Produced by Martin Robb
QUENTIN DURWARD
by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
The scene of this romance is laid in the fifteenth century, when the
feudal system, which had been the sinews and nerves of national defence,
and the spirit of chivalry, by which, as by a vivifying soul, that
system was animated, began to be innovated upon and abandoned by those
grosser characters who centred their sum of happiness in procuring the
personal objects on which they had fixed their own exclusive attachment.
The same egotism had indeed displayed itself even in more primitive
ages; but it was now for the first time openly avowed as a professed
principle of action. The spirit of chivalry had in it this point
of excellence, that, however overstrained and fantastic many of its
doctrines may appear to us, they were all founded on generosity and self
denial, of which, if the earth were deprived, it would be difficult to
conceive the existence of virtue among the human race.
Among those who were the first to ridicule and abandon the self denying
principles in which the young knight was instructed and to which he
was so carefully trained up, Louis XI of France was the chief. That
sovereign was of a character so purely selfish--so guiltless of
entertaining any purpose unconnected with his ambition, covetousness,
and desire of selfish enjoyment--that he almost seems an incarnation of
the devil himself, permitted to do his utmost to corrupt our ideas
of honour in its very source. Nor is it to be forgotten that Louis
possessed to a great extent that caustic wit which can turn into
ridicule all that a man does for any other person's advantage but his
own, and was, therefore, peculiarly qualified to play the part of a cold
hearted and sneering fiend.
The cruelties, the perjuries, the suspicions of this prince, were
rendered more detestable, rather than amended, by the gross and debasing
superstition which he constantly practised. The devotion to the heavenly
saints, of which he made such a parade, was upon the miserable principle
of some petty deputy in office, who endeavours to hide or atone for the
malversations of which he is conscious by liberal gifts to those whose
duty it is to observe his conduct, and endeavours to support a system of
fraud by an attempt to corrupt the incorruptible. In no other light can
we regard his creating the Virgin Mary a countess and colonel of his
guards, or the cunning that admitted to one or two peculiar forms of
oath the force of a binding obligation which he denied to all other,
strictly preserving the secret, which mode of swearing he really
accounted obligatory, as one of the most valuable of state mysteries.
To a total want of scruple, or, it would appear, of any sense whatever
of moral obligation, Louis XI added great natural firmness and sagacity
of character, with a system of policy so highly refined, considering the
times he lived in, that he sometimes overreached himself by giving way
to its dictates.
Probably there is no portrait so dark as to be without its softer
shades. He understood the interests of France, and faithfully pursued
them so long as he could identify them with his own. He carried the
country safe through the dangerous crisis of the war termed “for the
public good;” in thus disuniting and dispersing this grand and dangerous
alliance of the great crown vassals of France against the Sovereign, a
king of a less cautious and temporizing character, and of a more bold
and less crafty disposition than Louis XI, would, in all probability,
have failed. Louis had also some personal accomplishments not
inconsistent with his public character. He was cheerful and witty in
society; and none was better able to sustain and extol the superiority
of the coarse and selfish reasons by which he endeavoured to supply
those nobler motives for exertion which his predecessors had derived
from the high spirit of chivalry.
In fact, that system was now becoming ancient, and had, even while
in its perfection, something so overstrained and fantastic in its
principles, as rendered it peculiarly the object of ridicule, whenever,
like other old fashions, it began to fall out of repute; and the weapons
of raillery could be employed against it, without exciting the disgust
and horror with which they would have been rejected at an early period,
as a species of blasphemy. The principles of chivalry were cast aside,
and their aid supplied by baser stimulants. Instead of the high spirit
which pressed every man forward in the defence of his country, Louis
XI substituted the exertions of the ever ready mercenary soldier, and
persuaded his subjects, among whom the mercantile class began to make a
figure, that it was better to leave to mercenaries the risks and labours
of war, and to supply the Crown with the means of paying them, than to
peril themselves in defence of their own substance. The merchants were
easily persuaded by this reasoning. The hour did not arrive in the days
of Louis XI when the landed gentry and nobles could be in like manner
excluded from the ranks of war; but the wily monarch commenced that
system, which, acted upon by his successors, at length threw the whole
military defence of the state into the hands of the Crown.
He was equally forward in altering the principles which were wont to
regulate the intercourse of the sexes. The doctrines of chivalry had
established, in theory at least, a system in which Beauty was the
governing and remunerating divinity--Valour, her slave, who caught his
courage from her eye and gave his life for her slightest service. It is
true, the system here, as in other branches, was stretched to fantastic
extravagance, and cases of scandal not unfrequently arose. Still, they
were generally such as those mentioned by Burke, where frailty was
deprived of half its guilt, by being purified from all its grossness.
