693 
FRA 
racy by arms, had recourfe to artifice and negociation, his 
ufual weapons. Swayed more by political views than 
the point of honour, he deemed no fubtnifiion too mean 
which might free him from his enemies. Edward, vo¬ 
luptuous and indolent, lent a ready ear to his propofals. 
The king of France ftipulated to pay to the king ot Eng¬ 
land feventy-five thoufand crowns, on his confenting im¬ 
mediately to repafs the feas ; fifty thoufand crowns a-year 
were fettled on Edward for his life; and the lad article 
betrothed the dauphin, when of age, to the elded daugh¬ 
ter of the king of England. In vain did the duke of 
Burgundy loudly clamour againd this degrading treaty; 
Edward unmoved by his reproaches, and Louis indif¬ 
ferent to his menaces, ratified the peace at a perfona! in¬ 
terview at Pecquigny, near Amiens, in 1475. Yet the 
two monarchs in their preparations feem to have been 
actuated by a mutual didrud. In the middle of the 
bridge of Pecquigny, a grated barrier was eredled, the 
intervals of which would only allow an arm to pafs ; on 
oppofite (ides the two princes appeared ; and after con¬ 
ferring privately together, asd confirming the articles of 
peace, they parted with liberal but hollow profedions of 
reciprocal friendlhip and edeem. 
The duke of Burgundy turned from this wretched com- 
promife of the two greated potentates in Europe, to meet 
his fate in a war with the duke of Lorrain. He was oc¬ 
cupied in the fiege of Nancy, which he preffed, regard- 
lefs of the inclemency of winter, when he was alarmed 
by the approach of a numerous army of Germans, com¬ 
manded by the duke of Lorrain in perfon. Charles quit¬ 
ted his entrenchments to meet his enemies; his army, 
fcarcely amounting to four thoufand men, and haraffed 
by incelfant fervice, was foon broken by the fuperior 
numbers of the Germans. Charles himfelf fought with 
heroic courage, and expofed his perfon wherever the dan¬ 
ger was mod confpicuous ; but when the rout became 
general, he was borne away in the flight. Campobad’o, 
a minion, who had deferted previous to the attion with 
about eighty men at arms, left twelve or dfteen men 
about the duke’s perfon, with a Uriel: command to affaffi- 
nate him amidd the tumult. They executed their de- 
tedable commilfion too faithfully ; and two days after¬ 
wards the body of Charles was found dead, naked, and 
frozen ; and pierced with three wounds. 
Thus, in 1477, fell the lad male heir of the houfe of 
Burgundy. Louis, at the moment of his death, was at 
his favourite refidence of Pleffis les Tours ; he received 
tlie intelligence with immoderate joy : and the liberal re- 
eompence he bedowed on the meffenger, proclaimed his 
unbounded tranfports at the deftruhtion of his rival. The 
death of Charles duke of Burgundy opened a wide and 
flattering profpeft to his ambition : that prince left an 
only daughter, Mary, who had not yet attained her twen¬ 
tieth year; and during the life of her father die had been 
fucceffively prornifed to feveral different princes, accord¬ 
ing as their alliances were favourable to the ambitious 
projects he entertained. Several of the provinces which 
Mary inherited had been difmembered from the kingdom 
of France ; and rhe dominions of Louis, which ffretched 
along the frontier of her territories, pointed them out to 
his hopes as a favourable and eafy conqueft. 
While lie amufed Mary with infiding on a match be¬ 
tween her and his foil the dauphin, he propofed to render 
himfelf, by force of arms, niader of her dominions. He 
addred'ed circular letters to the principal cities of the 
duchy, reprefenting that Burgundy had only been given 
by king John to the male heirs of his fon Philip, and that 
it now confequently reverted to the crown. Though he 
was fendble that this plea could impofe on no one, yet 
he was fatisfied that it might afford an excufe to tiiofe 
whom the more perlualive arguments of intereff ffiouid 
allure to his ftandard. The governors of the towns were 
corrupted to defert tiieir fovereign ; the inhabitants were 
feduced to rife againff tiiofe governors who prefeived 
iheir allegiance ; and upon the approach of Louis, Ham, 
Vol.VIL No. 460. 
N C E. 
