Chapter XVI: Revival of the French Monarchy, 1435-1494 (2)

The decisive victory of Edward IV. was a blow to Louis XI., and it was the more serious because in 1470 he had become involved in new hostilities with Charles the Bold. [Sidenote: The Constable St. Pol.] This was in great measure due to the Count of St. Pol, who had been an influential personage at the French court ever since the war of the Public Weal. His position was in many ways an extraordinary one. For his hereditary estates he was a vassal of Charles the Bold, and the bulk of these estates lay in or near the province of Picardy, the very frontier where the rivalry between French and Burgundian interests was most acute. As Constable he was a servant of the French king and the chief commander of the standing forces of the crown. The incongruity of such a double relation had been clearly shown in recent events. In 1466 St. Pol had taken part as a Burgundian vassal in the campaign against Dinant and Liége. In the next year he had headed the French embassy which had suggested the abandonment of Liége by Louis as the price of Charles’s severance from Brittany. The importance and the anomaly of the constable’s position were both increased by his own marriage with Mary of Savoy, Louis XI.’s sister-in-law, and by the marriage of his niece, Elizabeth Woodville, to Edward IV. of England. It was the ambition of St. Pol to play the part of an independent potentate in the politics of Europe, and he conceived that the best way to do this was to prolong the strife between France and Burgundy. Not only did the war increase his power and importance as constable of France, but it also enabled him, through the position of his own estates, to hold a sort of balancing position between the two opponents. Both might hate and fear him, but it was in the highest degree unlikely that they would combine against him; and as both must bid for his support, it was in his power to make his own terms with either side as interest and policy should dictate. Accordingly, in 1470, he persuaded Louis to strike a blow for the recovery of the Somme towns, and in the king’s name he took possession of Amiens and St. Quentin. Charles the Bold was [Sidenote: Renewed war between France and Burgundy.] taken by surprise, and the want of a standing army always made it difficult for him to meet any sudden move on the part of the French king. He was naturally indignant that the blow should be dealt by one of his own vassals, and his anger was by no means diminished when he received a message from St. Pol and his associates that they would desert to his side if he would marry his daughter Mary to Charles of Guienne. Charles had no desire to give up his daughter, whose hand was a valuable asset in his diplomacy, and he had no intention of submitting to coercion in the choice of a son-in-law. His obstinacy compelled the constable and the confederate nobles to remain outwardly loyal to the king, though their real aim was to reduce the duke to such straits that he must accept their terms. An attempt on the part of Charles to recover Amiens ended in failure, and the critical struggle in England led to a truce in April 1471, by which the captured towns were left in the king’s hands. The Yorkist victory seemed likely to turn the balance in favour of Burgundy, but, fortunately for Louis, Edward IV. was resolutely hostile to the marriage project put forward by the French princes. It is true that a dauphin had been born in 1470, but he was a sickly child, and if he died the duke of Guienne would once more become heir to the throne, and the possible absorption of the vast Burgundian inheritance by the French monarchy would be ruinous to English interests and ambition. Sooner than allow such a union to be effected Edward would abandon Burgundy and join Louis. But Louis was discouraged by the failure of his English policy. He knew that he could not trust the loyalty of his instruments, and he preferred diplomacy to the renewal of a war in which there was little prospect of assured gain. So for six months he negotiated with Charles, offering to restore Amiens and St. Quentin and to abandon St. Pol to the vengeance of his injured suzerain, on condition that Charles would give up all connection with the dukes of Guienne and Brittany. At last, in the spring of 1472, Charles announced that he would accept the proffered terms. At the same time he privately assured the dukes that he only agreed to the treaty in order to recover his own possessions, and that he had no intention of deserting them. But Louis was not so easily duped. He had received intelligence that his brother was hopelessly unwell, and he adroitly postponed any final agreement until the news came that the duke of Guienne had died on May 24. Of [Sidenote: Death of Charles of Guienne.] course it was rumoured that so opportune an event must be due to contrivance rather than to chance, but Louis’s gains were so substantial that he could afford to disregard a suspicion which had no real foundation. Guienne reverted to the crown, troops were despatched to invade Brittany, and the treaty on which so much time had been spent was repudiated. Charles was carried away by rage and disappointment. Although the truce was not yet expired he crossed the Somme to harry the territories of the French king. Nesle was taken and sacked with a brutality unusual even in fifteenth century France, and Charles advanced to the siege of Beauvais. But his military skill was not equal to his indignation, and after a prolonged attack he was compelled to retreat and to close the campaign by a truce in November, 1472. Curiously enough this proved more durable than many formal treaties of peace. The truce was renewed from time to time, and Charles and Louis never again met in open hostility.

