his heart and learned my intentions, he may go away again whithersoever it seems good to him.”  Charles, in his old age and his sorrow, forgot how distrustful and how fearful he himself had been.  “It is ever your pleasure,” wrote one of his councillors to him in a burst of frankness, “to be shut up in castles, wretched places, and all sorts of little closets, without showing yourself and listening to the complaints of your poor people.”  Charles VII. had shown scarcely more confidence to his son than to his people.  Louis yielded neither to words, nor to sorrows of which proofs were reaching him nearly every day.  He remained impassive at the Duke of Burgundy’s, where he seemed to be waiting with scandalous indifference for the news of his father’s death.  Charles sank into a state of profound melancholy and general distrust.  He had his doctor, Adam Fumee, put in prison; persuaded himself that his son had wished, and was still wishing, to poison him; and refused to take any kind of nourishment.  No representation, no solicitation, could win him from his depression and obstinacy.  It was in vain that Charles, Duke of Berry, his favorite child, offered to first taste the food set before him.  It was in vain that his servants “represented to him with tears,” says Bossuet, “what madness it was to cause his own death for fear of dying; when at last he would have made an effort to eat, it was too late, and he must die.”  On the 2nd of July, 1461, he asked what day it was, and was told that it was St. Magdalen’s day.  “Ah!” said he, “I do laud my God, and thank Him for that it hath pleased Him that the most sinful man in the world should die on the sinful woman’s day!  Dampmartin,” said he to the count of that name, who was leaning over his bed, “I do beseech you that after my death you will serve so far as you can the little lord, my son Charles.”  He called his confessor, received the sacraments, gave orders that he should be buried at St. Denis beside the king his father, and expired.  No more than his son Louis, though for different reasons, was his wife, Queen Mary of Anjou, at his side.  She was living at Chinon, whither she had removed a long while before by order of the king her husband.  Thus, deserted by them of his own household, and disgusted with his own life, died that king of whom a contemporary chronicler, whilst recommending his soul to God, re-marked, “When he was alive, he was a right wise and valiant lord, and he left his kingdom united, and in good case as to justice and tranquillity.”

CHAPTER XXV.——­LOUIS XI. (1461-1483.)