said she, “that my father had arranged my marriage with the emperor’s son; I have no mind for any other.”  Louis in his alarm tried all sorts of means, seductive and violent, to prevent such a reverse.  He went in person amongst the Walloon and Flemish provinces belonging to Mary.  “That I come into this country,” said he to the inhabitants of Quesnoy, “is for nothing but the interests of Mdlle. de Burgundy, my well-beloved cousin and god-daughter. . . .  Of her wicked advisers some would have her espouse the son of the Duke of Cleves; but he is a prince of far too little lustre for so illustrious a princess; I know that he has a bad sore on his leg; he is a drunkard, like all Germans, and, after drinking, he will break his glass over her head, and beat her.  Others would ally her with the English, the kingdom’s old enemies, who all lead bad lives:  there are some who would give her for her husband the emperor’s son, but those princes of the imperial house are the most avaricious in the world; they will carry off Mdlle. de Burgundy to Germany, a strange land and a coarse, where she will know no consolation, whilst your land of Hainault will be left without any lord to govern and defend it.  If my fair cousin were well advised, she would espouse the dauphin; you speak French, you Walloon people; you want a prince of France, not a German.  As for me, I esteem the folks of Hainault more than any nation in the world; there is none more noble, and in my sight a hind of Hainault is worth more than a grand gentleman of any other country.”  At the very time that he was using such flattering language to the good folks of Hainault, he was writing to the Count de Dampmartin, whom he had charged with the repression of insurrection in the country-parts of Ghent and Bruges, “Sir Grand Master, I send you some mowers to cut down the crop you wot off; put them, I pray you, to work, and spare not some casks of wine to set them drinking, and to make them drunk.  I pray you, my friend, let there be no need to return a second time to do the mowing, for you are as much crown-officer as I am, and, if I am king, you are grand master.”  Dampmartin executed the king’s orders without scruple; and at the season of harvest the Flemish country-places were devastated.  “Little birds of heaven,” cries the Flemish chronicler Molinet, “ye who are wont to haunt our fields and rejoice our hearts with your amorous notes, now seek out other countries; get ye hence from our tillages, for the king of the mowers of France hath done worse to us than do the tempests.”

All the efforts of Louis XI., his winning speeches, and his ruinous deeds, did not succeed in averting the serious check he dreaded.  On the 18th of August, 1477, seven months after the battle of Nancy and the death of Charles the Rash, Arch-duke Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick III., arrived at Ghent to wed Mary of Burgundy.  “The moment he caught sight of his betrothed,” say the Flemish