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.

That even the bare life was saved was a source of sorrow to Louis XI. in the very midst of his joy at the defeat.  He was, nevertheless, most proper in his behavior and language towards Duke Charles, who sent to him Sire de Contay “with humble and gracious words, which was contrary to his nature and his custom,” says Commynes; “but see how an hour’s time changed him; he prayed the king to be pleased to observe loyally the truce concluded between them, he excused himself for not having appeared at the interview which was to have taken place at Auxerre, and he bound himself to be present, shortly, either there or elsewhere, according to the king’s good pleasure.”  Louis promised him all he asked, “for,” adds Commynes, “it did not seem to him time, as yet, to do other-wise;” and he gave the duke the good advice “to return home and bide there quietly, rather than go on stubbornly warring with yon folks of the Alps, so poor that there was nought to gain by taking their lands, but valiant and obstinate in battle.”  Louis might give this advice fearlessly, being quite certain that Charles would not follow it.  The latter’s defeat at Granson had thrown him into a state of gloomy irritation.  At Lausanne, where he staid for some time, he had “a great sickness, proceeding,” says Commynes, “from grief and sadness on account of this shame that he had suffered; and, to tell the