A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume III Part 6

CHAPTER XXV.----LOUIS XI. (1461-1483.)

Louis XI. was thirty-eight years old, and had been living for five years in voluntary exile at the castle of Genappe, in Hainault, beyond the dominions of the king his father, and within those of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, when, on the 23d of July, 1461, the day after Charles VII.'s death, he learned that he was King of France. He started at once to return to his own country, and take possession of his kingdom. He arrived at Rheims on the 14th of August, was solemnly crowned there on the 18th, in presence of the two courts of France and Burgundy, and on the 30th made his entry into Paris, within which he had not set foot for six and twenty years. In 1482, twenty-one years afterwards, he, sick and almost dying in his turn at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, went, nevertheless, to Amboise, where his son the _dauphin_, who was about to become Charles VIII., and whom he had not seen for several years, was living. "I do expressly enjoin upon you," said the father to the son, "as my last counsel and my last instructions, not to change a single one of the chief officers of the crown. When my father. King Charles VII., went to G.o.d, and I myself came to the throne, I disappointed [i.e., deprived of their appointments] all the good and notable knights of the kingdom who had aided and served my said father in conquering Normandy and Guienne, in driving the English out of the kingdom, and in restoring it to peace and good order, for so I found it, and right rich also.

Therefrom much mischief came to me, for thence I had the war called the Common Weal, which all but cost me my crown."

With the experience and paternal care of an old man, whom the near prospect of death rendered perfectly disinterested, wholly selfish as his own life had been, Louis's heart was bent upon saving his son from the first error which he himself had committed on mounting the throne.

"Gentlemen," said Dunois on rising from table at the funeral-banquet held at the abbey of St. Denis in honor of the obsequies of King Charles VII., "we have lost our master; let each look after himself." The old warrior foresaw that the new reign would not be like that which had just ended.

Charles VII. had been a prince of indolent disposition, more inclined to pleasure than ambition, whom the long and severe trials of his life had moulded to government without his having any pa.s.sion for governing, and who had become in a quiet way a wise and powerful king, without any eager desire to be incessantly and everywhere chief actor and master. His son Louis, on the contrary, was completely possessed with a craving for doing, talking, agitating, domineering, and reaching, no matter by what means, the different and manifold ends he proposed to himself. Anything but prepossessing in appearance, supported on long and thin shanks, vulgar in looks and often designedly ill-dressed, and undignified in his manners though haughty in mind, he was powerful by the sheer force of a mind marvellously lively, subtle, unerring, ready, and inventive, and of a character indefatigably active, and pursuing success as a pa.s.sion without any scruple or embarra.s.sment in the employment of means. His contemporaries, after observing his reign for some time, gave him the name of the universal spider, so relentlessly did he labor to weave a web of which he himself occupied the centre and extended the filaments in all directions.

As soon as he was king, he indulged himself with that first piece of vindictive satisfaction of which he was in his last moments obliged to acknowledge the mistake. At Rheims, at the time of his coronation, the aged and judicious Duke Philip of Burgundy had begged him to forgive all those who had offended him. Louis promised to do so, with the exception, however, of seven persons whom he did not name. They were the most faithful and most able advisers of the king his father, those who had best served Charles VII. even in his embroilments with the _dauphin_, his conspiring and rebellious son, viz., Anthony de Chabannes, Count of Dampmartin, Peter de Breze, Andrew de Laval, Juvenal des Ursins, &c.

Some lost their places, and were even, for a while, subjected to persecution; the others, remaining still at court, received there many marks of the king's disfavor. On the other hand, Louis made a show of treating graciously the men who had most incurred and deserved disgrace at his father's hands, notably the Duke of Alencon and the Count of Armagnac. Nor was it only in respect of persons that he departed from paternal tradition; he rejected it openly in the case of one of the most important acts of Charles VII.'s reign, the Pragmatic Sanction, issued by that prince at Bourses, in 1438, touching the internal regulations of the Church of France and its relations towards the papacy. The popes, and especially Pius II., Louis XI.'s contemporary, had constantly and vigorously protested against that act. Barely four months after his accession, on the 27th of November, 1461, Louis, in order to gain favor with the pope, abrogated the Pragmatic Sanction, and informed the pope of the fact in a letter full of devotion. There was great joy at Rome, and the pope replied to the king's letter in the strongest terms of grat.i.tude and commendation. But Louis's courtesy had not been so disinterested as it was prompt. He had hoped that Pius II. would abandon the cause of Ferdinand of Arragon, a claimant to the throne of Naples, and would uphold that of his rival, the French prince, John of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, whose champion Louis had declared himself. He bade his amba.s.sador at Rome to remind the pope of the royal hopes. "You know,"

