution of the war. The strife of parties had

materially contributed to relax the efforts of England in the languid

warfare that went on from 1436 to 1444. In 1441 the peace party had

secured the release of Charles of Orleans, who had been a prisoner since

the battle of Agincourt and had found solace during his captivity in the

composition of poems which have given him an honourable place in

literary history. Three years later the Duke of Suffolk, who was

gradually superseding the aged cardinal in the leadership of the party,

succeeded in arranging a truce for twenty-two months and in negotiating

a marriage between Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou, a daughter of Réné

le Bon and a niece of Charles VII.’s wife. The marriage was solemnised

in 1445, but it was extremely unpopular in England. Not only did

Margaret bring no dowry, but it was part of the bargain that Anjou and

Maine should be handed over to her uncle, Charles of Maine. Anjou had

never been thoroughly conquered, but Maine had long been in English

hands and they still had a garrison in its capital, Le Mans. Dreading

the outbreak of popular fury, Suffolk did all in his power to keep the

agreement secret and to postpone its execution. But in 1448, after

several prolongations of the truce, the patience of the French was

exhausted, and a small force marched to Le Mans and compelled the

withdrawal [Sidenote: Renewal of the war, 1449.] of the garrison and the

evacuation of the whole province. The truce was now extended for another

two years, but no permanent treaty could be arranged, and a renewal of

hostilities was sooner or later inevitable. France had by this time

completed the work of internal reorganisation, while England was

hopelessly unprepared and distracted by factious disputes. Under these

circumstances it was madness for England to provoke a quarrel. But

Suffolk and the Beauforts were conscious that the surrender of Maine had

alienated public opinion, and hoped by a display of vigour to disarm

opposition. The garrison of Le Mans had been quartered on the border of

Normandy and Brittany. On March 24, 1449, while the truce was still in

force, these troops attacked and took the Breton town of Fougères. The

act was as ill-timed [Sidenote: Conquest of the English provinces.] as

it was treacherous. Not only did it give Charles VII. a pretext for

renewing the war, but it alienated the young Francis I. of Brittany, who

had hitherto maintained an attitude of friendly neutrality. The duke

appealed for aid to his suzerain, and Charles VII. despatched his army

to invade Normandy. The campaign was little more than a triumphal

progress for the French troops. Within two months more than twenty towns

were taken. When Rouen was besieged, the citizens rose and shut up the

garrison in the citadel, where Edmund Beaufort, who commanded, had to

surrender (October 19, 1449). By the end of the year the English had

lost the whole of Normandy except a few places on the coast, which were

all taken in the course of 1450. In England these sudden and unexpected

reverses excited a storm of indignation. Adam de Moleyns, bishop of

Chichester, was assassinated at Portsmouth. Suffolk was impeached,

exiled by the king, and murdered at sea. The rising of Jack Cade was

only a prominent symptom of the prevalent discontent. The duke of York

came over from Ireland, and civil war was on the verge of breaking out.

But domestic disturbances, however justified by previous misgovernment,

were ill calculated to assist the defence of the French provinces. From

Normandy the French turned their attention to Guienne, and the campaign

in the south was as rapid and successful as that in the north. On August

26, 1451, Bayonne surrendered, and the English held nothing in France

except Calais and the adjacent forts of Guines and Ham. It is true that

the long commercial intercourse with England and the recollection of the

lenity of English rule as compared with that of Charles VII. led to a

rising in Bordeaux in 1452, and an English force under the veteran

Talbot was sent to take advantage of the opportunity. But Talbot was

defeated and slain at the battle of Castillon (July 17, 1453), and

Bordeaux was soon afterwards compelled to capitulate.

In spite of the glory reflected upon Charles VII. by the restoration of

unity, independence, and comparative order to his kingdom, his later

years were the reverse of happy. The gloomy suspicion which he had

[Sidenote: Later years of Charles VII.] contracted in his troubled youth

became a settled habit as he grew old. He shut himself up from the eyes

of his subjects with the obscure mistresses who became his companions

after the death of Agnes Sorel in 1450. To his loyal minister, Jacques

Cœur, he showed the same cynical ingratitude as he had formerly

displayed to Joan of Arc. There were plenty of courtiers who were

jealous of the influence of the merchant whose wealth made the phrase

‘rich as Jacques Cœur’ almost a proverbial expression. All sorts of

charges, ranging from malversation to the poisoning of Agnes Sorel, were

trumped up to procure his ruin. His property was confiscated, and after

a trial in which the evidence was ludicrously unconvincing, the sentence

of death was commuted by royal clemency to perpetual imprisonment. From

his prison he escaped to Italy, and was appointed by Nicolas V.

commander of the papal galleys in the projected war against the Turks.

But he died in 1456 before he had any opportunity of winning distinction

in this novel capacity.

By far the greatest trouble of Charles VII. in the later part of his

reign arose out of his quarrel with his elder son Louis. After the

suppression of the Praguerie a temporary [Sidenote: Quarrel with the

dauphin.] reconciliation took place, and the dauphin returned to court.

But Charles was intensely suspicious of his son, and in 1446 the alleged

discovery of a new conspiracy induced him to banish Louis once more to

Dauphiné. From this time the quarrel became irreconcilable, and father

and son never met again. For the next ten years Louis set himself to

rule his appanage as if it were an independent principality. He erected

a parliament of his own at Grenoble and a university at Valence. His

court became the refuge of all malcontents against the royal government.

To strengthen himself against his father he concluded a close alliance

with the duke of Savoy, and married his daughter Charlotte. So notorious

was the quarrel that the Pope and the kings of Aragon and Castile

proffered their mediation, but in vain. At last, in 1456, Charles

despatched Dammartin with an army to compel the submission of Dauphiné.

Louis had no adequate military force of his own, his father-in-law

declined to run the risk of assisting him, and he fled to Franche-Comté

and threw himself upon the protection of the duke of Burgundy. Philip

received him with great pomp in Brabant, and assigned to him a residence

at Genappe, where he remained for the next five years.

Since the treaty of Arras and the futile siege of Calais, Philip the

Good had taken little part in the affairs of France. He had allowed the

Praguerie to be put down, [Sidenote: Relations with Burgundy.] and the

English to be expelled from France, without stirring to the aid of

either, although the aggrandisement of the French monarchy was obviously

dangerous to himself. His absorbing interest during these years was the

government and extension of the heterogeneous dominions which had come

under his rule. The Flemish citizens found it difficult to defend their

liberties against a ruler who could employ against them the resources of

so many other provinces. A rising in Bruges in 1437 was suppressed with

great severity. In 1448 a more serious rebellion broke out in Ghent, and

the citizens appealed for aid to Charles VII. But the French king was

prevented from interfering by the renewal of the English war, and the

Gantois were left unaided to conduct a heroic resistance against

overwhelming odds. It was not till 1453 that a crushing defeat at the

battle of Gavre compelled them to submit, and even then the duke granted

fairly moderate terms to such formidable opponents. This victory was

followed by the acquisition of Luxemburg, which Philip finally acquired

on the death of his aunt Elizabeth, in opposition to the strong legal

claims of Ladislas Postumus, whose mother was a daughter of the emperor

Sigismund. In spite of the extent and wealth of his dominions, Philip

was conscious of two serious elements of weakness. There was no social

or political unity between the various provinces, which were held

together only by subjection to a common ruler. And, geographically, they

were split into two distinct units. Between the Netherlands and the two

Burgundies lay the provinces of Champagne and Lorraine, over which the

duke had no legal authority. He could not travel from his northern

capital at Brussels to his southern residence at Dijon without having to

pass through foreign and possibly hostile territories.

