Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3

Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot


In August, 1477, the battle of Nancy had been fought; Charles the Rash
had been killed; and the line of the Dukes of Burgundy had been
extinguished. Louis XI. remained master of the battle-field on which the
great risks and great scenes of his life had been passed through. It
seemed as if he ought to fear nothing now, and that the day for clemency
had come. But such was not the king's opinion; two cruel passions,
suspicion and vengeance, had taken possession of his soul; he remained
convinced, not without reason, that nearly all the great feudal lords who
had been his foes were continuing to conspire against him, and that he
ought not, on his side, ever to cease from striving against thorn. The
trial of the constable, St. Pol, had confirmed all his suspicions; he had
discovered thereby traces and almost proofs of a design for a long time
past conceived and pursued by the constable and his associates--the
design of seizing the king, keeping him prisoner, and setting his son,
the _dauphin_, on the throne, with a regency composed of a council of
lords. Amongst the declared or presumed adherents of this project, the
king had found James d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, the companion and
friend of his youth; for his father, the Count of Pardiac, had been
governor to Louis, at that time _dauphin_. Louis, on becoming king, had
loaded James d'Armagnac with favors; had raised his countship of Nemours
to a duchy-peerage of France; had married him to Louise of Anjou,
daughter of the Count of Maine and niece of King Rend. The new Duke of
Nemours entered, nevertheless, into the League of Common Weal against the
king. Having been included, in 1465, with the other chiefs of the league
in the treaty of Conflans, and reconciled with the king, the Duke of
Nemours made oath to him, in the Sainte-Chapelle, to always be to him a
good, faithful, and loyal subject, and thereby obtained the governorship
of Paris and Ile-de-France. But, in 1469, he took part in the revolt of
his cousin, Count John d'Armagnac, who was supposed to be in
communication with the English; and having been vanquished by the Count
de Dampmartin, he had need of a fresh pardon from the king, which he
obtained on renouncing the privileges of the peerage if he should offend
again. He then withdrew within his own domains, and there lived in
tranquillity and popularity, but still keeping up secret relations with
his old associates, especially with the Duke of Burgundy and the
constable of St. Pol. In 1476, during the Duke of Burgundy's first
campaign against the Swiss, the more or less active participation of the
Duke of Nemours with the king's enemies appeared to Louis so grave, that
he gave orders to his son-in-law, Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, to
go and besiege him in his castle of Carlat, in Auvergne. The Duke of
Nemours was taken prisoner there and carried off to Vienne, in Dauphiny,
where the king then happened to be. In spite of the prisoner's
entreaties, Louis absolutely refused to see him, and had him confined in
the tower of Pierre-Encise. The Duke of Nemours was so disquieted at his
position and the king's wrath, that his wife, Louise of Anjou, who was in
her confinement at Carlat, had a fit of terror and died there; and he
himself, shut up at Pierre-Encise, in a dark and damp dungeon, found his
hair turn white in a few days. He was not mistaken about the gravity of
the danger. Louis was both alarmed at these incessantly renewed
conspiracies of the great lords and vexed at the futility of his pardons.
He was determined to intimidate his enemies by a grand example, and
avenge his kingly self-respect by bringing his power home to the ingrates
who made no account of his indulgence. He ordered that the Duke of
Nemours should be removed from Pierre-Encise to Paris, and put in the
Bastille, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1476, and that
commissioners should set about his trial. The king complained of the
gentleness with which the prisoner had been treated on arrival, and wrote
to one of the commissioners, "It seems to me that you have but one thing
to do; that is, to find out what guarantees the Duke of Nemours had given
the constable of being at one with him in making the Duke of Burgundy
regent, putting me to death, seizing my lord the _dauphin_, and taking
the authority and government of the realm. He must he made to speak
clearly on this point, and must get hell (be put to the torture) in good
earnest. I am not pleased at what you tell me as to the irons having
been taken off his legs, as to his being let out from his cage, and as to
his being taken to the mass to which the women go. Whatever the
chancellor or others may say, take care that he budge not from his cage,
that he be never let out save to give him hell (torture him), and that he
suffer hell (torture) in his own chamber." The Duke of Nemours protested
against the choice of commissioners, and claimed, as a peer of the realm,
his right to be tried by the parliament. When put to the torture he
ended by saying, "I wish to conceal nothing from the king; I will tell
him the truth as to all I know." "My most dread and sovereign lord," he
himself wrote to Louis, "I have been so misdoing towards you and towards
God that I quite see that I am undone unless your grace and pity be
extended to me; the which, accordingly, most humbly and in great
bitterness and contrition of heart, I do beseech you to bestow upon me
liberally;" and he put the simple signature, "Poor James." "He confessed
that he had been cognizant of the constable's designs; but he added that,
whilst thanking him for the kind offers made to himself, and whilst
testifying his desire that the lords might at last get their guarantees,
he had declared what great obligations and great oaths he was under to
the king, against the which he would not go; he, moreover, had told the
constable he had no money at the moment to dispose of, no relative to
whom he was inclined to trust himself or whom he could exert himself to
win over, not even M. d'Albret, his cousin." In such confessions there
was enough to stop upright and fair judges from the infliction of capital
punishment, but not enough to reassure and move the heart of Louis XI.
On the chancellor's representations he consented to have the business
sent before the parliament; but the peers of the realm were not invited
to it. The king summoned the parliament to Noyon, to be nearer his own
residence; and he ordered that the trial should be brought to a
conclusion in that town, and that the original commissioners who had
commenced proceedings, as well as thirteen other magistrates and officers
of the king denoted by their posts, should sit with the lords of the
parliament, and deliberate with them.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Part of the RabbitHoleResearch Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~