said the amba.s.sador to Pius II., "it is only on this condition that the king my master abolished the Pragmatic; he was pleased to desire that in his kingdom full obedience should be rendered to you; he demands, on the other hand, that you should be pleased to be a friend to France; otherwise I have orders to bid all the French cardinals withdraw, and you cannot doubt but that they will obey." But Pius II. was more proud than Louis XI. dared to be imperious. He answered, "We are under very great obligations to the King of France, but that gives him no right to exact from us things contrary to justice and to our honor; we have sent aid to Ferdinand by virtue of the treaties we have with him; let the king your master compel the Duke of Anjou to lay down arms and prosecute his rights by course of justice, and if Ferdinand refuse to submit thereto we will declare against him; but we cannot promise more. If the French who are at our court wish to withdraw, the gates are open to them." The king, a little ashamed at the fruitlessness of his concession and of his threat, had for an instant some desire to re-establish the Pragmatic Sanction, for which the parliament of Paris had taken up the cudgels; but, all considered, he thought it better to put up in silence with his rebuff, and pay the penalty for a rash concession, than to get involved with the court of Rome in a struggle of which he could not measure the gravity; and he contented himself with letting the parliament maintain in principle and partially keep up the Pragmatic. This was his first apprenticeship in that outward resignation and patience, amidst his own mistakes, of which he was destined to be called upon more than once in the course of his life to make a humble but skilful use.

At the same time that at the pinnacle of government and in his court Louis was thus making his power felt, and was engaging a new set of servants, he was zealously endeavoring to win over, everywhere, the middle cla.s.ses and the populace. He left Rouen in the hands of its own inhabitants; in Guienne, in Auvergne, at Tours, he gave the burgesses authority to a.s.semble, and his orders to the royal agents were, "Whatever is done see that it be answered for unto us by two of the most notable burgesses of the princ.i.p.al cities." At Rheims the rumor ran that under King Louis there would be no more tax or talliage. When deputations went before him to complain of the weight of imposts, he would say, "I thank you, my dear and good friends, for making such remonstrances to me; I have nothing more at heart than to put an end to all sorts of exactions, and to re-establish my kingdom in its ancient liberties. I have just been pa.s.sing five years in the countries of my uncle of Burgundy; and there I saw good cities mighty rich and full of inhabitants, and folks well clad, well housed, well off, lacking nothing; the commerce there is great, and the communes there have fine privileges.

When I came into my own kingdom I saw, on the contrary, houses in ruins, fields without tillage, men and women in rags, faces pinched and pale.

It is a great pity, and my soul is filled with sorrow at it. All my desire is to apply a remedy thereto, and, with G.o.d's help, we will bring it to pa.s.s." The good folks departed, charmed with such familiarity, so prodigal of hope; but facts before long gave the lie to words. "When the time came for renewing at Rheims the claim for local taxes, the people showed opposition, and all the papers were burned in the open street.

The king employed stratagem. In order not to encounter overt resistance, he caused a large number of his folks to disguise themselves as tillers or artisans; and so entering the town, they were masters of it before the people could think of defending themselves. The ringleaders of the rebellion were drawn and quartered, and about a hundred persons were beheaded or hanged. At Angers, at Alencon, and at Aurillac, there were similar outbursts similarly punished." From that moment it was easy to prognosticate that with the new king familiarity would not prevent severity, or even cruelty. According to the requirements of the crisis Louis had no more hesitation about violating than about making promises; and, all the while that he was seeking after popularity, he intended to make his power felt at any price.

How could he have done without heavy imposts and submission on the part of the tax-payers? For it was not only at home in his own kingdom that he desired to be chief actor and master. He pushed his ambition and his activity abroad into divers European states. In Italy he had his own claimant to the throne of Naples in opposition to the King of Arragon's.

In Spain the Kings of Arragon and of Castile were in a state of rivalry and war. A sedition broke out in Catalonia. Louis XI. lent the King of Arragon three hundred and fifty thousand golden crowns to help him in raising eleven hundred lances, and reducing the rebels. Civil war was devastating England. The houses of York and Lancaster were disputing the crown. Louis XI. kept up relations with both sides; and without embroiling himself with the Duke of York, who became Edward IV., he received at Chinon the heroic Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI., and lent twenty thousand pounds sterling to that prince, then disthroned, who undertook either to repay them within a year or to hand over Calais, when he was re-established upon his throne, to the King of France. In the same way John II., King of Arragon, had put Roussillon and Cerdagne into the hands of Louis XI., as a security for the loan of three hundred and fifty thousand crowns he had borrowed. Amidst all the plans and enterprises of his personal ambition Louis was seriously concerned for the greatness of France; but he drew upon her resources, and compromised her far beyond what was compatible with her real interests, by mixing himself up, at every opportunity and by every sort of intrigue, with the affairs and quarrels of the kings and peoples around him.