Charles VII. was fully conscious of the danger involved to the French

monarchy in the erection of a practically independent state on the

eastern and north-eastern frontiers of France. His suzerainty over the

French fiefs of Philip was suspended during the latter’s lifetime by the

treaty of Arras, and even when it should be revived by his own death or

that of the duke, it would be of little use against a vassal who was

strong enough to defy his overlord. The most pressing danger was the

occupation by Philip of the strongest places in Picardy, which brought

him into dangerous proximity to Paris. Twice Charles endeavoured to

exercise the power of redeeming the towns on the Somme which had been

reserved in the treaty of Arras, but both times he had to put up with a

rebuff. An open struggle between France and the Burgundian power was,

sooner or later, inevitable, but Charles was too weary of warfare to

allow it to break out during his reign. Even when the duke gave such an

ostentatious welcome to the rebellious dauphin, the king refused to

depart from his policy of peace. But he showed a grim sense of humour

when he heard of the reception of his restless and ambitious son in

Brussels. Philip, he said, ‘is nourishing the fox who will one day

devour his chickens.’

The dauphin was still at Genappe when the news reached him that his

father had died on July 22, 1461. It was said that Charles was so

terrified of being poisoned in [Sidenote: Accession of Louis XI.] his

food that he starved himself to death; and it is quite possible that his

suspicious timidity was a trait of insanity inherited from the

unfortunate Charles VI. Louis lost no time in setting out to take

possession of his kingdom, and he was accompanied by his Burgundian host

and champion. At the coronation ceremony at Rheims, and in the formal

entry into Paris, Philip played the most prominent part. It is true

that, in accordance with the treaty of Arras, he did homage to the new

king for his French fiefs, but under the circumstances the homage seemed

almost ironical. In the eyes of the people the duke was the powerful

patron and protector, while his nominal suzerain appeared as his

grateful dependant. Louis was still looked upon as the leader of the

Praguerie, as the rebel lord of Dauphiné, as the fugitive guest in the

dominions of the duke of Burgundy; and his first acts seemed to accord

with the principles which had guided his conduct in the past. He gave

the duchy of Berri as an appanage to his younger brother Charles. To

Philip’s son and heir, Charles of Charolais, he granted the government

of the all-important province of Normandy. The duke of Brittany received

the government of the district between the Lower Seine and the Loire.

The faithful servants of his father, such as Dunois and Dammartin, were

dismissed, and the latter was imprisoned. The offices thus left vacant

were conferred upon men who had supported the dauphin against the late

king. It seemed as if the feudal nobles of France had at last found a

king who would govern in their interests rather than in those of the

crown. The history of the reign is the record of their bitter

disappointment.

Louis XI. is perhaps the most familiar figure in the history of the

fifteenth century. His character has been painted for all time by

Philippe de Commines; and his portrait has been described for English

readers by Sir Walter Scott. He is the model prince of the new type, the

astute pupil of that [Sidenote: Character and policy of Louis XI.]

Italian statecraft which Machiavelli drew up in a systematic treatise.

He was, according to Chastellain, ‘the universal spider’; his intrigues

formed a vast web with himself at the centre. No consideration of

morality, pride, or mercy was allowed to interfere with the attainment

of his ends. His industry was unceasing, and he had a wonderful insight

into the weaker side of human nature. ‘No one ever took more trouble to

gain over a man who might do him either service or injury.’ His one

weakness was a caustic tongue, and he acknowledged that his indulgence

of this unruly member frequently brought him into scrapes. He was

naturally suspicious and mistrustful; he would listen to advice, but

follow his own counsel; his ministers must be his tools; independence

was treachery in his eyes. He forgot nothing, and forgave nothing, but

he could dissimulate even his anger. His policy has been equally clearly

portrayed for us. He was, in the words of Commines, ‘the enemy of all

great men, whose power might surpass his own, and he was naturally the

friend of men of low estate.’ But this phrase must not be misunderstood.

Louis XI. did not depress the nobles in order to exalt the lower classes

or to extend their liberty. Municipal independence was as hateful to him

as aristocratic privilege. Everything was to be equally subject to the

crown. The great achievement of his reign was the victory of

centralisation over the tendencies to disintegration in France.

Individual members of the bourgeois class were his favourite

instruments; for the class itself he did nothing, except so far as the

people were better off under a strong monarchy than under the rule of a

selfish and divided noble caste.

Commines tells us that Louis XI. was ‘the wisest king at recovering from

a false step,’ and at the beginning of his reign false steps were not

infrequent. In the [Sidenote: Louis’ first measures.] first

consciousness of the authority which he had long coveted, he made many

powerful enemies by his restless activity, and did not stop to consider

the danger to which their combined hostility might expose him. The

vengeful spirit with which he began his reign soon gave way to the

resolute purpose of increasing his power. Instead of conciliating the

people by the expected remission of taxes, he imposed a new charge upon

the sale of wines. To the great indignation of the clergy he annulled

the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, which, for the last twenty-three

years, had given a large measure of independence to the Gallican Church.

Yet his strong sense of his own authority prevented him from restoring

to the papacy its former powers, and ecclesiastical anarchy prevailed

during the rest of his reign. The Roman Curia treated the Pragmatic

Sanction as null and void, whereas the Parliament of Paris acted as if

it were still in force, and the king regulated his conduct according to

his varying need to conciliate either the papacy or his own subjects.

But the chief dissatisfaction with the rule of Louis was felt by the

nobles. An edict which declared hunting to be a domain right of the

crown, and prohibited [Sidenote: Alienation of the nobles.] private

preserves as illegal, excited intense ill-feeling among men to whom the

chase was not only the chief occupation of their lives, but also a badge

of their rank. And the greater princes had special grievances. The duke

of Bourbon was deprived of the government of Guienne which he had

mis-used. With the duke of Brittany the king quarrelled on the old

grounds as to the homage due for the duchy and the extent of the ducal

rights to the revenue of vacant benefices. Francis II. opened

negotiations with Edward IV., and tried to renew the Anglo-Burgundian

alliance. On discovering these plans, Louis was compelled, in

self-defence, to withdraw the government of Normandy from Charles of

Charolais. At the same time, in order to render Charles’s hostility

impotent, and to strengthen the crown against the prince whose patronage

he resented even while he had profited by it, Louis set himself to

foment domestic disturbances at the court of Burgundy. During his five

years of exile he had established intimate relations with Philip the

Good’s favourite ministers, Antony of Croy and his brother John of

Chimay. The growing ascendency of these men and the suspicion that they

were allied with and possibly in the pay of the French king, roused the

animosity of Charles of Charolais, who quarrelled so fiercely with his

father on the subject that he quitted Brussels and took up his residence

in Holland. His absence enabled [Sidenote: Quarrel with Charles the

Bold.] Louis, with the help of the Croy brothers, to induce Philip to

allow the redemption of the Somme towns for the stipulated 400,000

crowns. Charles was more furious than ever at the curtailment of his

inheritance and the strengthening of the French frontier at his expense.

In 1464 events enabled him to turn the tables on his opponents. A report

was spread that an emissary of Louis had plotted to kidnap Charles in

Holland, and though there was probably no foundation for the story, it

served to bring about a partial reconciliation between Philip and his

son. Louis XI. sent an embassy to Brabant to denounce the untruth, and

to demand the surrender of its author, but the Chancellor of France used

such peremptory language that Philip’s pride was roused, and not only

was the demand refused, but the Croy favourites, who were identified

with French interests, were disgraced and expelled from the court.

Philip himself was now old and feeble, and allowed the reins of

government to fall into the hands of his impetuous son, whom

contemporaries and posterity have agreed to call Charles the Bold or the

Rash. This was a serious defeat for the plans of Louis. Charles was more

of an independent prince than a vassal of France, but in both capacities

it was his interest to weaken the French monarchy by encouraging the

feudal independence of the great nobles. The policy which he pursued for

the next few years is clearly expressed in his own phrase: ‘Instead of

one king of France I would like to see six!’

