Louis XI, that king more adroit than the most adroit courtier;
that old fox furnished with lion’s claws; powerful and shrewd,
served secretly as in the light, constantly sheltered by his
guards as by a shield, and accompanied by his executioners as
with a sword.--VICTOR HUGO.
[Sidenote: [1461-1483 A.D.]]
During fifteen years, the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI, had maintained
a struggle against his father, which had commenced on account of Agnes
Sorel and had been continued by mutual distrust. Throughout this struggle
the dauphin had shown a most indomitable pride and the utmost tenacity,
and in all this delicate and false situation he affected to act as the
prince and as the prince who would one day be king. If he rebelled
against the king it was against the king only, and not against the crown.
Such at least is the attitude revealed by the tone of his letters.
As soon as he succeeded to the throne, he hastened to leave his little
court of Gennape and return to France. He asked the duke of Burgundy
to lend him an escort of four thousand soldiers in case he should
meet with opposition from his father’s councillors who might wish to
impose their own conditions on him. However, on arriving at Avesnes,
the nobility thronged around him to swear allegiance, and, finding his
escort unnecessary, he sent it back to the duke. He repaired at once to
Rheims to be crowned and at that place the throng became greater. This
adulation, which always follows when a new prince succeeds one but little
loved, made Louis believe that he would be popular. Perhaps his absence,
his exile, which had been interpreted as a protest or a disgrace, had
contributed to this apparent popularity. It was, at least, very ephemeral.
Louis XI was thirty-eight years old when he ascended the throne, with
his experience of governing and his virtues and vices equally matured
by his exile. Like his father, he loved power and did not wish to share
it. A contemporary, Chastelain,[b] called him “the universal spider,”
because he never ceased weaving a web of which he was the centre,
and the threads of which extended everywhere. Not only did he wish to
decide everything himself, but he was loath to accept any advice, and
the least opposition would make him obstinate. Like his father, also, he
was observant, discreet, suspicious, esteeming men but little, rewarding
them richly when he had need of their services and forgetting them the
day after. He had in this respect the three faults that Chastelain[b]
attributes to Charles VII--fickleness, diffidence, and envy. On the
other hand he had a wonderful discernment in seeing the use that each
person could be to him. Those who served him must serve him absolutely.
Independence to him seemed conspiracy. Comines[c] says that he did
not like to have serve him “the great ones who could surpass him.” He
preferred to choose for his agents men of humble birth whom he took from
the lowest of his household, knowing them to be more easy to control
and capable of a more blind devotion. Reared in the school of Charles
VII, he resembled him very much, in spite of the aversion he had shown
toward him. He continued his reign and his policy. He employed the same
means to maintain, or to extend the results already attained. If he had
any advantage over him, it was the knowledge, which he had acquired by
personal experience, of the opposition he would be obliged to combat.
At the same time, to these hereditary traits he joined others. He was
distinguished by a feverish activity, a perpetual restlessness, an
irresistible taste for intriguing. He would complicate affairs on all
sides, then meet the difficulties and make light of them. Chastelain[b]
describes him as “scheming new thoughts day and night.” His government
was very secret. He sought the shadowy ways, which makes it difficult
for one to follow the thread of his diplomacy, the details of which
necessarily escape us. He was educated, like most of the princes of his
day. He was possessed of great keenness and vivacity--almost too much,
as he very often allowed himself to be carried away by it. He had been
surrounded, at Gennape, by a small court, vivacious and refined. He had a
certain loftiness in his views, notwithstanding all that the historians
have said of his littleness and his superstition. In his relations with
the pope he showed a sense of nobility and justice. But these sentiments
and qualities, which keep him from being regarded altogether as a bad
man, had but little influence on his political conduct. His passion to
rule, and to carry on secret intrigues, was so strong that it destroyed
all scruples, if he had any. He knew no rule save his own will, no goal
but success. He had no respect for established things, but followed the
necessity of the moment. He sought to attach men to himself only by
corruption, believing that the more corrupt they were the more useful
they would prove; he was prodigal with money to gain tools in France and
traitors in the neighbouring states. In fact the celebrated portrait
of _The Prince_, for which he served as one of the models employed by
Macchiavelli,[d] gives a just idea of the personal government, arbitrary
and mysterious, which existed in the sixteenth century and which most
fortunately is no longer possible, at least under the same conditions.
He has received much praise for his ability. He hastened the progress
of the unity, and the ruin of the great feudal houses. The crown
acquired important provinces during his reign and he greatly augmented
the power of France. These results are incontestable, but at the same
time we must remember it was not he alone who brought them about; that
these results had been preparing for a long time; that the twenty years
of Charles VII had done much; that Louis XI had, in the beginning,
compromised by his imprudence the conquests of the preceding reign and
that his principal merit was to profit, in an incontestable manner, by
favourable circumstances. If he has been regarded as a great statesman,
it is because, meeting with reverses in the commencement of his reign,
he in the end triumphed over his enemies who were less calculating and
less prudent than himself. For it is the final success that sways the
judgment of posterity, and even the judgment of contemporaries, as is
shown by Philip de Comines,[c] that observer so profound, that spirit so
penetrating and so cold.[e]
RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCH
After his coronation Louis looked around the land he was now about to
“bring into order,” and was alarmed at the condition of the national
church. A national church it really deserved to be called; for, while
confessing the superiority of Rome in antiquity and rank, it rested
firmly on the decision of the Council of Bâle, and acknowledged a power
superior to the holy see. It defended, also, freedom of election to
vacant benefices, and refused the annates, or first year’s income of
bishoprics and incumbencies, to the exchequer of the pope. Louis saw
that the first advance against the citadel of civil liberty was a return
to the obedience of Rome. He gave up at once all the franchises and
exemptions wrung with such difficulty by the church of France. He placed
it again, bound hand and foot, under the heel of the successors of St.
Peter, and even gave advantages to the ecclesiastical ruler which he had
never held before. In return for this, the faithful son of the church was
sure of the pontiff’s support. Though he oppressed his subjects, deceived
his friends, and murdered his enemies by treachery, he had shown a most
religious regard for the interest of the papacy, and was honoured with
the title, which his successors have retained, of “the most Christian
king.” The least Christian monarch of his time, being elevated by popish
gratitude to this lofty position, it was only left for the adulation of
the courtiers to bestow upon him the title of “majesty,” which great
word had not yet been applied to the person of the sovereigns of Europe;
but Louis XI set the example of claiming the highest sounding and least
deserved epithets, and cheated and grovelled through a long reign of
trickery and meanness as his Majesty the Most Christian King. When the
church was again governed by a foreign master, whom it was easy for the
king to win over to his side, the next important step in the progress of
his design was to render the people powerless. For this purpose he did
away with the free-archers of the previous reign. No village was allowed
its butts and shooting-grounds. The parish was relieved of the expense
of finding an “archer good” for the interior defence of the country, and
the spirit of emulation in warlike sports was discouraged. But the land
was not to be left unprotected. So in addition to his Scottish allies,
he took into his pay large bodies of Swiss mercenaries, whose valour had
struck him with such admiration at the battle of Sankt Jakob near Bâle.
He now more than doubled the taxes; and as, although saving and grasping
from personal disposition, he was liberal and even generous from policy,
he derived great support from the absence of a home-force of his own
subjects, and the devoted adhesion of penniless mountaineers from the
two poorest and most courageous populations in Christendom. We will
only insert a word of surprise here with regard to the Swiss, that a
people who are honoured throughout the world for the defence of their
liberties at home, should be the scorn and shame of all generous minds
by furnishing their strength and valour for the maintenance of the worst
tyrannies abroad.
THE WAR OF THE PUBLIC WEAL
[Sidenote: [1465 A.D.]]
The nobility saw the object of the king, and took arms to prevent the
extinction of their order, and the diminution of their individual power.
A cry is never wanting when people are determined to quarrel, and as the
feudal chiefs could not, with any decency, state openly the reasons of
their opposition, they placed it upon the two grounds of the sacrifice
of French ecclesiastical liberty by the abrogation of the Pragmatic
Sanction, and the intolerable weight of taxation which the new king
had imposed. This, therefore, was called “the war of the public weal.”
Princes and feudatories, and all who had a lingering regard for the grand
old days of license and free quarters, took up the patriotic cause.
Charles of France, the king’s brother, was the nominal chief, but the
real head of this league was Charles the Bold [properly Le Téméraire or
the Rash], at this time called count of Charolais, eldest son of the
good Philip, duke of Burgundy. In the list besides him were read the
names of Saint-Pol, Brittany, Lorraine, Alençon, Bourbon, Armagnac, and
Dunois. In short, the two parties were perfectly aware of each other’s
intentions, and met face to face. If the league succeeded, Louis’ life
would have been short, and a regency was openly promised. If Louis was
successful, farewell to the great nobility, its independent power and
hereditary magnificence; it must sink into an ornament of the court, or
be exterminated altogether. It was the life of one or the other which
lay upon the scales; and though the swords were sharpest, and the cause
apparently the freest on the side of the great vassals, the cunning, the
policy, the perseverance were all on the side of the king. Suddenly the
oppressors of the towns, and the harsh masters of country populations,
affected a deep interest in the common weal. With haughty condescension
they assumed the championship of the overburdened commons, and kept them
at the same time from coming “between the wind and their nobility,” as
if contact with them would have stained their coats of arms. But Louis,
dressed in very undignified apparel, looking like a small shopkeeper,
and affecting no airs of grandeur or superiority, entered into familiar
talk with any well-to-do citizen he encountered, joked with him about
his family, poked him under the ribs to give emphasis to his innuendoes,
and strolled off to have a merry conversation with somebody else. Nobody
could believe that so free-spoken a gentleman cared less for the common
people than the prince of Charolais, who would have put a townsman to
death if he stood in his way; and in a short time the people liked better
to pay their taxes to a man who put them at their ease, than to owe their
deliverance to a set of champions who despised them in their hearts and
insulted them in their manners.
_The Battle of Montlhéry and the Treaty of Conflans_
Louis saw his advantage, and tried to gain his object by a battle
with the confederates at Montlhéry, where neither party was decidedly
victorious.[f]
An account of this battle is given by Monstrelet.[q] His description,
however, is criticised by his continuator,[p] who professes to draw
on other authorities and whose brief account may be quoted. The later
chronicler says: “At this battle which was fought on Tuesday the 6th day
of July, in the year 1465, the king of France, coming with all haste
from beyond Orleans to Paris, halted at early morn at Châtres, under
Montlhéry, and that having taken scarcely any refreshment, and without
waiting for his escort, which was, for its number, the handsomest body
of cavalry ever raised in France, he so valiantly attacked the army of
the count de Charolais and his Burgundians that he put to the rout the
van division. Many of them were slain, and numbers taken prisoners. News
of this was speedily carried to Paris, whence issued forth upward of
thirty thousand persons, part of whom were well mounted. They fell in
with parties of Burgundians who were flying, and made them prisoners;
they defeated also those from the villages of Vanvres, Issi, Sevres, St.
Cloud, Arcueil, Surennes, and others.
