THE

CHAPTER CLXVI. THE PARISIANS ARE MUSTERED. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY MARCHES IN DISGRACE FROM BEFORE BEAUVAIS.—OF THE KING'S ARMY IN BRITTANY. SHAMEFUL CONDUCT OF THE BURGUNDIANS IN NORMANDY, THE FRENCH RECONQUER EU FROM THE COUNT DE ROUSSI. THE QUEEN OF FRANCE DELIVERED OF A SON, NAMED DUKE OF BERRY.-THE LORD OF BEAUJEU BETRAYED TO THE COUNT D'ARMAGNAC.—LECTOURE REGAINED, AND THE COUNT D'ARMAGNAC KILLED.—THE KING OF ARRAGON FLIES FROM PERPIGNAN. THE DUKE OF ALENÇON MADE PRISONER. THE KING GOES TO BORDEAUX. THE SON OF THE COUNT D'ALBRET BEHEADED AT

POITIERS.

Ar this time, the Parisians were mustered and reviewed by the lord de Gaucourt, lieutenant for the king in Paris, master John de Ladriesche, and sir Denis Hesselin, king's pantler. It was a fine show to see them all under arms, and so handsomely equipped; but it would have been finer, if all the banners and cross-bows that had been detached to Beauvais had been present. Further detachments were demanded by the captains in Beauvais, to the number of three thousand men, fully equipped; but they were refused on account of the numbers already sent thither, and because it would not only put the inhabitants to great expense but much weaken the defence of Paris. Sir Denis Hesselin remonstrated so ably with the captains in Beauvais on this subject that they were satisfied with the support already given, but requested that one hundred cross-bowmen and gunners might be sent to them, which was done.

About three o'clock in the morning of Magdalen-day, the duke of Burgundy commenced a disgraceful retreat from before Beauvais, having done nothing during the twenty-six days he was encamped there, but fire his artillery day and night against the town without materially damaging it, or hurting the inhabitants, He made two violent attacks, in which he lost numbers of his most valiant warriors, besides a great quantity of artillery, won by the king's garrison in Amiens. On the departure of the Burgundians, they destroyed all the villages on their line of march until they came before St. Valery, which was instantly surrendered to them, because there was not a force within it sufficient for resistance. They then marched to Eu, which was also surrendered for the same cause.

The constable of France, the grand-master of the household, and the other captains in Beauvais, marched thence, with eight hundred lances, on the 29th of July, for Arques, Monstiervillier, and the country of Caux, on the supposition that the Burgundians would advance thither, which in fact they did, and with a view of being beforehand with them. The Burgundians encamped at the village of Ferrieres, between Eu and Dieppe, and remained there some time, but without conquering any place except the new castle of Nicourt*, which they entered, as there were none to oppose them. They held it for three days,-and on their departure set fire to the castle and town, which was a pity, for it was a large and handsome place. They afterwards burnt Longueville, Fahy, and many other places in the bailiwick of Caen, which all his wealth would be insufficient to restore. These were all the noble duke's acts of valour until the first day of December.

During this interval, the king had remained inactive in Brittany, with about fifty thousand combatants, because he had been amused with different embassies from that duke, and entertained hopes of a pacification without bloodshed or loss of men; for he was much more anxious for the preservation of his subjects' lives than the duke of Burgundy, who was cruel and obstinate, as he had shown and was daily demonstrating. The duke, having done great damages by fire to the towns and villages of that country of Caux, now advanced toward Arques and Dieppe; but his army was there so beaten, that he quitted that part of the country and marched for Rouen, where he was more roughly treated than before; insomuch that, from the frequent and courageous sallies made from that town, he was forced to retreat in disgrace for Abbeville, spreading abroad a report that he intended to attack Noyon, and take it by storm. The lord de Crussol hastened thither for its defence, and was joined by * Nicourt. Q. Nicorps, a village near Coutances.

others of the king's captains, to repulse his cursed fury; but one misfortune he was the cause of,-for these captains, to secure the town and prevent the Burgundians from posting themselves in the suburbs, caused them to be burnt and destroyed-which was a needless loss, as the enemy never appeared there.

