Volume III Part 6 (2/2)
”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-s.h.i.+p 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.
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