In Louis XI's practice, it was far otherwise. He was a low voluptuary,
seeking pleasure without sentiment, and despising the sex from whom he
desired to obtain it.... By selecting his favourites and ministers from
among the dregs of the people, Louis showed the slight regard which he
paid to eminent station and high birth; and although this might be
not only excusable but meritorious, where the monarch's fiat promoted
obscure talent, or called forth modest worth, it was very different when
the King made his favourite associates of such men as the chief of his
police, Tristan l'Hermite..
Nor were Louis's sayings and actions in private or public of a kind
which could redeem such gross offences against the character of a man
of honour. His word, generally accounted the most sacred test of a man's
character, and the least impeachment of which is a capital offence
by the code of honour, was forfeited without scruple on the slightest
occasion, and often accompanied by the perpetration of the most enormous
crimes... It is more than probable that, in thus renouncing almost
openly the ties of religion, honour, and morality, by which mankind
at large feel themselves influenced, Louis sought to obtain great
advantages in his negotiations with parties who might esteem themselves
bound, while he himself enjoyed liberty. He started from the goal, he
might suppose, like the racer who has got rid of the weights with which
his competitors are still encumbered, and expects to succeed of course.
But Providence seems always to unite the existence of peculiar danger
with some circumstance which may put those exposed to the peril upon
their guard. The constant suspicion attached to any public person who
becomes badly eminent for breach of faith is to him what the rattle is
to the poisonous serpent: and men come at last to calculate not so much
on what their antagonist says as upon that which he is likely to do;
a degree of mistrust which tends to counteract the intrigues of such a
character, more than his freedom from the scruples of conscientious men
can afford him advantage..
Indeed, although the reign of Louis had been as successful in a
political point of view as he himself could have desired, the spectacle
of his deathbed might of itself be a warning piece against the seduction
of his example. Jealous of every one, but chiefly of his own son,
he immured himself in his Castle of Plessis, intrusting his person
exclusively to the doubtful faith of his Scottish mercenaries. He never
stirred from his chamber; he admitted no one into it, and wearied heaven
and every saint with prayers, not for forgiveness of his sins, but
for the prolongation of his life. With a poverty of spirit totally
inconsistent with his shrewd worldly sagacity, he importuned his
physicians until they insulted as well as plundered him..
It was not the least singular circumstance of this course, that bodily
health and terrestrial felicity seemed to be his only object. Making
any mention of his sins when talking on the state of his health, was
strictly prohibited; and when at his command a priest recited a prayer
to Saint Eutropius in which he recommended the King's welfare both in
body and soul, Louis caused the two last words to be omitted, saying it
was not prudent to importune the blessed saint by too many requests at
once. Perhaps he thought by being silent on his crimes he might suffer
them to pass out of the recollection of the celestial patrons, whose aid
he invoked for his body.
So great were the well merited tortures of this tyrant's deathbed, that
Philip de Comines enters into a regular comparison between them and the
numerous cruelties inflicted on others by his order; and considering
both, comes to express an opinion that the worldly pangs and agony
suffered by Louis were such as might compensate the crimes he had
committed, and that, after a reasonable quarantine in purgatory, he
might in mercy he found duly qualified for the superior regions...
The instructive but appalling scene of this tyrant's sufferings was at
length closed by death, 30th August, 1483.
The selection of this remarkable person as the principal character in
the romance--for it will be easily comprehended that the little love
intrigue of Quentin is only employed as the means of bringing out the
story--afforded considerable facilities to the author. In Louis XI's
time, extraordinary commotions existed throughout all Europe. England's
Civil Wars were ended, rather in appearance than reality, by the short
lived ascendancy of the House of York. Switzerland was asserting that
freedom which was afterwards so bravely defended. In the Empire and in
France, the great vassals of the crown were endeavouring to emancipate
themselves from its control, while Charles of Burgundy by main force,
and Louis more artfully by indirect means, laboured to subject them to
subservience to their respective sovereignties. Louis, while with one
hand he circumvented and subdued his own rebellious vassals, laboured
secretly with the other to aid and encourage the large trading towns of
Flanders to rebel against the Duke of Burgundy, to which their wealth
and irritability naturally disposed them. In the more woodland districts
of Flanders, the Duke of Gueldres, and William de la Marck, called from
his ferocity the Wild Boar of Ardennes, were throwing off the habits
of knights and gentlemen to practise the violences and brutalities of
common bandits.