In France itself he had quite enough of questions to be solved and perils to be surmounted to absorb and satisfy the most vigilant and most active of men. Four princes of very unequal power, but all eager for independence and preponderance, viz., Charles, Duke of Berry, his brother; Francis II., Duke of Brittany; Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, his uncle; and John, Duke of Bourbon, his brother-in-law, were va.s.sals whom he found very troublesome, and ever on the point of becoming dangerous. It was not long before he had a proof of it. In 1463, two years after Louis's accession, the Duke of Burgundy sent one of his most trusty servants, John of Croy, Sire de Chimay, to complain of certain royal acts, contrary, he said, to the treaty of Arras, which, in 1435, had regulated the relations between Burgundy and the crown. The envoy had great difficulty in getting audience of the king, who would not even listen for more than a single moment, and that as he was going out of his room, when, almost without heeding, he said abruptly, "What manner of man, then, is this Duke of Burgundy? Is he of other metal than the other lords of the realm?" "Yes, sir," replied Chimay, "he is of other metal; for he protected you and maintained you against the will of your father King Charles, and against the opinion of all those who were opposed to you in the kingdom, which no other prince or lord would have dared to do." Louis went back into his room without a word. "How dared you speak so to the king," said Dunois to Chimay. "Had I been fifty leagues away from here," said the Burgundian, "and had I thought that the king had an idea only of addressing such words to me, I would have come back express to speak to him as I have spoken." The Duke of Brittany was less puissant and less proudly served than the Duke of Burgundy; but, being vain and inconsiderate, he was incessantly attempting to exalt himself above his condition of va.s.sal, and to raise his duchy into a sovereignty, and when his pretensions were rejected he entered, at one time with the King of England and at another with the Duke of Burgundy and the malcontents of France, upon intrigues which amounted very nearly to treason against the king his suzerain. Charles, Louis's younger brother, was a soft and mediocre but jealous and timidly ambitious prince; he remembered, moreover, the preference and the wishes manifested on his account by Charles VII., their common father, on his death-bed, and he considered his position as Duke of Berry very inferior to the hopes he believed himself ent.i.tled to nourish. Duke John of Bourbon, on espousing a sister of Louis XI., had flattered himself that this marriage and the remembrance of the valor he had displayed, in 1450, at the battle of Formigny, would be worth to him at least the sword of constable; but Louis had refused to give it him. When all these great malcontents saw Louis's popularity on the decline, and the king engaged abroad in divers political designs full of onerousness or embarra.s.sment, they considered the moment to have come, and, at the end of 1464, formed together an alliance "for to remonstrate with the king," says Commynes, "upon the bad order and injustice he kept up in his kingdom, considering themselves strong enough to force him if he would not mend his ways; and this war was called the common weal, because it was undertaken under color of being for the _common weal_ of the kingdom, the which was soon converted into private weal." The aged Duke of Burgundy, sensible and weary as he was, gave only a hesitating and slack adherence to the league; but his son Charles, Count of Charolais, entered into it pa.s.sionately, and the father was no more in a condition to resist his son than he was inclined to follow him. The number of the declared malcontents increased rapidly; and the chiefs received at Paris itself, in the church of Notre Dame, the adhesion and the signatures of those who wished to join them. They all wore, for recognition's sake, a band of red silk round their waists, and, "there were more than five hundred," says Oliver de la Marche, a confidential servant of the Count of Charolais, "princes as well as knights, dames, damsels, and esquires, who were well acquainted with this alliance without the king's knowing anything as yet about it."

It is difficult to believe the chronicler's last a.s.sertion. Louis XI., it is true, was more distrustful than far-sighted, and, though he placed but little reliance in his advisers and servants, he had so much confidence in himself, his own sagacity, and his own ability, that he easily deluded himself about the perils of his position; but the facts which have just been set forth were too serious and too patent to have escaped his notice. However that may be, he had no sooner obtained a clear insight into the league of the princes than he set to work with his usual activity and knowledge of the world to checkmate it. To rally together his own partisans and to separate his foes, such was the twofold end he pursued, at first with some success. In a meeting of the princes which was held at Tours, and in which friends and enemies were still mingled together, he used language which could not fail to meet their views. "He was powerless," he said, "to remedy the evils of the kingdom without the love and fealty of the princes of the blood and the other lords; they were the pillars of the state; without their help one man alone could not bear the weight of the crown." Many of those present declared their fealty. "You are our king, our sovereign lord," said King Rene, Duke of Anjou; "we thank you for the kind, gracious, and honest words you have just used to us. I say to you, on behalf of all our lords here present, that we will serve you in respect of and against every one, according as it may please you to order us." Louis, by a manifesto, addressed himself also to the good towns and to all his kingdom. He deplored therein the enticements which had been suffered to draw away "his brother, the Duke of Berry and other princes, churchmen, and n.o.bles, who would never have consented to this league if they had borne in mind the horrible calamities of the kingdom, and especially the English, those ancient enemies, who might well come down again upon it as heretofore . . . . They proclaim," said he, "that they will abolish the imposts; that is what has always been declared by the seditious and rebellious; but, instead of relieving, they ruin the poor people. Had I been willing to augment their pay, and permit them to trample their va.s.sals under foot as in time past, they would never have given a thought to the common weal. They pretend that they desire to establish order everywhere, and yet they cannot endure it anywhere; whilst I, without drawing from my people more than was drawn by the late king, pay my men-at-arms well, and keep them in a good state of discipline."

