[Footnote 29:  Legend makes it that Jeanne Laisne, called Fouquet, chopped off the hands of the standard-bearer with a hatchet.  Hence her name was changed to La Hachette, and she is represented with a hatchet.]

[Footnote 30:  Barante, vii., 333.]

[Footnote 31:  See Lavisse, iv^{ii.}, 368.]

[Footnote 32: 

  “Berri est mort,
  Bretagne dort,
  Bourgogne hongne,
  Le Roy besogne.”

Le Roux de Lincy, Chants historiques et populaires du temps de Louis
XI.]

[Footnote 33:  Commines also mentions here “the confessor of the Duke of Guienne and a knight to whom is imputed the death of the Duke of Guienne.” (iii., ch. xi.)]

[Footnote 34:  Kirk (ii., 156) thinks that this confiscation was only Louis’s way of prodding him up to act.]

[Footnote 35:  Dupont (Commynes, iii., xxxvi).  The fugitive did not enter immediately into his new possessions.  The king’s gift of the principality of Talmont, dated October, 1472, was not registered in Parlement until December 13, 1473, and in the court of records May 2, 1474.  Prince of Talmont did Commines become at last, and as such he married Helen de Chambes, January 27, 1473.]

[Footnote 36:  It is strange that La Marche does not mention this defection.]

[Footnote 37:  See document quoted by Gachard, Etudes et Notices, etc. ii., 344.  The original is in the Croy family archives preserved in the chateau of Beaumont.]

[Footnote 38:  See also Comines-Lenglet, i., xcj., for discussion of this event.  He asserts that the court of Burgundy was too corrupt for honest men to endure it.]

[Footnote 39:  See Stein. Etude, etc., sur Olivier de la Marche_.  (Mem.  Couronnes) xlix.]

[Footnote 40:  Letter of Louis XI. in Bibl.  Nat.:  Ibid., p. 179.]

CHAPTER XVI

GUELDERS

1473

The affairs of the little duchy of Guelders were among the matters urgently demanding the attention of the Duke of Burgundy at the close of his campaign in France.  The circumstances of the long-standing quarrel between Duke Arnold and his unscrupulous son Adolf were a scandal throughout Europe.  In 1463, a seeming reconciliation of the parties had not only been effected but celebrated in the town of Grave by a pleasant family festival, from whose gaieties the elder duke, fatigued, retired at an early hour.  Scarcely was he in bed, when he was aroused rudely, and carried off half clad to a dungeon in the castle of Buren, by the order of his son, who superintended the abduction in person and then became duke regnant.  For over six years the old man languished in prison, actually taunted, from time to time, it is said, by Duke Adolf himself.

Indignant remonstrances against this conduct were heard from various quarters, and were all alike unheeded by the young duke until Charles of Burgundy interfered and ordered him to bring his father to his presence, and to submit the dispute to his arbitration.  Charles was too near and too powerful a neighbour to be disregarded, and his peremptory invitation was accepted.  Pending the decision, the two dukes were forced to be guests in his court, under a strict surveillance which amounted to an arrest.