About this time, Sir Robert d'Estouteville, provost of Paris, left Beauvais with the nobles of his provostship and a certain number of franc-archers, and posted himself in the suburbs of Eu, on the side of Abbeville. The same day, the marshal de Rohault took possession of the other suburbs leading toward Dieppe,-and they immediately summoned the Burgundians to surrender. They were so much frightened at the appearance of the royalists that they instantly accepted of terms,-namely, that all the knights should march away mounted on a common hackney, and that the other Burgundians should depart with nothing but wands in their hands, leaving behind all their arms, horses, and baggage, and pay, as a ransom, the sum of ten thousand crowns. Sir Robert and the marshal lost no time in marching to St. Valery, which surrendered on similar terms, and paying six thousand crowns. They thence proceeded to Rambures*, a handsome and strong castle, in which were some Burgundians, but who came out of the castle and surrendered it to the French, on condition of being allowed to march away in safety with their arms and baggage.

While these things were passing, the partisans of Burgundy, such as the count de Roussit, son to the constable, and others, took the field in Burgundy, and overran the country of Tonnerre, without meeting any resistance. They destroyed that country and attempted to gain Joigny, but by timely reinforcements sent thither by the king, were prevented. They then advanced to Troyes,-but their only acts of valour consisted in setting fire to all the villages and barns on their march. These acts were retaliated, on the part of the king, by the count dauphin of Auvergne, and other nobles in his company, who burned and destroyed several small towns and villages in Burgundy. They did irreparable damages, in revenge for what the Burgundians had done to the subjects of the king, their supreme and true sovereign, to whom they had behaved as rebels.

In the month of September, the king, who had been some time in Brittany, concluded a truce with the duke, in which were included all his allies; and in the number, he declared the duke of Burgundy to be one, who accepted of this truce, but he had comprehended his allies also, whom he declared to be the emperor of Germany, the kings of England, Scotland, Portugal, Spain, Arragon, Sicily, and other kings to the number of seven, with several dukes and great lords. At this time, the queen of France was delivered of a son, called Francis duke of Berry, but he did not live long.

Toward the end of October, it happened, as the lord de Beaujeu, brother to the duke of Bourbon, was travelling, by the king's orders, through the county of Armagnac, as governor of Guienne, well attended by nobles and gentlemen, that while he was residing in the city of Lectouret, he was betrayed into the hands of the count d'Armagnac,-by which means, the said count regained his city of Lectoure. Having thus won it, he set at liberty many of the lords who had accompanied the lord of Beaujeu; but they were soon after arrested by the king, on suspicion of having betrayed their governor, and some were imprisoned in the castle of Loches. The king was much grieved at the capture of the lord de Beaujeu, and, to obtain his liberty, he sent a considerable army, with artillery, against that city, while he himself went to Poitiers, La Rochelle, and thereabout, until St. Andrew's day, when he returned to Angers.

Among those who had been imprisoned at Loches, on suspicion of treason against the lord de Beaujeu, was a gentleman, his servant, called Jean Deymer, who was condemned and quartered for it in the town of Tours, having confessed his treachery against the king and his master. At his execution, he spoke most honourably of the lord de Beaujeu, declaring his loyalty and ignorance of the treason plotted against him, and laid the whole blame on the younger son of the d'Albret family, lord of St. Basile, in whom the lord de

Rambures,

-a town in Picardy, noar Abbeville.

Roussi, Anthony of Luxembourg count of Roucy, magnc. sou to the constable of St. Pol.

Beaujeu had great confidence, he having been brought up in the family of Bourbon, and having received many favours from that house.

The king made a long stay in Poitou, and on the borders of Brittany, until the day fixed for the meeting between him and the duke of Brittany. Oudet de Rie, lord de l'Escun,* to whom the king had been very bountiful, had taken great pains to bring this about,—and when it took place, the king gave to the duke the county of Montfort, besides a large sum of money. When the business had been concluded, the duke of Brittany sent information of it to the duke of Burgundy, and demanded to have returned the treaty of alliance that had been made between them.

