had an interview at Pequigni, in which the terms of a treaty were soon arranged; but the duke of Burgundy was so indignant that he refused to be comprehended in it, yet afterwards being eager to continue his unjust war on the Swiss and the princes of Lorraine, he concluded a truce with Louis. 22. The constable St. Paul saw now that his ruin was inevitable, he fled as a last resource to the court of Burgundy, but Charles delivered him up to the king, who instantly ordered him to be executed.

:

23. The success of the war that Charles waged against the Swiss was proportioned to its injustice, he was defeated A. D. at the battle of Granson with great loss, and the follow1477. ing year he lost his army and his life together at the still more fatal field of Morat, by the treachery of an Italian officer, the count of Campobasso. This traitor had been long attached to the house of Lorraine, of whom Charles was a bitter enemy; he had sworn the destruction of his unhappy master, and had almost openly bargained for his assassination. Charles, with almost inconceivable credulity, continued to trust him, though warned of his treachery; and when Louis sent him word to beware of the Italian, the unhappy duke declared the letter to be the strongest proof of Campobasso's fidelity for, said he, "if evil were designed, Louis would be the last to send me warning." Scarcely had the armies of Lorraine and Burgundy met on the field of Morat, when Campobasso deserted with his followers, leaving behind him. fourteen desperadoes to assassinate the duke in the confusion. Dismayed by this unexpected defection, the Burgundians gave way at the first onset; after the slaughter, rather than the battle, was over, Charles was found lying under a heap of slain, so disfigured with wounds that he could scarcely be recognised. 24. His generous enemy, the young duke of Lorraine, when shown the dead body, took hold of his once formidable right hand, and pronounced these simple words, "God rest thy soul! thou hast caused us much evil and sorrow." He then ordered his body to receive an honourable interment. The Swiss were so little accustomed to articles of luxury, that they did not know the value of the rich plunder found in the Burgundian camp, and it is said that they sold the silver vessels found there as pewter.

25. The death of his rival left Louis without a competitor, he at once seized on several towns of Burgundy, though at the same time honourable means were offered to him of obtaining the whole; for the princess Mary, daughter and heiress

of the unfortunate Charles, offered to unite her dominions to those of France by a marriage with the dauphin. But Louis seemed to despise possessions acquired honestly; he was even base enough to betray the letters of the young princess to the factious citizens of Ghent, who were her masters rather than her subjects. In consequence of this perfidy, the people of Ghent seized several of the princess's most favoured servants, and murdered them almost in her presence. She was afterwards married to Maximilian, son of the emperor Frederic II., but died in a few years by a fall from her horse. The people of Ghent chose her infant son and daughter for their sovereigns, and betrothed the girl to the dauphin.

26. Louis had now overcome all his enemies, but

nearer

A. D.

the vengeance of Heaven would not permit him to en- 1480. joy prosperity purchased by crimes; while sitting at dinner, he was suddenly seized with a species of apoplectic fit, which at once deprived him of sense and speech. Though he partly recovered from the attack, his health was never perfectly restored; day after day he visibly declined, and the death came, the more did he show that he dreaded its approach. Every thing seemed to inspire him with jealous fear, he removed his queen from the court, kept his son a close prisoner in the castle of Amboise, and always retained in his suite Louis, duke of Orleans, the first prince of the blood, whom, with barbarous policy, he had deprived of the advantages of education. He forced him to marry the princess Jane, who possessed, indeed, an amiable disposition, but was deformed and barren. 27. There is a kind of gloomy satisfaction in contemplating the miseries which this cruel tyrant suffered from the dread of death. Shut up in his castle of Plessis les Tours, which could only be entered by a single wicket, and which was fortified with the most extraordinary care, the wicked monarch employed every means to prolong life that superstition and quackery could suggest, for his disease was beyond the reach of medical art. The companions of

his solitude were his barber, his hangman, and his physician; the latter, named Coctiers, was an artful quack, and had persuaded Louis that, according to the decrees of fate, he should die exactly four days before the king. 28. Louis, therefore, took care of a life with which he believed his own so intimately connected, and submitted to all the insolence which the impostor chose to exhibit.

While thus lingering at the point of death, the tyrant endeavoured to persuade the world that his health was perfectly re-established, sending embassies to foreign princes, wearing the richest robes instead of the plain, not to say shabby, dress that he had hitherto worn, and adding, while he lived, fresh victims to his suspicious cruelty and undying revenge. He had placed his principal hope in the efficacy of the prayers of Francis de Paule, a pious hermit whom he sent for out of Calabria; before this man he prostrated himself, supplicated, flattered, entreated; but the hermit, with unusual honesty, declared to him that his case was hopeless, and recommended him to prepare for another world. Thus deprived of his last hope, and finding himself grow weaker every day, Louis sent for his son, and exhorted him not to govern without the aid and counsel of the princess and nobles, not to change the great officers of state at his accession, not to continue the oppressive taxes, and in fine to make his administration as unlike his father's as possible. Soon after this he died, in the 61st year of his age and 22d of his reign. 29. There are few princes whose memory has been held in more universal execration than that of Louis XI.; more than four thousand persons perished for state offences by the hand of the executioner during his reign, and he took a diabolical pleasure in witnessing their torments. It is but fair, however, to state, that he diligently attended to the administration of justice, and made several judicious regulations in the law courts; he was the first who established posts through the kingdom, in order to gratify his restless anxiety for news, and finally, in his reign, the first printing-press was erected in Paris.

A. D.

1483.

When very young Louis XI. was married to Margaret, daughter to James I., king of Scotland; but this princess, although amiable and gentle tempered, never could acquire his regard, and died of grief, as it was said, at his neglect and unkindness.

His second wife, Charlotte of Savoy, was not more happy; and although he acknowledged that she was "a virtuous

and loving wife," he treated her with harshness and inattention, alleging as his chief cause of being offended with her, that she expressed more compassion than he approved of for the house of Burgundy. By her he had three children, one son and two daughters:

Charles, who succeeded him;

Anne, married Pierre de Bourbon, lord of Beaujeu.
Joan married the duke of Orleans.

Mezerai tells us, that Louis caused more than four thousand persons to be put to death by different modes of execution, many of which he himself took pleasure in witnessing. He kept the cardinal de Balue for many years shut up in an iron cage, as a punishment for his numerous political intrigues; and only released him from his imprisonment on the cardinal's feigning himself at the point of death.

Louis added greatly to the territories of the crown of France. He won a considerable district from the house of Burgundy. The county of Boulogne he acquired by purchase. The counties of Maine and Anjou were bequeathed to him by Charles of Anjou, count of Maine; who also left to him the rich inheritance he had derived from his uncle Regnier of Anjou. This inheritance included Bar and Provence, together with the imaginary claims of the house of Anjou to the crown of Naples.

In this reign the art of printing was introduced into France.

The king of France, with twenty thousand men,
Marched up the hill, and then marched down again.

OLD PROVERB.

1. CHARLES had reached his fourteenth year, the A. D. legal age of majority, at the time of his father's death, 1483. but the weakness of his constitution, and the ignorance in which he had been brought up, rendered him unfit to undertake the management of affairs. Louis had by will appointed Anne, princess of Beaujeu, guardian to her brother, a woman of excellent understanding, high spirit, and vigorous resolution, possessing much of her father's craft, without any share of his cruelty and perfidy. 2. The princes of the blood, especially the dukes of Bourbon and Orleans, thought it beneath their dignity to submit to the control of a woman; they