31. Louis XI.
CHAPTER XXXI. Louis XI.
(1461-1483)
When Charles VII. died, his son Louis left the court of the Duke of Burgundy, went at once into France to be crowned king, and was gladly welcomed by the people. He held a grand funeral service for his father, and in the afternoon of the same day went out hunting, for he really felt nothing but joy that his father should be dead. This king is known as Louis XI., and he was one of the strongest kings of whom we <have> ever (hear)<heard>. He seems to have had scarcely any idea of the meaning of the words right and wrong. If he made a promise, he did not mean to keep it; if he wished for a thing, he never tried to get it openly, but always in some sly way; thinking of a trick to persuade people to do what he wished. He never believed what any one else said to him, and sometimes in this way he deceived himself, and when an honest man told him the truth, fancied that he was only trying to deceive, and so did not attend to him. He usually chose for his friends clever <but> bad men, thinking that they would be more dangerous (than good ones to have for enemies) <to have for enemies than good ones>. But all these bad things about the king were not found out at first. In those days they were thought less bad than they are now, because most of the princes and great men of the time behaved in much the same way, breaking their promises and mistrusting their servants, though no one did it so much as Louis XI. Therefore his subjects did not notice the first signs of slyness and faithlessness, but they were much displeased at some of the first acts of his reign, especially at his making them pay a new set of taxes. He made the nobles angry by sending away from his court many of them who had been employed by his father as governors of provinces, or as ministers or advisers. Louis had advisers of his own, but he made little use of their advice.
He knew a great deal about the affairs of the country, and could make up his own mind as to what to do in every case which happened. He listened to what his advisers said, but always made them agree with him in the end; and he was very clever in seeing what would be best for himself and his kingdom. It was said that no one else could ever get out of a difficulty so well as he.
One of the people with whom he quarrelled was the son of the Duke of Burgundy, at whose court he had lived when he had fled from his father, Charles VII. This young man, who became Duke of Burgundy when his father died, was bold, active, warlike, and fond of power. His great wish was to be more than a duke, to make himself a king, and to rule over his own country without doing homage to any one, or being subject to any other sovereign. He had for his duchy most of the country which is now Belgium, and a good deal of what is Holland, besides some provinces farther south, which now belong some to France, and some to Germany; for some of these lands he was vassal to the French king, and for some to the Emperor of Germany. One idea that the Duke of Burgundy had was that he might some day be Emperor himself, for the German Emperor was not, like the French kings, always the son of the last Emperor, but he was chosen by the princes of Germany each time an old one died, so that any one who could please the electors or choosers had a chance of becoming Emperor. Charles of Burgundy hoped for this, but never succeeded.
He was always glad to go to war with Louis, thinking that he might find some chance of making his kingdom larger by taking in war some of the lands belonging to the French king. He joined with some of the other great lords who were displeased with the king, and they all at once marched towards Paris, one army from the north, one from the south, one from the east, one from the west. Louis had very few friends or servants whom he could trust; two or three of the great lords still said they were on his side, but he did not feel sure that they might not leave him as soon as fighting began. However, he was obliged to put them over his soldiers, for he had no one else to help him. He himself, with a body of men, marched against one of the princes who was coming against him, and he sent off armies under other leaders against the other three. He fought the battle of Montlehéri, in which neither side was successful, and then Charles of Burgundy and his friends, one of whom was the brother of King Louis, all met together, joined their armies, and besieged Paris.