In 1465 the adhesion of Burgundy emboldened the princes of the lilies to

take active measures against the monarchy. The most prominent organiser

of the conspiracy was the duke of Bourbon, who acted as negotiator

[Sidenote: The war of the Public Weal, 1465.] between the two most

powerful associates, the duke of Brittany and Charles the Bold. The

signal for concerted action was the flight to Brittany of Charles of

Berri, a youth of nineteen, who was to take the part which Louis himself

had played in the Praguerie. At the court of Francis were assembled

Dunois and most of the other servants of Charles VII. whom Louis had too

hastily dismissed. A sort of open letter or manifesto was drafted in the

name of the duke of Berri and addressed to Philip of Burgundy. In it the

confederates denounced the oppressive rule of Louis as injurious to the

welfare of the people; and this profession of public spirit to cover

private aims was sufficient to give them the name of the ‘League of the

Public Weal.’ Louis had for some time been conscious of the approach of

danger, and had sought to strengthen himself against it. The duke of

Savoy was his brother-in-law, and the aid of Francesco Sforza was

purchased by the cession of Genoa. This, however, ruined the Angevin

cause in Naples, and John of Calabria, eager for vengeance, brought

Italian and Swiss mercenaries to the aid of the league. In England,

which could render more efficient aid than any other power, Louis’

scheme met with failure. He had gained over Warwick, the apparently

all-powerful king-maker, and hoped, with his help, to induce Edward IV.

to form a marriage alliance with France. But Edward preferred the charms

of Elizabeth Woodville, a niece of the count of St. Pol, who was

marshalling the forces of Burgundy for an invasion of Picardy, and this

marriage was a blow to the influence of Warwick and the interests of

Louis. The king found himself almost isolated in France. His old

province of Dauphiné was loyal to him, and his uncle, Charles of Maine,

undertook to oppose the rebels on the border of Brittany. In Paris, too,

he had conciliated the citizens, but most of the towns were passively

waiting to see which side would prove the stronger. In these

circumstances Louis felt that it would be dangerous to stake everything

on the devotion of his capital, and instead of waiting to be attacked he

determined to take the offensive. Some of the royal troops preferred to

support their local overlords, but the great mass of them were loyal to

the crown, and the possession of a trained and well-equipped force was

the one advantage which the king possessed over his enemies who had to

collect hasty levies from among their vassals. His first march was

against the duke of Bourbon, as the most resolute and the most central

of his opponents, and he had already made considerable progress when he

was recalled by the news that Charles the Bold, at the head of his

father’s forces, was threatening Paris. Louis hoped to enter the capital

without a contest, but chance or treachery brought the two armies so

close together that a collision was inevitable. The battle of Montlhéri

was a confused skirmish in which no military capacity was displayed on

either side. The left wing of each army routed its immediate opponents,

and thus neutralised each other’s success. The Count of Charolais

claimed the victory on the ground that his troops were left in

occupation of the field, but he had suffered the greater losses, and the

only tangible result was obtained by the king, who entered Paris two

days later. Soon afterwards the arrival of Berri and Brittany from the

north-west and of John of Calabria from the south-east gave the princes

an apparently overwhelming superiority of numbers. But they were divided

by mutual jealousies and by the selfishness of their several aims, and

thus concerted action was rendered impossible. The urgent necessity of

increasing his forces and of securing the valleys of the Seine, Marne,

and Yonne, by which Paris was provisioned, compelled Louis to make an

expedition to Normandy. By so doing he ran a very serious risk of losing

Paris, but the citizens refused to listen to the specious offers of the

princes, and the king returned with 12,000 troops and a supply of

provisions. Following the advice of Francesco Sforza, he sought to

divide his opponents by separate negotiations. But there was one demand,

that he should give the government of Normandy to Charles of Berri,

which he persistently refused to grant. Not only was the province one of

the largest and wealthiest of the kingdom, but in the hands of his

brother it would serve to connect the two most powerful malcontents,

Brittany and Burgundy, and the three together could reduce Paris to such

straits that they would be able to dictate terms to the king. But while

this difficulty proved a stumbling-block in the way of the negotiations,

the news came that Rouen had been treacherously surrendered to his

opponents. Louis at once decided that, the mischief being done, it was

better to put an end to the present war and to trust to future

opportunities for a chance of recovering his losses. In October the

treaty was drawn up [Sidenote: Treaty of Conflans.] at Conflans and

finally signed at St. Maur des Fossés. ‘The public weal was changed into

individual weal,’ and no attempt was made to carry out the professions

which the princes had put forward at the outset. The Pragmatic Sanction,

with regard to which the king’s conduct was most obviously indefensible,

was not even mentioned. The most important provisions were the

restoration of the Somme towns to Burgundy, with the provision that they

should not be again redeemed till after the death of Charles and his

immediate heir, and the cession of Normandy to Charles of Berri. But

nearly every member of the league received some concession. The duke of

Brittany was to have Montfort and Étampes, and his claims to sovereign

rights, with regard to ecclesiastical revenues, were allowed. St. Pol

was to be constable, John of Calabria was to have certain cessions in

Lorraine and money for the maintenance of troops to support the Angevin

cause, and the dispossessed officials of Charles VII. were to recover

their places. The princes of the lilies seemed to have won a complete

victory over the monarchy.

But Louis knew that he had only to bide his time. The very completeness

of their success dissolved the bonds that held the confederates

together. United they were irresistible, but if they could be severed

from each other the king could hope to regain what he had lost. Even

during the siege of Paris his shrewd eye had been keen to detect the

nascent jealousies which were to give him the desired opportunity for

revenge. Already his intrigues had provided an occupation for the forces

of Burgundy. In the heart [Sidenote: Risings in Liége.] of the

Netherlands lay the ecclesiastical principality of Liége, ruled by its

bishop as a vassal of the empire. Annexation was impossible, and

geography made complete independence equally out of the question. Liége

was famous then as it is now for its iron manufactures, and the

prosperous artisans, the most democratic community in mediæval Europe,

were in constant revolt against episcopal rule. It was the policy of the

Burgundian dukes to maintain a hold over the bishop by supporting him

against his rebellious subjects, and the present bishop, Louis of

Bourbon, was a dissolute youth wholly subservient to his uncle, Philip

the Good, to whom he owed his mitre. On the other hand, the citizens

looked for aid to France, which was the chief market for their produce.

As soon as the war began, Louis had taken measures to organise a revolt

in Liége, which broke out on the arrival of a false report that the

Burgundian troops had been completely routed at Montlhéri. Dinant, the

second town of the principality, incurred the special displeasure of

Philip by hanging over the walls an effigy of Charles of Charolais with

an inscription declaring him to be a bastard. Directly after the treaty

of Conflans, Charles led his troops into Liége to put down disorder and

to punish this insult. But the season was too far advanced for active

operations, and after forcing upon Liége the ‘piteous peace,’ by which

the cause of Dinant was abandoned and the liberties of the city

curtailed, Charles dispersed his forces for the winter. In 1466 the

invasion was renewed, and the aged duke, Philip, accompanied the army in

person to enjoy the luxury of revenge. Dinant was taken and razed to the

ground, and the men of Liége, roused by the sufferings of their

neighbours to a tardy breach of the recent treaty, were compelled to

renew their submission, to pay a heavy fine, and to hand over fifty

leading citizens as hostages for their good faith. In spite of these

reverses they retained their obstinate antipathy to external control and

their confident expectation of assistance from France. In 1467 Charles

the Bold, who had become duke of Burgundy by his father’s death on June

15, led what had now become an annual expedition for the attack on

Liége. Under the walls of St. Tron an obstinate battle ended in a

victory for the Burgundians. Liége might still have stood a siege, but

the citizens, divided and cowed, agreed to capitulate. The walls were

levelled to the ground, and the free constitution of the city was

annulled. So impressive was Charles’s success, that Ghent, which had won

increased privileges by a rising on the occasion of his ‘joyous entry,’

hastened to appease him by a timely submission. It seemed for a moment

that the champion of feudal independence in France might succeed in

establishing despotic government within his own territories.