“At this recounter, great booty was gained from the Burgundians, so that
their loss was estimated at two hundred thousand crowns of gold. After
the van had been thus thrown into confusion, the king, not satisfied
with this success, but desirous to put an end to the war, without taking
any refreshments or repose, attacked the main body of the enemy with
his guards and about four hundred lances: but the Burgundians had then
rallied, and advanced their artillery, under the command of the count
de Saint-Pol, who did on that day the greatest service to the count de
Charolais. The king was hard pressed in his turn, insomuch that at times
he was in the utmost personal danger, for he had but few with him, was
without artillery, and was always foremost in the heat of the battle; and
considering how few his numbers were, he maintained the fight valiantly
and with great prowess. It was the common report of the time, that if
he had had five hundred more archers on foot, he would have reduced the
Burgundians to such a state, that nothing more would have been heard of
them in war for some time.
“The count de Charolais, on this day, lost his whole guard,--and the king
also lost the greater part of his. The count was twice made prisoner by
the noble Geoffroy de Saint Belin and Gilbert de Grassy, but was rescued
each time. Towards evening the Scots carried off the king, that he might
take some refreshments; for he was tired and exhausted, having fought the
whole of the day without eating or drinking, and led him away quietly and
without noise, to the castle of Montlhéry. Several of the king’s army not
having seen him thus led off the field, and missing him, thought he was
either slain or taken, and took to flight. For this reason, the count du
Maine, the lord admiral De Montaulban, the lord de la Barde, and other
captains, with seven or eight hundred lances, abandoned the king in this
state, and fled, without having struck a blow during the whole of the
day. Hence it is notorious, that if all the royal army who were present
at this battle had behaved as courageously as their king, they would have
gained a lasting victory over the Burgundians; for the greater part of
them were defeated, and put to flight. Many indeed were killed on the
king’s side, as well as on that of the enemy; for after the battle was
ended, there were found dead on the field three thousand six hundred,
whose souls may God receive!
“The king of France came to Paris, the 18th day of July, after the
battle of Montlhéry, and supped that night at the hôtel of his
lieutenant-general, Sir Charles de Melun,--where, according to the
account of Robert Gaguin, a large company of great lords, damsels, and
citizens’ wives supped with him, to whom he related all that had happened
at Montlhéry. During the recital, he made use of such doleful expressions
that the whole company wept and groaned at his melancholy account. He
concluded by saying, that if it pleased God, he would soon return to
attack his enemies, and either die or obtain vengeance on them, in the
preservation of his rights. He, however, acted differently, having been
better advised; but it must be observed, that some of his warriors
behaved in a most cowardly manner,--for had they all fought with as much
courage as the king, he would have gained a complete victory over his
enemies.”[p]
Continuing, the chronicler gives an extended account of the events of the
ensuing months, during which the allies approached Paris and besieged
the city. “The king,” he says, “finding that he had many enemies within
his realm, considered on the means of procuring additional men-at-arms
to those he had,--and it was calculated how many he could raise within
Paris; for this purpose, it was ordered that an enrolment should be made
of all capable of bearing arms, so that every tenth man might be selected
to serve the king. This, however, did not take place,--for such numbers
of men-at-arms now joined the king that there was no need of such a
measure. The king was very much distressed to get money for the pay of
these troops, and great sums were wanted; for those towns which had been
assigned for the payment of a certain number of men-at-arms, being now in
the possession of the rebellious princes, paid no taxes whatever to the
crown, for they would not permit any to be collected in those districts.
“On the 3rd of August, the king, having a singular desire to afford
some comfort to the inhabitants of his good town of Paris, lowered the
duties on all wines sold by retail within that town, from a fourth to
an eighth; and ordained that all privileged persons should fully and
freely exercise their privileges as they had done during the reign of his
late father, the good Charles VII, whose soul may God pardon! He also
ordered that every tax paid in the town, but those on provision, included
in the six-revenue farms, which had been disposed of in the gross,
should be abolished, namely, the duties on wood-yards, on the sales of
cattle, on cloth sold by wholesale, on sea-fish and others; which was
proclaimed that same day they were taken off, by sound of trumpets, in
all the squares of the town, in the presence of Sir Denis Hesselin, the
receiver of the taxes within the said town. On this being made public,
the populace shouted for joy, sang carols in the streets, and at night
made large bonfires.” Such deeds as this illustrate the diplomacy of a
king who, whatever else he may have been, was assuredly a consummate
politician. Meantime, as practical aids to defence, fires were lighted
and a strict watch kept in Paris, and chains were fastened across the
principal streets.
The guard kept about Paris was evidently not very strict, for the
king was able to go and come at will. There were occasional sallies,
but these amounted to nothing more than skirmishes. On the second of
September, after several parleys, commissioners were at length named by
the king and the confederates to settle their differences. There were
numerous meetings which came to no very definite issue, but meantime the
statecraft of the king was preparing the way for the final issues.[a]
[Sidenote: [1465-1467 A.D.]]
A truce was proclaimed in the two camps on October 1st; from that day
until the 30th, when the articles of peace were registered by the
parliament and published, the king continued to show an almost boundless
friendship and confidence in his attitude toward the princes and
especially toward the count of Charolais. He furnished their camp with
supplies, he received their soldiers at Paris, he was present without
guards at their military reviews, abandoning himself to their care;
finally he acceded to their demands, conditions which seemed to make him
wholly dependent upon them.[56] Thirty-six commissioners were appointed
by him to reform all the abuses in the kingdom, of which the princes
had complained; the past was to be forgotten; no one could blame anyone
else for what he had done during the war, and all the confiscations
proclaimed by the tribunals were revoked. In exchange for Berri the king
gave his brother the duchy of Normandy, with the homage of the duchies
of Brittany and Alençon, as a hereditary title in the male line. To the
count of Charolais he restored the cities on the Somme which he had so
recently bought back, reserving for himself only the right to buy them
back again, not from him but from his heirs, for the sum of 200,000
gold crowns. He gave over to him, moreover, as a perpetual possession,
Boulogne, Guines, Roye, Péronne, and Montdidier. To the duke of Calabria,
regent of Lorraine, Mouzon, Ste. Menehould, Neufchâteau, he gave 100,000
crowns in cash and the pay of five hundred lances for a month.
To the duke of Brittany he granted the royal prerogative, which had been
a subject of dispute between them, also a part of the aids; he ceded to
him Étampes and Montfort and gave presents to his mistress, the same
dame de Villequier who had formerly been mistress of Charles VII. To
the duke de Bourbon he gave several seigniories in Auvergne, 100,000
crowns in cash, and the pay of three hundred lances; to the duke de
Nemours, the government of Paris and of the Île-de-France, together with
a pension and the pay of two hundred lances; to the count d’Armagnac,
the castellanies of Rouergue, which he had lost, a pension, and the pay
of a hundred lances; to the count de Dunois, the restitution of his
domain, a pension, and a company of gendarmes; to the sire d’Albret,
various seigniories on his frontier. He gave back to the sire de Lohéac
the office of marshal with two hundred lances; he made Tannegui du Châtel
master of the horse; De Beuil was made admiral; the count of Saint-Pol
constable. Finally he pardoned Antoine de Chabannes, count of Dammartin,
gave back all his estates, and granted him a company of a hundred lances.
Such were the principal clauses of the Treaty of Conflans, which was the
most humiliating that rebel subjects ever extorted from a crown, and also
the most degrading for the character of the allied princes, because they
concluded a war which they had undertaken under the pretext of the public
good, by sharing the spoils of the people as well as those of the king.[g]
POLITICAL INTRIGUES
Louis now commenced one of the games which must have given him as much
enjoyment as if he had been playing a game of chess. How to move a
castle to resist a knight, or a number of pawns to surround a bishop,
how to keep Normandy in order by stirring up the enmity of Brittany,
how to paralyse the motions of the young duke of Burgundy--for in 1467
Charolais succeeded his father[57]--by inciting insurrections among the
men of Liège--these were the problems worked out in the solitude of his
own thoughts; for he boasted that he formed all his plans without the
aid of others. The marshal De Brézé said, accordingly, that the horse
the king rode was a much stronger animal than it looked, for it carried
the whole council on its back. The results of the deliberations of this
unanimous assemblage were soon visible in the vengeance which fell on
the heads of the late confederacy. Charles of France, when all the
others were getting lofty offices and rewards, had been presented with
the dukedom of Normandy. The people of Rouen, who had at first taken
part against the crown, received the first prince of the blood with
acclamations, as a champion of their cause; and the king determined to
show them they had chosen the wrong side. He raised an army, and hurried
down to Caen; bought and bullied the duke of Brittany, whom he found in
that town, out of his friendship with Charles; and then fell upon the
capital of the duchy, as if it had been in open rebellion. His right-hand
man on this, as on similar occasions, was the famous Tristan l’Hermite,
the executioner. Tristan’s hands were soon full, for the king, with a
vigorous impartiality which showed he was not a bigot to either side, cut
off the heads of the aristocracy who had helped the princes, and threw
hundreds of the commonalty, who had grumbled at his taxes, into the Seine.
[Sidenote: [1467-1468 A.D.]]
The church, which he had bought over by the sacrifice of the Pragmatic
Sanction, and still kept in awe by threatening to restore it--as he had
engaged to do by the treaty with the leaguers--was next to be taught
that, however much he prized its friendship as a politician, its loftiest
officers were the mere creatures of his breath. The system he pursued of
excluding the higher orders from civil employments had been introduced
into ecclesiastical affairs. Wherever the sharp eye of Louis detected
a fitting instrument for his purpose in the person of a penniless
adventurer, or townsman of the lowest rank, he was very soon invested
with the necessary authority, and perverted justice in the character of
president of a court, or vilified religion in the office of a bishop.
The son of a small tradesman of the name of La Balue had early shown
such amazing want of principle, combined with quickness of talent and
audacious self-reliance, that he gained the notice of the king, then his
confidence, then his friendship. The pope made great efforts to win over
this ornament of the faith, who was now bishop of Évreux, and promised
him the cardinal’s hat if he persuaded his master to enregister the
suppression of the Pragmatic Sanction in the rolls of parliament; and in
foolish reliance on the promises of La Balue, sent him the blushing sign
of his dignity before the service was performed. La Balue relaxed in his
endeavours, as his wages were already received, and gained additional
favour with the king for ceasing to trouble him on the subject. The
favour continued for a long time, but at last, when Louis, in reliance
on his powers of persuasion, and the counsels of his friends, trusted
himself again within the power of Charles of Burgundy, and hoped to win
him over as he had done in the former interview which destroyed the
league of the Public Weal, the advice given by the cardinal was found to
lead to very dangerous results.[f]
THE STRUGGLE WITH CHARLES THE BOLD
This visit of Louis to the redoubtable Charles was one of the most famous
incidents of his reign. Louis went with meagre attendance to Péronne,
and placed himself entirely within the power of Charles. He of course
had a safe conduct, but considering the morals of the time, this by no
means insured him a safe return. His anomalous act has been variously
criticised. On its face it seems foolhardy; yet rightly considered it
speaks for the keen intelligence and practical political sagacity of
the king quite as much as for his personal courage. The truth seems to
be that Louis at this time felt that he could not trust his officers.
