Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot |
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A Bernese messenger carried this announcement to the Burgundian camp before the fortress of Neuss, and delivered it into the hands of Duke Charles himself, whose only remark, as he ground his teeth, was, "Ah! Berne! Berne!" At the be-ginning of January, 1476, he left Nancy, of which he had recently gained possession, returned to Besancon, and started thence on the 6th of February to take the field with an army amounting, it is said, to thirty or forty thousand men, provided with a powerful artillery and accompanied by an immense baggage-train, wherein Charles delighted to display his riches and magnificence in contrast with the simplicity and roughness of his personal habits. At the rumor of such an armament the Swiss attempted to keep off the war from their country. "I have heard tell," says Commynes, "by a knight of theirs, who had been sent by them to the said duke, that he told him that against them he could gain nothing, for that their country was very barren and poor; that there were no good prisoners to make, and that the spurs and the horses' bits in his own army were worth more money than all the people of their territory could pay in ransom even if they were taken." Charles, however, gave no heed, saw nothing in their representations but an additional reason for hurrying on his movements with confidence, and on the 19th of February arrived before Granson, a little town in the district of Vaud, where war had already begun.
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