Louis, in his latter words, was a little too boastful. He had very much augmented the imposts without a.s.sembling the estates, and without caring for the old public liberties. If he frequently repressed local tyranny on the part of the lords, he did not deny himself the practice of it.

Amongst other tastes, he was pa.s.sionately fond of the chase; and, wherever he lived, he put it down amongst his neighbors, n.o.ble or other, without any regard for rights of lordship. Hounds, hawking birds, nets, snares, all the implements of hunting were forbidden. He even went so far, it is said, on one occasion, as to have two gentlemen's ears cut off for killing a hare on their own property. Nevertheless, the publication of his manifesto did him good service. Auvergne, Dauphiny, Languedoc, Lyon and Bordeaux turned a deaf ear to all temptations from the league of princes. Paris, above all, remained faithful to the king. Orders were given at the Hotel de Ville that the princ.i.p.al gates of the city should be walled up, and that there should be a night watch on the ramparts; and the burgesses were warned to lay in provision of arms and victual.

Marshal Joachim Rouault, lord of Gamaches, arrived at Paris on the 30th of June, 1465, at the head of a body of men-at-arms, to protect the city against the Count of Charolais, who was coming up; and the king himself, not content with despatching four of his chief officers to thank the Parisians for their loyal zeal, wrote to them that he would send the queen to lie in at Paris, "the city he loved most in the world."

Louis would have been glad to have nothing to do but to negotiate and talk. Though he was personally brave, he did not like war and its unforeseen issues. He belonged to the cla.s.s of ambitious despots who prefer stratagem to force. But the very ablest speeches and artifices, even if they do not remain entirely fruitless, are not sufficient to reduce matters promptly to order when great interests are threatened, pa.s.sions violently excited, and factions let loose in the arena. Between the League of the Common Neal and Louis XI. there was a question too great to be, at the very outset, settled peacefully. It was feudalism in decline at grips with the kingship, which had been growing greater and greater for two centuries. The lords did not trust the king's promises; and one amongst those lords was too powerful to yield without a fight.

At the beginning Louis had, in Auvergne and in Berry, some successes, which decided a few of the rebels, the most insignificant, to accept truces and enter upon parleys; but the great princes, the Dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, and Berry, waxed more and more angry. The aged Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good himself, sobered and wearied as he was, threw himself pa.s.sionately into the struggle. "Go," said he to his son, Count Charles of Charolais, "maintain thine honor well, and, if thou have need of a hundred thousand more men to deliver thee from difficulty, I myself will lead them to thee." Charles marched promptly on Paris.

Louis, on his side, moved thither, with the design and in the hope of getting in there without fighting. But the Burgundians, posted at St.

Denis and the environs, barred his approach. His seneschal, Peter de Breze, advised him to first attack the Bretons, who were advancing to join the Burgundians. Louis, looking at him somewhat mistrustfully, said, "You, too, Sir Seneschal, have signed this League of the Common Weal." "Ay, sir," answered Brez, with a laugh, "they have my signature, but you have myself." "Would you be afraid to try conclusions with the Burgundians?" continued the king. "Nay, verily," replied the seneschal; "I will let that be seen in the first battle." Louis continued his march on Paris. The two armies met at Montlhery, on the 16th of July, 1465.

Breze, who commanded the king's advance-guard, immediately went into action, and was one of the first to be killed. Louis came up to his a.s.sistance with troops in rather loose order; the affair became hot and general; the French for a moment wavered, and a rumor ran through the ranks that the king had just been killed.

"No, my friends," said Louis, taking off his helmet, "no, I am not dead; defend your king with good courage." The wavering was transferred to the Burgundians. Count Charles himself was so closely pressed that a French man-at-arms laid his hand on him, saying, "Yield you, my lord; I know you well; let not yourself be slain." "A rescue!" cried Charles; "I'll not leave you, my friends, unless by death: I am here to live and die with you." He was wounded by a sword-thrust which entered his neck between his helmet and his breastplate, badly fastened. Disorder set in on both sides, without either's being certain how things were, or being able to consider itself victorious. Night came on; and French and Burgundians encamped before Montlhery. The Count of Charolais sat down on two heaps of straw, and had his wound dressed. Around him were the stripped corpses of the slain. As they were being moved to make room for him, a poor wounded creature, somewhat revived by the motion, recovered consciousness and asked for a drink. The count made them pour down his throat a drop of his own mixture, for he never drank wine. The wounded man came completely to himself, and recovered. It was one of the archers of his guard. Next day news was brought to Charles that the Bretons were coming up, with their own duke, the Duke of Berry, and Count Dunois at their head. He went as far as Etampes to meet them, and informed them of what had just happened. The Duke of Berry was very much distressed; it was a great pity, he said, that so many people had been killed; he heartily wished that the war had never been begun. "Did you hear," said the Count of Charolais to his servants, "how yonder fellow talks? He is upset at the sight of seven or eight hundred wounded men going about the town, folks who are nothing to him, and whom he does not even know; he would be still more upset if the matter touched him nearly; he is just the sort of fellow to readily make his own terms and leave us stuck in the mud; we must secure other friends." And he forthwith made one of his people post off to England, to draw closer the alliance between Burgundy and Edward IV.