Dammartin, his right-hand man, was, as we have seen, a soldier who had
been in the employ of Louis’ father, and therefore at that earlier
period had been in antagonism with Louis himself. His exact attitude of
mind could not be known to the king, and the loyalty of various other
officers was more than questionable. And to win battles loyal soldiers
are absolutely necessary. On the other hand, in the field of diplomacy
the king, acting as his own emissary, could feel sure of his results,
in proportion as he felt confidence in his own powers. And he had every
reason to trust his own sagacity. He knew himself more than a match for
Charles in matters of intrigue, and in thus putting his antagonist upon
his honour, and appearing to trust him, he doubtless felt that he paved
the way most advantageously for his future movements. The visit did not
turn out triumphantly, as we shall see, but its ill success was perhaps
largely due to an incident beyond the king’s control. We may best gain
an idea of the incidents of this famous visit through the narrative of
the celebrated chronicler Comines, who at this time was in the employ of
Burgundy and who afterwards became still more famous as the minister to
Louis himself. Comines,[c] as Sismondi[g] says, considered history as a
lesson in politics, not as a catalogue of events; but here he confines
himself chiefly to the narrative, letting the story point its own
moral.[a]
_Comines describes the Visit to Péronne (1468 A.D.)_
[Sidenote: [1468 A.D.]]
It was agreed [says Comines] that the king should come to Péronne.
Thither he came, without any guard, more than the passport and parole
of the duke of Burgundy; only he desired that the duke’s archers, under
the command of the lord des Quedes (who was then in the duke’s service),
might meet and conduct him; and so it was done, very few of his own train
coming along with him. However, his majesty was attended by several
persons of great quality and distinction, and among the rest by the
duke de Bourbon, the cardinal his brother, and the count of Saint-Pol,
constable of France, who had no hand in this interview, but was highly
displeased at it; for he was now grown haughty, and disdained to pay that
respect to the duke which he had formerly done; for which cause there was
no love between them. Besides these, there came the cardinal Balue, the
governor of Roussillon, and several others. When the king came near, the
duke went out (very well attended) to meet him, conducted him into the
town, and lodged him at the receiver’s, who had a fine house not far from
the castle; for the lodgings in the castle were but small, and no way
convenient.
War between two great princes is easily begun, but very hard to be
composed, by reason of the accidents and consequences which often follow;
for many secret practices are used, and orders given out on both sides
to make the greatest efforts possible against the enemy, which cannot
be easily countermanded as evidently appears by these two princes,
whose interview was so suddenly determined that, neither having time to
notify it to their ministers in remote parts, they went on performing
the commands which their respective masters had given them before. The
duke of Burgundy had sent for his army out of Burgundy, in which at that
time there was abundance of the nobility; and among the rest the count of
Bresse, the bishop of Geneva, and the count of Romont, all three brothers
of the house of Savoy (for between the Savoyards and Burgundians there
was always a firm amity), and some Germans, who were borderers upon
both their territories. And you must know that the king had formerly
imprisoned the count of Bresse, upon the account of two gentlemen whom
he had put to death in Savoy, so that there was no right understanding
between him and the king.
In this army there were likewise one Monsieur du Lau (who had been a
favourite of the king’s, but upon some disgust had been kept afterwards a
prisoner by him a long time, till at length he made his escape and fled
into Burgundy), the lord d’Urfé, since master of the horse to the king
of France, and the lord Poncet de Rivière; all which company arrived
before Péronne as the king came into the town. Bresse and the last three
entered the town with St. Andrew’s cross upon their clothes (supposing
they should have been in time enough to have paid their respects to the
duke of Burgundy, and to have attended him when he went out to receive
the king), but they came a little too late; however, they went directly
to the duke’s chamber to pay their duty, and in the name of the rest, the
count of Bresse humbly besought his highness that himself and his three
companies might have his protection (notwithstanding the king was in the
town), according to the promise he was pleased to make them in Burgundy;
and at the same time assured him they were at his service, when and
against whomsoever he might command them. The duke returned them thanks,
and promised them protection. The rest of this army, under the command
of the marshal of Burgundy, encamped by the duke’s orders in the fields.
The marshal had no more affection for the king than the above-mentioned
gentlemen had; for the king had given him the government of Épinal in
Lorraine, and taken it from him afterwards to give it to John, duke of
Calabria. The king had notice presently of all these persons being in the
town, and of the habits in which they arrived, which put him into a great
consternation; so that he sent to the duke of Burgundy to desire he might
be lodged in the castle, for he knew those gentlemen were his mortal
enemies; the duke was extremely glad to hear it, appointed him his own
lodgings, and sent to him to bid him fear nothing.
But the king at his coming to Péronne had quite forgot his sending of
two ambassadors to Liège to stir them up to a rebellion against the
duke,[58] and they had managed the affair with such diligence that
they had got together such a considerable number, that the Liègeois
went privately to Tongres (where the bishop of Liège and the lord of
Humbercourt were quartered with more than two thousand men) with a design
to surprise them. The bishop, the lord of Humbercourt, and some of the
bishop’s servants were taken, but the rest fled and left whatever they
had behind them, as despairing to defend themselves. After which action
the Liègeois marched back again to Liège, which is not far from Tongres;
and the lord of Humbercourt made an agreement for his ransom with one
Monsieur William de Ville, called by the French Le Sauvage, a knight,
who, suspecting the Liègeois would kill him in their fury, suffered the
lord of Humbercourt to escape, but was slain himself not long after. The
people were exceedingly overjoyed at the taking of their bishop. There
were also taken with him that day several canons of the church, whom the
people equally hated, and killed five or six of them for their first
repast; among the rest there was one Monsieur Robert, an intimate friend
of the bishop’s, and a person I have often seen attending him armed at
all points, for in Germany this is the custom of the prelates. They slew
this Robert in the bishop’s presence, cut him into small pieces, and
in sport threw them at one another’s heads. Before they had marched
seven or eight leagues, which was their full journey, they killed about
sixteen canons and other persons, the majority of whom were the bishop’s
servants; but they released some of the Burgundians, for they had been
privately informed that some overtures of peace had already been made,
and they were forced to pretend that what they had done was only against
their bishop, whom they brought prisoner along with them into their city.
Those who fled (as I said before) gave the alarm to the whole country,
and it was not long before the duke had the news of it.
It was said by some that all of them were put to the sword; others
affirmed the contrary (for in things of that nature, one messenger seldom
comes alone); but there were some who had seen the habits of the canons
who were slain, and supposing the bishop and the lord of Humbercourt had
been of the number, they positively averred that all that had not escaped
were killed, and that they had seen the king’s ambassadors among the
Liègeois, and they mentioned their very names. All this being related to
the duke, he gave credit to it immediately; and falling into a violent
passion against the king, he charged him with a design of deluding him
by coming thither; ordered the gates both of the town and castle to be
suddenly shut up, and gave out, by way of pretence, that it was done for
the discovery of a certain casket which was lost, and in which there were
money and jewels to a very considerable value. When the king saw himself
shut up in the castle, and guards posted at the gates, and especially
when he found himself lodged near a certain tower, in which a count of
Vermandois had caused his predecessor, one of the kings of France, to
be put to death,[59] he was in great apprehension. I was at that time
waiting upon the duke of Burgundy in the quality of chamberlain, and
(when I pleased) I lay in his chamber, as was the custom of that family.
When he saw the gates were shut, he ordered the room to be cleared, and
told us who remained that the king was come thither to circumvent him;
that he himself had never approved of the interview, but had complied
purely to gratify the king; then he gave us a relation of the passages
at Liège, how the king had behaved himself by his ambassadors, and that
all his forces were killed. He was much incensed, and threatened his
majesty exceedingly; and I am of opinion that if he had then had such
persons about him as would have fomented his passion, and encouraged him
to any violence upon the king’s person, he would certainly have done it,
or at least committed him to the tower. None was present at the speaking
of these words but myself and two grooms of his chamber, one of whom
was called Charles de Visen, born at Dijon, a man of honour, and highly
esteemed by his master. We did not exasperate, but soothed his temper as
much as possibly we could. Some time after he used the same expressions
to other people; and the news being carried about the town, it came at
last to the king’s ear, who was in great consternation; and indeed so
was everybody else, foreseeing a great deal of mischief, and reflecting
on the variety of things which were to be managed for the reconciling of
a difference between two such puissant princes, and the errors of which
both of them were guilty in not giving timely notice to their ministers
employed in their remote affairs, which must of necessity produce some
extraordinary and surprising result.
The king thought himself (as I said before) a prisoner in the castle of
Péronne, as he had good reason to do; for all the gates were shut and
guarded by such as were deputed to that office, and continued so for two
or three days; during which time the duke of Burgundy saw not the king,
neither would he suffer but very few of his majesty’s servants to be
admitted into the castle, and those only by the wicket; yet none of them
was forbidden, but of the duke’s none was permitted to speak with the
king, or come into his chamber, at least such as had any authority with
their master. The first day there was great murmuring and consternation
all over the town. The second, the duke’s passion began to cool a little,
and a council was called, which sate the greater part of that day and
night too. The king made private applications to all such as he thought
qualified to relieve him, making them large promises, and ordering 15,000
crowns to be distributed among them; but the agent who was employed in
this affair acquitted himself very ill, and kept a good part of the money
for his own use, as the king was informed afterwards. The king was very
fearful of those who had been formerly in his service, who, as I said
before, were in the Burgundian army, and had openly declared themselves
for his brother, the duke of Normandy.
The duke of Burgundy’s council were strangely divided in their opinions;
the greatest part advised that the passport which the duke had given the
king should be kept, provided his majesty consented to sign the peace
as it was drawn up in writing. Some would have him prisoner as he was,
without further ceremony. Others were for sending with all speed to the
duke of Normandy, and forcing the king to make such a peace as should
be for the advantage of all the princes of France. Those who proposed
this advised that the king should be restrained, and a strong guard set
upon him, because a great prince is never, without great caution, to
be set at liberty after so notorious an affront. This opinion was so
near prevailing, that I saw a person booted and ready to depart, having
already several packets directed to the duke of Normandy in Brittany,
and he waited only for the duke’s letters; and yet this advice was not
followed. At last the king caused overtures to be made, and offered the
duke de Bourbon, the cardinal his brother, the constable of France, and
several others, as hostages, upon condition that, after the peace was
concluded, he might return to Compiègne, and that then he would either
cause the Liègeois to make sufficient reparation for the injury they had
done, or declare war against them. Those whom the king had proposed for
his hostages proffered themselves very earnestly, at least in public; I
know not whether they said as much in private; I expect they did not:
and, if I may speak my thoughts, I believe that the king would have left
them there, and that he would never have returned.
