Charles the Bold Part 38

On across the Jura marched the Burgundian army, while the Swiss diet came to a slow and confused decision to prepare to meet him. He did not take the route generally expected, directly towards Berne, his chief antagonist, but turned aside and attacked the little fortress of Granson. The castle was not over strong. Efforts to provision it by water failed, and, finally, on February 28th, after a brief siege, the captain of the garrison, Hans Wyler, capitulated to the duke's German forces, who represented to them that Charles was as generous as he was magnificent.

If the Milan amba.s.sador can be trusted, the surrender was unconditional. Charles was soon on the spot. The four hundred and twelve soldiers, who had succeeded in holding the Burgundian army at bay for ten whole days, were made to march past his tent with bowed heads. Then he ordered one and all to be hanged, reserving two to help in the executions. Four hours were occupied in fulfilling these pitiless orders. Panigarola arrived at the camp on the 29th,--it was leap year, 1476,--and found this accomplished and saw the bodies hanging on the trees, but he a.s.serts that no word was broken.[14]

Charles was now absolutely confident of complete success. "_Bellorum eventus dubii sunt_," remarked the prudent Milanese, however, and he was proved right.

When the allied forces of the mountaineers finally arrived in the duke's neighbourhood a hot pitched battle ensued. The Burgundians, led by the duke in person, were thrown into utter confusion. The mercenaries, terrified by the uncouth yells and battle-cries of Uri and Unterwalden, simply lost their heads and did nothing. Charles was pushed on as far as Jougne. It was not only a defeat, but a complete rout. When the Swiss came in sight of the late garrison hanged to the trees, their rage knew no bounds. In their turn they ma.s.sacred, hanged, and drowned every one in Burgundian pay whom they could lay hands upon. The Burgundians saved their lives when they could, but their valuable artillery and their baggage, the ma.s.s of riches that Charles carried with him were ruthlessly sacrificed, and gathered up contemptuously as booty by the Swiss, who cared little for the tapestries and jewels though they prized the gold. Such was the battle of Granson, on the 2nd of March.

The fatal mistake committed by Charles was that he despised his enemy and underestimated his quality as well as his strength. Just before engaging in battle, the whole Swiss army fell upon their knees in prayer that the issue might be successful. This action deceived Charles into thinking that they were cowardly and his opinion was shared by his men. A contemptuous laugh broke out from the Burgundian ranks.[15]

Olivier de la Marche ends a meagre account of Granson with the following rather barren words[16]:

"In short the Duke of Burgundy lost the day and was pushed back as far as Jougne, where he stopped, and it is meet that I tell how the duke's bodyguard saved themselves ... and reached Salins where I saw them arrive for I was not present at the battle on account of a malady I suffered. From Jougne the duke went to Noseret, and you can understand that he was very sad and melancholy at having lost the battle, where his rich baggage was stolen and his army shattered."

On March 21, 1476, Sir John Paston writes to Margaret Paston from Calais:

"As ffor tydyngs heer we her ffrom alle the worlde. ... Item, the Duke of Burgoyne hath conqueryd Lorreyn and Queen Margreet shall nott nowe be lykelyhod have it; wherffer the Frenshe kynge cheryssheth hyr b.u.t.t easelye; but afftr thys conquest off Loreyn the Duke toke grete corage to goo upon the londe off the Swechys [Swiss] to conquer them b.u.t.t the berded hym att an onsett place and hathe dystrussyd hym and hathe slayne the most part of his vanwarde and wonne all hys ordynnaunce and artylrye and mor ovyr all stuffe thatt he hade in hys ost with hym; exceppte men and horse ffledde nott but they roode that nyght xx myle; and so the ryche saletts, heulmetts garters, nowchys[17] gelt and all is goone with tente pavylons and all and soo men deme hys pryde is abatyd. Men tolde hym that they were ffrowarde karlys b.u.t.te he wolde nott beleve it and yitt men seye that he woll to them ageyn.

G.o.de spede them bothe."

Many of the rumours that were current represented Charles as completely prostrated by his disaster. This was only half true.

His efforts to retrieve himself were immediate but, physically, he certainly showed the effects of this campaign. He was attacked by a low fever, his stomach rejected food, insomnia afflicted his nights, and dropsical swellings appeared on his legs. This condition was attributed to his fatigues and exposure in a hard climate, and to his habit of drinking warm barley-water in the morning. He was urged to use a soft feather-bed instead of his hard couch, while Yolande's own physician and one Angelo Catto watched anxiously over him. The latter claimed the credit of saving his life. Charles was not, however, fully recovered when he resumed his activities and held a review on May 9th.