While Charles was engaged in his first campaign against Liége, Louis had

seized the opportunity to recover the most serious of his losses. As

soon as the treaty of [Sidenote: Louis recovers Normandy.] Conflans had

been concluded, the dukes of Berri and Brittany had set out together to

take possession of Normandy. But the triumphant confederates quarrelled

over the division of the spoil. The feeble Charles of Berri resented the

patronage and pretensions of his ally, who claimed for his own subjects

the most valuable places in the duchy. Louis took prompt advantage of

the dispute. He concluded a treaty with the indignant Francis of

Brittany at Caen, and despatched the royal troops to Rouen. The province

was recovered as rapidly as it had been lost, and the two duke—‘wise

after the event’—made up their differences and set themselves in

Brittany to devise means for regaining what they had forfeited by their

own folly. They made urgent appeals for aid to Edward IV. of England and

to Burgundy, and Louis was fully alive to the danger of such a

coalition. He had two trump cards to play in the intricate negotiations

which followed. In England he had gained over the earl of Warwick, and

Warwick, though his influence was waning, and he was unable to prevent

the marriage of Charles the Bold with Margaret of York, was yet strong

enough to avert for a time any active intervention of England in

opposition to France. And Louis, as we have seen, was able to hamper the

action of Burgundy by stirring up disaffection in Liége. His supreme

object was to keep Burgundy and Brittany apart, and he constantly

offered to abandon the cause of the Liégeois if Charles would give him a

free hand in dealing with the dukes of Brittany and Berri. But Charles

the Bold was too astute to approve of so one-sided a bargain, and Louis

was forced to adopt another ruse. In 1468 he bribed his brother and duke

Francis to conclude a separate treaty, without consulting Burgundy, and

then he promptly communicated the fact of their desertion to Charles. He

was confident that Charles’s indignation would impel him to punish them

by a similar abandonment, and when his envoys failed to conduct the

negotiations to a successful issue he determined to try his own powers

of diplomacy. The experienced politicians of Europe were astounded to

hear that the French king had obtained an unconditional safe-conduct

from his vassal, and had ventured with a wholly inadequate escort to run

the risk of a personal [Sidenote: Interview at Péronne.] interview at

Péronne. But in his own self-confidence and his contempt for the ability

of his rival, Louis had made another ‘false step.’ He had completely

forgotten that his emissaries were at the moment engaged in rekindling

the smouldering embers of rebellion in Liége. While he was still the

duke’s guest at Péronne, the news arrived that the citizens had seized

the bishop, and had barbarously murdered several members of the chapter.

Charles was so furious that his more prudent advisers had great

difficulty in dissuading him from laying violent hands upon his

suzerain. Louis’s father had been held responsible for the murder of a

duke of Burgundy; and it might well have been that the duke’s grandson

would not shrink from the death of a king of France. Louis could only

escape from his perilous position by agreeing to all the terms dictated

by the host who was now his gaoler. He had to incur the ignominy of

accompanying the Burgundian army in a fourth expedition against Liége,

and to take part in the destruction of a city whose chief fault was a

too implicit confidence in his own promises of support. If Charles had

demanded the restoration of Normandy to the duke of Berri, Louis could

hardly have refused. But the duke of Burgundy had not yet forgotten the

action of Brittany earlier in the year, and he was more anxious to

strengthen himself than to weaken the French king by renewing the old

league against him. Instead of Normandy, he demanded the cession to the

king’s brother of Champagne and Brie. Isolated from Brittany, Charles of

Berri could hardly fail to become the tool of Burgundy; and, in the

hands of a submissive ally, these provinces would serve to connect the

Netherlands with the original Burgundian possessions. Louis perforce

consented; but before he escaped from the toils, his quick mind had

already discovered a means of evading the danger. At his parting

interview with Charles he put forward as a casual suggestion that his

brother might decline the proffered appanage, and asked what he should

do. Charles replied, without thought, that in that case he must leave

the king to satisfy the duke. Louis took these hasty words as authority

to make an independent bargain. No sooner was he safe within his own

realm than he offered his brother the duchy of Guienne. Guienne was a

far more wealthy and important province than Champagne, and in itself

was a greater loss to the crown; but, on the other hand, it was far

removed from the two dangerous opponents of the crown—the dukes of

Burgundy and Brittany—and Louis knew that his brother, by himself, was

not likely to be formidable. The bribe was accepted, and thus the most

important provision of the treaty of Péronne was never carried into

effect.

The substitution of Guienne for Champagne freed Louis from the worst

consequences of his ill-timed visit to Péronne, but it did little or

nothing to remove the great standing difficulties in his way. Burgundy

and Brittany were as powerful and as independent as ever. They could

reckon on the support of all the feudal nobles in France who wished to

limit the authority of the crown. Worst of all, they could call in the

aid of the Yorkist king of England, who had recently proved his complete

estrangement from France by giving his sister in marriage to Charles the

Bold. It was obviously of immense importance to Louis [Sidenote:

Relations of France and Burgundy with England.] to secure himself from

danger on the side of England, and for the moment events seemed to

favour his schemes. Warwick was now completely estranged from Edward

IV., and Clarence, the latter’s brother, had joined the king-maker and

had married his elder daughter, Isabel Neville. But Edward was still too

strong for his opponents, and in 1470 Warwick and Clarence had to seek

refuge in France. Louis seized the opportunity to effect a

reconciliation between his cousin, Margaret of Anjou, and the man who

had done more than any other to ruin the Lancastrian cause. Warwick’s

second daughter, Anne, was married to the ill-fated Edward, titular

prince of Wales, and the former champion of the Yorkists undertook to

restore the house of Lancaster. Such an extraordinary and unexpected

coalition effected an easy revolution in England. Henry VI. emerged from

his prison to play, for a few more months, the part of king; and Edward

IV. sought safety and assistance in the dominions of his brother-in-law.

Charles the Bold found himself placed by these events in an awkward

dilemma. Descended through his mother from John of Gaunt, he had long

posed as a supporter of the Lancastrian cause, and had sheltered at his

court many of the leading nobles of that party. Recent events had forced

him into an alliance with Edward IV., but it had been dictated by policy

rather than by good-will. If the restoration of Henry VI. were

permanent, Charles could hope to gain such support among the Lancastrian

nobles as would secure him against the French proclivities of Warwick

and Margaret of Anjou. On the other hand, Edward was his wife’s brother;

he was a refugee in the Burgundian province of Holland; to disown him

would put an end to all hope of English assistance in the event of

Edward recovering his crown. Charles escaped from the dilemma in a

manner characteristic of the age. Publicly he protested his devotion to

the house of Lancaster, but secretly he gave Edward sufficient

assistance to enable him to return to England. The desertion of

Clarence, who had no interest in restoring the Lancastrian dynasty, and

the ill-concealed enmity with which the Lancastrian partisans continued

to regard Warwick, gave Edward successive victories over the two

sections of the hostile coalition. At Barnet, the Nevilles were crushed

and Warwick slain (April 14, 1471), and three weeks later Margaret and

her immediate followers met with a fatal reverse at Tewkesbury. The

deaths of the prince of Wales and his father left the house of Lancaster

almost extinct, except for a solitary scion of the illegitimate line of

Beaufort, and the permanence of the Yorkist dynasty, with its numerous

male representatives, seemed to be assured.

The decisive victory of Edward IV. was a blow to Louis XI., and it was

the more serious because in 1470 he had become involved in new

hostilities with Charles the Bold. [Sidenote: The Constable St. Pol.]

This was in great measure due to the Count of St. Pol, who had been an

influential personage at the French court ever since the war of the

Public Weal. His position was in many ways an extraordinary one. For his

hereditary estates he was a vassal of Charles the Bold, and the bulk of

these estates lay in or near the province of Picardy, the very frontier

where the rivalry between French and Burgundian interests was most

acute. As Constable he was a servant of the French king and the chief

commander of the standing forces of the crown. The incongruity of such a

double relation had been clearly shown in recent events. In 1466 St. Pol

had taken part as a Burgundian vassal in the campaign against Dinant and

Liége. In the next year he had headed the French embassy which had

suggested the abandonment of Liége by Louis as the price of Charles’s

severance from Brittany. The importance and the anomaly of the

constable’s position were both increased by his own marriage with Mary

of Savoy, Louis XI.’s sister-in-law, and by the marriage of his niece,

Elizabeth Woodville, to Edward IV. of England. It was the ambition of

St. Pol to play the part of an independent potentate in the politics of

Europe, and he conceived that the best way to do this was to prolong the

strife between France and Burgundy. Not only did the war increase his

power and importance as constable of France, but it also enabled him,

through the position of his own estates, to hold a sort of balancing

position between the two opponents. Both might hate and fear him, but it

was in the highest degree unlikely that they would combine against him;

and as both must bid for his support, it was in his power to make his

own terms with either side as interest and policy should dictate.

