The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
dominions of Charles the Bold. But in the war of intrigue and arms that filled the next four years Louis on the whole gained the advantage. Charles of France was persuaded to give up Champagne. The old League was almost, but never quite, revived. The death of Charles of France in 1472 came opportunely, some said too opportunely, for his brother the King. Charles the Bold, who had recently established a standing army of horse and foot, determined to force the game and invaded France. But Louis avoided any engagement, and Charles consumed his forces in a vain attack on Beauvais. He retreated without any advantage gained. Meanwhile Britanny had been reduced to submission.
From that time Charles’ ambition seems to look rather eastwards. In 1469 he had received from Sigismund of Austria, as security for a loan, the southern part of Elsass with the Breisgau. In 1473, after the conquest of Gelders and Zutphen, he entered on fruitless negotiations with the Emperor Frederick III with a view to being crowned as King, and recognised as imperial Vicar in the West. He even hoped to be accepted as King of the Romans. In 1474 he interfered in a quarrel between the Archbishop of Cologne and his Chapter, and laid siege to the little town of Neuss. Eleven months his army lay before this poor place. Imperial hosts gathered to its relief, and Charles was-baffled. Meanwhile his chance of chances went by. When, as the result of long-continued pressure, Edward IV at length invaded France, Charles, who had just raised the siege of Neuss, was exhausted and unable to take his part in the proposed operations. Edward made terms with Louis and retired. In the autumn (1475) Charles scored his last success by overrunning Lorraine. At length his northern and his southern dominions were united.
But meanwhile his acquisitions in Elsass and the Breisgau had involved him in quarrels with the Swiss. Swiss merchants had been ill-treated. The mortgaged provinces were outraged by the harsh rule of Peter von Hagenbach, the Duke’s governor. The Swiss took up their quarrel, instigated by French gold. A revolt ensued, and the Swiss assisted the inhabitants to seize, try, and execute Hagenbach (May, 1474). In his camp before Neuss Charles received the Swiss defiance. Soon afterwards, the Swiss invaded Franche Comte and defeated the Duke’s forces near Hericourt. In March, 1475, Pontarlier was sacked, and later in the same year the Swiss attacked the Duchess of Savoy and the Count de Romont, the Duke’s allies, and were everywhere victorious. These were insults not to be borne. Charles marshalled all his strength, crossed the Jura in February, 1476, and advancing to the shore of Neuchatel, assaulted and captured the castle of Granson. Moving along the north-western verge of the lake, a few miles further he was attacked by the Swiss. An unaccountable panic seized his army; it broke and fled. All the rich equipment of Charles, even his seal and his jewels, fell into the hands of the Swiss; and the Duke himself fled. At Lausanne, under the protection of the Duchess of Savoy, he reorganised his army. In May he was ready to set forth once more against the Swiss and especially against Bern. His route this time led him to the little town of Morat, S.E. of the lake of Neuchatel. Here he lingered for ten days in hopes to overpower the garrison and secure his communications for a further advance. But the little place, whose walls still stand, held out. Time was thus given for the enemy to collect. On June 21 their last contingent arrived. The next day they moved forward in pouring rain to attack. The Burgundians awaited their arrival in the neighbourhood of their camp to the south of Morat. The battle was fierce, but the shock of the Swiss phalanx proved irresistible. This time the Duke’s army was not only scattered, but destroyed, after being driven back upon the lake. But few escaped, and no prisoners were made.
Once more the Duke threw himself on the mercy of the Duchess of Savoy, whose kindness he soon afterwards ill repaid by making her his prisoner. After a period of deep depression, bordering on insanity, Charles was roused once more to action by the news that Rene of Lorraine was reconquering his duchy. Nancy and other places had already fallen, when Charles appeared at the head of an army. Rene, leaving orders to hold Nancy, retired from the province to seek aid abroad. The Swiss gave leave to raise volunteers; the King of France supplied him with money; and, while Nancy still held out, Rene at length, in bitter weather, set out from Basel. As he approached Nancy, Charles met him with his beleaguering army to the south of the town (January 5, 1477); but the Swiss were not to be denied. Once more Charles was defeated; this time he met with his death. His vast plans, which had even included the acquisition of Provence by bequest from the Duke of Anjou, so as, with the control or possession of Savoy, to complete the establishment of his rule from the Mediterranean to the mouth of the Rhine, were extinguished with him.