With all his efforts exerted in every quarter likely to yield results, the whole number of troops was but twenty thousand men. Every onlooker felt that the duke was now trying to accomplish something quite beyond his resources.

"Ill.u.s.trious prince [wrote the King of Hungary[18]], we cannot sufficiently wonder that you should have been so gravely deceived and that, after having once found that you were lured into loss and disgrace, again you let yourself be snared in a labyrinth from which you will either never escape, or escape only with damage and shame.... Without risk to himself [your foe] has precipitated you into an abyss and tied you where you are exposed to the loss of your possessions and your life.... We exhort you to pause before incurring heavier losses and greater dangers. If fortune smiles upon you in your attack on that people, you will have the whole empire against you. In the opposite event--which G.o.d avert--it will be turned into a common tale how a mighty prince was overcome by rustics whom there would have been no honour in conquering, while to be conquered by them would be an eternal disgrace."

This plain-spoken epistle failed to reach its destination until after the prophecy had been fulfilled. Its warning would probably have been futile had Charles read it before he marched on towards Berne, on June 8th. On the road that he chose lay the town of Morat, which had made ready for his approach. A few days to reduce it, and then on to Berne was his plan. His force succeeded in holding the ground and cutting off communication with Berne for three days. On the 14th, a messenger made his way through from the beleaguered city to Berne, and all the allies were then urged to do their best. The result was encouraging.

"There are three times as many as at Granson, but let no one be dismayed, with G.o.d's help we will kill them all," wrote a leader of Berne.

The encounter came on June 23d. The force was really a formidable one.

Rene of Lorraine was among the commanders on the side of the Swiss.

It was a tremendous fight, brief as it was savage; at two o'clock the a.s.sault was made and within an hour Charles was repulsed. Almost all the infantry perished. The slain is estimated variously from ten to twenty-two thousand. Charles did not keep his vow to perish if defeated. To his a.s.sured allies he clung closely, and none had more reason to be faithful to him than Yolande of Savoy. After Granson he hastened to give the d.u.c.h.ess his own view of the disaster:

"It has given me a singular pleasure to hear of your calmness and constancy of soul; for the thought of your affliction weighed more heavily upon me than what has befallen me ... every day diminishes the inconvenience and proves that the loss in men is less than we thought. _Such as it is it came from a mere skirmish_. The bulk of the armies did not engage, to my great displeasure. Had they fought the victory would have been mine. There has been none on either side. G.o.d, I trust, reserves it for you and for me ... the hope you have placed in me shall not be vain."

Thus he wrote on March 7th to encourage his anxious protegee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF MORAT]

After the second defeat it was to her that the duke turned again. In the very early morning after the battle of Morat, Charles paused at Morges on the Lake of Geneva, having ridden hard through the night.

There he heard ma.s.s, breakfasted, rested awhile, and then rode on, reaching the castle of Gex at six o'clock in the evening, where Yolande of Savoy was awaiting his coming in full knowledge of the second disaster he had suffered.

At the foot of the staircase, attended by her ladies, Yolande was waiting to greet her disappointed friend. Charles dismounted and kissed each member of the family in order of precedence, the little duke, his brother, then the d.u.c.h.ess, her daughter, and the ladies in waiting. Yolande had had time to move out of her own suite of apartments and have them prepared for her guest's use, and there the two talked together confidentially, while their attendants waited patiently just out of earshot.

Then Charles formally escorted his hostess to her son's room, returning to his own, showing signs of extreme fatigue. Panigarola was absent, but another Milanese was among her suite, and he pressed forward as the duke re-entered the apartment, offering to carry any message to the Duke of Milan, to be cut short with, "It is well. That is enough." Shortly afterwards, Olivier de la Marche and the Sire de Givry, commander of the Burgundians dedicated to Yolande's service, were summoned and had a long conference with Charles.

Yolande was, apparently, more communicative to the Milanese Appiano than to Charles, but he saw that she was not frank with him. "She must throw herself on the protection of France or of Milan," he wrote to his master.[20] She was, however, clear in her own mind that she would not accept Sforza's protection any more than that of Charles. She absolutely refused to identify her fortunes with the latter. She was determined to go to Geneva, but no farther. The duke remained at Gex until the 27th, and renewed his arguments to persuade her to cross the Jura with him. She was firm in adhering to her own plan. The two parties set out from the castle together, their roads lying in opposite directions, but Charles escorted his hostess about half-way to Geneva, riding beside her carriage, and continuing his persuasions in a low voice. At last he drew up his rein, gave her a farewell kiss, and rode off. He was much displeased at her determination, and he speedily resolved upon other methods of making sure of her fidelity to him. La Marche thus relates the story:[21]