The third night after this had happened, the duke of Burgundy did not
pull off his clothes, but only threw himself twice or thrice upon the
bed, and then got up again and walked about, as his custom was when
anything vexed him. I lay that night in his chamber, and walked several
turns with him. The next morning he was in a greater passion than ever,
threatening exceedingly, and ready to put some great thing in execution;
but, at last, he recollected himself, and it came to this result: that
if the king would swear to the peace, and accompany him to Liège, and
assist him to revenge the injuries which they had done him and the bishop
of Liège, his kinsman, he would be contented. Having resolved on this,
he went immediately to the king’s chamber, to acquaint him with his
resolutions himself. The king had some friend or other who had given him
notice of it before, and who had assured him that his person would be in
no manner of danger, provided he would consent to those points; but that,
if he refused, he would run himself into so great danger that nothing in
the world could be greater.
When the duke came into his presence, his voice trembled by the violence
of his passion, so inclinable was he to be angry again.[60] However, he
made a low reverence with his body, but his gesture and words were sharp,
demanding of the king if he would sign the peace as it was agreed and
written, and swear to it when he had done. The king replied he would;
and, indeed, there was nothing added to what had been granted in the
treaty at Paris, which was to the advantage of the dukes of Burgundy
or Normandy, but very much to his own; for it was agreed that the lord
Charles of France should renounce the duchy of Normandy, and have
Champagne and Brie, and some other places adjacent, as an equivalent.
Then the duke asked him if he would go along with him to Liège, to
revenge the treachery they had practised by his instigation, and by
means of that interview. Then he put him in mind of the nearness of
blood between the king and the bishop of Liège, who was of the house
of Bourbon. The king answered that, when the peace was sworn, which he
desired exceedingly, he would go with him to Liège, and carry with him
as many or as few forces as he pleased. The duke was extremely pleased
at his answer, and the articles being immediately produced and read, and
the true cross which St. Charlemagne was wont to use, called “the cross
of victory,” taken out of the king’s casket, the peace was sworn, to the
great joy and satisfaction of all people; and all the bells in the town
were rung. The duke of Burgundy immediately despatched a courier with the
news of this conclusion of peace into Brittany, and with it he sent a
duplicate of the articles, that they might see he had not deserted them,
nor disengaged himself from their alliance; and, indeed, Duke Charles,
the king’s brother, had a good bargain, in respect of what he had made
for himself in the late treaty in Brittany, by which there was nothing
left him but a bare pension, as you have heard before. Afterwards the
king did me the honour to tell me that I had done him some service in
that pacification.[c]
_The Storming of Liège_
The next day the two princes left together, Charles with his army, Louis
with his modest following, increased by three hundred soldiers whom he
had sent for from France. They arrived before Liège the 27th of October.
Since Duke Charles’ last victories the city had neither ramparts nor
moats; nothing seemed easier than to enter; but the besieged could not
believe that King Louis was a sincere ally of the duke of Burgundy. They
made a sortie, crying: “Long live the king! Long live France!” Their
surprise was great when they saw Louis advance in person, the cross of
St. André of Burgundy on his hat, and heard him exclaim: “Long live
Burgundy!” Among the French themselves who were about the king, some were
shocked; they could not be resigned to so little pride and to so much
effrontery in the deceit. Louis himself paid no attention to their humour
and kept repeating: “When pride prances in front, shame and disaster
follow close at hand.”
The surprise of the people of Liège was turned into indignation. They
resisted more energetically and for a longer time than had been expected;
confident of their strength, the besiegers guarded themselves badly; the
besieged increased the number of their sorties. One night Charles was
informed that his people had just been attacked in a suburb they occupied
and were fleeing. He mounted his horse, gave orders not to awaken the
king, betook himself alone to the scene of combat, re-established order,
and returned to tell Louis what had happened, the latter appearing very
much pleased over the affair. At another time the night was dark and
rainy: towards midnight a general attack awakened the whole Burgundian
camp; the duke was soon afoot; an instant later the king arrived; the
disorder was great. “The people of Liège came out on that side,” said
some. “No, it was by this gate,” said others; nothing was certain, no
order was given. Charles was impetuous and brave, but became easily
alarmed. His followers were not a little worried not to see him put on a
more cheerful countenance before the king. Louis on the other hand was
cool and calm, firm in giving his orders, and prompt to take authority
wherever he might be. “Take what people you have,” he said to the
constable Saint-Pol who accompanied him, “and go in this direction; if
they are to come upon us, they will pass on that side.” It was discovered
afterwards that it had been a false alarm.
[Illustration: A FRENCH CANNON, MIDDLE OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
Two days later the situation was more serious; the inhabitants of a
canton bordering the city, and called Franchemont, decided to make a
desperate attempt and to fall unexpectedly upon the very quarter in which
the two princes were lodged. One evening, at ten o’clock, six hundred
men went out through one of the breaches in the wall, all of them men
of stout heart and well armed. The duke’s house was the first to be
attacked; twelve archers alone kept watch below and were playing at dice.
Charles was in bed; Comines quickly helped him on with his helmet and
cuirass; they went down the stairs; the archers were with difficulty
preventing an entrance through the door; reinforcements arrived; the
danger disappeared. The lodging of King Louis had also been attacked;
but at the first sound the Scotch archers had hastened to the scene,
had surrounded their master, and repulsed the attack, without troubling
themselves to see whether their arrows killed the people of Liège or the
Burgundians who had come to help. Almost all the braves of Franchemont
perished in the enterprise they had undertaken. The duke and his chief
leaders held a council the next day; the duke wanted to make an attack.
The king was not present at this council; when informed as to what had
been decided upon in it, he was not in favour of an assault. “You see,”
he said, “the courage of this people; you know how much slaughter and
uncertainty there is in a fight among the streets of a city; you will
lose in it many useful men. Wait two or three days; the people of Liège
will without doubt come to terms.” Almost all the Burgundian chiefs
shared the king’s opinion. The duke became angry. “He wants to save the
people of Liège,” he said; “what peril is there in an assault? There
is no wall; they cannot put one single piece of artillery into action;
I shall certainly not give up making an attack. If the king is afraid,
let him go to Namur.” The insult shocked even the Burgundians. Louis was
informed of it and said nothing. The next day, October 30th, 1468, the
order for the assault was given; the duke marched at the head of his
troops; the king came up. “Stay behind,” said Charles to him, “do not
needlessly expose yourself to peril; I will have you informed when it is
time.” “My brother,” returned Louis, “do you march in advance; you are
the most fortunate prince alive; I follow you,” and he continued to march
with him.
The assault was useless; discouragement had taken hold of the people of
Liège; the bravest of them had perished. It was a Sunday; the people
who were left were not expecting an attack. “The cloth was laid in
every house; all were preparing to sit down to dinner.” The Burgundians
advanced through deserted streets; Louis marched quietly, surrounded by
his men and crying, “Long live Burgundy!” The duke came back to join him
and together they went to thank God in the cathedral of St. Lambert.
It was the only church preserved from the fury and pillaging of the
Burgundians; at noon there was nothing more left to take, either in
the houses or churches. Louis heaped Charles with congratulations and
compliments. The duke was charmed and mollified. The next day as they
were conversing together: “My brother,” said the king to the duke, “if
you have any further need of my assistance, do not spare me; but if you
have nothing further for me to do, it is fitting that I return to Paris
in order to proclaim in my court of parliament the arrangement we have
agreed upon; otherwise it runs the risk of becoming invalid; you know
that that is the custom of France. Next summer we must meet again: you
will come to your duchy of Burgundy; I shall go to visit you, and we will
pass a month together joyously in making good cheer.” Charles answered
nothing, sent for the treaty which they had concluded shortly before at
Péronne, and gave the king his choice of confirming or abandoning it,
excusing himself in veiled terms for having thus forced him and led him
about. The king appeared to be satisfied with the treaty, and the 2nd of
November, 1468, the second day after the capture of Liège, he left for
France. The duke accompanied him half a league out from the city. As they
were on the point of taking leave of each other, the king said to him:
“If perchance my brother Charles, who is in Brittany, is not pleased with
the partition I have made him, out of love for you, what do you want me
to do?” “If he does not want to take it,” answered the duke, “do you take
measures to satisfy him; I will leave the matter to you two.” Louis asked
for nothing more; he returned home free and confident in his own powers,
“after having passed the three hardest weeks of his life.”[i]
_The Return of Louis to France_
To appreciate the import of the promises which Charles had exacted from
the king, it must be recalled that Champagne and Brie, which Louis
promised to transfer to his brother, were geographically so situated as
to separate--or unite--the duchy of Burgundy and the northern possessions
of Charles the Bold. Hence Charles’ interest in having this territory
controlled by his friend, the king’s brother, rather than by his enemy,
the king. Quite as obviously, Louis’ interests were opposed to such
an arrangement, and of course he had no intention of fulfilling his
agreement. But he wished to avoid fulfilment in the most diplomatic
manner possible. This he accomplished by persuading his weak-minded
brother to take the territory of Guienne instead of that specified in the
compact with Charles. Thus Louis’ brother was separated by all France
from the duke of Burgundy instead of being his nearest neighbour; and
Champagne continued a barrier, not a bridge, between the Burgundian
possessions. So in the end the diplomacy of Louis stood him in good
stead, notwithstanding his momentary discomfiture.[a]
Louis’ bearing was far from proud when he recrossed the frontier. He had
received two great checks from the Burgundian power; in 1465 a check of
power, in 1468 a check of honour. Had it been only a question of honour
Louis might have easily consoled himself; but, aside from honour, his
reputation as an able ruler came into question. It was that which made
him ill from shame. He knew his contemporaries. The treason to and the
sacrifice of Liège troubled him less than his blunder at Péronne. It was
not so much indignation as mockery that he dreaded. Paris received from
him an order to neither speak, write, paint, or sing anything of the
detested name of “Monseigneur de Bourgoyne,” and an order was sent out
that all birds, magpies, crows, starlings, who were making the streets
resound with allusions to the king’s discomfiture at Péronne, should be
delivered to a commissioner of the king.[j] At least so runs the story.
When Louis arrived in Paris strange discoveries awaited him. He
intercepted letters from his favourite the cardinal. He found that his
friend and gossip was the friend and gossip also of the duke of Burgundy,
the adviser of all that had happened at Péronne, especially of his forced
presence at the siege, the degrading clauses of the final treaty, and
the general harshness of his treatment. He found at the same time that
the cardinal was in correspondence with his brother Charles, late leader
of the league, who was still in resistance to his authority; and, in
short, that he was betrayed in every point. The king was offended at the
perjury of his subject, but the man was a thousand times more angry at
the error in his judgment. The son of the tailor, in the red stockings,
had outwitted the son of St. Louis with the crown on his head. La Balue,
though prince of the church and bishop of a diocese, was imprisoned in
an iron cage, about eight feet square, and kept like a wild beast in his
den for eleven years in the castle of Loches. All that can be said in
extenuation of this pitiless proceeding was that the man was the disgrace
of his order and his country, and that the instrument of his torture
(as the natural justice of mankind is so prone to make out in other
instances) was of his own invention.
There were some institutions, as well as individuals, which it was now
Louis’ purpose to get within his power. Edward III of England, reposing
upon the laurels of Crécy, had founded the order of the Garter in 1349.