The princes were really fighting against Louis in order to get what they wanted for themselves; some wanted to be ministers in the Government, some to have provinces given them to rule over; but they all pretended that they were fighting, not for themselves or their own good, but for the good of the people of France, that Louis was ill-treating his subjects, and that they were going to war with him to make him promise to govern better. They called the war "The War of the Public Good." After Louis had been shut up in Paris for some time, he went out alone in a boat to the tent of Charles of Burgundy, and called to him to ask if he might land safely. Charles promised that no harm should come to him, and he and the king took a walk together on the banks of the Seine, and arranged a peace by which it was settled that the king's brother should have the duchy of Normandy given him for his own, and that the other dukes and great lords should have other lands or places given to them; but very little was done for the people for whose sake the princes had pretended (to have gone)<that they went> to war. The king chose out thirty-six men who were to inquire into all the troubles and disorders in the kingdom of which the nobles had at first complained, and to try to find out the best way of putting an end to them. But as he was to choose these men himself, it was not very likely that they would find fault with anything without his leave, and so the people would not be much the better for what they did.
On the whole, however, Louis XI. treated his poorer subjects well; he hated the princes more than ever, after having been obliged to give up so much of his country to them, and he made friends with the people of the town (sooner)<rather> than with them, so as to have some one on his side. It was a great thing for all the people of France that the long wars with the English had come to an end. The States-General were again held in France in the reign of Louis XI. The people were always glad to see the States meet, and hoped that it would bring them some good, either good laws, or the setting right of something wrong, or some wise plan made by the king and his counsellors as to what should be done for the country. But often nothing of this kind happened; the king only promised good things, and no one was the better for his promises. This was how it was under Louis XI.
Louis had a great dislike to war, which was one of the many ways in which he was specially unlike his cousin, Charles of Burgundy. He was very clever at persuading people, and making them think it would be for their own good to do what he wished; and so, when he had a quarrel with any one, he always wished to go and see him and have a talk with him, and try if he could not, usually in some rather sly way, make his enemy agree to what he wished. In this way he once told Charles, who had now become Duke of Burgundy, that he should soon come to pay him a,visit. Charles did not much wish to see Louis, but promised that if it were his pleasure to come to the town of Peronne, where Charles then was, and hold a meeting there, he might come and go back again safely. Louis went to Peronne, and was lodged in a strong tower, with his Scotch archers to protect him. He always had a band of these Scotchmen about him, because they were especially brave men, and being foreigners, were not likely to join in any plots that his enemies might make against him, but always stayed faithful to the king. Even with his archers, however, Louis did not like the looks of Peronne, a strong place, filled with soldiers of the Duke of Burgundy, in the castle of which another French king, Charles the Simple, had been put to death about five hundred years before.
While Louis was thus in the power of Charles, there came news that some of Charles's subjects had risen up against him and killed some of his officers, and there was reason to think that they had been persuaded to do this by letters from Louis. Charles was furious. He was a violent, passionate man, and his first idea was to kill the King of France. Louis was kept a close prisoner in his room, without an idea of what might happen to him at last. He was completely in the power of Charles, who might have cut off his head if he had chosen, without any of the king's friends being able to come to his help. This was what Charles had meant to do, but he was persuaded at last by his chief counsellor, who was the friend of Louis, not to do (what would have been) so base<d thing> as to harm in any way a guest who had come to visit him, trusting to his honour, and to whom he had specially promised that no harm should happen. He was at last persuaded to see Louis, and to sign an agreement with him, by which Louis promised to give up trying to win for himself some of the lands which belonged to the duke; and also agreed to march with Charles against the rebel subjects whom he had himself persuaded to rise up against the duke. This he did with a body of his own soldiers, helping the Burgundians to destroy a city of the name of Liége, in which the people, who fought to the cry of "France," were sadly disappointed to find that the French king, instead of coming to their help, as he had promised to do, was marching against them with their enemies. After this Louis made peace with his brother, who had again begun to make disturbances in the kingdom, and everything seemed quiet.