[Chapter I gives a further account of the conditions of the period which
Quentin Durward portrays.]
A hundred secret combinations existed in the different provinces of
France and Flanders; numerous private emissaries of the restless
Louis, Bohemians, pilgrims, beggars, or agents disguised as such, were
everywhere spreading the discontent which it was his policy to maintain
in the dominions of Burgundy.
Amidst so great an abundance of materials, it was difficult to select
such as should be most intelligible and interesting to the reader: and
the author had to regret, that though he made liberal use of the power
of departing from the reality of history, he felt by no means confident
of having brought his story into a pleasing, compact, and sufficiently
intelligible form. The mainspring of the plot is that which all who know
the least of the feudal system can easily understand, though the facts
are absolutely fictitious. The right of a feudal superior was in nothing
more universally acknowledged than in his power to interfere in the
marriage of a female vassal. This may appear to exist as a contradiction
both of the civil and canon laws, which declare that marriage shall be
free, while the feudal or municipal jurisprudence, in case of a fief
passing to a female, acknowledges an interest in the superior of
the fief to dictate the choice of her companion in marriage. This is
accounted for on the principle that the superior was, by his bounty, the
original granter of the fief, and is still interested that the marriage
of the vassal shall place no one there who may be inimical to his liege
lord. On the other hand, it might be reasonably pleaded that this
right of dictating to the vassal to a certain extent in the choice of
a husband, is only competent to the superior from whom the fief is
originally derived. There is therefore no violent improbability in a
vassal of Burgundy flying to the protection of the King of France, to
whom the Duke of Burgundy himself was vassal; not is it a great stretch
of probability to affirm that Louis, unscrupulous as he was, should have
formed the design of betraying the fugitive into some alliance which
might prove inconvenient, if not dangerous, to his formidable kinsman
and vassal of Burgundy.
[Some of these departures from historical accuracy, as when the death
of the Bishop of Liege is antedated, are duly set forth in the notes.
It should be mentioned that Mr. J. F. Kirk, in his elaborate History of
Charles the Bold, claims that in some points injustice has been done
to the Duke in this romance. He says: “The faults of Charles were
sufficiently glaring, and scarcely admitted of exaggeration; but his
breeding had been that of a prince, his education had been better than
that of other princes of his time, his tastes and habits were more, not
less, refined than theirs, and the restraint he imposed upon his sensual
appetites was as conspicuous a trait as his sternness and violence.”]
Abbotsford, 1830.
Quentin Durward was published in June, 1823, and was Scott's first
venture on foreign ground. While well received at home, the sensation
it created in Paris was comparable to that caused by the appearance of
Waverley in Edinburgh and Ivanhoe in London. In Germany also, where the
author was already popular, the new novel had a specially enthusiastic
welcome. The scene of the romance was partly suggested by a journal
kept by Sir Walter's dear friend, Mr. James Skene of Rubislaw, during
a French tour, the diary being illustrated by a vast number of clever
drawings. The author, in telling this tale laid in unfamiliar scenes,
encountered difficulties of a kind quite new to him, as it necessitated
much study of maps, gazetteers, and books of travel. For the history,
he naturally found above all else the Memoirs of Philip de Comines “the
very key of the period,” though it need not be said that the lesser
chroniclers received due attention. It is interesting to note that in
writing to his friend, Daniel Terry, the actor and manager, Scott says,
“I have no idea my present labours will be dramatic in situation; as to
character, that of Louis XI, the sagacious, perfidious, superstitious,
jocular, politic tyrant, would be, for a historical chronicle containing
his life and death, one of the most powerful ever brought on the stage.”
So thought the poet, Casimir Delavigne--writing when Scott's influence
was marked upon French literature--whose powerful drama, Louis XI, was
a great Parisian success. Later Charles Kean and Henry Irving made an
English version of it well known in England and America.
CHAPTER I: THE CONTRAST
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
HAMLET
The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future
events that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power
which has ever since been from time to time the principal object of
jealousy to the other European nations. Before that period she had to
struggle for her very existence with the English already possessed of
her fairest provinces while the utmost exertions of her King, and the
gallantry of her people, could scarcely protect the remainder from a
foreign yoke. Nor was this her sole danger. The princes who possessed
the grand fiefs of the crown, and, in particular, the Dukes of Burgundy
and Bretagne, had come to wear their feudal bonds so lightly that they
had no scruple in lifting the standard against their liege and sovereign
lord, the King of France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they
reigned as absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of
Burgundy, possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest
and richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful, as
to yield nothing to the crown, either in splendour or in strength.