On the 3rd of February, in this year, there appeared, about six in the evening, great lights in the sky resembling candles, whence issued brilliant flashes, to the terror of many; but they did not last long. On the 7th of the same month, the bishop of Paris, son to monsieur de la Forest, made his entry, as bishop, into the city. After the service in the cathedral, he entertained, handsomely and abundantly, at dinner, the churchmen, the members of the university, of the parliament, chamber of accounts, masters of requests, secretaries, the provost, sheriffs, and principal inhabitants.

During the siege of Lectoure, a serpentine was fired from the walls, which killed the king's commander of the artillery and four gunners. At this time, the duke of Alençon was made prisoner by sir Tristan de l'Hermite, provost of the marshals, and brought before the king, for having, as it was said, quitted his country to sell and deliver up to the duke of Burgundy all his possessions in La Perche and Normandy, together with his duchy of Alençon. On the 5th of March following, the count d'Armagnac † had negotiated a capitulation for the surrender of Lectoure with sir Yves du Fau, whom the king had sent thither on purpose,—and it was agreed that the count, his lady, family and attendants, should be allowed to depart in safety. But it happened otherwise,-for the count was murdered by the king's army who stormed the town. The cause was this: several of the royalists, under cover of the capitulation, had entered the town,-which when the count saw, he would have put them to death in spite of the treaty. The French, seeing this, cried out to their companions for assistance, when the seneschal of Limousin, and great numbers, forced an entrance where the breach had been made, and killed the count d'Armagnac and so many of the inhabitants, that the countess of Armagnac with three women and three or four men were the only persons who escaped death. The town was pillaged, and the lord de Beaujeu with the other lords and gentlemen whom the count had detained in his prisons, were set at liberty, and waited on the king. The first intelligence the king received of this event was brought by one of his post-expresses, called John d'Auvergne; and the king was so well pleased with his diligence that he appointed him his herald, and gave him one hundred crowns of gold.

The cardinal of Arrast having behaved with great gallantry at the siege of Lectoure, entered the town, which was afterwards burnt, and the walls razed to the ground. When news of this conquest and of the death of the count d'Armagnac reached the king of Arragon at Perpignan, he fled thence further into his own dominions, as well on this account as because he heard that Philip of Savoy was marching an army, from Dauphiny and Savoy,

* Should be Odet Daidie, lord de Lescun. He has been mentioned before in the course of this work. As bailiff of the Coutentin he rendered considerable services to the crown in the wars of Charles VII. Among the sweeping changes made by Louis on his accession, Lescun was deprived of his office and retired into Bretagne, where he was much in the confidence of the duke and also of the unfortunate duke of Guienne. But it does not appear that in a single instance he acted contrary to the interests of the crown. He has been charged by some writers with (and sometimes as an instrument, at others as a principal in) the supposed poisoning of the king's brother. But besides that there is no good reason to believe that this prince was poisoned at all, it is not consistent with any other action of Lescun's life to imagine him in any manuer concerned in such an act of villanous iniquity.

He was afterwards in favour with the king, who gave him the county of Comminges on the death of the bastard d'Armagnac; and this, perhaps, was the only motive for the absurd suspicion.

John V. count d'Armagnac, whose life was but a tissue of crimes, of murder, incest, and treason. His sister he seduced, and afterwards pretended to make her his wife, under circumstances of scandalous imposition. He was killed by a soldier named Gorgia, whom the king afterwards promoted to the office of archer of the guard. A writer of the reign of Charles VIII. pretends that he was assassinated while the treaty was on foot, but the present account seems to contradict that report. See DU CLOS.

Alby.