John of France, in rapid imitation, as we have already seen, founded the
order of the Star. Philip of Burgundy had founded the order of the Golden
Fleece in 1429, and the principles of all these lordly confederations
were derived from the ideas of chivalry which the romances had spread
among the people. They were to be brotherhoods of noble knights, bound
together by the bonds of mutual honour; they were to succour the weak,
bridle the strong, and pay honour, as they fantastically expressed it, by
purity of life and courage of conduct, to God and their ladies. But the
Garter was a foreign badge; the Golden Fleece was a symbol of his subject
and liegeman; the Star had fallen into disrepute from its promiscuous
distribution among the favourites of the crown; and Louis XI determined
on instituting an order of chivalry himself.
It was to be select in its membership, limited in its number, generous
in its professions, and he fondly hoped the Garter and Fleece would soon
sink into insignificance compared to the order of St. Michael. The first
brethren were named from the highest families in France; the remaining
great feudatories, who had preserved some relics of their hereditary
independence, were fixed upon to wear this mark of the suzerain’s
friendship. But when they came to read the oaths of admission, they
found that the order of St. Michael was in reality a bond of stronger
obligation than the feudal laws had ever enjoined. It was a solemn
association for the prevention of disobedience to the sovereign. The
members were to swear submission in all things to the chief of the order;
they were to enter into no agreements with each other, or anyone else,
without the king’s consent; they were to submit to such punishment, in
case of breach of the rules, as the order might appoint; and, in short,
the brotherhood of noble knights sank, in the degrading treatment of its
founder, into a confederation of spies. Armed with this new weapon, the
king tried its effect on the duke of Brittany, who was discontented with
many things that had occurred. If he accepted, he would be bound by the
statutes; if he refused, it would be an insult to the dignity of the
king. The duke temporised, and consulted the duke of Burgundy. The fiery
Charles saw through the design, and swore to defend his neighbour in case
of a quarrel with the crown. Louis, nothing daunted, sent the collar of
the order to Burgundy himself. Burgundy refused it, and Louis’ object was
gained. He discovered who was bold or strong enough to stand out against
him, and the war began. Not openly--it was not yet time to make it a
matter of national honour--but the angry subject and hostile king were
perfectly aware of each other’s designs.
_Edward IV of England aids Charles the Bold_
[Sidenote: [1469-1470 A.D.]]
Their animosity first broke out in the sides they chose in the great
struggle then going on in England, called the Wars of the Roses. Edward
of York, representing the direct line of Edward III, had taken arms
against the feeble and dissolute Henry VI of the Lancastrian house.
Margaret of Anjou had mingled in the fray, and embittered it. We know how
fortune alternately swayed to the red and the white of the emblematic
flowers. Warwick, who is known in English history as the “king-maker,”
had just established Edward IV on the throne, and then failed, when
he had quarrelled with the monarch he had set up, in restoring Henry.
While preparing an expedition for this purpose in France, he had fitted
out privateers, who enriched themselves equally on the English and
Flemish traders, and then found refuge in the French harbours. Charles
of Burgundy complained; Louis retorted with accusations of his having
aided the new king of England in his attacks on the coasts of Normandy,
and of having accepted the English order of the Garter, though he had
refused his own St. Michael. He summoned the vassal to appear before
his parliament in Paris, and the vassal threw the summoners into prison.
Louis saw the game now in his hands. He had put his enemy legally in
the wrong, and, moreover, he had all the counsellors, and favourites,
and warriors, by whom Charles was surrounded, in his pay. We need not,
however, waste much pity on the duke. He was nearly in the same situation
with regard to the courtiers and officers of the king. When the armies
lay face to face, and famine had almost placed the Burgundians in Louis’
hands, Charles sent a flag of truce with a statement and proofs of the
infidelity of half the princes and feudatories who commanded the royal
troops. Charles of France, now duke of Guienne, was at the head of the
deceivers, and was anxious to gain Charles’ good-will, in hopes of
obtaining the hand of his daughter and heiress, Mary of Burgundy. Battle,
with traitors commanding both the armies, would have been madness, and
Louis agreed to a truce. Bitterer thoughts than ever, about the pride
and falsehood of the nobility, rankled in that ignoble heart. Another
incident soon occurred that brought affairs to a crisis. One of his
spies, being in the castle of the count de Foix, saw a mass of torn
papers in a corner of his room, which had previously been occupied by a
messenger of the duke of Burgundy. The man gathered up the fragments,
saw a name or two that excited his attention, pasted them all together,
and was enabled to present to the king a bond of firm alliance, and the
signatures of enemies whom he might well have trembled to see united
against him--Edward of England, triumphant at the battle of Barnet, where
his enemy Warwick was slain, and now firmly established on the English
throne; the duke of Burgundy, Nicholas of Lorraine, the duke of Brittany,
and, above all, Charles of France, duke of Guienne. These were all to
be on him at once, and, as one of the papers said, were to set so many
greyhounds at his heels that he could not know where to fly for safety.
[Illustration: FRENCH GUNNER, MIDDLE OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
[Sidenote: [1470-1471 A.D.]]
Louis, however, was more of the fox than the hare. He doubled on his
pursuers, and tempted the duke of Burgundy with the promise of restoring
him some towns on the Somme, and letting him have his full revenge on his
former favourite, the constable Saint-Pol, who had betrayed him to the
king. Charles, on the other hand, was to let Louis do as he chose with
the dukes of Brittany and Guienne.[f] The duke of Guienne, indeed, was
not likely to be an annoyance much longer to his brother the king, for he
was seized of a mortal malady, presumably consumption. He died May 24th,
1472, at Bordeaux. There was a rumour current that he had been poisoned
along with his mistress the lady of Monsoreau, by the abbé of St. Jean
d’Angély, at the instance of Louis himself. The story of a peach, cut
with a poisoned knife and shared by the lovers, became famous. There
were many suspicious circumstances, and very likely the king may have
watched the progress of his brother’s illness “with ill-disguised hope”
as Martin[j] suggests; but the fact that the duke had suspected no one
during his long illness and had named Louis as his executor may perhaps
justify us in giving the king the benefit of the doubt for the nonce.
“Examples of fratricide are all too common in this sinister century,”
says Martin; but he adds, half doubtingly, that “the best justification
of the king appears to lie in the long illness of his brother. A man
poisoned with fruit does not survive eight months.” In any case, the
death of the duke removed one of the most important obstacles to Louis’
plans for the centralisation of power and the ultimate autocracy of the
crown.[a]
[Sidenote: [1471-1474 A.D.]]
Now, then, there was to be war to the knife carried on by the crown
against the nobility. Burgundy was bought off by promises and gifts;
England was soothed by concessions. But within the boundaries of France
itself, no limit was put to the vengeance and cruelty of the king. He
arrested the duke of Alençon in full peace, and immured him in a dungeon
in Paris. He sent an army into the territories of the count d’Armagnac,
and a detachment of it burst into his house, and murdered him in his bed.
They also forced his wife, who was pregnant, to drink a mixture which
produced immediate death. His brother was thrown into the Bastille, and
kept in a cave below the level of the Seine, so that the water penetrated
the floor. The wretched prisoner lived for eleven years in this manner,
without shoes or proper clothing; and when released at the end of that
time, on the accession of Charles VIII, was found to have fallen into a
state of fatuity. A short cessation in this career of murder and revenge
was produced by a new combination against Louis’ life and crown. French
honour and patriotism had now fallen so low that the princes and great
vassals, in order to get revenge upon their oppressor, agreed to assign
the crown of France to Edward IV of England. He was to be crowned at
Rheims, and already he bestowed rewards upon his adherents as if he were
in possession of the kingdom. The treaty united many contending factions,
with but one object in common--the destruction of him whom all now knew
to be their destroyer.
_Gold and Diplomacy make Louis the Victor_
Burgundy and Brittany and Saint-Pol forgot their animosities, and
signed the bond. But Louis detected the plot. The old plans were tried,
and succeeded. Promises scattered the confederates, and they became
distrustful of each other. Edward had disembarked in France at the head
of an English army. Louis sent for great bags of coined money from Paris,
and signed several papers, with the names in blank, bestowing salaries
and pensions for distribution among the English council. He disguised a
common lackey as a herald, and sent him to an interview with the invader.
The lackey was as clever and subservient as if he had been bred an
ambassador, and won over the luxurious king. Louis flattered his ambition
and bribed his avarice. He called him “king of England and France, and
lord of Ireland,” contenting himself with the title of “king of the
French.” He gave him 60,000 crowns on condition of withdrawing his forces
at once, and promised him 50,000 crowns a year so long as they both
lived. Edward was so captivated by the arts and liberality of Louis that
he agreed to visit him at Paris. But Louis repented of the invitation
he had given, and put him off, for fear he should grow too fond of that
most fascinating of towns. “It is better,” he said, “the sea should be
between us”; and to attain this object no expense was spared. Gifts were
heaped upon the officers, and all the public-houses were made free to the
retiring army. The English pocketed the money, and marched from pothouse
to pothouse with the greatest satisfaction.
[Sidenote: [1474-1476 A.D.]]
At last it was reported to Louis that his invaders were safe home, and he
resolved to make use of his victory. The fate of the constable Saint-Pol
was sealed. Conscious of his approaching doom, he threw himself on the
protection of his former friend, the duke of Burgundy. Charles hated
him for his falsehood, but could not reject a suppliant. He told him
to take shelter in St. Quentin. Louis, however, was at his heels with
twenty thousand men. He fled, and Charles, rash in promise but infirm
of purpose, forgot his chivalry, and surrendered him on the threat of
hostilities against himself. He was tried for treason at Paris, and
condemned to lose his head on the place de Grève. Thousands of the brave
and noble have spilt their blood since that time in the great square
which faces the Hôtel-de-Ville, and allows a last view of the towers of
Notre Dame; but this is the first occasion in which a prince, a near ally
of the throne,--for he had married a sister of the queen,--was exposed to
the sword of the headsman for a crime against the crown. The supremacy
of the king’s will was now so well established that there was no further
use for secret assassination. A public execution struck more awe into the
populace, and kept the nobility in more subjection, than a stab in the
dark or a poisoned peach. Tristan l’Hermite, almost equally with Louis,
was from henceforward the acknowledged governor of France. But as long
as Charles the Bold preserved his independent attitude in Burgundy, the
discontented had always a refuge from the justice of the king.
_Last Deeds of Charles the Bold_
Fortunately at this time the overweening Burgundian became engaged in
controversy with the strong-armed highlanders of Switzerland. They had
offended him, by refusing compensation for some injury they had done to
one of his adherents. To be resisted by a set of republican shepherds was
too much for the knightly pride of the most touchy prince in Christendom.
A great army was raised, and poured down upon the town of Granson. The
inhabitants were put to the sword or drowned in the Lake of Neuchâtel.
All the cantons were irritated at the shameless deed, and rushed to
rescue or revenge. Charles met them in a narrow defile at the head of
his horsemen, who could not act on such unequal ground. The first rank
fell back upon the second, the second carried confusion into the rear.