Louis, meanwhile, after pa.s.sing a day at Corbeil, had once more, on the 18th of July, entered Paris, the object of his chief solicitude. He dismounted at his lieutenant's, the Sire de Meinn's, and asked for some supper. Several persons, burgesses and their wives, took supper with him. He excited their lively interest by describing to them the battle of Montlhery, the danger he had run there, and the scenes which had been enacted, adopting at one time a pathetic and at another a bantering tone, and exciting by turns the emotion and the laughter of his audience. In three days, he said, he would return to fight his enemies, in order to finish the war; but he had not enough of men-at-arms, and all had not at that moment such good spirits as he. He pa.s.sed a fortnight in Paris, devoting himself solely to the task of winning the hearts of the Parisians, reducing imposts, giving audience to everybody, lending a favorable ear to every opinion offered him, making no inquiry as to who had been more or less faithful to him, showing clemency without appearing to be aware of it, and not punishing with severity even those who had served as guides to the Burgundians in the pillaging of the villages around Paris. A crier of the Chatelet, who had gone crying about the streets the day on which the Burgundians attacked the gate of St. Denis, was sentenced only to a month's imprisonment, bread and water, and a flogging. He was marched through the city in a night-man's cart; and the king, meeting the procession, called out, as he pa.s.sed, to the executioner, "Strike hard, and spare not that ribald; he has well deserved it."

Meanwhile the Burgundians were approaching Paris and pressing it more closely every day. Their different allies in the League were coming up with troops to join them, including even some of those who, after having suffered reverses in Auvergne, had concluded truces with the king. The forces scattered around Paris amounted, it is said, to fifty thousand men, and occupied Charenton, Conflans, St. Maur, and St. Denis, making ready for a serious attack upon the place. Louis, notwithstanding his firm persuasion that things always went ill wherever he was not present in person, left Paris for Rouen, to call out and bring up the regulars and reserves of Normandy. In his absence, interviews and parleys took place between besiegers and besieged. The former, found partisans amongst the inhabitants of Paris, in the Hotel de Ville itself. The Count de Dunois made capital of all the grievances of the League against the king's government, and declared that, if the city refused to receive the princes, the authors of this refusal would have to answer for whatever misery, loss, and damage might come of it; and, in spite of all efforts on the part of the king's officers and friends, some wavering was manifested in certain quarters. But there arrived from Normandy considerable re-enforcements, announcing the early return of the king.

And, in fact, he entered Paris on the 28th of August, the ma.s.s of the people testifying their joy and singing "Noel." Louis made as if he knew nothing of what had happened in his absence, and gave n.o.body a black look; only four or five burgesses, too much compromised by their relations with the besiegers, were banished to Orleans. Sharp skirmishes were frequent all round the place; there was cannonading on both sides; and some b.a.l.l.s from Paris came tumbling about the quarters of the Count of Charolais, and killed a few of his people before his very door. But Louis did not care to risk a battle. He was much impressed by the enemy's strength, and by the weakness of which glimpses had been seen in Paris during his absence. Whilst his men-of-war were fighting here and there, he opened negotiations. Local and temporary truces were accepted, and agents of the king had conferences with others from the chiefs of the League. The princes showed so exacting a spirit that there was no treating on such conditions; and Louis determined to see whether he could not succeed better than his agents. He had an interview of two hours'

duration in front of the St. Anthony gate, with the Count of St. Poi, a confidant of the Count of Charolais. On his return he found before the gate some burgesses waiting for news.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis XI. and Burgesses waiting for News----193]

"Well, my friends," said he, "the Burgundians will not give you so much trouble any more as they have given you in the past." "That is all very well, sir," replied an attorney of the Chatelet, "but meanwhile they eat our grapes and gather our vintage without any hinderance." "Still," said the king, "that is better than if they were to come and drink your wine in your cellars." The month of September pa.s.sed thus in parleys without result. Bad news came from Rouen; the League had a party in that city.

