Part 12 (1/2)

The young Commines is surprised that Paris and her environs were rich enough to feed so many men. Gradually the aspect of affairs changed.

Negotiating back and forth became more frequent. The disintegration of the allies became more and more evident. Louis XI. bided his time and then took the extraordinary resolution to go in person to the camp at Charenton to visit his cousin of Burgundy. With a very few attendants, practically unguarded, he went down the Seine. His coming had been heralded and the Count of Charolais stood ready to receive him, with the Count of St. Pol at his side. ”Brother, do you pledge me safety?”

(for the count's first wife was sister of Louis) to which the count responded: ”Yes, as one brother to another.”[13]

Nothing could have been more genial than was the king. He a.s.sured Charles that he loved a man who kept his word beyond anything.

Veracity was his pa.s.sion. Charles had kept the promise he had sent by the archbishop of Narbonne, and now he knew in very truth that he was a gentleman and true to the blood of France. Further, he disavowed the insolence of his chancellor towards Charles, and repeated that his cousin had been justified in resenting it. ”You have kept your promise and that long before the day.”[14]

Then in a friendly promenade, Louis gave an opportunity to Charles and St. Pol to state, informally, the terms on which they would withdraw from their hostile footing, and count the weal restored to the oppressed public whose sorrows had moved them to a confederation.

Distasteful as was every item to Louis, he accepted the requisition of those who felt that they were in a position to dictate, and after a little more parleying at later dates, the treaty of Conflans was duly arranged. It was none too soon for the allies. They could hardly have held together many days longer in the midst of the jealousies rife in their camps.

The king paused at nothing. To his brother he gave Normandy, to Charles of Burgundy the towns on the Somme with guarantee of possession for his lifetime, while the Count of St. Pol was made Constable of France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOUIS XI. WITH THE PRINCES AND SEIGNEURS OF THE WAR OF PUBLIC WEAL TAKEN FROM CONTEMPORANEOUS MINIATURE IN ABBEY OF ST.

GERMAIN DES PReS (COMINES-LENGLET, II., FRONTISPIECE)]

Boulogne and Guienne, too, were ceded to Charles, lesser places and pensions to the other confederates. The contest ended with complete victory for the allies who were left with the proud consciousness that they had set a definite limit to royal pretensions, at least, on paper.

After the treaty was signed, the king showed no resentment at his defeat but urged his cousin to amuse himself a while in Paris before returning home. Charles was rash, but he had not the temerity to trust himself so far. Pleading a promise to his father to enter no city gate until on paternal soil, he declined the invitation and soon returned to the Netherlands, where his own household had suffered change.

During his absence, the Countess of Charolais had died and been buried at Antwerp. Charles is repeatedly lauded for his perfect faithfulness to his wife, but her death seems to have made singularly little ripple on the surface of his life. The chroniclers touch on the event very casually, laying more stress on the opportunity it gave Louis XI.

to offer his daughter Anne as her successor, than on the event itself.[15]

[Footnote 1: La Marche, ii., 227. Peter von Hagenbach was the chamberlain to enforce this.]

[Footnote 2: The receipt for this half payment was signed October 8, 1462. (Comines, _Memoires_, Lenglet du Fresnoy edition, ii., 392-403.)]

[Footnote 3: Du Clercq, iii., 236; Comines-Lenglet, ii., 393.]

[Footnote 4: Commines, _Memoires_ I., ch. i. In the above pa.s.sages Dannett's translation is followed for the racy English.]

[Footnote 5: Commines says at The Hague; Meyer makes it Gorc.u.m.]

[Footnote 6: III., 3.]

[Footnote 7: Lavisse iv^{ii}., 336.]

[Footnote 8: Chastellain, v., i, etc.]

[Footnote 9: V., II.]

[Footnote 10: Letter of the Count of Charolais to the citizens of Amiens. (_Collection de Doc.u.ments inedits sur l'histoire de France_.) ”Melanges,” ii., 317. In this collection taken from MS. in the Bibl.

Nat. there are many letters private and public about these events.]

[Footnote 11: Since its recovery from the English, there had been no duke in Normandy. It was thus the one province open to the king.]

[Footnote 12: I., ch. xi. His vivacious story of the siege should be read in detail.]