The death of the duke of Guienne proved far more important than his life had been. A coalition of the princes of the lilies had nearly ruined the monarchy in 1465, [Sidenote: Altered policy of Charles the Bold, 1472.] and the energies of Louis had been taxed ever since to prevent its revived activity. That coalition was now wholly broken up. Charles the Bold was as hostile as ever to the French king, but he was compelled to adopt different means to overthrow his rival. Hitherto his primary concern had been with the affairs of France. He had appeared to the world as the powerful vassal who headed the forces of feudalism to depress the authority of his suzerain. Henceforth he turned his chief attention from his French to his German provinces, and sought to build up a rival kingdom along the valley of the Rhine, which might surpass France in wealth and power, and might even bring to its ruler the imperial crown. The danger to Louis was perhaps as great, but it was wholly different in character, and it required wholly different expedients to cope with it. That within France the monarchy had gained a decisive victory over the forces arrayed against it was recognised by two of the most subtle intellects of the time. Philippe de Commines, the born vassal and the intimate adviser of Charles the Bold, had already made the acquaintance of Louis XI. during the troubled days at Péronne. In the autumn of 1472 he deserted his suzerain to enter the service of the king, whose character and career he has described in the most important historical work of the century. His example was followed by Odet d’Aydie, lord of Lescun, who had hitherto been the trusted guide of Charles of Guienne and Francis of Brittany. The shrewd Gascon found no difficulty in gaining the favour of his new employer, and he was rewarded with the title of count of Comminges.

Already, before 1472, Charles the Bold had taken an important step in the direction of territorial aggrandisement in Germany. Alsace and the Breisgau, representing the original Swabian possessions of the house [Sidenote: Acquisitions of Charles the Bold in Germany.] of Hapsburg, had been ruled since 1439 by Sigismund, son of that Frederick of Tyrol who had played a prominent part in the early stages of the Council of Constance (see p. 213). Like his ancestors, Sigismund had become involved in a quarrel with the members of the Swiss confederation, and by a treaty in 1468 he had pledged himself to pay to the League a considerable sum of money. Unable to raise the sum from his own resources, he had applied to Charles the Bold, who agreed to furnish the money if Alsace and the Breisgau were handed over to him as security. It was more than improbable that the penniless count of Tyrol would ever redeem the pledge, and Charles, treating the provinces as his own possession, intrusted the administration to Peter of Hagenbach. When, in 1472, the direct opposition to Louis XI. came to an end, Charles turned with avidity to that acquisition of lands in Germany which was to prove the cause of his ruin. Interfering as arbiter in a dispute between father and son in Gelderland, he seized the disputed duchy for himself (1473). In the same year occurred the death of Nicolas of Calabria, the grandson and last male descendant of the old Réné le Bon. The duchy of Lorraine now passed to another grandson, Réné of Vaudemont, who inherited both the Angevin and the Vaudemont claim. Lorraine was of peculiar importance to Charles the Bold, as it lay between his northern and his southern dominions. Although he had no legal claim to interfere, he seized the young duke and only released him on condition that he should cede four fortresses as a guarantee for the free passage of Burgundian forces through Lorraine. Meanwhile Charles was negotiating with the emperor Frederick III. to have his duchy of Burgundy erected into a kingdom, and he intended to claim all those territories which at one time or another had borne the name of Burgundy. Such a claim would have included Savoy, Provence, and several adjacent districts. The emperor was to be bribed by the proposal of a marriage between his son Maximilian and the heiress of these vast dominions present and prospective. An interview was arranged at Trier, and Charles brought with him the crown that was to be placed on his head. But Frederick III., always cautious and rather timid, was alarmed by the extravagant pretensions of the aspirant to royalty, and he was cognisant of a scheme to recover Alsace for his cousin Sigismund. So one night the emperor slipped away in a boat down the Moselle, leaving the duke the laughing-stock of Europe. But this humiliation failed to check Charles’s ambition, and in 1474 he embarked on a new enterprise. The archbishop of Cologne, Robert of Bavaria, deposed by his chapter and his subjects, appealed for assistance to the duke of Burgundy, who seized the opportunity to gain on the middle Rhine a preponderance similar to that which he had acquired in the bishopric of Liége. With a large army Charles entered the territories of Cologne, as the champion of the archbishop against his rebellious subjects, and laid siege to Neuss, a fortress on the Rhine held by the Landgrave of Hesse, whose brother had been appointed administrator of the diocese.