Louis felt that the Count of Charolais was the real head of the opposition, and the only one with whom anything definite could he arrived at. He resolved to make a direct attempt upon him; for he had confidence in the influence he could obtain over people when he chatted and treated in person with them. One day he got aboard of a little boat with five of his officers, and went over to the left bank of the Seine. There the Count of Charolais was awaiting him. "Will you insure me, brother?" said the king, as he stepped ash.o.r.e. "Yes, my lord, as a brother," said the count. The king embraced him and went on; "I quite see, brother, that you are a gentleman and of the house of France." "How so, my lord?"

"When I sent my amba.s.sadors lately [in 1464] to Lille on an errand to my uncle, your father and yourself, and when my chancellor, that fool of a Morvilliers, made you such a fine speech, you sent me word by the Archbishop of Narbonne that I should repent me of the words spoken to you by that Morvilliers, and that before a year was over. Piques-Dieu, you've kept your promise, and before the end of the year has come. I like to have to do with folks who hold to what they promise." This he said laughingly, knowing well that this language was just the sort of flattery to touch the Count of Charolais. They walked for a long while together on the river's bank, to the great curiosity of their people, who were surprised to see them conversing on such good terms. They talked of possible conditions of peace, both of them displaying considerable pliancy, save the king touching the duchy of Normandy, which he would not at any price, he said, confer on his brother the Duke of Berry, and the Count of Charolais touching his enmity towards the house of Croy, with which he was determined not to be reconciled. At parting, the king invited the count to Paris, where he would make him great cheer. "My lord," said Charles, "I have made a vow not to enter any good town until my return." The king smiled; gave fifty golden crowns for distribution, to drink his health, amongst the count's archers, and once more got aboard of his boat. Shortly after getting back to Paris he learned that Normandy was lost to him. The widow of the seneschal, De Breze, lately killed at Montlhery, forgetful of all the king's kindnesses and against the will of her own son, whom Louis had appointed seneschal of Normandy after his father's death, had just handed over Rouen to the Duke of Bourbon, one of the most determined chiefs of the League. Louis at once took his course. He sent to demand an interview with the Count of Charolais, and repaired to Conflans with a hundred Scots of his guard.

There was a second edition of the walk together. Charles knew nothing as yet about the surrender of Rouen; and Louis lost no time in telling him of it before he had leisure for reflection and for magnifying his pretensions. "Since the Normans," said he, "have of themselves felt disposed for such a novelty, so be it! I should never of my own free will have conferred such an appanage on my brother; but, as the thing is done, I give my consent." And he at the same time a.s.sented to all the other conditions which had formed the subject of conversation.

In proportion to the resignation displayed by the king was the joy of the Count of Charolais at seeing himself so near to peace. Everything was going wrong with his army; provisions were short; murmurs and dissensions were setting in; and the League of common weal was on the point of ending in a shameful catastrophe. Whilst strolling and conversing with cordiality the two princes kept advancing towards Paris. Without noticing it, they pa.s.sed within the entrance of a strong palisade which the king had caused to be erected in front of the city-walls, and which marked the boundary-line. All on a sudden they stopped, both of them disconcerted. The Burgundian found himself within the hostile camp; but he kept a good countenance, and simply continued the conversation.

Amongst his army, however, when he was observed to be away so long, there was already a feeling of deep anxiety. The chieftains had met together.

"If this young prince," said the marshal of Burgundy, "has gone to his own ruin like a fool, let us not ruin his house. Let every man retire to his quarters, and hold himself in readiness without disturbing himself about what may happen. By keeping together we are in a condition to fall back on the marches of Hainault, Picardy, or Burgundy." The veteran warrior mounted his horse and rode forward in the direction of Paris to see whether Count Charles were coming back or not. It was not long before he saw a troop of forty or fifty horse moving towards him. They were the Burgundian prince and an escort of the king's own guard.

Charles dismissed the escort, and came up to the marshal, saying, "Don't say a word; I acknowledge my folly; but I saw it too late; I was already close to the works." "Everybody can see that I was not there," said the marshal; "if I had been, it would never have happened. You know, your highness, that I am only on loan to you, as long as your father lives."

Charles made no reply, and returned to his own camp, where all congratulated him and rendered homage to the king's honorable conduct.