The King of France, who hitherto had left his allies to fight alone, now took up arms, and occupied both the duchy and the county of Burgundy, the remaining Somme towns, and Artois with Arras. But Mary, Charles’ heiress, gave her hand to Maximilian of Austria, who succeeded in stemming the tide of Louis1 conquests, and even inflicted a defeat on him at Guinegaste (1479). Louis lost and recovered the county of Burgundy. At length a treaty was concluded at Arras ( 1482). Early in the same year Mary had died, leaving two children. The duchy of Burgundy was lost for ever to her heirs and incorporated with the royal domain. Artois, the county of Burgundy, and some minor lands were retained by Louis as the dowry of Margaret of Burgundy, who was betrothed to the infant Dauphin. After this marriage had been finally broken off in 1491, Charles VIII restored Artois and Franche Comte to the house of Burgundy by the Treaty of Senlis (1493).
Thus ended the great duel of war and intrigue between Louis XI and Charles the Bold. The struggle had taxed the strength of France, which had hardly yet recovered from the Hundred Years’ War. But the result was all or nearly all that could be wished. The old feud reappears in a new form in the rivalry of Charles V and Francis I. The danger was however then distinctly foreign; Charles the Bold, on the other hand, was still a French prince and relied on French territory and French support.
Second, but far inferior in power, to the Duke of Burgundy came the Duke of Britanny,—Duke by the grace of God. His duchy was indeed more sharply severed from the rest of France by conscious difference of blood; his subjects were not less warlike and of equal loyalty. But his province stood alone, and was not, like that of Charles the Bold, supported by other even more rich and populous territories forming part of France or of the Empire. The undesirable aid of England could be had for a price, and was occasionally invoked, but could never be a real source of strength. On the other hand, like Burgundy, Britanny was exempt from royal faille and aides, and was not even bound to support the King in his wars. The Duke of Britanny did only simple homage to the King for his duchy. The homage of his subjects to their Duke was without reserve. He had his own Court of appeal, his “great days,” for his subjects. Only after this Court had pronounced, was resort allowed to the Parlement, on ground of deni de justice, or faux jugement.
Britanny sent no representatives to the French States-General. She had her own law, her own coinage, of both gold and silver. In 1438 she refused to recognise the Pragmatic. Yet French had here since the eleventh century been the language of administration. The Breton youth were educated at Paris or Angers. Breton nobles rose to fame and fortune in the King’s service. In 1378 Jean IV was driven out for supporting too warmly the English cause. French tastes and sympathies were thus consistent with obstinate attachment to Breton independence.
To preserve this cherished independence, the Dukes maintained a long and unequal struggle. Charles V had attempted to annex the duchy by way of forfeiture, but soon found the task beyond his powers. In all the intrigues of the reign of Louis XI, the Duke of Britanny was either an open or a covert foe. His isolated position exposed him to the King’s attacks, and although at one time, when allied with Charles, then Duke of Normandy, his armies occupied the western half of that province, the close of Louis’ reign showed him distinctly weaker. The character of the last Duke, Francis II, was not such as to qualify him for making the best of a bad position. Weak, unwarlike, and easily influenced, he provoked a hostility which he was not man enough to meet.
In the intrigues against the government of Anne of Beaujeu during the minority of Charles VIII, Francis of Britanny was leagued with the Duke of Orleans, the Count of Angouleme, Rene of Lorraine and other discontented princes. Unfortunately the Duke’s confidential minister, Landois, by his corrupt and oppressive rule, alienated a large part of his subjects, and provoked a revolt, which was supported by the Court of France. The Duke of Britanny was helpless. Louis of Orleans, who was already scheming for a divorce and an aspirant for the hand of Anne of Britanny, could render little assistance, and his undeveloped character was unequally matched with the political wisdom