The quick-footed Swiss still pressed on, and at last a complete panic
seized the Burgundian host. Charles himself spurred out of the confusion,
and galloped as far as his horse could go. Never had the eyes of the
mountaineers rested on such wealth and splendour as met them in the tents
of the discomfited army--silken curtains, golden vessels, barrels of
money, and armour of the finest polish. A jewel was taken by a soldier
from the private chest of the duke, sold to a priest for a florin, sold
by him for five shillings, and is now considered the greatest ornament of
the French crown, and one of the richest stones in Europe. Louis did not
know how to proceed in these astonishing circumstances. He had signed a
treaty to maintain the peace towards the duke, and yet could not resist
showing his approbation of the Swiss. With the Swiss also he had signed a
treaty, by which he was bound to give them aid in men and money whenever
they were attacked. He compromised the two obligations by abstaining from
assaulting the Burgundian, and from sending assistance to the Swiss. He
could not fulfil both stipulations, and it was more economical to execute
neither. He gave the mountaineers, however, unmistakable evidence of his
sympathy in their cause; and when Charles, in the same year, came forth
at the head of another powerful army, Louis encouraged the cantons to
resist. The same thing as before occurred, with only the variation of
place. Morat was a repetition of Granson. The slaughter of the defeated
Burgundians was so great that, till the latter end of the eighteenth
century, a vast monument was still to be seen upon the field of battle,
built up of the bones of the slain, and called the Bone-Hill of Morat.
[Sidenote: [1476-1477 A.D.]]
The battle of Nancy followed in 1477, and raised the Swiss to the summit
of military fame, besides weakening Burgundy so as to render it forever
powerless against France. In the midst of winter, ill-provided, and
doubtful of the issue themselves, the hosts of Burgundy moved on, and
laid siege to the town of Nancy. Charles was no longer the impetuous
warrior he had been. He was broken in spirit, and at times almost mad
with disappointment and chagrin. He had even summoned to command his army
an adventurer from Italy, of the name of Campobasso. Campobasso was, as
might be expected, a correspondent of Louis, and had offered to place
Charles in his hands.
But Louis played, of course, a double game with the deceiver and his
dupe. To show how generous he was, he warned the duke of the insincerity
of his general, feeling well assured that his advice would be attributed
to dishonourable motives; and accordingly it was thought a weak invention
of the enemy, and Campobasso was more trusted than before. Again the
Swiss battalions, aided by the forces of René of Lorraine, began to
appear. In the midst of a great storm, and in a hard frost, Charles
resolved to attack them. Campobasso sent over an offer of his treachery
to the gallant mountaineers; but they despised a traitor, and scorned the
disgrace of having such an auxiliary. He therefore retired to the rear
of the Burgundian line, to intercept the fugitives, and enrich himself
with their ransom. There were few fugitives, however, to ransom; for, as
the horses slipped upon the icy plain, the victory was easier than at
either Granson or Morat. The earth was heaped with corpses, and among
them, after a long search, was found the body of the fiery duke, fixed in
the snow, and so disfigured that he was only recognised by a scar on his
face and the length of his nails, which he had allowed to grow, as a sign
of mourning, ever since his calamities began. Not deserving of a very
favourable epithet, this harsh and arrogant potentate closed a life of
violence with a death of defeat.
But now all men’s eyes were turned with earnest expectation to the first
move in the great drama of intrigue and policy which his demise was
certain to produce. His daughter had been the great card which he had
held in his hands for many years. Lady of Hainault and Flanders, and all
the Low Countries, she was a bait which none of the princes could resist.
MARY OF BURGUNDY
Charles had silenced enemies and gathered friends, by a mere hint of
the bestowal of Mary’s hand. He had played it against the name of king,
and promised it to the son of Frederick the emperor, if that successor
of the Roman cæsars would consent to convert his ducal coronet into a
royal crown. The treaties and arrangements, and all the preparations
for the betrothal and the creation, would be amusing, if they did not
show how low morality and honour had fallen in those days. The emperor
said, “Let the young people marry, and I will name you king.” But the
duke, who gave no credit, said, “Make me king, and I will give your son
my daughter.” Neither would trust the other. The emperor hurried off by
stealth from the place of meeting, when he found the duke had summoned
an increase to his escort; and Charles, vowing vengeance, and fearful of
ridicule, packed up the royal crown he had brought with him beside the
sceptre and mantle, and took his way to his states with no higher rank
than when he came. Other expectations had been equally disappointed, and
now, in the year 1477, Mary was an orphan twenty years of age, handsome
and well-informed, with a portion in her own right which would make any
man she chose a sovereign prince, or double the grandeur of the greatest
potentate. When Louis heard of the father’s death, his first thought
was, of course, to secure the daughter’s succession. He knelt to all his
saints in gratitude for the defeat of his rival, walked on a pilgrimage
of grace to a church in Anjou, and vowed silver banisters to the tomb
of St. Martin of Tours. Having purified his mind by these religious
exercises, he sent a peremptory demand for the restoration of the two
Burgundies to the crown, as they lapsed for want of male heirs.
Of this there could be no doubt with respect to the duchy, which
had been conveyed by John to Philip the Bold; but the county of the
same name was capable of feminine holding, and if Mary had been in a
condition to assert her claims, might have refused obedience to the king.
Mary, however, was lonely in the midst of all that wealth. She had no
disinterested guardian to apply to, and made only a feeble protest when
the parliament of Burgundy, purchased or intimidated, recognised its
feudal obligation, and transferred its allegiance to the French crown.
Holland, however, and Flanders, and Artois, and large territories in
Germany, and the disputed cities on the Somme, belonged to her still. If
she had given her hand to some gallant soldier who would have defended
her states, she might have aroused the chivalrous feelings of all the
gentlemen in Europe on her behalf. But this she did not try, knowing too
well, perhaps, that chivalrous feelings were limited to books of fiction.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE OF LOUIS XI INTO PARIS]
The encumbered heiress wrote in her despair to Louis himself. Louis
was her godfather, and she had no other friend. She sent four trusty
counsellors to lay her case before him. She begged his protection, and
made a confidential request that he would conduct all his correspondence
with her through no one but these trusted friends. “You want, of course,
to know what I intend to do,” said Louis, when he had read the letter
on the day of audience; and the four envoys bowed. “I will marry my
godchild Mary to my son, the dauphin. I will rule her states in their
joint names, till she is old enough to do homage. I will take possession
of the male fief at once, and if anyone opposes my decisions, I have
forces enough to make my will obeyed.” There was no circumlocution
here, and the ambassadors were silent with surprise. The dauphin was
a sickly boy of eight years old, and their young mistress, as we have
seen, was in the flower of her age. The king, in return for the visit
of the Burgundian envoys, sent an envoy of his own. His barber was a
quick-witted, unprincipled adventurer, of the name of Oliver le Daim.
He had come originally from Ghent, and was, of course, master of the
Flemish tongue. This was the dignified emissary whom France despatched
to the highest princess in Europe. He covered his original baseness with
a pinchbeck title, and the barber took his northward way under the name
of the count of Meulan. But the count of Meulan smelt dreadfully of the
shop. He never could get the shaving-basin out of his countrymen’s sight;
and at his first reception he behaved so unlike a royal ambassador that
he was hissed by the audience, not without allusions to the propriety
of throwing him out of the window. He was hustled downstairs, and was
glad to slip out of his house and out of the town in the darkness of the
night, and make his way back to his employer without having presented his
letters of recall.
[Sidenote: [1477-1478 A.D.]]
Louis was delighted, for, while these things were going on at Ghent, he
had succeeded with the messengers of poor Mary, and did not care if they
had hanged the barber-ambassador on a lamp-post in the street. The trusty
counsellors, won over by his address and protestations, surrendered
Artois to his honourable keeping; and on their return were executed by
the states of Flanders, in spite of the prayers and intercession of the
princess. The accusation was not for having betrayed their mistress,
but for having constituted themselves members of the council of Four,
in whom Mary had told Louis she put all her confidence. She had told
nobody else, and declared the innocence of her hapless friends. But
Louis, with his usual generosity, had forwarded the letter in which his
goddaughter made the fatal avowal, and the discovery was almost fatal to
herself. The states were republican in tendency, and resolved to submit
as little as possible to the governance of a woman. They tormented her
with their advice and wearied her with their reclamations, till she
fortunately escaped their further importunities by persuading them to
consent to her marriage with Maximilian, the son of the emperor, the man
to whom her father had resolved to give her in return for the title of
king. Louis was quieted for a time by the fear of offending the emperor,
but carried on more fiercely than ever his war against feudalism, as
represented by the great nobility at home. Burgundy was gone--Artois was
his own--Normandy had long been attached to the crown.
The duke of Brittany, uneasy at the rapid extirpation of his brethren,
intrigued with England; but Louis intercepted the letters, convicted him
by his own handwriting, and forced him to a treaty which rendered him
utterly dependent. The duke had seen that a cloud was gathering from
the increased religious fervour visible in the king. When a murder or
a treachery was on hand, his activity in visiting shrines and vowing
church ornaments became remarkable. People trembled when they saw the
meanly dressed, slouch-gaited, sallow-faced old man travelling from altar
to altar, and sticking his bonnet full of little images of saints, and
pouring out flatteries and adulations to the statues of the Virgin. A
tale of blood was sure to follow; and in 1478 the wildest expectations of
Paris were surpassed by the horror of one of his executions. There had
been no such cold-blooded monster since the days of Tiberius. The duke
de Nemours was representative of the great house of Armagnac, and was
married to a princess of Anjou, first cousin of the king. A headstrong,
discontented, and ambitious man, he had joined in the league of the
Public Weal, and in many of the intrigues against the monarch since
that time. Louis had taken no notice till he could secure his revenge.
But two years before this, he had got him in his power, and kept the
unfortunate man in chains. He was now tried for treason and condemned and
executed.[f] In after times it was related that the king had placed the
children of the culprit beneath the scaffold, that a father’s blood might
bathe their innocent heads. But this is only a fable of later invention
that marks the reaction against the memory of Louis XI. “What is more
certain and equally odious, however,” says Michelet,[o] “is that one
of the judges who were to receive the goods of the condemned, feeling
insecure of the heritage unless he had the natural heir in his power,
demanded to be given custody of the eldest son of Nemours. The king
had the barbarity to deliver up the child, who promptly disappeared.”
Moreover, the king suspended from office three counsellors who had not
favoured the death penalty.[j]
WAR WITH MAXIMILIAN
[Sidenote: [1478-1479 A.D.]]