Negotiations for peace were opened forthwith. There was no difficulty about them. Louis was ready to make sacrifices as soon as be recognized the necessity for them, being quite determined, however, in his heart to recall them as soon as fortune came back to him. Two distinct treaties were concluded: one at Conflans on the 5th of October, 1465, between Louis and the Count of Charolais; and the other at St. Maur on the 29th of October, between Louis and the other princes of the League. By one or the other of the treaties the king granted nearly every demand that had been made upon him; to the Count of Charolais he gave up all the towns of importance in Picardy; to the Duke of Berry he gave the duchy of Normandy, with entire sovereignty; and the other princes, independently of the different territories that had been conceded to them, all received large sums in ready money. The conditions of peace had already been agreed to, when the Burgundians went so far as to summon, into the bargain, the strong place of Beauvais. Louis quietly complained to Charles: "If you wanted this town," said he, "you should have asked me for it, and I would have given it to you; but peace is made, and it ought to be observed." Charles openly disavowed the deed. When peace was proclaimed, on the 30th of October, the king went to Vincennes to receive the homage of his brother Charles for the duchy of Normandy, and that of the Count of Charolais for the lands of Picardy. The count asked the king to give up to him "for that day the castle of Vincennes for the security of all." Louis made no objection; and the gate and apartments of the castle were guarded by the count's own people. But the Parisians, whose favor Louis had won, were alarmed on his account. Twenty-two thousand men of the city militia marched towards the outskirts of Vincennes and obliged the king to return and sleep at Paris. He went almost alone to the grand review which the Count of Charolais held of his army before giving the word for marching away, and pa.s.sed from rank to rank speaking graciously to his late enemies. The king and the count, on separating, embraced one another, the count saying in a loud voice, "Gentlemen, you and I are at the command of the king my sovereign lord, who is here present, to serve him whensoever there shall be need."

When the treaties of Conflans and St. Maur were put before the parliament to be registered, the parliament at first refused, and the exchequer- chamber followed suit; but the king insisted in the name of necessity, and the registration took place, subject to a declaration on the part of the parliament that it was forced to obey. Louis, at bottom, was not sorry for this resistance, and himself made a secret protest against the treaties he had just signed.

At the outset of the negotiations it had been agreed that thirty-six notables, twelve prelates, twelve knights, and twelve members of the council, should a.s.semble to inquire into the errors committed in the government of the kingdom, and to apply remedies. They were to meet on the 15th of December, and to have terminated their labors in two months at the least, and in three months and ten days at the most. The king promised on his word to abide firmly and stably by what they should decree. But this commission was nearly a year behind time in a.s.sembling, and, even when it was a.s.sembled, its labors were so slow and so futile, that the Count de Dampmartin was quite justified in writing to the Count of Charolais, become by his father's death Duke of Burgundy, "The League of common weal has become nothing but the League of common woe."

Scarcely were the treaties signed and the princes returned each to his own dominions when a quarrel arose between the Duke of Brittany and the new Duke of Normandy. Louis, who was watching for dissensions between his enemies, went at once to see the Duke of Brittany, and made with him a private convention for mutual security. Then, having his movements free, he suddenly entered Normandy to retake possession of it as a province which, notwithstanding the cession of it just made to his brother, the King of France could not dispense with. Evreux, Gisors, Gournay, Louviers, and even Rouen fell, without much resistance, again into his power. The Duke of Berry made a vigorous appeal for support to his late ally, the Duke of Burgundy, in order to remain master of the new duchy which had been conferred upon him under the late treaties. The Count of Charolais was at that time taking up little by little the government of the Burgundian dominions in the name of his father, the aged Duke Philip, who was ill and near his end; but, by pleading his own engagements, and especially his ever-renewed struggle with his Flemish subjects, the Liegese, the count escaped from the necessity of satisfying the Duke of Berry.

In order to be safe in the direction of Burgundy as well as that of Brittany, Louis had entered into negotiations with Edward IV., King of England, and had made him offers, perhaps even promises, which seemed to trench upon the rights ceded by the treaty of Conflans to the Duke of Burgundy, as to certain districts of Picardy. The Count of Charolais was informed of it; and in his impetuous wrath he wrote to King Louis, dubbing him simply Sir, instead of giving him, according to the usage between va.s.sal and suzerain, the t.i.tle of My most dread lord, "May it please you to wit, that some time ago I was apprised of a matter at which I cannot be too much astounded. It is with great sorrow that I name it to you, when I remember the fair expressions I have all through this year had from you, both in writing and by word of mouth. It is certain that parley has been held between your people and those of the King of England, that you have thought proper to a.s.sign to them the district of Caux and the city of Rouen; that you have promised to obtain from them Abbeville and the count-ship of Ponthieu, and that you have concluded with them certain alliances against me and my country, whilst making them large offers to my prejudice. Of what is yours, sir, you may dispose according to your pleasure; but it seems to me that you might do better than wish to take from my hands what is mine, in order to give it to the English or to any other foreign nation. I pray you, therefore, sir, if such overtures have been made by your people, to be pleased not to consent thereto in any way, but to put a stop to the whole, to the end that I may remain your most humble servant, as I desire to be."