In imitation of the grand feudatories, each inferior vassal of the crown
assumed as much independence as his distance from the sovereign power,
the extent of his fief, or the strength of his chateau enabled him to
maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer amenable to the exercise
of the law, perpetrated with impunity the wildest excesses of fantastic
oppression and cruelty. In Auvergne alone, a report was made of more
than three hundred of these independent nobles, to whom incest, murder,
and rapine were the most ordinary and familiar actions.
Besides these evils, another, springing out of the long continued wars
betwixt the French and English, added no small misery to this distracted
kingdom. Numerous bodies of soldiers, collected into bands, under
officers chosen by themselves, from among the bravest and most
successful adventurers, had been formed in various parts of France out
of the refuse of all other countries. These hireling combatants sold
their swords for a time to the best bidder; and, when such service was
not to be had, they made war on their own account, seizing castles
and towers, which they used as the places of their retreat, making
prisoners, and ransoming them, exacting tribute from the open villages
and the country around them--and acquiring, by every species of rapine,
the appropriate epithets of Tondeurs and Ecorcheurs, that is, Clippers
and Flayers.
In the midst of the horrors and miseries arising from so distracted a
state of public affairs, reckless and profuse expense distinguished the
courts of the lesser nobles, as well as of the superior princes; and
their dependents, in imitation, expended in rude but magnificent display
the wealth which they extorted from the people. A tone of romantic and
chivalrous gallantry (which, however, was often disgraced by unbounded
license) characterized the intercourse between the sexes; and the
language of knight errantry was yet used, and its observances followed,
though the pure spirit of honourable love and benevolent enterprise
which it inculcates had ceased to qualify and atone for its
extravagances. The jousts and tournaments, the entertainments and
revels, which each petty court displayed, invited to France every
wandering adventurer; and it was seldom that, when arrived there, he
failed to employ his rash courage, and headlong spirit of enterprise, in
actions for which his happier native country afforded no free stage.
At this period, and as if to save this fair realm from the various woes
with which it was menaced, the tottering throne was ascended by Louis
XI, whose character, evil as it was in itself, met, combated, and in
a great degree neutralized the mischiefs of the time--as poisons of
opposing qualities are said, in ancient books of medicine, to have the
power of counteracting each other.
Brave enough for every useful and political purpose, Louis had not a
spark of that romantic valour, or of the pride generally associated with
it, which fought on for the point of honour, when the point of utility
had been long gained. Calm, crafty, and profoundly attentive to his
own interest, he made every sacrifice, both of pride and passion,
which could interfere with it. He was careful in disguising his real
sentiments and purposes from all who approached him, and frequently used
the expressions, “that the king knew not how to reign, who knew not how
to dissemble; and that, for himself, if he thought his very cap knew his
secrets, he would throw it into the fire.” No man of his own, or of any
other time, better understood how to avail himself of the frailties
of others, and when to avoid giving any advantage by the untimely
indulgence of his own.
He was by nature vindictive and cruel, even to the extent of finding
pleasure in the frequent executions which he commanded. But, as no touch
of mercy ever induced him to spare, when he could with safety condemn,
so no sentiment of vengeance ever stimulated him to a premature
violence. He seldom sprang on his prey till it was fairly within his
grasp, and till all hope of rescue was vain; and his movements were
so studiously disguised, that his success was generally what first
announced to the world the object he had been manoeuvring to attain.
In like manner, the avarice of Louis gave way to apparent profusion,
when it was necessary to bribe the favourite or minister of a rival
prince for averting any impending attack, or to break up any alliance
confederated against him. He was fond of license and pleasure; but
neither beauty nor the chase, though both were ruling passions, ever
withdrew him from the most regular attendance to public business and the
affairs of his kingdom. His knowledge of mankind was profound, and he
had sought it in the private walks of life, in which he often personally
mingled; and, though naturally proud and haughty, he hesitated not,
with an inattention to the arbitrary divisions of society which was then
thought something portentously unnatural, to raise from the lowest rank
men whom he employed on the most important duties, and knew so well how
to choose them, that he was rarely disappointed in their qualities.