"Cardinal of Arras." John Joffredy, then bishop of

against him, to offer him battle, and to recover the town of Perpignan, which he had taken from the king of France. On Saturday morning, the 14th of March, the king, who then resided at Plessis du Parc, formerly called Montils les Tours, set off very early, and with few attendants, for Bordeaux and Bayonne. That no person living might follow him, he ordered the gates of Tours to be closed until ten o'clock had struck, and had a bridge broken down near to Tours, to prevent any one crossing the river. For further security, he commanded the lord de Gaucourt, the captain of the gentlemen in his household, to remain in Tours for the same purpose.

On the 7th of April, just before Easter, the younger son of the count d'Albret,* who had betrayed the lord de Beaujeu into the hands of the count d'Armagnac, and who, on the capture of Lectoure, had been made prisoner, was brought to Poitiers, where he was tried and condemned for this offence to be beheaded, and was then executed; after which, his body was put into a coffin, covered with a pall emblazoned with his arms, and carried by the four orders of mendicant friars in Poitiers for interment, when a handsome service was performed. In this month of April, the truce between the king and the duke of Burgundy was prolonged to the end of the ensuing year.

CHAPTER CLXVII. THE SIEGE OF PERPIGNAN. THE DUKE OF ALENÇON DETAINED PRISONER IN THE LOUVRE.-THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF CALABRIA. THE EXECUTION OF JOHN HARDY FOR INTENDING TO POISON THE KING.-EDICTS FROM THE KING RESPECTING THE GENS D'ARMES AND THE COIN.-AN EMBASSY FROM THE KING OF ARRAGON.-OTHER EVENTS IN THIS YEAR.

[A. D. 1473.]

ABOUT the end of April, in the year 1473, the king of Arragon made an attack on the town of Perpignan, and gained it from the lord du Lau, who had the guard of it; but the castle remained unconquered,-and the garrison held it for the king of France a long time after the capture of the town. When Lectoure had been destroyed, the king ordered the army to Perpignan, in which were besieged the king of Arragon and his son. With the nobles and captains of this army was the cardinal of Alby, who behaved himself most prudently and courageously. This siege lasted long, even until the month of June,-when the king, to hasten it, sent thither a reinforcement of four hundred lances from Amiens and the adjacent towns, together with a large train of artillery and cannoneers.

The duke of Alençon, who had been confined in the castle of Loches, was brought to Paris, and arrived at the castle of the Louvre between nine and ten at night, the 16th day of June. He disembarked from the boats that had brought him from Corbeil, under the guard of the lord de Gaucourt and the lord de la Chaloterie, master of the household to the king, having with them fifty archers of the guards, and twenty-four gentlemen of the household. When they had left him in the castle of the Louvre, they all returned to the king, except the lord de la Chaloterie, who had the care of him, and he was guarded by the archers of the town of Paris. The first night, he was lodged at the Silver Lion, in the street of St. Honoré: and the following day, which was Corpus-Christi-day, he was brought back to the Louvre at the same hour, between nine and ten in the evening.

During this long siege of Perpignan, the king's troops had suffered greatly from the excessive heats, and from want of provisions,-which made them agree to a truce, for a short time, with the besieged, when each party was supplied as to their greatest wants. In this interval the king sent another reinforcement of men-at-arms, artillery and provisions, under the command of the lord de Gaucourt. He also ordered master John Bouvré and the banker of the treasury to buy up all the provisions they could lay hands on, and send them to Perpignan. About this time, in the month of July, died the last born child of the

* Charles d'Albret lord of St. Basile, commonly called Je cadet d'Albret. It seems there was sufficient proof of his guilt; but James do Lomagne lord of Montignac,

the governor of Lectoure, though the principal person concerned in the same transactions, was pardoned in consideration of the testimony he could produce against others.

king, called the lord Francis duke of Berry. The king was so much grieved that for six hours no one dared to speak to him.