Louis was much disappointed and provoked at the way in which be had failed to do as he wished with the Duke of Burgundy; he was afraid that his subjects would laugh at him, and he forbade that any songs, pictures, or ballads, should be made about his journey to Peronne. He even ordered that all magpies, owls, and speaking birds should be brought before him and made to talk, so that he might find out whether any of his subjects had taught their birds to cry "Peronne" in mockery of him. This king, who was always suspecting harm in his servants, was often betrayed by them. He had one great friend, a cardinal, whom he had raised from being a common priest, for no special reason but that he took a fancy to him, and who is said to have had every fault in the world except hypocrisy. This man was faithful to Louis for some years, and then began to write secret letters to the Duke of Burgundy, trying to make friends with him. Louis found this out, put the cardinal into prison, and kept him for ten years in an iron cage, which the cardinal himself had invented to keep safe prisoners who were likely to escape.
Louis saw enemies all round him, but he did not give up hope. His great wish was to make all the people who were against him quarrel with one another, and in this he often succeeded. This king had a great respect for the saints; he used often to pray to the Virgin Mary and other saints, asking them for help in whatever he was going to do, or forgiveness for his sins, and promising to make them presents of offerings in their churches, such as pictures, tapers, or something of the kind, if they did what he wished. He ordered that at noon every day a large bell should ring in all the towns of France, and that (every one)<all the people>, when they heard it, should kneel down, and pray for peace for the country of France. At about this time the brother of Louis died, which relieved the king from a great deal of trouble, for his brother had always been among his enemies, and a year or two afterwards, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, went into Germany to fight against some enemies he had there. He stayed there for the rest of his life, which did not last much longer; he only once came back to France to make war upon Louis, and then did not bring enough soldiers to do him any harm. He was one day attacking a place called Nancy; his soldiers were driven back and many of them killed. The duke was not seen by any of his men. The next day they found him, after some search, dead in a frozen ditch, covered with wounds.
He left only one child, his daughter Mary, who now became Duchess of Burgundy. All the young princes in Europe wished to marry her, so as to become masters of her duchy. Louis was very anxious that she should marry his little son, who was only seven years old, or, if she thought him too young, some great French lord; but Louis treated Mary so badly in other ways that she would not listen to his wishes, but married a German prince instead.
Louis, now began to fall into bad health. He had a war with Mary of Burgundy and her husband, but it was his last; he made peace with them and with every one else. He added several important provinces to France by the different peaces he made with his enemies. He then shut himself up in an old castle he had, put guards all round it, and saw no one but his servants. All round his castle was a moat, and the walls were defended with iron turrets or towers. No stranger (might come) <could go> in without the king's leave. Louis lived in this strange way because he could trust no one; he had three children, but he did not care to have them with him. His chief companion was his doctor, who, afraid that the king might some day put him to death, as had happened to so many others of Louis's favourites, had persuaded him that their lives would last just the same time, and that if any harm happened to the doctor the king would die directly afterwards. Louis therefore took the greatest care of him, and did all that he could to make his life comfortable. Louis had two other great friends, — a barber, who was one of his chief advisers, and a provost, as he was then called, which in this case really meant an executioner. This man, as may be supposed, was hated by the people. The king would make him a sign that a particular person was to be killed, and as soon as a good opportunity came the provost would seize him, carry him off prisoner, and hang or drown him without any kind of trial, or telling any one of what he was accused. There is a story that the king once pointed in this way to a captain who came into the room. A monk was standing near him, and the provost, mistaking the king's sign, seized upon the monk as he was leaving the room, put him into a sack, and threw him into the river. When Louis heard of the mistake, he showed no sorrow for what had happened, but merely said, "Why, that was the best monk in my kingdom." After all this, there is no need to say that Louis was a bad man. But it must be remembered that he lived in a bad time, when people thought very differently from what we do now of the way in which every one, and kings in particular, ought to behave. Some of his subjects were sorry when he died. These were the people of the towns to whom he usually showed kindness, and the men who wrote books or poetry, for which he cared very much. He died in his strong castle, at the age of sixty-one, having been king for twenty-two years. Edward IV.
of England died the same year. Louis had always been the friend of the Red Rose, or party of Henry VI. Charles of Burgundy was the friend of Edward IV.