Louis’ pilgrimages and prayers must have increased in frequency shortly
after this, for a tremendous thought had come into his head, and it
would require a vast amount of saintly aid to make it tolerable to his
subjects. This was no less than the trial for felony and treason of the
deceased duke of Burgundy. A court was called, the culprit was summoned,
barristers were appointed to support the accusation; his whole life
was inquired into, his faults pointed out, and malicious antiquarians
ascended to the actions of his ancestors; and the murder of the duke of
Orleans, in the reign of Charles VI, was urged as an aggravation of his
crimes. After so much eloquence and such convincing proofs, the verdict
could not be doubtful. The duke of Burgundy was sure to be found guilty
of the crimes laid to his charge, and his estates forfeited to the
crown. Maximilian, the husband of Mary, took the alarm. He begged his
father the emperor to interfere. He was afraid that action would follow
the judgment, and tried at least to delay the sentence. The diet of the
states of Germany was about to meet, and might take up the cause of their
chiefs. Louis therefore allowed the trial to expire, and had merely the
satisfaction of showing that a grand vassal was not safe from his insults
and vengeance even after death. Yet the daughter and son-in-law of the
insulted potentate could not be expected to remain satisfied under so
insolent a proceeding. Maximilian collected his forces, and declared war
against the king of France.[f]
[Illustration: A FRENCH KNIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
By uniting all his forces, Maximilian had assembled, at St. Omer, an army
of about 27,400. On Sunday, the 25th of July, 1479, he reached Arques,
waiting there three days, and on the Thursday following, the 29th of
July, attacked and invested Thérouanne. The belief in his numerical
superiority, the desire to retrieve his repulses in Burgundy, and
perhaps also the absence of the king, whom he knew to be occupied in
Dijon, decided him to take the initiative. Besides, he could only keep
his army together for a limited period. This was certainly the moment to
try his fortune.
It was really not until Saturday afternoon, the 7th of August, that the
principal action took place. Des Querdes, with six hundred picked men,
tried to surround the Flemish on his right. The Flemish men-at-arms
hastened to defend the spot attacked. Soon the whole of the cavalry was
engaged, and the struggle became serious. But the Flemish, separated from
their infantry, were forced to give in and began to flee towards Aire,
Thérouanne, and St. Omer. The French thought they had won the battle.
Encouraged by this success Des Querdes hotly pursued the fugitives, urged
on by the hope of capturing rich prizes. “Philip de Raverstein,” says the
chronicle, “was wearing a mantle of cloth of gold, so that, mistaking him
for Duke Maximilian himself, they pursued him to the gates of Aire, but
paid dearly for their mistake.”
The battle was far from being over, as Des Querdes imagined. Very few
men-at-arms remained to support the French infantry, and Maximilian’s
hope revived. He redoubled his efforts, aided by the Flemish soldiers and
German crossbows. The French archers, already seeing that all exertions
to break the enemy’s lines were fruitless, began to slacken their efforts
and their discouragement was obvious. Just then, the lord de St. André
arrived with the garrison from Thérouanne. He could still, in this
critical moment, hope for victory. But instead of making for the thick
of the combat the new arrivals threw themselves upon the enemy’s baggage
and provisions, counting upon a rich spoil. The lords of Romont and
Nassau, seeing the archers busy pillaging, fell upon them. In this tumult
they threw them into disorder. Then Maximilian, whilst his cavalry was
escaping, himself caused confusion in the ranks of the French by pursuing
them with the small number of knights which he could still command, and
remained master of the battle-field. But he was thus obliged to raise
the siege of Thérouanne, and could only continue the campaign two months
later.
Louis XI was much upset when he heard of this defeat. Perhaps he
regretted the absence of his experienced and proven chief, who had
defended his frontier so well. Comines,[c] who was then returning from
his mission in Italy, has preserved for us the portrait of the king:
“I thought the king our master grown older and beginning to break up.
However, he conducts his affairs with great common sense. I was with
him when he received the news of the battle. He was very downcast, for
he is not accustomed to defeat; it even seemed as if everything always
happened to suit his pleasure. His common sense helped him in this hour
of trouble. At first, he feared that his advantages had been lost; but
when he knew the truth, he was patient and decided to act so that such
things should not be undertaken without his knowledge again.”
As soon as Louis XI was aware of how the men-at-arms, thinking only of
making many prisoners, had lost a battle all but won, he ordered that all
the prisoners and spoil should be collected, sold at auction, and the
money equally divided amongst them all. This was returning to the times
of Achilles, to the natural equality of the Homeric ages--an equality
too often forgotten in barbarous centuries. Forbidding prisoners to be
ransomed on the battle-field was already a great step gained; but again,
the chiefs, sure under this system of having prisoners at a cheap rate
after the battle, thought less of making any during the combat.
[Sidenote: [1479-1483 A.D.]]
But the archduke, in his turn, had to endure some annoyances. The naval
campaign had been disastrous for him. Through the care and perseverance
of William de Casenove, known as the vice-admiral Coulon, France was
in possession of her first real fleet. For several years past, vessels
were being unceasingly constructed, their forms perfected, and their
size and strength increased. From henceforth, great battles could be
waged upon the sea, even against the strongest. Herring fishing had,
for a long time, been one of the principal resources of wealth, and a
precious means of existence to the northern nations. The French admiral,
taking advantage of the fact that the fishermen of Zealand and Holland
were bringing into port the fruit of their labours, went to meet them,
attacked them boldly, and brought nearly their entire fleet into the
Norman ports. In vain did the Dutch equip other vessels to serve as
escorts to the fishing boats. Coulon attacked and dispersed them and
brought back more prisoners. Thus the archduke and his followers were cut
off at one and the same time both from the cereals of Prussia and from
the fish they depended upon.[k]
The defeat of Guinegate humbled the hopes of Louis. The war was no
longer prosecuted with vigour. Even the death of Mary of Burgundy,
which soon after took place, afforded him no opportunity of adding to
his usurpations. A treaty, called the Treaty of Arras, was concluded
between him and Maximilian, in December, 1482. Its stipulations were that
the dauphin Charles should espouse Margaret of Austria, Maximilian’s
daughter; and that France should acquire, as her dowry, the county of
Artois, and that of Burgundy (or Franche-Comté), with other territories;
those possessions reverting to Austria in case no heirs came of the
marriage. Independently of these cessions, Louis acquired the duchy or
province proper of Burgundy, as well as that of Picardy, as his share
of the spoils of Charles the Bold. About the same time, on the death of
the good king René, he inherited Provence and Anjou. René II of Lorraine
made some efforts to establish a claim, but in vain. Good fortune never
crowned political craft more completely than in the instance of Louis
XI. That monarch had now brought all his favourite schemes to their
completion: his nobles were humbled; his great rival was destroyed.[l]
LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF LOUIS
In 1480 Louis XI had a first attack of apoplexy at the château de
Montils-les-Tours, called Le Plessis because it had a fortress with many
enclosures. Other attacks followed this one and warned him that his end
was approaching. He undertook in 1482 the pilgrimage of St. Claude, but
the progress of his malady obliged him to retire to Plessis, which he
never left. Here he lingered for eighteen months, seen by no one, having
in attendance only a small number of officers and servants, and seeking
vainly to quiet by religious devotions his customary restlessness. His
illness, while subduing his physical forces, only served to increase the
activity of his spirit. The more he felt his power waning the more he
wished to make others feel it and he became more tyrannical in proportion
to his weakness.
Meanwhile he lived in this seclusion in perpetual suspicion of
everyone--not only the princes of the family, but even of the most
obscure members of the household, though they had been chosen most
carefully. His castle was a prison, well guarded, where he was bound,
following the expression of Comines, by strange chains and enclosures,
in fear of conspirators. Jealous of his power up to the last hour, “he
had himself arrayed in rich vestments, such as had never been the custom
before.” His isolation was such that he rarely saw even the dauphin, who
was brought up far from him, in the château d’Amboise. Little by little
his state of weakness effaced the king and left only the man. During this
period he returned to himself, and perhaps to new thoughts; for he wished
the relief of his people and a peace of six months at least. This was,
also, the time of his terrors and superstitions, which have been so much
exaggerated, for he retained his clearness of mind and gave proof of it
even in the last days of his life. At times the king awoke in him, and
made those around him feel that he was master; and he was more jealous
than ever of his authority, suffering no one under any circumstances to
question it.
He overwhelmed the church with donations in order to obtain acquittal of
his offences, just as the ancient Merovingian kings thought to expiate
their crimes on their death-beds at a similar price. He surrounded
himself with priests whose prayers he desired; he brought from Calabria
the famous Francis of Paula (Paola), founder of the order of Minims, for
which order he had built a monastery at Plessis. His doctor, Jacques
Cottier, took a scandalous part in these liberal actions. He seemed to
ask of heaven not so much the salvation of the soul as the prolongation
of life. Many hold that this long agony, these physical and moral
sufferings, were an expiation. Comines sees in it “a punishment which God
had sent upon him in this world that he might suffer less in the next,
and that those who succeeded him might have more pity on the people and
punish them less than he had.” He died the 30th of August, 1483, in his
sixty-first year.
The opinions expressed by contemporaries on this king, whose character
was so remarkable and strange, were various, but of uniform severity.
Comines, whose opinion might be subject to question, as he was his
minister, his confidant, and almost his accomplice, has praised but
little his prodigious activity, his genius for intriguing, and his
singular aptitude for the carrying on of dark schemes in all directions.
John de Troyes, although recognising that the power of the country had
been strengthened, the kingdom brought more into unity, and new provinces
acquired, blames most strongly the means employed, the dilapidation of
the finances, the ruin of the people, the excess of arbitrariness, and
the injury to the morals of the public. If public opinion was mute during
this reign, it does not follow that it was favourable to the king. Of
course the evidence that has been preserved is too slight to be able
to make a positive assertion, but the theatre and popular verse of the
period show the fault-finding spirit that existed.
In truth, Louis XI left the kingdom overwhelmed with burdens, the people
unhappy, the prisons full, and discontent everywhere. He is reproached
with always having had a large army and never having carried on a
brilliant war; with not having respected the liberty of the church; with
having ceaselessly violated justice; with having preferably employed
corrupt agents who were justly detested; with having acted without
definite plans; with being humble in misfortune and insolent in success,
commencing enterprises which were never finished. He, however, knew so
well how to be master; to bring the will of others into subjection to
his own; to inspire in the world, and especially in those who approached
him, the sentiments of obedience, fear, and almost admiration for his
political genius; in fact, he had so well filled the position of king and
of prince that, even after his death and when a strong reaction had set
in against his reign, a certain terror continued to be attached to his
name. It would seem that no one dared oppose him; Comines himself, who
has drawn his portrait with such a master hand, has in this respect a
singular discretion.[e]
Guizot, after quoting Comines[c] and Duclos,[m] adds: “I am more exacting
than Comines and Duclos; I cannot consent to apply to Louis XI the
words “liberal,” “virtuous,” “good”; he had neither greatness of soul,
uprightness of character, nor kindness of heart; he was neither a great
king nor a good king; but I hold to the last word of Duclos, ‘He was a
king.’”[i]
“He was a king.” That verdict, at least, no one will dispute; and for a
concluding estimate of the character of his kingship, we perhaps cannot
do better than to quote the judicious words of Martin:
MARTIN’S ESTIMATE OF LOUIS XI
[Sidenote: [1461-1483 A.D.]]
Utility was Louis’ sole rule; he never comprehended what power there
is in justice. In everything he preferred, sometimes to his own
disadvantage, the crooked line to the straight line, stratagem to force,
suavity to courage, although when necessary he had the stubborn courage
of an indomitable will. He was the incarnate reaction against the Middle
Ages, against its morals and its ideality as well as its errors, against
its liberties as well as its anarchy. The very devoutness of Louis,
the only inconsistency in a character which would otherwise have been
incredible, had no more of the grand, austere fanaticism of earlier days;
it was a materialistic fetichism that went back beyond the Middle Ages
to the time when the barbarian kings gave the saints of heaven half the
credit for their enterprises and their aims. Except for this weakness
Louis XI was the most illustrious disciple of that policy of which the
contemporary Italian despots gave the example and the theory of which
Macchiavelli was later to set forth and give his name to. The usurper
of the duchy of Milan, the famous Francesco Sforza, had been Louis XI’s
master and model. Italian education invaded France earlier in politics
than in fine arts.