Accordingly, in 1470, he persuaded Louis to strike a blow for the

recovery of the Somme towns, and in the king’s name he took possession

of Amiens and St. Quentin. Charles the Bold was [Sidenote: Renewed war

between France and Burgundy.] taken by surprise, and the want of a

standing army always made it difficult for him to meet any sudden move

on the part of the French king. He was naturally indignant that the blow

should be dealt by one of his own vassals, and his anger was by no means

diminished when he received a message from St. Pol and his associates

that they would desert to his side if he would marry his daughter Mary

to Charles of Guienne. Charles had no desire to give up his daughter,

whose hand was a valuable asset in his diplomacy, and he had no

intention of submitting to coercion in the choice of a son-in-law. His

obstinacy compelled the constable and the confederate nobles to remain

outwardly loyal to the king, though their real aim was to reduce the

duke to such straits that he must accept their terms. An attempt on the

part of Charles to recover Amiens ended in failure, and the critical

struggle in England led to a truce in April 1471, by which the captured

towns were left in the king’s hands. The Yorkist victory seemed likely

to turn the balance in favour of Burgundy, but, fortunately for Louis,

Edward IV. was resolutely hostile to the marriage project put forward by

the French princes. It is true that a dauphin had been born in 1470, but

he was a sickly child, and if he died the duke of Guienne would once

more become heir to the throne, and the possible absorption of the vast

Burgundian inheritance by the French monarchy would be ruinous to

English interests and ambition. Sooner than allow such a union to be

effected Edward would abandon Burgundy and join Louis. But Louis was

discouraged by the failure of his English policy. He knew that he could

not trust the loyalty of his instruments, and he preferred diplomacy to

the renewal of a war in which there was little prospect of assured gain.

So for six months he negotiated with Charles, offering to restore Amiens

and St. Quentin and to abandon St. Pol to the vengeance of his injured

suzerain, on condition that Charles would give up all connection with

the dukes of Guienne and Brittany. At last, in the spring of 1472,

Charles announced that he would accept the proffered terms. At the same

time he privately assured the dukes that he only agreed to the treaty in

order to recover his own possessions, and that he had no intention of

deserting them. But Louis was not so easily duped. He had received

intelligence that his brother was hopelessly unwell, and he adroitly

postponed any final agreement until the news came that the duke of

Guienne had died on May 24. Of [Sidenote: Death of Charles of Guienne.]

course it was rumoured that so opportune an event must be due to

contrivance rather than to chance, but Louis’s gains were so substantial

that he could afford to disregard a suspicion which had no real

foundation. Guienne reverted to the crown, troops were despatched to

invade Brittany, and the treaty on which so much time had been spent was

repudiated. Charles was carried away by rage and disappointment.

Although the truce was not yet expired he crossed the Somme to harry the

territories of the French king. Nesle was taken and sacked with a

brutality unusual even in fifteenth century France, and Charles advanced

to the siege of Beauvais. But his military skill was not equal to his

indignation, and after a prolonged attack he was compelled to retreat

and to close the campaign by a truce in November, 1472. Curiously enough

this proved more durable than many formal treaties of peace. The truce

was renewed from time to time, and Charles and Louis never again met in

open hostility.

The death of the duke of Guienne proved far more important than his life

had been. A coalition of the princes of the lilies had nearly ruined the

monarchy in 1465, [Sidenote: Altered policy of Charles the Bold, 1472.]

and the energies of Louis had been taxed ever since to prevent its

revived activity. That coalition was now wholly broken up. Charles the

Bold was as hostile as ever to the French king, but he was compelled to

adopt different means to overthrow his rival. Hitherto his primary

concern had been with the affairs of France. He had appeared to the

world as the powerful vassal who headed the forces of feudalism to

depress the authority of his suzerain. Henceforth he turned his chief

attention from his French to his German provinces, and sought to build

up a rival kingdom along the valley of the Rhine, which might surpass

France in wealth and power, and might even bring to its ruler the

imperial crown. The danger to Louis was perhaps as great, but it was

wholly different in character, and it required wholly different

expedients to cope with it. That within France the monarchy had gained a

decisive victory over the forces arrayed against it was recognised by

two of the most subtle intellects of the time. Philippe de Commines, the

born vassal and the intimate adviser of Charles the Bold, had already

made the acquaintance of Louis XI. during the troubled days at Péronne.

In the autumn of 1472 he deserted his suzerain to enter the service of

the king, whose character and career he has described in the most

important historical work of the century. His example was followed by

Odet d’Aydie, lord of Lescun, who had hitherto been the trusted guide of

Charles of Guienne and Francis of Brittany. The shrewd Gascon found no

difficulty in gaining the favour of his new employer, and he was

rewarded with the title of count of Comminges.

Already, before 1472, Charles the Bold had taken an important step in

the direction of territorial aggrandisement in Germany. Alsace and the

Breisgau, representing the original Swabian possessions of the house

[Sidenote: Acquisitions of Charles the Bold in Germany.] of Hapsburg,

had been ruled since 1439 by Sigismund, son of that Frederick of Tyrol

who had played a prominent part in the early stages of the Council of

Constance (see p. 213). Like his ancestors, Sigismund had become

involved in a quarrel with the members of the Swiss confederation, and

by a treaty in 1468 he had pledged himself to pay to the League a

considerable sum of money. Unable to raise the sum from his own

resources, he had applied to Charles the Bold, who agreed to furnish the

money if Alsace and the Breisgau were handed over to him as security. It

was more than improbable that the penniless count of Tyrol would ever

redeem the pledge, and Charles, treating the provinces as his own

possession, intrusted the administration to Peter of Hagenbach. When, in

1472, the direct opposition to Louis XI. came to an end, Charles turned

with avidity to that acquisition of lands in Germany which was to prove

the cause of his ruin. Interfering as arbiter in a dispute between

father and son in Gelderland, he seized the disputed duchy for himself

(1473). In the same year occurred the death of Nicolas of Calabria, the

grandson and last male descendant of the old Réné le Bon. The duchy of

Lorraine now passed to another grandson, Réné of Vaudemont, who

inherited both the Angevin and the Vaudemont claim. Lorraine was of

peculiar importance to Charles the Bold, as it lay between his northern

and his southern dominions. Although he had no legal claim to interfere,

he seized the young duke and only released him on condition that he

should cede four fortresses as a guarantee for the free passage of

Burgundian forces through Lorraine. Meanwhile Charles was negotiating

with the emperor Frederick III. to have his duchy of Burgundy erected

into a kingdom, and he intended to claim all those territories which at

one time or another had borne the name of Burgundy. Such a claim would

have included Savoy, Provence, and several adjacent districts. The

emperor was to be bribed by the proposal of a marriage between his son

Maximilian and the heiress of these vast dominions present and

prospective. An interview was arranged at Trier, and Charles brought

with him the crown that was to be placed on his head. But Frederick

III., always cautious and rather timid, was alarmed by the extravagant

pretensions of the aspirant to royalty, and he was cognisant of a scheme

to recover Alsace for his cousin Sigismund. So one night the emperor

slipped away in a boat down the Moselle, leaving the duke the

laughing-stock of Europe. But this humiliation failed to check Charles’s

ambition, and in 1474 he embarked on a new enterprise. The archbishop of

Cologne, Robert of Bavaria, deposed by his chapter and his subjects,

appealed for assistance to the duke of Burgundy, who seized the

opportunity to gain on the middle Rhine a preponderance similar to that

which he had acquired in the bishopric of Liége. With a large army

Charles entered the territories of Cologne, as the champion of the

archbishop against his rebellious subjects, and laid siege to Neuss, a

fortress on the Rhine held by the Landgrave of Hesse, whose brother had

been appointed administrator of the diocese.

The siege of Neuss was one of the great blunders of Charles the Bold. He

had never shown any skill in siege operations, and for a whole year his

obstinacy [Sidenote: Louis XI. stirs up enemies against Charles the

Bold.] kept him before a town which he was ultimately unable to reduce.