The siege of Neuss was one of the great blunders of Charles the Bold. He had never shown any skill in siege operations, and for a whole year his obstinacy [Sidenote: Louis XI. stirs up enemies against Charles the Bold.] kept him before a town which he was ultimately unable to reduce. During these months his enemies were able to attack with impunity the extremities of his dominions, and he lost a favourable opportunity of weakening his chief opponent Louis XI. Louis was frequently urged by his advisers to check the aggrandisement of the Burgundian duke by a renewal of direct hostilities. But he preferred the more subtle policy of allowing his rival to exhaust his strength in distant enterprises, while he secretly encouraged the resistance of the German princes and people whose interests were threatened by Charles’s progress. Among the latter were the leading members of the Swiss Confederation. They had always quarrelled with the Hapsburgs in Alsace, and they were not likely to find a less formidable neighbour in the duke of Burgundy, whose expansion southwards could hardly be effected without destroying their independence. The oppressive rule of Peter of Hagenbach, Charles’s bailiff in Alsace, was bitterly resented by all the cities and towns of Swabia, and Bern, now the leading canton of the Confederation, was prominent in demanding redress. Louis seized the opportunity to score a notable diplomatic victory. He induced Sigismund to demand the restoration of Alsace, and he set himself to reconcile the Swiss with their old opponent. On March 30, 1474, it was agreed by the Everlasting Compact that Sigismund should renounce all Hapsburg claims within the territory of the League, and that the confederates should support him in recovering the provinces which had been pledged to Charles. The chief Swabian towns furnished the necessary money to redeem the pledge, and when Charles took no notice of the demand for restitution, Alsace was invaded and Hagenbach was put to death (May 9, 1474). After this there was good reason to dread the duke’s enmity, and a strong party was formed within the League which contended that the safest method of defence was to anticipate attack. French gold was employed to aid and extend this party, which was headed by Nicolas von Diesbach of Bern, and the emperor Frederick III. was induced to use his authority to urge on a war with Burgundy. In October a treaty was concluded with France, and this was followed by a formal defiance of Charles and an invasion of Franche-Comté. Charles received the news of these events before Neuss, but he refused to abandon the siege, and the only step which he took to protect his interests in the south was to conclude a close alliance with Yolande of France, the dowager-duchess and regent of Savoy. Yolande was the sister of Louis XI., but her policy was as independent and self-seeking as that of her brother, and she did not scruple to break off the intimate alliance between Savoy and France which had resulted in her own marriage and that of Louis. She even used her influence to detach her brother-in-law, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, from France, and to arrange an alliance between Milan and Burgundy. But the first result of her action was to extend the area of Swiss aggression, and in the spring of 1475 Granson, Morat, and other Savoyard territories fell into the hands of the confederates. About the same time Réné of Lorraine was induced by the French king to repudiate his recent treaty with Charles the Bold and to invade the duchy of Luxemburg. So formidable was the coalition now formed that Louis sent to Frederick III. to propose a partition of the Burgundian territories, the French provinces to be escheated to the crown, and the German fiefs to be claimed by the emperor. But the cautious Hapsburg would not commit himself to so far-reaching a scheme, and replied that he preferred not to bargain about the bear’s skin until the beast was dead.

