156 NATURAL HISTORY. 



987. Next to those that are near in blood, there may 

 be the like passage and instincts of nature between great 

 friends and enemies : and sometimes the revealing is 



O 



unto another person, and not to the party himself. I 

 remember Philippus Comminens (a grave writer) re- 

 porteth, that the Archbishop of Vienna (a reverend 

 prelate) said one day after mass to King Lewis the 

 eleventh of France: Sir, your mortal enemy is dead; 

 what time Charles Duke of Burgundy was slain at the 

 battle of Granson against the Switzers. 1 Some trial 

 also would be made, whether pact or agreement do any 

 thing ; as if two friends should agree, that such a day 

 in every week, they, being in far distant places, should 

 pray one for another, or should put on a ring or tablet 

 one for another s sake ; whether if one of them should 

 break their vow and promise, the other should have 

 any feeling of it in absence. 



988. If there be any force in imaginations and af 

 fections of singular persons, it is probable the force is 

 much more in the joint imaginations and affections of 

 multitudes : as if a victory should be won or lost in 



1 Charles the Bold was not killed at Granson, but at Nancy; nor is the 

 story told by Philippe de Comines. We have no authority for it but that 

 of the anonymous author of an account of Angelo Caltho, Archbishop of 

 Vienne. to whom Comines inscribed his memoirs. This account is pre 

 fixed to several editions of them, and first, I believe, to that which Sauvage 

 published in 1605. In truth, Comines silence is, as Bayle remarks, almost 

 conclusive against the story, and it is remarkable that Bacon should have 

 ascribed it to him, as Sauvage, whose edition Bacon probablv used, notes 

 in the margin that it is odd that Comines should have omitted so singular 

 an incident. Caltho is called Cato in Madlle. Dupont s edition of Comines. 

 He was a native of Tarento, and was a long time in the service of the 

 Duke of Burgund^v, whom he deserted after the defeat at Granson. A 

 similar story is told with respect to Richard Cceur de Lion, that his death 

 was announced at Rome on the day it happened, by a bishop whom he had 

 deprived of his see. &quot; Telum Limogiae,&quot; said the bishop, interrupting him 

 self while he was performing mass, &quot;occidit Leonem Anglise.&quot; 



