It was the old story of bricks without straw—­taxes and rents for property ruthlessly destroyed were so easy.  To this extent of tyranny had Duke Philip never gone, and undoubtedly the treatment of Liege was a step towards Charles’s final disaster.  So much hatred was excited against him that his adherents fell off one by one when his luck began to fail him.

No omen of misfortune was to be seen at this time, however.  That month of November saw him master absolute wherever he was and he used his power autocratically.  At Huy, he had a number of prisoners executed.  At Louvain, at Brussels, he gave fresh examples of his relentlessness as an overlord.

[Footnote 1:  Commines, ii., ch. xi.  It was not far from the place where another Prince of Orange tried to cross the Meuse exactly a hundred years later.]

[Footnote 2:  The story of the “men of Franchimont” is questioned.  Commines is the only authority for it.]

[Footnote 3:  II., ch. xiii.]

[Footnote 4:  Commines, ii., ch. xiii.]

[Footnote 5:  Oudenbosch, Veterum scriptorum, etc.  Amplissima Collectio, ed.  E. Martene, iv.  Rerum Leodiensim.  Opus Adriani de Veteri Busco, p. 1343.  The writer acknowledges that the story is hearsay.]

[Footnote 6:  “Non cessero di cavalchare senza fare demoia alcuna.  Lettres,iii., 300.]

[Footnote 7:  Commines, ii., ch. xiv.]

[Footnote 8:  “O proeclarum et memorabile facinus hujus regis Francorum.”]

[Footnote 9:  Basin, Histoire des regnes de Charles VII. et de Louis XI., Quicherat ed., ii., 204.  This also appears in Excerpta ex Amelgardi.  De gestis Ludovici XI., cap. xxiii.  Martene’s Amplissima Collectio, iv., 740 et seq.]

[Footnote 10:  Quoted in Kirk, i., 606, note.]

[Footnote 11:  Jean de Roye, Chronique Scandaleuse, ed.  Mandrot, i., 220.]

[Footnote 12:  Comines-Lenglet, iii., 83.]

[Footnote 13:  Johannes de Los, Chronicon, p. 60. Quia hora nendum venerat. De Ram, “Troubles du pays de Liege.”]

[Footnote 14:  Commynes-Dupont, Preuves, iii., 242.  Letter of Jehan de Mazilles to his sister.]

[Footnote 15:  Hagenbach, later Governor of Alsace.]

[Footnote 16:  Conte aux escros.  This word strictly applies to the prisoners on a jailer’s list—­evidently used in jest.]

CHAPTER XIII

A NEW ACQUISITION

1469-1473

This successful expedition against Liege carried Charles of Burgundy to the very crest of his prosperity.  His self-esteem was moreover gratified by the regard shown to him at home and abroad.  A man who could force a royal neighbour into playing the pitiful role enacted by Louis XI. at Peronne was assuredly a man to be respected if not loved.  And messages of admiration and respect couched in various terms were despatched from many quarters to the duke as soon as he was at Brussels to receive them.