A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 494 pages of information about A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3.

A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 494 pages of information about A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3.
castles appertaining thereto, that he should restore to the pope all the towns, castles, lands, and lordships which belonged to him, and that he should pay the Swiss four hundred thousand crowns, to wit, two hundred thousand down and two hundred thousand at Martinmas in the following winter.” [Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, by Dumont, t. vi. part 1, p. 175.] As brave in undertaking a heavy responsibility as he was in delivering a battle, La Tremoille did not hesitate to sign, on the 13th of September, this harsh treaty; and, as he had not two hundred thousand crowns down to give the Swiss, he prevailed upon them to be content with receiving twenty thousand at once, and he left with them as hostage, in pledge of his promise, his nephew Rend d’Anjou, lord of Mezieres, “one of the boldest and discreetest knights in France.”  But for this honorable defeat, the veteran warrior thought the kingdom of France had been then undone; for, assailed at all its extremities, with its neighbors for its foes, it could not, without great risk of final ruin, have borne the burden and defended itself through so many battles.  La Tremoille sent one of the gentlemen of his house, the chevalier Reginald de Moussy, to the king, to give an account of what he had done, and of his motives.  Some gentlemen about the persons of the king and the queen had implanted some seeds of murmuring and evil thinking in the mind of the queen, and through her in that of the king, who readily gave ear to her words because good and discreet was she.  The said Reginald de Moussy, having warning of the fact, and without borrowing aid of a soul (for bold man was he by reason of his virtues), entered the king’s chamber, and, falling on one knee, announced, according to order, the service which his master had done, and without which the kingdom of France was in danger of ruin, whereof he set forth the reasons.  The whole was said in presence of them who had brought the king to that evil way of thinking, and who knew not what to reply to the king when he said to them, ’By the faith of my body, I think and do know by experience that my cousin the lord of La Tremoille is the most faithful and loyal servant that I have in my kingdom, and the one to whom I am most bounden to the best of his abilities.  Go, Reginald, and tell him that I will do all that he has promised; and if he has done well, let him do better.’  The queen heard of this kind answer made by the king, and was not pleased at it; but afterwards, the truth being known, she judged contrariwise to what she, through false report, had imagined and thought.” [Memoires de la Tremoille, in the Petitot collection, t. xiv. pp. 476-492.]

Word was brought at the same time to Amiens that Tournai, invested on the 15th of September by the English, had capitulated, that Henry VIII. had entered it on the 21st, and that he had immediately treated it as a conquest of which he was taking possession, for he had confirmed it in all its privileges except that of having no garrison.

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A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.