As soon as he was thus legally invested with sovereign power, Charles demanded a large aide from Holland and Zealand—­480,000 crowns of fifteen stivers for himself; 32,000 crowns as pin money for his new consort; 16,000 crowns as donations for various servants, and 4800 crowns towards his travelling expenses.  The total sum was 532,800 crowns.  The share of Holland and West Friesland was 372,800 crowns, and of Zealand 16,000 crowns, to be paid within seven and a half years.  In Holland, Haarlem paid the heaviest quota, 3549 crowns, and Schiedam the smallest, 350 crowns, while Dordrecht and the South Holland villages were assessed at 39,200 crowns, and the remainder was divided among the other cities and villages.

There was considerable opposition to the assessments.  In many cases the new imposts upon provisions pressed very heavily on the poor villagers.  Having obtained promise of the grant, however, Charles left all further details in its regard to the local officials and returned to Brussels at the beginning of August to make his own preparation.  For, by that time, Louis’s intentions of evading the treaty of Conflans were plain, though there still fluttered a thin veil of friendship between the cousins.  Gathering what forces he could mobilise, ordering them to meet him later, Charles moved westward and took up his quarters at Peronne on the river Somme.

Louis had been bold in his utterance to the States-General as to his perfect right to ignore the treaty of Conflans, to dispossess his brother, and to bring the great feudatories to terms.  In the summer of 1468 he made advances towards accomplishing the last-named desideratum.  Brittany was invaded by royal troops, but his victory was diplomatic rather than military, as Duke Francis peaceably consented to renounce his close alliances with Burgundy and England, nominally at least.  Further, he agreed to urge Charles of France to submit his claims to Normandy to the arbitration of Nicholas of Calabria and the Constable St. Pol.[5]

Charles of Burgundy remained to be settled with on some different basis.  And in regard to him Louis XI. took a resolve which terrified his friends and caused the world to wonder as to his sanity.  All previous attempts at mediation having failed—­St. Pol was among the many who tried—­the king determined to be his own messenger to parley with his Burgundian cousin.  It is curious how small was his measure of personal pride.  He had been negligent of his personal safety at Conflans, but even then Charles had better reason to respect and protect him than in 1468, after Louis had manoeuvred for three years in every direction to harass and undermine the young duke’s power, and when, too, the latter was aware of half of the machinations and suspicious of more.

Yet Louis’s famous visit to Peronne was no sudden hare-brained enterprise.  There is much evidence that he nursed the project for many weeks without giving any intimation of his intentions.  Nor was the situation as strange as it appears, looking backward.