During these months his enemies were able to attack with impunity the

extremities of his dominions, and he lost a favourable opportunity of

weakening his chief opponent Louis XI. Louis was frequently urged by his

advisers to check the aggrandisement of the Burgundian duke by a renewal

of direct hostilities. But he preferred the more subtle policy of

allowing his rival to exhaust his strength in distant enterprises, while

he secretly encouraged the resistance of the German princes and people

whose interests were threatened by Charles’s progress. Among the latter

were the leading members of the Swiss Confederation. They had always

quarrelled with the Hapsburgs in Alsace, and they were not likely to

find a less formidable neighbour in the duke of Burgundy, whose

expansion southwards could hardly be effected without destroying their

independence. The oppressive rule of Peter of Hagenbach, Charles’s

bailiff in Alsace, was bitterly resented by all the cities and towns of

Swabia, and Bern, now the leading canton of the Confederation, was

prominent in demanding redress. Louis seized the opportunity to score a

notable diplomatic victory. He induced Sigismund to demand the

restoration of Alsace, and he set himself to reconcile the Swiss with

their old opponent. On March 30, 1474, it was agreed by the Everlasting

Compact that Sigismund should renounce all Hapsburg claims within the

territory of the League, and that the confederates should support him in

recovering the provinces which had been pledged to Charles. The chief

Swabian towns furnished the necessary money to redeem the pledge, and

when Charles took no notice of the demand for restitution, Alsace was

invaded and Hagenbach was put to death (May 9, 1474). After this there

was good reason to dread the duke’s enmity, and a strong party was

formed within the League which contended that the safest method of

defence was to anticipate attack. French gold was employed to aid and

extend this party, which was headed by Nicolas von Diesbach of Bern, and

the emperor Frederick III. was induced to use his authority to urge on a

war with Burgundy. In October a treaty was concluded with France, and

this was followed by a formal defiance of Charles and an invasion of

Franche-Comté. Charles received the news of these events before Neuss,

but he refused to abandon the siege, and the only step which he took to

protect his interests in the south was to conclude a close alliance with

Yolande of France, the dowager-duchess and regent of Savoy. Yolande was

the sister of Louis XI., but her policy was as independent and

self-seeking as that of her brother, and she did not scruple to break

off the intimate alliance between Savoy and France which had resulted in

her own marriage and that of Louis. She even used her influence to

detach her brother-in-law, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, from France, and to

arrange an alliance between Milan and Burgundy. But the first result of

her action was to extend the area of Swiss aggression, and in the spring

of 1475 Granson, Morat, and other Savoyard territories fell into the

hands of the confederates. About the same time Réné of Lorraine was

induced by the French king to repudiate his recent treaty with Charles

the Bold and to invade the duchy of Luxemburg. So formidable was the

coalition now formed that Louis sent to Frederick III. to propose a

partition of the Burgundian territories, the French provinces to be

escheated to the crown, and the German fiefs to be claimed by the

emperor. But the cautious Hapsburg would not commit himself to so

far-reaching a scheme, and replied that he preferred not to bargain

about the bear’s skin until the beast was dead.

The position of Charles was one of great danger. He was practically at

war with the Swiss, with Sigismund of Tyrol, with the duke of Lorraine,

and with the forces of the empire, which he had alienated by his

unjustifiable intervention in the affairs of Cologne. But Charles knew

that these enemies were all set in motion by Louis _XI._, and that if he

could ruin his arch-opponent the hostile coalition would almost

certainly fall to pieces. And in 1475 he had an unequalled chance of

dealing a fatal blow to the power of France. For years the duke

[Sidenote: Edward IV. invades France, 1475.] of Brittany and other

opponents of the French monarchy had been striving to bring about a

renewal of the English invasion, and at last their efforts were rewarded

with success. Edward IV., securely established on the English throne by

the double defeat of the Nevilles and the Lancastrian nobles, determined

to resume the ambitious schemes of Henry V. and to make himself king of

France with the aid of Burgundy. In 1474 the terms of the treaty had

been arranged with Charles, who was to receive as his reward Champagne

and some smaller districts, together with complete emancipation from the

suzerainty of France. In the summer of 1475 a considerable English army

was transported to Calais, and Charles at last set himself free to aid

his ally by retiring from Neuss, and concluding an agreement with the

emperor by which the Pope was to arbitrate in the dispute about Cologne.

The truce between Burgundy and France had expired on May 1, and Charles

had refused all the entreaties of Louis for its prolongation. But all

the hopes which Charles had based upon the intervention of England were

doomed to disappointment. Edward IV. was immensely chagrined when

Charles arrived alone at Calais, having sent his army from Neuss to

chastise the duke of Lorraine. St. Pol, who had offered to admit the

English into St. Quentin, fired upon the approaching forces from behind

the closed gates. The French monarchy was infinitely stronger in 1475

than it had been in 1415, and Edward IV. was shrewd enough to see that

with such support as he received from professed allies the conquest of

France was impossible. Louis on his side was not slow to profit by the

obvious discouragement of the invaders, and promptly opened negotiations

which resulted in a personal interview at Pecquigni on the Somme. In

return for a large sum of money and a promise that the dauphin should

marry his daughter Elizabeth, Edward agreed to withdraw from France.

Charles was furious at what he denounced as treacherous desertion, but

his own conduct had been so obviously selfish that his complaints were

treated as unreasonable, and he was compelled to renew his former truce

with Louis XI.

The failure of the English invasion and the renewal of peaceful

relations between France and Burgundy proved [Sidenote: Fate of St.

Pol.] fatal to St. Pol, who had succeeded for five years in maintaining

a practically independent position in Picardy. He had been profoundly

disappointed by the termination of active hostilities in 1472, but he

still trusted in his ability to play off one rival against the other,

and he was confident that their mutual jealousy would never allow them

to act together against him. For a time his forecast had been justified.

In 1472 it had been proposed that Louis and Charles should unite to

punish the constable, but the scheme had broken down, because neither

would trust the other. In 1475 the proposal was renewed. St. Pol’s

recent conduct, and especially his relations with Edward IV. who handed

over to Louis the constable’s correspondence, had created a strong

desire to punish the man who betrayed and deceived everybody in turn.

Charles was to have St. Quentin, Ham, and Bohain, with all the fiefs

which St. Pol held of him, on condition that he would undertake to

capture the constable and either punish him within eight days or hand

him over to the king. On the news of this treaty St. Pol determined to

trust Charles rather than Louis, partly because he believed him to be

less vindictive, and partly because after his territories were in

Charles’s hands the latter had little to gain by inflicting any further

penalty. Charles was besieging Nanci when his ministers sent word that

the constable was in their hands. Charles was anxious to avoid any

French opposition in Lorraine and he sent instructions that if Nanci

held out beyond November 24, St. Pol was to be handed over to the

French, but if it were taken before that date they were to keep him in

their hands. Nanci did not surrender till after the time had elapsed,

but Charles began to think that his order had been hasty and that St.

Pol might still be useful to him in his quarrel with France. His

instructions to delay the transfer, however, came too late, as the

Burgundian ministers, many of whom had a personal grudge against St.

Pol, had punctually obeyed the original order. Louis was not unwilling

to show that neither rank, nor royal relationship, nor eminent office

could save a rebel against the crown, and St. Pol, of whose treason

there was ample proof, was executed in Paris on December 19, 1475.

At the end of 1475 Charles the Bold seemed to be at the height of his

power. He was at peace both with the emperor and the king of France.