The position of Charles was one of great danger. He was practically at war with the Swiss, with Sigismund of Tyrol, with the duke of Lorraine, and with the forces of the empire, which he had alienated by his unjustifiable intervention in the affairs of Cologne. But Charles knew that these enemies were all set in motion by Louis _XI._, and that if he could ruin his arch-opponent the hostile coalition would almost certainly fall to pieces. And in 1475 he had an unequalled chance of dealing a fatal blow to the power of France. For years the duke [Sidenote: Edward IV. invades France, 1475.] of Brittany and other opponents of the French monarchy had been striving to bring about a renewal of the English invasion, and at last their efforts were rewarded with success. Edward IV., securely established on the English throne by the double defeat of the Nevilles and the Lancastrian nobles, determined to resume the ambitious schemes of Henry V. and to make himself king of France with the aid of Burgundy. In 1474 the terms of the treaty had been arranged with Charles, who was to receive as his reward Champagne and some smaller districts, together with complete emancipation from the suzerainty of France. In the summer of 1475 a considerable English army was transported to Calais, and Charles at last set himself free to aid his ally by retiring from Neuss, and concluding an agreement with the emperor by which the Pope was to arbitrate in the dispute about Cologne. The truce between Burgundy and France had expired on May 1, and Charles had refused all the entreaties of Louis for its prolongation. But all the hopes which Charles had based upon the intervention of England were doomed to disappointment. Edward IV. was immensely chagrined when Charles arrived alone at Calais, having sent his army from Neuss to chastise the duke of Lorraine. St. Pol, who had offered to admit the English into St. Quentin, fired upon the approaching forces from behind the closed gates. The French monarchy was infinitely stronger in 1475 than it had been in 1415, and Edward IV. was shrewd enough to see that with such support as he received from professed allies the conquest of France was impossible. Louis on his side was not slow to profit by the obvious discouragement of the invaders, and promptly opened negotiations which resulted in a personal interview at Pecquigni on the Somme. In return for a large sum of money and a promise that the dauphin should marry his daughter Elizabeth, Edward agreed to withdraw from France. Charles was furious at what he denounced as treacherous desertion, but his own conduct had been so obviously selfish that his complaints were treated as unreasonable, and he was compelled to renew his former truce with Louis XI.

The failure of the English invasion and the renewal of peaceful relations between France and Burgundy proved [Sidenote: Fate of St. Pol.] fatal to St. Pol, who had succeeded for five years in maintaining a practically independent position in Picardy. He had been profoundly disappointed by the termination of active hostilities in 1472, but he still trusted in his ability to play off one rival against the other, and he was confident that their mutual jealousy would never allow them to act together against him. For a time his forecast had been justified. In 1472 it had been proposed that Louis and Charles should unite to punish the constable, but the scheme had broken down, because neither would trust the other. In 1475 the proposal was renewed. St. Pol’s recent conduct, and especially his relations with Edward IV. who handed over to Louis the constable’s correspondence, had created a strong desire to punish the man who betrayed and deceived everybody in turn. Charles was to have St. Quentin, Ham, and Bohain, with all the fiefs which St. Pol held of him, on condition that he would undertake to capture the constable and either punish him within eight days or hand him over to the king. On the news of this treaty St. Pol determined to trust Charles rather than Louis, partly because he believed him to be less vindictive, and partly because after his territories were in Charles’s hands the latter had little to gain by inflicting any further penalty. Charles was besieging Nanci when his ministers sent word that the constable was in their hands. Charles was anxious to avoid any French opposition in Lorraine and he sent instructions that if Nanci held out beyond November 24, St. Pol was to be handed over to the French, but if it were taken before that date they were to keep him in their hands. Nanci did not surrender till after the time had elapsed, but Charles began to think that his order had been hasty and that St. Pol might still be useful to him in his quarrel with France. His instructions to delay the transfer, however, came too late, as the Burgundian ministers, many of whom had a personal grudge against St. Pol, had punctually obeyed the original order. Louis was not unwilling to show that neither rank, nor royal relationship, nor eminent office could save a rebel against the crown, and St. Pol, of whose treason there was ample proof, was executed in Paris on December 19, 1475.

