Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot |
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Louis XI. watched all these incidents closely, keeping agents everywhere, treating secretly with everybody, with the Duke of Burgundy as well as with the Swiss, knowing perfectly well what he wanted, but holding himself ready to face anything, no matter what the event might be. When he saw that the crisis was coming, he started from Tours and went to take up his quarters at Lyons, close to the theatre of war and within an easy distance for speedy information and prompt action. Scarcely had he arrived, on the 4th of March, when he learned that, on the day but one before, Duke Charles had been tremendously beaten by the Swiss at Granson; the squadrons of his chivalry had not been able to make any impression upon the battalions of Berne, Schwitz, Soleure, and Fribourg, armed with pikes eighteen feet long; and at sight of the mountaineers marching with huge strides and lowered heads upon their foes and heralding their advance by the lowings of the bull of Uri and the cow of Unterwalden, two enormous instruments made of buffalo-horn, and given, it was said, to their ancestors by Charlemagne, the whole Burgundian army, seized with panic, had dispersed in all directions, "like smoke before the northern blast." Charles himself had been forced to fly with only five horsemen, it is said, for escort, leaving all his camp, artillery, treasure, oratory, jewels, down to his very cap garnished with precious stones and his collar of the Golden Fleece, in the hands of the "poor Swiss," astounded at their booty and having no suspicion of its value. "They sold the silver plate for a few pence, taking it for pewter," says M. de Barante. Those magnificent silks and velvets, that cloth of gold and damask, that Flanders lace, and those carpets from Arras which were found heaped up in chests, were cut in pieces and distributed by the ell, like common canvas in a village shop. The duke's large diamond which he wore round his neck, and which had once upon a time glittered in the crown of the Great Mogul, was found on the road, inside a little box set with fine pearls. The man who picked it up kept the box and threw away the diamond as a mere bit of glass. Afterwards he thought better of it; went to look for the stone, found it under a wagon, and sold it for a crown to a clergyman of the neighborhood. "There was nothing saved but the bare life," says Commynes.
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