"After the duke had been discomfited the second time by the Swiss before Morat, believing that he could do the thing secretly, he made a plan to kidnap Mme. of Savoy and her children and take them to Burgundy, and he ordered me, I being at Geneva, on my head to capture Mme. of Savoy and her children and bring them to him. In order to obey my prince and master I did his behest quite against my heart, and I took madame and her children near the gate of Geneva. But the Duke of Savoy was stolen away from me (for it was two o'clock in the night) by the means of some of our own company who were subjects of the Duke of Savoy, and, a.s.suredly, they did no more than their duty. What I did was simply to save my life, for the duke, my master, was the kind that insisted on having his will done under penalty of losing one's head. So I took my way, and carried Mme. of Savoy behind me, and her two daughters followed and two or three of her maids, and we took the road over the mountain to reach St. Claude. I was well a.s.sured of the second son, and had him carried by a gentleman. I thought I was a.s.sured of the Duke of Savoy, but he was stolen from me as I said. As soon as we were at a distance, the people of the d.u.c.h.ess, and especially the seigneur de Manton, had torches brought and took the duke back to Geneva, in which they had great joy. And I with Mme. of Savoy and the little boy (who was not the duke), crossed the mountain in the black night and came to a place called Mijoux, and thence to St. Claude.

"You must know that the duke gave very bad cheer to the company, and chiefly to me. I was in danger of my life because I had not brought the Duke of Savoy. Then the duke went on to Salins without speaking to me or giving me any orders. However, I escorted Mme.

of Savoy after him, and he ordered me to take her to the castle of Rochefort. Thence she was taken to Rouvre in Burgundy. After that I had nothing more to do with her or her affairs."

This queer story is undoubtedly true, and the tone in which La Marche relates it indicates that he, too, was alienated by the duke's manner, and might have been more willing to lend an ear to Louis's suggestions than he had been five years previously.

It is not evident that he played his master false or that he was cognisant of the recapture of the little duke, but he says himself that he thought the attendants were absolutely justified in it.

It is after this incident that the astute Panigarola returns and joins the duke's suite at Salins. He finds Charles a changed man, indulging in strange fits of hilarity, expressing the wish that a couple of thousand more of his troops had been killed, "French at heart" as they were. He refused to see Yolande, after thus forcibly obtaining the means of so doing, and sent her to the castle of the Sire of Rochefort for safe-keeping. Abstemious as he had been all his life, never taking wine without water, the strong Burgundy in which he now suddenly indulged went to his head.

Rumours went abroad that his mental balance was shaken. That does not seem to have been true to the extent of insanity. He was only infinitely chagrined but he certainly put on a brave front and retained his self-confidence and declared

"They are wrong if they believe me defeated. Providence has provided me with so many people and estates with such abundant resources, that many such defeats would be needed to ruin them. At the moment when the world imagines that I am annihilated, I will reopen the campaign with an army of 150,000 men."[22]

[Footnote 1: _Lettres de Louis XI_., v., 368.]

[Footnote 2: _Nos omnes relinquens, Ibid_., 371.]

[Footnote 3: Commynes-Dupont, i., 336.]

[Footnote 4: _Lettres_, v., 363. Louis to Dammartin.]

[Footnote 5: Gachard, _Doc. ined_., i., 249.]

[Footnote 6: Commines, iv., ch. vi.]

[Footnote 7: Commines, iv., ch. viii.: Comines-Lenglet, ii., 217.]

[Footnote 8: The terms of the treaty provided for a seven years'

truce, with international free trade and mutual a.s.sistance in civil or foreign wars of either monarch. Louis's complaisance went so far that he did not insist on Edward's renouncing the t.i.tle of King of England and France.]

[Footnote 9: _The Paston Letters_. Sir John Paston to his mother, Sept. 11, 1475.]

[Footnote 10: The story must be omitted here. The constable was finally apprehended, tried, and executed at Paris.]

[Footnote 11: _Depeches Milanaises_, i., 253. The copy only is at Milan and there is no seal.]

[Footnote 12: Toutey, p. 380.]

[Footnote 13: _Dep. Milan_., i., 266.]

[Footnote 14: _Dep. Milan_., i., 300.]

[Footnote 15: Jomini lays the defeat to a tactical error. "Charles had committed the fault of encamping with one wing of his army resting on the lake, the other ill-secured at the foot of a wooded mountain.

Nothing is more dangerous for an army than to have one of its wings resting on an unbridged stream, on a lake, or on the sea." Charles explained to Europe that he had been surprised, and his defeat was a mere bagatelle.]

[Footnote 16: III., 216.]

[Footnote 17: Embossed ornaments.]

[Footnote l8: _Dep. Milan._, ii., 126.]

[Footnote 19: _Dep. Milan._, ii., 335.]