At the end of 1475 Charles the Bold seemed to be at the height of his power. He was at peace both with the emperor and the king of France. Since the submission of Ghent he had met with no opposition from his subjects in the Netherlands. The fall of St. Pol had restored his complete ascendency in Picardy. Savoy and Milan were apparently loyal and almost submissive allies. The aged Réné of Provence, who had never loved the house of Vaudemont, expressed his willingness to disinherit his only surviving grandson in favour of the duke of Burgundy. Above all, Charles had at last succeeded in uniting the two main divisions of his realm by the conquest of Lorraine, and he determined to make Nanci the capital of the Burgundian kingdom that seemed now to be within his grasp. His one immediate task was to recover the province of Alsace, and to punish the Swiss, not only for aiding to restore Sigismund, but also for their raids upon his own territories and those of his allies. His troops were exhausted [Sidenote: Charles’s war with the Swiss, 1476.] by their exertions in the long siege of Neuss and the subsequent conquest of Lorraine; but his resources, both in men and money, were so infinitely superior to those of his opponents that it was hardly possible to doubt his ultimate victory. The Swiss had begun the war as the allies of the emperor and the French king, but they were now deserted by both. In February 1476 Charles crossed the Jura to drive the Swiss from the districts they had seized in Savoy. Granson, a town near the lake of Neuchâtel, which was held by the house of Orange as a fief of Savoy, was taken by the Burgundians, and the garrison was put to death. Two days later the confederates arrived, and at once began the attack. Charles ordered a portion of his army to retire to the plain where he could use his superior cavalry. But the retirement became a panic-stricken retreat, and the Swiss, pressing their advance, gained a complete and easy victory (March 2, 1476). Granson was recovered, and the Burgundian camp and artillery were the prize of the conquerors. So humiliating a disaster was the more galling to Charles that it shook the fidelity of his allies. The succession in Provence upon which he had confidently reckoned, was now transferred by Réné to the French king. Galeazzo Maria Sforza opened negotiations with Louis, and even Yolande of Savoy began to contemplate the possibility of a reconciliation with her brother. But Savoy could hardly desert Charles as long as there was a prospect of recovering the lost lands with his help; and the Burgundian power was not destroyed by a single disaster. Within a few weeks a new army had been collected at Lausanne, and Charles advanced to the siege of Morat, which the Bernese had taken from the Count of Romont, a brother of the late duke of Savoy. The Swiss hastily reassembled the troops, which had been disbanded after their recent success in spite of the warnings of Bern. On June 22, an obstinate, and for a long time, a very equal contest was fought out under the walls of Morat. At last the Swiss gained a decisive advantage by turning the flank of the Burgundian army; and the very obstinacy with which the latter fought only served to make their losses heavier. Nearly two-thirds of Charles’s forces were practically annihilated, and the final desertion of his allies, combined with the disaffection of his own subjects, rendered it hopeless to renew the struggle. Savoy made peace with the Swiss, through the mediation of France; and Granson, Morat, and other towns of Vaud became subject to the Confederation. Charles retired into gloomy solitude near Pontarlier, and it was feared that his reason would give way as he cursed the ill-fortune which had humbled so powerful a prince before a despicable foe. He was roused from his retreat by the news that Lorraine was lost to him. The young Réné had joined the Swiss in the battle of Morat, and had proceeded after the victory to raise a force with which he had recovered Nanci. Charles hurriedly collected a third army, and, in spite of the winter cold, commenced a second siege of the town which he had destined to be his capital. The scanty garrison could not long have resisted the attack, but Réné appealed for the assistance of the Swiss, and they [Sidenote: Death of Charles the Bold.] sent 20,000 men to raise the siege. The Italian mercenaries, in whom Charles placed great confidence, were headed by the count of Campobasso, a Neapolitan who had been driven into exile for his adhesion to the house of Anjou. Of that house Réné of Lorraine might now claim to be the lawful heir; and Campobasso was induced to desert his master in favour of the family to which his first allegiance was due. This treachery placed Charles at a fatal disadvantage, and he had to fight between the besieged and the relieving forces. But his dogged character would not allow him to retreat, and in a third contest with the despised German Confederation the great Valois duke of Burgundy found an obscure and unhonoured death (January 5, 1477).