Since the submission of Ghent he had met with no opposition from his

subjects in the Netherlands. The fall of St. Pol had restored his

complete ascendency in Picardy. Savoy and Milan were apparently loyal

and almost submissive allies. The aged Réné of Provence, who had never

loved the house of Vaudemont, expressed his willingness to disinherit

his only surviving grandson in favour of the duke of Burgundy. Above

all, Charles had at last succeeded in uniting the two main divisions of

his realm by the conquest of Lorraine, and he determined to make Nanci

the capital of the Burgundian kingdom that seemed now to be within his

grasp. His one immediate task was to recover the province of Alsace, and

to punish the Swiss, not only for aiding to restore Sigismund, but also

for their raids upon his own territories and those of his allies. His

troops were exhausted [Sidenote: Charles’s war with the Swiss, 1476.] by

their exertions in the long siege of Neuss and the subsequent conquest

of Lorraine; but his resources, both in men and money, were so

infinitely superior to those of his opponents that it was hardly

possible to doubt his ultimate victory. The Swiss had begun the war as

the allies of the emperor and the French king, but they were now

deserted by both. In February 1476 Charles crossed the Jura to drive the

Swiss from the districts they had seized in Savoy. Granson, a town near

the lake of Neuchâtel, which was held by the house of Orange as a fief

of Savoy, was taken by the Burgundians, and the garrison was put to

death. Two days later the confederates arrived, and at once began the

attack. Charles ordered a portion of his army to retire to the plain

where he could use his superior cavalry. But the retirement became a

panic-stricken retreat, and the Swiss, pressing their advance, gained a

complete and easy victory (March 2, 1476). Granson was recovered, and

the Burgundian camp and artillery were the prize of the conquerors. So

humiliating a disaster was the more galling to Charles that it shook the

fidelity of his allies. The succession in Provence upon which he had

confidently reckoned, was now transferred by Réné to the French king.

Galeazzo Maria Sforza opened negotiations with Louis, and even Yolande

of Savoy began to contemplate the possibility of a reconciliation with

her brother. But Savoy could hardly desert Charles as long as there was

a prospect of recovering the lost lands with his help; and the

Burgundian power was not destroyed by a single disaster. Within a few

weeks a new army had been collected at Lausanne, and Charles advanced to

the siege of Morat, which the Bernese had taken from the Count of

Romont, a brother of the late duke of Savoy. The Swiss hastily

reassembled the troops, which had been disbanded after their recent

success in spite of the warnings of Bern. On June 22, an obstinate, and

for a long time, a very equal contest was fought out under the walls of

Morat. At last the Swiss gained a decisive advantage by turning the

flank of the Burgundian army; and the very obstinacy with which the

latter fought only served to make their losses heavier. Nearly

two-thirds of Charles’s forces were practically annihilated, and the

final desertion of his allies, combined with the disaffection of his own

subjects, rendered it hopeless to renew the struggle. Savoy made peace

with the Swiss, through the mediation of France; and Granson, Morat, and

other towns of Vaud became subject to the Confederation. Charles retired

into gloomy solitude near Pontarlier, and it was feared that his reason

would give way as he cursed the ill-fortune which had humbled so

powerful a prince before a despicable foe. He was roused from his

retreat by the news that Lorraine was lost to him. The young Réné had

joined the Swiss in the battle of Morat, and had proceeded after the

victory to raise a force with which he had recovered Nanci. Charles

hurriedly collected a third army, and, in spite of the winter cold,

commenced a second siege of the town which he had destined to be his

capital. The scanty garrison could not long have resisted the attack,

but Réné appealed for the assistance of the Swiss, and they [Sidenote:

Death of Charles the Bold.] sent 20,000 men to raise the siege. The

Italian mercenaries, in whom Charles placed great confidence, were

headed by the count of Campobasso, a Neapolitan who had been driven into

exile for his adhesion to the house of Anjou. Of that house Réné of

Lorraine might now claim to be the lawful heir; and Campobasso was

induced to desert his master in favour of the family to which his first

allegiance was due. This treachery placed Charles at a fatal

disadvantage, and he had to fight between the besieged and the relieving

forces. But his dogged character would not allow him to retreat, and in

a third contest with the despised German Confederation the great Valois

duke of Burgundy found an obscure and unhonoured death (January 5,

1477).

Louis XI. had watched the events of the last twelve months, at first

with anxiety, and later with feverish attention. Ever since his

accession he had been haunted by the [Sidenote: Louis seizes Burgundian

territories.] sense of Charles’s hostility, and the dangers which it

involved; and now his great rival had been slain by the agency of an

unforeseen and apparently unequal opponent. The only claimant of the

vast inheritance left vacant by the death of Charles the Bold was an

unmarried girl of twenty-one years. Various schemes were debated in the

royal council as to the best way of profiting by so favourable a

contingency. One very obvious plan was to effect a marriage between Mary

of Burgundy and the dauphin. But there were several objections to this.

The dauphin was only in his eighth year; he was already betrothed to an

English princess, and Edward IV. was not likely either to pardon an

insult to his daughter, or to acquiesce in the absorption of the

Burgundian inheritance by the French monarchy. To the alternative scheme

of marrying Mary to a French noble of royal blood, such as Charles of

Angoulême, it could be objected that the new dynasty thus created might

be as dangerous and disloyal as that to which it would succeed. Louis

determined to keep the possibility of either marriage as a card to be

played, if necessary or expedient, but in the meantime to take measures

for the occupation of those Burgundian territories which France could

acquire without serious opposition. The revival of such a power as that

of Charles might be prevented, and the adhesion of German princes might

be purchased, by a partition of the fiefs which the late duke had held

of the empire. No preparations had been made to resist Louis, and his

promptness ensured a considerable measure of success. He had an

unquestionable claim to the Somme towns, whose transfer had been limited

to male heirs; and the duchy of Burgundy could be reasonably claimed as

an escheated fief. But Flanders, Artois, and Franche-Comté had come to

the Burgundian house through an heiress, so that Mary’s right of

succession could hardly be disputed. Regardless of this consideration,

and of the fact that Franche-Comté was an imperial fief, Louis proceeded

with the work of annexation. Both the duchy and the county of Burgundy

submitted to French rule. From Picardy, which returned willingly to its

former allegiance, the forces of Louis entered Artois and succeeded in

reducing its capital, Arras.

The occupation of Artois brought the French to the frontier of Flanders,

the most wealthy and important of the Burgundian possessions. The

Flemish citizens, and especially [Sidenote: Conduct of the Flemings.]

those of Ghent, where Mary of Burgundy was residing, were not likely to

allow the choice of their future ruler to be settled without their

participation. Their policy in the matter was quite distinct. They had

hated Burgundian rule and the Burgundian ministers whom Charles and his

predecessors had appointed to govern them. As long as their sovereign

had been a mere count of Flanders, they had enjoyed a large measure of

independence and self-government, but they had lost this under the too

powerful Valois dynasty. They therefore welcomed the occupation of the

Burgundies, and had no objection to a further weakening of Mary’s

inheritance. But they would not be annexed to France, and the aggressive

measures of Louis XI. drove them into opposition to him. The Burgundian

ministers, whom Charles had left in authority, were seized by the mob on

the discovery that they were conducting separate negotiations with

France, and in spite of the passionate entreaties of Mary, were put to

death. The plan that commended itself to the people of Ghent was to

marry Mary to Adolf of Gelderland, the youthful monster who had been

imprisoned and disinherited for brutal ill-treatment of his father.

Adolf was released and sent to oppose the French before Tournay; where,

to Mary’s great relief, he was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to

relieve the town. This event, and the necessity of gaining support

against the encroachments of France, forced the Gantois to revive the

scheme of marrying Mary to [Sidenote: Maximilian marries Mary of

Burgundy.] Maximilian of Hapsburg, the son of the emperor Frederick III.