Peronne, St. Quintin, Roie, Mondidier, Vervins, and 
Landrecy, opened their gates. The dates affembled at 
Dijon were fummoned to yield obedience to the king ; 
tliefe complied upon the exprefs condition, that a general 
amnefty ffiouid be granted to all tiiofe who had lerved 
the late duke, or who were (fill attached to the princeis 
his daughter, now their fovereign ; and that the king 
ffiouid evacuate the duchy in cafe Charles, their riglitfuL 
prince, again appeared ; a ffipulation founded on a report 
that Charles had efcaped the dilaffrous field of Nancy, 
and had retired to Jerufalem to pafs the remainder ot his 
days in folitude and penitence. 
The province of Artois was fubdued by the fame 
means as that of Burgundy; but Flanders refitted the 
arms and arts of the king of France. Oliver !e Dain, 
who though at firft only barber to Louis, foon acquired 
the confidence of that monarch, held intelligence with 
the inhabitants of Ghent ; but difappointed in his hopes 
of exciting tliefe to revolt againff Mary, he retired pre¬ 
cipitately to Tournay, whofe citizens readily liffened t«* 
his fplendid promifes, and opened their gates to a detach¬ 
ment of the French. Meanwhile Dammartin, grand 
maffer to Louis, furprized and levelled Avefne to the 
ground, burnt Caffe!, and ravaged the open country with 
that fpirit of devaluation which could only be fuggeffed 
by his favage and unfeeling fovereign. Nor were the 
talents and induffry of Louis lefs difplayed in the cabinet 
than in the field. His praftices unfold a feries of the 
meanefi: falffiood, and the deepeft treachery. He nego- 
ciated with Mary ; and in order to render her odious to 
her fubjedts, he betrayed to them her moft important fe- 
crets ; he carried on a private correfpondence with the 
two minifters whom ffie chiefly trailed, and- then commu¬ 
nicated the letters which he had received from them to 
the ftates of Flanders ; who, enraged at their perfidy, 
brought them immediately to trial, tortured them with 
extreme cruelty, and unmoved by the tears and entreaties 
of their fovereign, who knew and approved of all that the 
minifters had done, they beheaded them in her prefence. 
But the perfidy which Louis pradtifed againff the rni- 
nifters, and the fury with which he ravaged the fertile 
fields of the Flemings, inffead of fubduing, ferved only 
to confirm, the averlion of that people to his government: 
and Mary, with the approbation of the ltates of Flan¬ 
ders, bellowed her hand and noble inheritance on Maxi¬ 
milian archduke of Auftria, and fqn of the emperor Fre¬ 
deric III. The king of France, alarmed at having thus 
unexpedtedly aggrandized a rival power, endeavoured ta 
counterbalance the error by an alliance with Edward IV. 
of England. He had previoully infedted that monarch 
with a jealoufy of his brother Clarence; this had in¬ 
duced the king of England to negledi the advances which 
were made of marrying Clarence to Mary of Burgundy, 
and inclined him to behold with indifference the conquelt 
of Louis over that country. During this treaty with Ed¬ 
ward, he exercifed his vengeance againff James a’Arnrag- 
nac duke of Nemours, one of the firft who had appeared 
in the “ League for the public good.." That unfortunate no¬ 
bleman, to avoid the refentment of the king, had retired to 
the fortrefs of Carlat, among the mountains of Auvergne. 
He was there befieged by feignetir de Beaujeu, who had 
married Anne the daughter of Louis. But the fituation 
of the caftle rendered it almoft inaccellible by force ; and 
the duke of Nemours received the rnoft folernn affurances 
of fafety, if he would furrender. Confiding in the ho¬ 
nour of his enemy, in 1478, he complied; but the king, 
who fported with all the ties of integrity and virtue, 
caufed him, in violation of his folernn compact, to be 
carried to the Baftile. Me was confined within an iron 
cage, the familiar inftrument of his fovereign’s cruelty ; 
even the judges, who reluctantly condemned him to be 
beheaded, were reprimanded becaufe they had releafed 
him from the narrow circle of his confinement during his 
examination. The inhumanity of the king extended be¬ 
yond the fentence, to infult the offspring and embitter 
S O the 
