Our conference was but short, for we expected to receive this answer; but the chief design of my going thither was to have a private conference with some persons that were thereto try if I could bring them over to the King’s interest.  I made overtures to some of them, who soon afterward did his majesty signal service.  We found the whole country in a state of very great consternation, and not without cause; for in eight days’ time they would scarce have been able to raise eight men-at-arms, and for other soldiers there were not in the whole country above one thousand five hundred—­reckoning horse and foot together—­that had escaped from the battle in which the Duke of Burgundy was slain, and they were quartered about Namur and Hainault.  Their former haughty language was much altered now, and they spoke with more submission and humility; not that I would upbraid them with excessive arrogance in times past, but, to speak impartially, in my time they thought themselves so powerful that they spoke neither of nor to the King with the same respect as they have done since; and if people were wise, they would always use such moderate language in their days of prosperity that in the time of adversity they would not need to change it.

I returned to the Admiral, to give him an account of our conference; and there I was informed that the King was coming toward us, and that upon receiving the news of the Duke’s death he immediately set out, having despatched several letters in his own and his officers’ names to send after him what forces could presently be assembled, with which he hoped to reduce the provinces I have just mentioned to his obedience.

The King was overjoyed to see himself rid of all those whom he hated and who were his chief enemies; on some of them he had been personally revenged, as on the Constable of France, the Duke of Nemours, and several others.  His brother, the Duke of Guienne, was dead, and his majesty came to the succession of the duchy.  The whole house of Anjou was extinct—­Rene, King of Sicily, John and Nicholas, Dukes of Calabria, and since them their cousin, the Count du Maine, afterward made count of Provence.  The Count d’Armagnac had been killed at Lestore, and the King had got the estates and movables of all of them.  But the house of Burgundy, being greater and more powerful than the rest, having maintained war with Charles VII, our master’s father, for two-and-thirty years together without any cessation, by the assistance of the English, and having their dominions bordering upon the King’s and their subjects always inclinable to invade his kingdom, the King had reason to be more than ordinarily pleased at the death of that Duke, and he triumphed more in his ruin than in that of all the rest of his enemies, as he thought that nobody, for the future, either of his own subjects or his neighbors, would be able to oppose him or disturb the tranquillity of his reign.  He was at peace with England, and made it his chief business to continue so; yet, though he was freed in this manner from all his apprehensions, God did not permit him to take such courses in the management of his affairs as were most proper to promote his own interests and designs.