Mary herself, naturally frightened and aggrieved by the conduct of Louis

since her father’s death, was not averse to the proposal, and the

marriage was solemnised in August 1477. Louis was extremely chagrined by

the news of an event, which not only frustrated his plans for a further

partition of the Burgundian inheritance, but also compelled him to fight

for the provinces he had already seized. Maximilian undertook the

championship of his wife’s claims with his usual impetuosity. But he was

hampered by his want of money—Commines calls his father ‘the most

perfectly niggardly man of his time’—and by the obstruction of the

Flemish citizens, who had taken advantage of the weak government since

Charles the Bold’s death to recover much of their old independence. In

1482 Mary died, leaving two infant children, Philip and Margaret. This

was a great blow to Maximilian, who had no longer any formal authority

in the Netherlands, except so far as the estates of the various

provinces recognised him as his son’s guardian. In these circumstances

he was not unwilling to come to terms with Louis, and the treaty of

Arras [Sidenote: Treaty of Arras, 1482.] gave to the king most of the

territories he had contended for. The dauphin, Charles, was to be

betrothed to Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian and Mary, and she was

to be brought up in France as its future queen. Artois and Franche Comté

were to be regarded as her dowry. The treaty made no mention of the

Somme towns or of the duchy of Burgundy, and thus tacitly conceded

Louis’s contention that his legal rights to these provinces were

indisputable. It was fortunate for Louis that Edward IV., who had good

reason to regard this treaty as both injurious and insulting, was not

able to give practical expression to his displeasure. He died in 1483,

and the disturbances which followed kept England from any idea of

intervention on the Continent. But though the treaty of Arras appears,

at first sight, to be a considerable triumph for the policy of Louis,

the permanent gain to the French monarchy was not very great. Artois and

Franche-Comté were lost again before very long; and the annexation of

the Netherlands to the Hapsburg possessions, together with the

subsequent further aggrandisement of that house, involved France in even

greater dangers than those which had been threatened by the Valois dukes

of Burgundy. But the subsequent struggle which thus arose differed from

its predecessor in one very important respect. The Hapsburgs of Spain

and Austria were more powerful sovereigns than Philip the Good or

Charles the Bold, but they were complete foreigners to France, and had

none of that traditional and family alliance with French nobles and

French parties which gave to the Valois-Burgundian dynasty such a unique

position. The contest with the Hapsburgs served to strengthen, not to

destroy, the national unity of France.

The relations with Burgundy constitute by far the most important episode

of the reign of Louis XI.; and he could [Sidenote: Successes of Louis

XI.] boast of no more conspicuous achievement than the defeat of Charles

the Bold, and the annexation of a considerable share of his dominions.

But he gained other successes and acquired other lands. By intervening

to support John II. of Aragon against the rebellious Catalans (1462), he

obtained the cession of Roussillon and Cerdagne, and for a time extended

the French frontier to the Pyrenees. And the Angevin inheritance was

almost as great a windfall to the monarchy as the duchy of Burgundy.

Réné le Bon had hastily abandoned the cause of Charles the Bold, after

the latter’s defeats in 1476; and Louis XI. succeeded in extorting from

his uncle an arrangement by which the latter’s territories were to pass,

in the first place, to his nephew, Charles of Maine, and on the

extinction of his line to the crown. The successive deaths of Réné in

1480 and of Charles of Maine in 1481, gave to Louis the possession of

Anjou and Maine, with the duchy of Bar and the imperial fief of

Provence. Equally important, from the point of view of the French

monarchy, were the signal humiliations inflicted by Louis upon the great

feudatories who had ventured, in the early years of his reign, to

identify themselves with the cause of opposition to the monarchy. The

duke of Alençon was kept a prisoner till his death in 1476. The count of

Armagnac, the restless leader of the southern nobles, was attacked in

his chief town of Lectoure and perished in the sack which followed its

capture. His cousin, the duke of Nemours, who had been a favourite

companion of Louis in his youth and had since been twice pardoned for

ungrateful treachery, was executed in 1477 after having suffered the

most horrible tortures. The fate of St. Pol has been already related.

With regard to the nobles who were more closely related to the royal

family, Louis took precautions to ensure their loyalty or to disarm

their opposition. The duke of Bourbon abstained from further rebellion

after the War of the Public Weal. His brother and heir, Pierre de

Beaujeu, was married to the king’s eldest daughter, Anne, with the

proviso that if they left no male heirs the succession should pass to

the crown. For Louis of Orleans, the heir-presumptive to the throne

after the dauphin, a bride was found in another daughter, Jeanne, who

was deformed in person and was regarded as unlikely to have issue.

The government of Louis XI., though in many ways advantageous to France,

was too obviously selfish to be popular. His death in August, 1483,

transferred the crown to his only son, Charles VIII., but as [Sidenote:

Regency of Anne of Beaujeu.] he was too young to rule, the actual

government was assumed by Anne of Beaujeu. She had much of her father’s

ability and all his love of power, but her position was insecure and she

was obliged to conciliate support by measures which Louis XI. would

never have adopted. The States-General were convoked at Tours in January

1484, and for the first time the rural districts were represented in the

third estate, which had hitherto included only delegates from the towns.

Although the estates recognised the regent, their _cahier_ of grievances

showed an obvious hostility to the despotic rule of the late king. Among

other things they demanded that they should meet regularly every second

year. But the States-General, having lost all efficient control over

taxation, had no power to extort concessions, and the crown reserved

absolute discretion as to the redress of grievances. A more serious

danger to Anne was a coalition of nobles, including the duke of Brittany

and headed by Louis of Orleans, who deemed it a wrong that he was

excluded from the regency. There was some risk that the confederates

might receive support from Richard III. of England, who had good reason

to divert the attention of his subjects to a foreign war, and from Réné

of Lorraine, who advanced a well-founded claim to his grandfather’s

dominions of Bar and Provence. Anne of Beaujeu showed notable ability in

meeting her opponents. To prevent English intervention, Henry of

Richmond, whose mother was the last of the Beauforts, was encouraged to

prosecute the enterprise which placed the house of Tudor on the throne

(1485). The duke of Lorraine was partially satisfied by the cession of

Bar, and the prospect of gaining Provence was dangled before his eyes in

an artfully prolonged law-suit, which was not decided against him until

all danger was over. Meanwhile, the princes, deprived of external aid,

proved powerless to resist the forces of the crown. The Bretons were

defeated, and Louis of Orleans, carried a prisoner to Bourges, found it

to his interest to reconcile himself with his cousin.

A few days after the defeat of the Bretons the death of duke Francis II.

extinguished the male line of the Montforts, and left the one great

province which had retained [Sidenote: Succession in Brittany.] its old

independence in the hands of his daughter Anne (September 9, 1488). The

disposal of the hand of so important an heiress was naturally a matter

of great political interest, and Anne of Beaujeu, who wished to use the

opportunity for the gain of the monarchy, was chagrined to learn in 1490

that the young duchess had been married by proxy to Maximilian of

Austria, who had been a widower since the death of Mary of Burgundy.

Declaring the marriage to be null without royal consent, she despatched

an army into Brittany, and Anne of Brittany was compelled to give her

hand to Charles VIII. A double injury was thus inflicted upon

Maximilian. Not only was he deprived of a wife, but his daughter, who

had been educated in France since 1482 as the future queen, was sent

back to him. The archduke, however, was too distant and too busy

elsewhere to be immediately formidable, and it was worth while to risk

his displeasure in order to secure possession of Brittany. But the

children of Charles VIII. and Anne did not survive their parents, and

two subsequent marriages were necessary before the union of Brittany

with France was complete.

The marriage of the king was the last achievement of Anne of Beaujeu,

whose regency came to an end when her brother assumed the reins of

government, while she herself [Sidenote: The question of Naples.] became

duchess of Bourbon by the death of her brother-in-law. In 1493 a wholly

new problem was presented to the French government by the arrival of

Neapolitan exiles with an invitation to Charles VIII. to claim the crown

of Naples on the same grounds as he already held Provence. The late

regent and the more experienced councillors were resolute in opposing

the scheme. But Charles himself and his younger associates were dazzled

by the prospect of an Italian kingdom, and the proffered support of

Ludovico Sforza seemed to give a reasonable prospect of success. Before

Charles could venture to quit his kingdom it was necessary to secure it

against the hostility of jealous neighbours. Henry VII. of England, who

had come forward as the champion of Anne of Brittany, was bought off by

the peace of Etaples which offered him a large money bribe (1492). The

treaty of Barcelona restored Roussillon and Cerdagne to Ferdinand of

Aragon (January 1493); while the enmity of Maximilian was appeased by

the treaty of Senlis and the cession of Artois and Franche-Comté, which

had been the stipulated dowry of Margaret (May 23, 1493). In September

1494, Charles set out on his journey towards the Alps. The resources of

the revived French monarchy were to be employed in an enterprise of

which no one could foresee the end, but which was destined to usher in a

new epoch in the history of Europe.