Louis returned no answer to this letter. He contented him-self with sending to the commission of thirty-six notables, then in session at Etampes for the purpose of considering the reform of the kingdom, a request to represent to the Count of Charolais the impropriety of such language, and to appeal for the punishment of the persons who had suggested it to him. The count made some awkward excuses, at the same time that he persisted in complaining of the king's obstinate pretensions and underhand ways. A serious incident now happened, which for a while distracted the attention of the two rivals from their mutual recriminations. Duke Philip the Good, who had for some time past been visibly declining in body and mind, was visited at Bruges by a stroke of apoplexy, soon discovered to be fatal. His son, the Count of Charolais, was at Ghent. At the first whisper of danger he mounted his horse, and without a moment's halt arrived at Bruges on the 15th of June, 1467, and ran to his father's room, who had already lost speech and consciousness.

"Father, father," cried the count, on his knees and sobbing, "give me your blessing; and if I have offended you, forgive me." "My lord," added the Bishop of Bethlehem, the dying man's confessor, "if you only hear us, bear witness by some sign." The duke turned his eyes a little towards his son, and seemed to feebly press his hand. This was his last effort of life; and in the evening, after some hours of pa.s.sive agony, he died.

His son flung himself upon the bed: "He shrieked, he wept, he wrung his hands," says George Chatelain, one of the aged duke's oldest and most trusted servants, "and for many a long day tears were mingled with all his words every time he spoke to those who had been in the service of the dead, so much so that every one marvelled at his immeasurable grief; it had never heretofore been thought that he could feel a quarter of the sorrow he showed, for he was thought to have a sterner heart, whatever cause there might have been; but nature overcame him." Nor was it to his son alone that Duke Philip had been so good and left so many grounds for sorrow. "With you we lose," was the saying amongst the crowd that followed the procession through the streets, "with you we lose our good old duke, the best, the gentlest, the friendliest of princes, our peace and eke our joy! Amidst such fearful storms you at last brought us out into tranquillity and good order; you set justice on her seat and gave free course to commerce. And now you are dead, and we are orphans!"

Many voices, it is said, added in a lower tone, "You leave us in hands whereof the weight is unknown to us; we know not into what perils we may be brought by the power that is to be over us, over us so accustomed to yours, under which we, most of us, were born and grew up."

What the people were anxiously forecasting, Louis foresaw with certainty, and took his measures accordingly. A few days after the death of Philip the Good, several of the princ.i.p.al Flemish cities, Ghent first and then Liege, rose against the new Duke of Burgundy in defence of their liberties, already ignored or threatened. The intrigues of Louis were not unconnected with these solicitations. He would undoubtedly have been very glad to have seen his most formidable enemy beset, at the very commencement of his ducal reign, by serious embarra.s.sments, and obliged to let the king of France settle without trouble his differences with his brother Duke Charles of Berry, and with the Duke of Brittany. But the new Duke of Burgundy was speedily triumphant over the Flemish insurrections; and after these successes, at the close of the year 1467, he was so powerful and so unfettered in his movements, that Louis might, with good reason, fear the formation of a fresh league amongst his great neighbors in coalition against him, and perhaps even in communication with the English, who were ever ready to seek in France allies for the furtherance of their attempts to regain there the fortunes wrested from them by Joan of Arc and Charles VII. In view of such a position Louis formed a resolution, unpalatable, no doubt, to one so jealous of his own power, but indicative of intelligence and boldness; he confronted the difficulties of home government in order to prevent perils from without.

The remembrance had not yet faded of the energy displayed and the services rendered in the first part of Charles VII.'s reign by the states-general; a wish was manifested for their resuscitation; and they were spoken of, even in the popular doggerel, as the most effectual remedy for the evils of the period.

"But what says Paris?"--"She is deaf and dumb."

"Dares she not speak?"--"Nor she, nor parliament."

"The clergy?"--"O! the clergy are kept mum."

"Upon your oath?"--"Yes, on the sacrament."

"The n.o.bles, then?"--"The n.o.bles are still worse."

"And justice?"--"Hath nor balances nor weights."

"Who, then, may hope to mitigate this curse?"

"Who? prithee, who?"--"Why, France's three estates."

"Be pleased, O prince, to grant alleviation . . ."

"To whom?"--"To the good citizen who waits . . ."

"For what?"--"The right of governing the nation . . ."

"Through whom? pray, whom?"--"Why, France's three estates."

In the face of the evil Louis felt no fear of the remedy. He summoned the states-general to a meeting at Tours on the 1st of April, 1468.

Twenty-eight lords in person, besides representatives of several others who were unable to be there themselves, and a hundred and ninety-two deputies elected by sixty-four towns, met in session. The chancellor, Juvenal des Ursins, explained, in presence of the king, the object of the meeting: "It is to take cognizance of the differences which have arisen between the king and Sir Charles, his brother, in respect of the duchy of Normandy and the appanage of the said Sir Charles; likewise the great excesses and encroachments which the Duke of Brittany hath committed against the king by seizing his places and subjects, and making open war upon him; and thirdly, the communication which is said to be kept up by the Duke of Brittany with the English, in order to bring them down upon this country, and hand over to them the places he doth hold in Normandy.