need than ever of firmness and courage;” and he read to him the decree which sentenced him to lose his head that very day on the Place de Greve.  “That is a mighty hard sentence,” said the constable; “I pray God that I may see Him to-day.”  And he underwent execution with serene and pious firmness.  He was of an epoch when the most criminal enterprises did not always preclude piety.  Louis XI. did not look after the constable’s accomplices.  “He flew at the heads,” says Duclos, “and was set on making great examples; he was convinced that noble blood, when it is guilty, should be shed rather than common blood.  Nevertheless there was considered to be something indecent in the cession by the king to the Duke of Burgundy of the constable’s possessions.  It seemed like the price of the blood of an unhappy man, who, being rightfully sacrificed only to justice and public tranquillity, appeared to be so to vengeance, ambition, and avarice.”

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