Yet there were contradictions in the character of this artful and able
monarch; for human nature is rarely uniform. Himself the most false and
insincere of mankind, some of the greatest errors of his life arose from
too rash a confidence in the honour and integrity of others. When these
errors took place, they seem to have arisen from an over refined system
of policy, which induced Louis to assume the appearance of undoubting
confidence in those whom it was his object to overreach; for, in his
general conduct, he was as jealous and suspicious as any tyrant who ever
breathed.
Two other points may be noticed to complete the sketch of this
formidable character, by which he rose among the rude, chivalrous
sovereigns of the period to the rank of a keeper among wild beasts,
who, by superior wisdom and policy, by distribution of food, and some
discipline by blows, comes finally to predominate over those who, if
unsubjected by his arts, would by main strength have torn him to pieces.
The first of these attributes was Louis's excessive superstition, a
plague with which Heaven often afflicts those who refuse to listen to
the dictates of religion. The remorse arising from his evil
actions Louis never endeavoured to appease by any relaxation in his
Machiavellian stratagems [on account of the alleged political immorality
of Machiavelli, an illustrious Italian of the sixteenth century, this
expression has come to mean “destitute of political morality; habitually
using duplicity and bad faith.” Cent. Dict.], but laboured in vain to
soothe and silence that painful feeling by superstitious observances,
severe penance, and profuse gifts to the ecclesiastics. The second
property, with which the first is sometimes found strangely united, was
a disposition to low pleasures and obscure debauchery. The wisest, or
at least the most crafty sovereign of his time, he was fond of low life,
and, being himself a man of wit, enjoyed the jests and repartees of
social conversation more than could have been expected from other points
of his character. He even mingled in the comic adventures of obscure
intrigue, with a freedom little consistent with the habitual and guarded
jealousy of his character, and he was so fond of this species of humble
gallantry, that he caused a number of its gay and licentious anecdotes
to be enrolled in a collection well known to book collectors, in whose
eyes (and the work is unfit for any other) the right edition is very
precious.
[This editio princeps, which, when in good preservation, is much
sought after by connoisseurs, is entitled Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,
contenant Cent Histoires Nouveaux, qui sont moult plaisans a raconter
en toutes bonnes compagnies par maniere de joyeuxete. Paris, Antoine
Verard. Sans date d'annee d'impression; en folio gotique. See De Bure.
S]
By means of this monarch's powerful and prudent, though most unamiable
character, it pleased Heaven, who works by the tempest as well as by the
soft, small rain, to restore to the great French nation the benefits of
civil government, which, at the time of his accession, they had nearly
lost.
Ere he succeeded to the crown, Louis had given evidence of his vices
rather than of his talents. His first wife, Margaret of Scotland, was
“done to death by slanderous tongues” in her husband's court, where,
but for the encouragement of Louis himself, not a word would have been
breathed against that amiable and injured princess. He had been an
ungrateful and a rebellious son, at one time conspiring to seize his
father's person, and at another levying open war against him. For the
first offence, he was banished to his appanage of Dauphine, which he
governed with much sagacity; for the second he was driven into absolute
exile, and forced to throw himself on the mercy, and almost on
the charity, of the Duke of Burgundy and his son; where he enjoyed
hospitality, afterwards indifferently requited, until the death of his
father in 1461.
In the very outset of his reign, Louis was almost overpowered by a
league formed against him by the great vassals of France, with the Duke
of Burgundy, or rather his son, the Count de Charalois, at its head.
They levied a powerful army, blockaded Paris, fought a battle of
doubtful issue under its very walls, and placed the French monarchy on
the brink of actual destruction. It usually happens in such cases,
that the more sagacious general of the two gains the real fruit, though
perhaps not the martial fame, of the disputed field. Louis, who had
shown great personal bravery during the battle of Montl'hery, was able,
by his prudence, to avail himself of its undecided character, as if it
had been a victory on his side. He temporized until the enemy had broken
up their leaguer, and showed so much dexterity in sowing jealousies
among those great powers, that their alliance “for the public weal,” as
they termed it, but in reality for the overthrow of all but the external
appearance of the French monarchy, dissolved itself, and was never again
renewed in a manner so formidable. From this period, Louis, relieved
of all danger from England by the Civil Wars of York and Lancaster,
was engaged for several years, like an unfeeling but able physician,
in curing the wounds of the body politic, or rather in stopping, now by
gentle remedies, now by the use of fire and steel, the progress of those
mortal gangrenes with which it was then infected. The brigandage of the
Free Companies [troops that acknowledged no authority except that of
their leaders, and who hired themselves out at will], and the unpunished
oppression of the nobility, he laboured to lessen, since he could not
actually stop them; and, by dint of unrelaxed attention, he gradually
gained some addition to his own regal authority, or effected some
diminution of those by whom it was counterbalanced.