Louis XI. had watched the events of the last twelve months, at first with anxiety, and later with feverish attention. Ever since his accession he had been haunted by the [Sidenote: Louis seizes Burgundian territories.] sense of Charles’s hostility, and the dangers which it involved; and now his great rival had been slain by the agency of an unforeseen and apparently unequal opponent. The only claimant of the vast inheritance left vacant by the death of Charles the Bold was an unmarried girl of twenty-one years. Various schemes were debated in the royal council as to the best way of profiting by so favourable a contingency. One very obvious plan was to effect a marriage between Mary of Burgundy and the dauphin. But there were several objections to this. The dauphin was only in his eighth year; he was already betrothed to an English princess, and Edward IV. was not likely either to pardon an insult to his daughter, or to acquiesce in the absorption of the Burgundian inheritance by the French monarchy. To the alternative scheme of marrying Mary to a French noble of royal blood, such as Charles of Angoulême, it could be objected that the new dynasty thus created might be as dangerous and disloyal as that to which it would succeed. Louis determined to keep the possibility of either marriage as a card to be played, if necessary or expedient, but in the meantime to take measures for the occupation of those Burgundian territories which France could acquire without serious opposition. The revival of such a power as that of Charles might be prevented, and the adhesion of German princes might be purchased, by a partition of the fiefs which the late duke had held of the empire. No preparations had been made to resist Louis, and his promptness ensured a considerable measure of success. He had an unquestionable claim to the Somme towns, whose transfer had been limited to male heirs; and the duchy of Burgundy could be reasonably claimed as an escheated fief. But Flanders, Artois, and Franche-Comté had come to the Burgundian house through an heiress, so that Mary’s right of succession could hardly be disputed. Regardless of this consideration, and of the fact that Franche-Comté was an imperial fief, Louis proceeded with the work of annexation. Both the duchy and the county of Burgundy submitted to French rule. From Picardy, which returned willingly to its former allegiance, the forces of Louis entered Artois and succeeded in reducing its capital, Arras.

The occupation of Artois brought the French to the frontier of Flanders, the most wealthy and important of the Burgundian possessions. The Flemish citizens, and especially [Sidenote: Conduct of the Flemings.] those of Ghent, where Mary of Burgundy was residing, were not likely to allow the choice of their future ruler to be settled without their participation. Their policy in the matter was quite distinct. They had hated Burgundian rule and the Burgundian ministers whom Charles and his predecessors had appointed to govern them. As long as their sovereign had been a mere count of Flanders, they had enjoyed a large measure of independence and self-government, but they had lost this under the too powerful Valois dynasty. They therefore welcomed the occupation of the Burgundies, and had no objection to a further weakening of Mary’s inheritance. But they would not be annexed to France, and the aggressive measures of Louis XI. drove them into opposition to him. The Burgundian ministers, whom Charles had left in authority, were seized by the mob on the discovery that they were conducting separate negotiations with France, and in spite of the passionate entreaties of Mary, were put to death. The plan that commended itself to the people of Ghent was to marry Mary to Adolf of Gelderland, the youthful monster who had been imprisoned and disinherited for brutal ill-treatment of his father. Adolf was released and sent to oppose the French before Tournay; where, to Mary’s great relief, he was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the town. This event, and the necessity of gaining support against the encroachments of France, forced the Gantois to revive the scheme of marrying Mary to [Sidenote: Maximilian marries Mary of Burgundy.] Maximilian of Hapsburg, the son of the emperor Frederick III. Mary herself, naturally frightened and aggrieved by the conduct of Louis since her father’s death, was not averse to the proposal, and the marriage was solemnised in August 1477. Louis was extremely chagrined by the news of an event, which not only frustrated his plans for a further partition of the Burgundian inheritance, but also compelled him to fight for the provinces he had already seized. Maximilian undertook the championship of his wife’s claims with his usual impetuosity. But he was hampered by his want of money—Commines calls his father ‘the