In this same month, the duke of Calabria died of the plague, in his duchy of Lorraine.* Immediately after his decease, news was brought that a German, the commander of the late duke's forces, had taken prisoner the count de Vaudemont heir to the duchy of Lorraine, with the avowal and by the instigation of the duke of Burgundy. In order to obtain the count de Vaudemont's liberty, a youth, nephew to the emperor of Germany, and then a student at Paris, was arrested by way of reprisal, and as an hostage for the count's safety. A conference was appointed to be holden this month at Senlis, between commissioners from the king and the duke of Burgundy, to settle their differences. The king sent thither the count de Dammartin, who went in great pomp, the lord chancellor, the lord de Craon, the first president of the parliament of Paris, master Guillaume de Cerisay, and master Nicholas Bataille, who after remaining there until the middle of August, returned without having done any thing. At this period, the duke of Burgundy marched an army into Guelderland, to subdue and take possession of it.+

On the 8th of August, as the king was coming out of the castle of Alençon, by accident a very large stone fell from the battlements on his sleeve: he narrowly escaped being killed by it, but was saved by his confidence in God, and the blessed Virgin Mary, in whom he put his whole trust. The commissioners from the king and the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany now left Senlis without having accomplished any of the points they had met on. In regard to the weather of this year, it was exceedingly hot from the month of June to December, -more so than had been felt in the memory of any man living,-which caused the wines to be of such bad qualities that quantities were thrown away,—and there was not any frost until after Candlemas-day.

As there were now reports, that the Burgundians were marching for Lorraine and the Barrois, the king sent thither five hundred lances, under the command of the lord de Craon, whom he made his lieutenant-general. He also ordered the nobles from the Isle of France and Normandy, with the franc-archers cantoned in divers parts of Champagne, to advance towards Lorraine, where they remained for more than two months, and then returned without having seen the enemy. The duke of Burgundy brought the emperor of Germany to Luxembourg, whence he went to the town of Metz, to exhort the inhabitants to admit the duke of Burgundy and his forces: but as they refused to comply, he returned to Luxembourg and thence into Germany.

At this time the duke of Burgundy sent to Venice to negotiate a loan, that he might subsidise for three months six hundred lances from that country. These troops passed through the duchy of Milan, and proceeded to the upper parts of Burgundy, to form a junction with the subjects of the said duke, whose army was not sufficiently strong to meet

*Nicholas, only son of John duke of Calabria (who died, greatly regretted for his princely virtues, three years before) and grandson of René king of Sicily. For some time before his death, this young prince had been in treaty with the duke of Burgundy, for a marriage with Mary his only daughter and presumptive heir to his vast dominions. This negotiation was most obnoxious to Louis; and the interruption of it by the young man's death just then when there appeared to be no farther obstacle to its accomplishment gave occasion to the suspicion of another poisoning, which on some accounts seems to be attended with greater probability than that to which the death of the king's brother was attributed. By the death of this duke of Calabria, the male line of René became extinct, and the inheritance of Lorraine passed to Iolante the daughter of René, who by her marriage with Frederic -count of Vaudemont (dead in 1470) had issue René count of Vaudemont, and afterwards duke of Lorraine; whom the duke of Burgundy (probably enraged at the failure of his hope of uniting the duchies of Burgundy and Lorraine by the marriage of his daughter) imprudently as well as unjustly contrived to make prisoner as related in the text; but he was very shortly obliged to set him at liberty.

†The cause of this expedition was briefly as follows:Some years before, Adolphus the son of Arnold duke of Gueldres rebelled against his father, deposed and imprisoned him and took possession of his estates. Complaint of this outrage being made at the papal and imperial courts, the duke of Burgundy was appointed umpire, and awarded to the old duke a portion only of the hereditary state for his maintenance, with which he seemed to be well satisfied. His son, on the contrary, swore "that ho would rather throw the old man into a well and himself afterwards than acquiesce in such a sentence.' Justly indignant at this monstrous ingratitude, the duke upon this deprived the unnatural villain of his estates, which ho thereupon purchased of the father at the price of 92,000 florins. Arnold died five years afterwards, having by his last will disinherited his son, and confirmed his sale to the duke of Burgundy. The duke of Juliers, however, had some claims to the succession which it was more difficult to compromise; and these, together with the opposition made by some of the towns of Guelderland and Zutphen to the duke's possession, involved him in an expensive and sanguinary warfare.-DU CLOS.