Still the King of France was surrounded by doubt and danger. The members
of the league “for the public weal,” though not in unison, were in
existence, and, like a scotched snake [see Macbeth. III, ii, 13, “We
have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.”], might reunite and become
dangerous again. But a worse danger was the increasing power of the
Duke of Burgundy, then one of the greatest princes of Europe, and little
diminished in rank by the very slight dependence of his duchy upon the
crown of France.
Charles, surnamed the Bold, or rather, the Audacious, for his courage
was allied to rashness and frenzy, then wore the ducal coronet of
Burgundy, which he burned to convert into a royal and independent
regal crown. The character of this Duke was in every respect the direct
contrast to that of Louis XI.
The latter was calm, deliberate, and crafty, never prosecuting a
desperate enterprise, and never abandoning one likely to be successful,
however distant the prospect. The genius of the Duke was entirely
different. He rushed on danger because he loved it, and on difficulties
because he despised them. As Louis never sacrificed his interest to his
passion, so Charles, on the other hand, never sacrificed his passion,
or even his humour, to any other consideration. Notwithstanding the near
relationship that existed between them, and the support which the Duke
and his father had afforded to Louis in his exile when Dauphin, there
was mutual contempt and hatred betwixt them. The Duke of Burgundy
despised the cautious policy of the King, and imputed to the faintness
of his courage that he sought by leagues, purchases, and other indirect
means those advantages which, in his place, the Duke would have snatched
with an armed hand. He likewise hated the King, not only for the
ingratitude he had manifested for former kindnesses, and for personal
injuries and imputations which the ambassadors of Louis had cast upon
him, when his father was yet alive, but also, and especially, because of
the support which he afforded in secret to the discontented citizens of
Ghent, Liege, and other great towns in Flanders. These turbulent cities,
jealous of their privileges, and proud of their wealth, were frequently
in a state of insurrection against their liege lords, the Dukes of
Burgundy, and never failed to find underhand countenance at the court
of Louis, who embraced every opportunity of fomenting disturbance within
the dominions of his overgrown vassal.
The contempt and hatred of the Duke were retaliated by Louis with equal
energy, though he used a thicker veil to conceal his sentiments. It
was impossible for a man of his profound sagacity not to despise the
stubborn obstinacy which never resigned its purpose, however fatal
perseverance might prove, and the headlong impetuosity which commenced
its career without allowing a moment's consideration for the obstacles
to be encountered. Yet the King hated Charles even more than he
contemned him, and his scorn and hatred were the more intense, that they
were mingled with fear; for he know that the onset of the mad bull, to
whom he likened the Duke of Burgundy, must ever be formidable, though
the animal makes it with shut eyes. It was not alone the wealth of the
Burgundian provinces, the discipline of the warlike inhabitants, and
the mass of their crowded population, which the King dreaded, for
the personal qualities of their leader had also much in them that was
dangerous. The very soul of bravery, which he pushed to the verge of
rashness, and beyond it--profuse in expenditure--splendid in his court,
his person, and his retinue, in all which he displayed the hereditary
magnificence of the house of Burgundy, Charles the Bold drew into his
service almost all the fiery spirits of the age whose tempers were
congenial; and Louis saw too clearly what might be attempted and
executed by such a train of resolute adventurers, following a leader of
a character as ungovernable as their own.
There was yet another circumstance which increased the animosity of
Louis towards his overgrown vassal; he owed him favours which he never
meant to repay, and was under the frequent necessity of temporizing with
him, and even of enduring bursts of petulant insolence, injurious to
the regal dignity, without being able to treat him otherwise than as his
“fair cousin of Burgundy.”
It was about the year 1468, when their feuds were at the highest, though
a dubious and hollow truce, as frequently happened, existed for the
time betwixt them, that the present narrative opens. The person first
introduced on the stage will be found indeed to be of a rank and
condition, the illustration of whose character scarcely called for a
dissertation on the relative position of two great princes; but the
passions of the great, their quarrels, and their reconciliations
involve the fortunes of all who approach them; and it will be found,
on proceeding farther in our story, that this preliminary chapter
is necessary for comprehending the history of the individual whose
adventures we are about to relate.