There was one essential distinction between Louis and his masters. He
was like them in his means, but different in his end. These tyrants on
the other side of the Alps had only a personal, or at best a family end,
while Louis pursued a common end. He was the head of a real political
society, the head of a nation. On this point, and on this alone, he had a
conscience. He had a strong instinct for the future and wished to leave
behind a work that would endure after him. This bad man was not a bad
Frenchman.
His reign, so troublous, so oppressive, so unhappy for the people, had
accomplished wonderful things for the unity of the French nation. It gave
to France, Picardy from the sources of the Oise to Burgundy, Provence,
Anjou, Maine, Barrois, and Roussillon; and at least a provisional title
to Artois and Franche-Comté. It upheld the power of France to the
Pyrenees on the west, to the Jura on the east, and to the maritime Alps,
and it powerfully advanced the important work of establishing natural
frontiers. It had subordinated the power of great and petty lords alike
and had placed under the control of the crown a great military force. It
had favoured the development of the middle classes and of the industrial
and commercial forces of the country. But if the growth of national
power under him was immense, if social progress was in certain respects
incontestable, it is equally certain that despotism made a like progress.
The instruments of autocracy were fortified and perfected by him, and
under him the religion of force and of strategy, “the religion of
success” as Michelet terms it, everywhere dethroned the religion of duty
and of right; nor is it possible to stifle morality everywhere in the
political world without profoundly altering the ethics of private life.
The aurora of a brilliant intellectual dawn was now appearing above the
horizon; active minds turn eagerly towards the new light; but France
was not in a healthy moral condition to receive the new lessons of the
Renaissance.[j]
LOUIS’ INFLUENCE ON CIVILISATION
It must not be overlooked, however, that Louis had a powerful influence
upon his time in other directions than that of mere statecraft. His mind
was ever receptive to any novelty that did not contradict his authority.
He favoured literature and science; in particular the healing art made
progress under the valetudinarian king. In surgery there was at least one
great conquest; the operation of lithotomy was performed for the first
time under the authorisation of the king, upon a condemned criminal,
who recovered and was granted his life. Louis also came to some extent
under the influence of the learned Greeks, who after the overthrow of
Constantinople, in 1453, scattered over western Europe. Several of these
were received at the French court. The king took a certain interest also
in the famous discussion between the nominalists and the realists which
so long distracted the philosophical world. Acting, it is supposed,
under the advice of his confessor, Louis in 1474 took the part of the
nominalists and prohibited the works of Ockam, Buridan, and other
realists; though three years later the prohibition was removed. Louis
showed himself equally receptive in regard to the new art of printing. As
early as 1469 three exponents of the wonderful new method of book-making
appeared in Paris in answer to the summons of William Fichet, rector of
the university, and began their work with the royal sanction. Before the
close of Louis’ reign many books had been printed in Paris as well as
in several of the other large cities of France. The chronicles of St.
Denis were published in 1476, together with numerous other religious and
classical works. A translation of the Bible appeared in 1477. From this
time books multiplied so rapidly that the contemporary poets assure us
with hyperbolic enthusiasm that more books are produced from day to day
than formerly could be written in an entire year.[a][j]
The catholicity of interest which enabled Louis thus in the midst of his
political activities to become to so considerable an extent a patron
of the sciences and arts, furnishes conclusive evidence of the fulness
of his mental equipment. It remains to call attention to an even more
important contribution made by Louis to the amenities of civilisation.
This was in the matter of the establishment of government posts. Here
he was an innovator not merely for France but for the modern world; and
there have been those enthusiasts who would claim for this feat a place
among the three greatest achievements of the fifteenth century--the
other two being the invention of printing and the discovery of America.
Whatever may be thought of this estimate, there is no question that the
creation of the postal service was a most important innovation, and it
seems equally little in question that Louis XI was the innovator.[a][n]
_Establishment of Posts in France_
Certain ancient writers have attributed Louis’ motives in creating the
posts to his paternal solicitude. They say “Louis XI, being anxious about
the illness of the dauphin, from whom he was separated, established
the posts in order to be informed at almost every moment of the hope
or fear which his condition inspired.” This is most improbable, given
Louis XI’s character, but it can readily be admitted that his spirit
of dissimulation might easily have prompted him to invent and circulate
a fable of this kind, in order to distract attention from the end which
he really had in view. His restless life, his disputes with his greater
vassals, particularly with the duke of Burgundy, his continual intrigues
with the principal courts of Europe, at which he had secret agents,
suffice to explain the interest he had in establishing posts, by means
of which he could satisfy at once his suspicious mind and his ambitious
schemes. In character Louis XI’s institution resembles the ancient
posts, especially the Roman (_cursus publicus_). Louis’ only object was
to facilitate the exercise of his royal power and to strengthen his
authority at the time when the league of the Public Weal was about to be
founded with the object of dismembering his kingdom. Therefore it was
greatly to his interest to be rapidly informed of all the unforeseen
events which might arise. Is it necessary to add that it never entered
into the thoughts of Louis XI to institute a public service in his
kingdom by which private individuals might profit in any way?
The exact date when the posts began to be placed along the high-roads
is not known. According to Nicholas de la Mare even the name of the
first postmaster-general is not given; but, says he, as Louis XI’s
intention was to confide this office to a person of credit, intelligent
and capable, it was probably given to the grand equerry of France, whose
functions had much more in common with the new charge; the grand equerry
had, it is true, the king’s messengers already under his orders. The
same author says, in another passage, that the king’s messengers became
so numerous that it was found necessary to create a controller of king’s
messengers (edict of October, 1479). In the absence of proofs to the
contrary, we believe that it was Robert Paon who, in October, 1479,
received the double charge of postmaster-general of foot runners and
of controller of king’s messengers, and was thus invested with supreme
authority over the growing institution.
The runners or king’s messengers were, properly speaking, cabinet
messengers, by which denomination they were afterwards known. They
followed the court and had to be always in readiness to carry the
king’s despatches. They already existed previous to the decree of 1464,
and it is to be supposed that the towns or villages that they passed
on their route were bound to provide them with relays of horses. This
we understand from the statute of St. Louis, of December 13th, 1254,
which we have already quoted, and from a statute of Philip V, surnamed
the Tall, of February 11th, 1318, which gives the royal couriers the
qualification of king’s messengers (_chevaucheurs_). The edict of 1464
officially sanctioned the existence of the couriers or messengers and
made them into a regular and definite body. Their number, fixed at
first at 230, had at the death of Louis XI risen to 234. But it is very
probable that this number comprised the officers who kept horses for
the service of the king, or _maîtres coureurs_, that is to say king’s
messengers who went by the name of _chevaucheurs_.
The _maîtres coureurs_ were established at distances of four leagues
along the high-roads, keeping four or five horses of light build and
suited to go at a gallop; they received, besides their wages, a fee for
each horse which they supplied to people holding a passport from the king
with the seal of the postmaster-general. They were also, as we have said,
qualified as king’s messengers, because they were not only charged with
keeping horses, but also with carrying letters and parcels of the king,
the governors, the lord-lieutenants of the provinces, and other superior
officers. It is not probable, however, that the _maîtres coureurs_
actually carried the king’s despatches from post to post, as it is
certain that the court despatches were conveyed by special messengers or
_coureurs de cabinet_.
Later on the king’s messengers lost the title of _chevaucheurs_, which
placed them in a relatively inferior position to the _coureurs de
cabinet_, but what they lost in dignity they gained in profits. At first
the new institution profited only the king, his commissioners in the
provinces, or personages accredited to foreign courts. Even the terms of
the edict, which defined the attributes of the postmaster-general, have
from the outset given a political character to this high post.
The postal organisation created by Louis XI comprised two distinct postal
systems--a system of relays, embracing the most important towns and
served by the king’s messengers on horseback; a secondary postal system,
branching off at certain points from the former and including secondary
localities. The latter system was covered by messengers “sworn and
received in the court of parliament.”
This organisation is justly considered as having been the starting
point of the modern post, but the state did not as yet look upon itself
as being the servant of the public. Private letters continued to be
transported almost exclusively by university messengers. But these,
even in the time of Louis XI, were in competition with the royal
messengers already in existence at that time, as is testified by the
numerous inquiries and proceedings relating to disputes of this nature
mentioned in the voluminous collection of manuscripts known as the _de
Toisy_, which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale. These disputes were
prolonged in the sequel with a vivacity which increased as the interests
engaged became more considerable by reason of the incessant progress of
circulation and correspondence.[n]
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FOOTNOTES
[56] [In reality, Louis only sanctioned what was already lost. He
acceded to conditions as they were, awaiting his time to overthrow them.
The peace was a part of his political game. Needless to say he had no
scruples as to the carrying out of any terms of the treaty that could
advantageously be avoided.]
[57] [Enguerrand de Monstrelet[q] ends his famous chronicle with an
account of the death of the duke of Burgundy. He says: “On the 12th day
of June, in the year 1467, the noble duke Philip of Burgundy was seized
with a grievous malady, which continued unabated until Monday, the 15th,
when he rendered his soul to God, between nine and ten o’clock at night.
When he perceived, on the preceding day, that he was growing worse, he
sent for his son, the count de Charolais, then at Ghent, who hastened
to him with all speed; and on his arrival, about mid-day of the Monday,
at the duke’s palace in Bruges, he went instantly to the chamber where
the duke lay sick in bed, but found him speechless. He cast himself on
his knees at the bedside, and, with many tears, begged his blessing,
and that, if he had ever done anything to offend him, he would pardon
him. The confessor, who stood at the bedside, admonished the duke, if
he could not speak at least to show some sign of his good will. At this
admonition, the good duke kindly opened his eyes, took his son’s hand,
and squeezed it tenderly, as a sign of his pardon and his blessing. The
count, like an affectionate child, never quitted the duke’s bed until
he had given up the ghost. May God, out of his mercy, receive his soul,
pardon his transgressions, and admit him into Paradise!”]
[58] [Legeay,[k] in his _Histoire de Louis XI, son siècle, ses exploits,
etc._, defends Louis against the charge of having incited the Liègeois to
revolt, in opposition to most of the other French historians.]
[59] [King Charles the Simple. He died in prison at Péronne in 929.]
[60] [“As soon as the king saw the duke enter his chamber, he could not
conceal his fear, and said to the duke, ‘My brother, am I not safe in
your house and in your country?’ And the duke answered, ‘Yes, sire; and
so safe that if I saw an arrow coming towards you, I would put myself in
front to shield you.’ And the king said to him, ‘I thank you for your
good will, and will go whither I have promised you; but I pray you that
peace may be from this time sworn between us.’”--OLIVIER DE LA MARCHE.[h]]
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