most perfectly niggardly man of his time’—and by the obstruction of the Flemish citizens, who had taken advantage of the weak government since Charles the Bold’s death to recover much of their old independence. In 1482 Mary died, leaving two infant children, Philip and Margaret. This was a great blow to Maximilian, who had no longer any formal authority in the Netherlands, except so far as the estates of the various provinces recognised him as his son’s guardian. In these circumstances he was not unwilling to come to terms with Louis, and the treaty of Arras [Sidenote: Treaty of Arras, 1482.] gave to the king most of the territories he had contended for. The dauphin, Charles, was to be betrothed to Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian and Mary, and she was to be brought up in France as its future queen. Artois and Franche Comté were to be regarded as her dowry. The treaty made no mention of the Somme towns or of the duchy of Burgundy, and thus tacitly conceded Louis’s contention that his legal rights to these provinces were indisputable. It was fortunate for Louis that Edward IV., who had good reason to regard this treaty as both injurious and insulting, was not able to give practical expression to his displeasure. He died in 1483, and the disturbances which followed kept England from any idea of intervention on the Continent. But though the treaty of Arras appears, at first sight, to be a considerable triumph for the policy of Louis, the permanent gain to the French monarchy was not very great. Artois and Franche-Comté were lost again before very long; and the annexation of the Netherlands to the Hapsburg possessions, together with the subsequent further aggrandisement of that house, involved France in even greater dangers than those which had been threatened by the Valois dukes of Burgundy. But the subsequent struggle which thus arose differed from its predecessor in one very important respect. The Hapsburgs of Spain and Austria were more powerful sovereigns than Philip the Good or Charles the Bold, but they were complete foreigners to France, and had none of that traditional and family alliance with French nobles and French parties which gave to the Valois-Burgundian dynasty such a unique position. The contest with the Hapsburgs served to strengthen, not to destroy, the national unity of France.

The relations with Burgundy constitute by far the most important episode of the reign of Louis XI.; and he could [Sidenote: Successes of Louis XI.] boast of no more conspicuous achievement than the defeat of Charles the Bold, and the annexation of a considerable share of his dominions. But he gained other successes and acquired other lands. By intervening to support John II. of Aragon against the rebellious Catalans (1462), he obtained the cession of Roussillon and Cerdagne, and for a time extended the French frontier to the Pyrenees. And the Angevin inheritance was almost as great a windfall to the monarchy as the duchy of Burgundy. Réné le Bon had hastily abandoned the cause of Charles the Bold, after the latter’s defeats in 1476; and Louis XI. succeeded in extorting from his uncle an arrangement by which the latter’s territories were to pass, in the first place, to his nephew, Charles of Maine, and on the extinction of his line to the crown. The successive deaths of Réné in 1480 and of Charles of Maine in 1481, gave to Louis the possession of Anjou and Maine, with the duchy of Bar and the imperial fief of Provence. Equally important, from the point of view of the French monarchy, were the signal humiliations inflicted by Louis upon the great feudatories who had ventured, in the early years of his reign, to identify themselves with the cause of opposition to the monarchy. The duke of Alençon was kept a prisoner till his death in 1476. The count of Armagnac, the restless leader of the southern nobles, was attacked in his chief town of Lectoure and perished in the sack which followed its capture. His cousin, the duke of Nemours, who had been a favourite companion of Louis in his youth and had since been twice pardoned for ungrateful treachery, was executed in 1477 after having suffered the most horrible tortures. The fate of St. Pol has been already related. With regard to the nobles who were more closely related to the royal family, Louis took precautions to ensure their loyalty or to disarm their opposition. The duke of Bourbon abstained from further rebellion after the War of the Public Weal. His brother and heir, Pierre de Beaujeu, was married to the king’s eldest daughter, Anne, with the proviso that if they left no male heirs the succession should pass to the crown. For Louis of Orleans, the heir-presumptive to the throne after the dauphin, a bride was found in another daughter, Jeanne, who was deformed in person and was regarded as unlikely to have issue.

The government of Louis XI., though in many ways advantageous to France, was too obviously selfish to be popular. His death in August, 1483, transferred the crown to his only son, Charles VIII., but as [Sidenote: Regency of Anne of Beaujeu.] he was too young to rule, the actual government was assumed by Anne of Beaujeu. She had much of her father’s ability and all his love of power, but her position was insecure and she was obliged to conciliate support by measures which Louis XI. would never have adopted. The States-General were convoked at Tours in January 1484, and for the first time the rural districts were represented in the third estate, which had hitherto included only delegates from the towns. Although the estates recognised the regent, their _cahier_ of grievances showed an obvious hostility to the despotic rule of the late king. Among other things they demanded that they should meet regularly every second year. But the States-General, having lost all efficient control over taxation, had no power to extort concessions, and the crown reserved absolute discretion as to the redress of grievances. A more serious danger to Anne was a coalition of nobles, including the duke of Brittany and headed by Louis of Orleans, who deemed it a wrong that he was excluded from the regency. There was some risk that the confederates might receive support from Richard III. of England, who had good reason to divert the attention of his subjects to a foreign war, and from Réné of Lorraine, who advanced a well-founded claim to his grandfather’s dominions of Bar and Provence. Anne of Beaujeu showed notable ability in meeting her opponents. To prevent English intervention, Henry of Richmond, whose mother was the last of the Beauforts, was encouraged to prosecute the enterprise which placed the house of Tudor on the throne (1485). The duke of Lorraine was partially satisfied by the cession of Bar, and the prospect of gaining Provence was dangled before his eyes in an artfully prolonged law-suit, which was not decided against him until all danger was over. Meanwhile, the princes, deprived of external aid, proved powerless to resist the forces of the crown. The Bretons were defeated, and Louis of Orleans, carried a prisoner to Bourges, found it to his interest to reconcile himself with his cousin.

A few days after the defeat of the Bretons the death of duke Francis II. extinguished the male line of the Montforts, and left the one great province which had retained [Sidenote: Succession in Brittany.] its old independence in the hands of his daughter Anne (September 9, 1488). The disposal of the hand of so important an heiress was naturally a matter of great political interest, and Anne of Beaujeu, who wished to use the opportunity for the gain of the monarchy, was chagrined to learn in 1490 that the young duchess had been married by proxy to Maximilian of Austria, who had been a widower since the death of Mary of Burgundy. Declaring the marriage to be null without royal consent, she despatched an army into Brittany, and Anne of Brittany was compelled to give her hand to Charles VIII. A double injury was thus inflicted upon Maximilian. Not only was he deprived of a wife, but his daughter, who had been educated in France since 1482 as the future queen, was sent back to him. The archduke, however, was too distant and too busy elsewhere to be immediately formidable, and it was worth while to risk his displeasure in order to secure possession of Brittany. But the children of Charles VIII. and Anne did not survive their parents, and two subsequent marriages were necessary before the union of Brittany with France was complete.

The marriage of the king was the last achievement of Anne of Beaujeu, whose regency came to an end when her brother assumed the reins of government, while she herself [Sidenote: The question of Naples.] became duchess of Bourbon by the death of her brother-in-law. In 1493 a wholly new problem was presented to the French government by the arrival of Neapolitan exiles with an invitation to Charles VIII. to claim the crown of Naples on the same grounds as he already held Provence. The late regent and the more experienced councillors were resolute in opposing the scheme. But Charles himself and his younger associates were dazzled by the prospect of an Italian kingdom, and the proffered support of Ludovico Sforza seemed to give a reasonable prospect of success. Before Charles could venture to quit his kingdom it was necessary to secure it against the hostility of jealous neighbours. Henry VII. of England, who had come forward as the champion of Anne of Brittany, was bought off by the peace of Etaples which offered him a large money bribe (1492). The treaty of Barcelona restored Roussillon and Cerdagne to Ferdinand of Aragon (January 1493); while the enmity of Maximilian was appeased by the treaty of Senlis and the cession of Artois and Franche-Comté, which had been the stipulated dowry of Margaret (May 23, 1493). In September 1494, Charles set out on his journey towards the Alps. The resources of the revived French monarchy were to be employed in an enterprise of which no one could foresee the end, but which was destined to usher in a new epoch in the history of Europe.