In 1473, all hostilities were suspended in the hopes of imperial intervention.[3] While Charles was still in Guelders, Robert paid him a visit, held long conferences with him, and probably received promises of future aid, for he had an air of arrogance when he returned from the interview.  During the sojourn of duke and emperor at Treves, a papal legate, the Bishop of Fossombrone, arrived from Rome with plenary powers to settle Cologne affairs, and his measures were endorsed by Charles in a letter from Treves.

For a time Frederic III. seemed inclined to refrain from interference, then something influenced him in another direction.  When he arrived at Cologne in November, he received a warm welcome and costly gifts, which he repaid by conferring a mass of privileges on his “good city,”—­cheap and easy benefits,—­but he did not prove an efficient arbitrator, simply postponing any decision from day to day, though he was begged to settle all difficulties before Charles should attempt to relieve him of the trouble.

True, Charles was detained elsewhere.  But he no longer felt the need of conciliating the emperor, and at Thionville, on December 11, 1473, he issued a manifesto declaring that his friend Robert was entirely in the right, his opponents in the wrong.[4] As these latter defied papal legate and arbitrator duly authorised to settle the points of dispute, he, Charles of Burgundy, would constitute himself defender of the insulted archbishop.  At the same time, he despatched Etienne de Lavin to check the encroachments of the insolent rebels.  The declaration emboldened Robert to defy the emperor’s summons to meet him and the papal legate.  They both declared that they would take measures to bring him to obedience, but Frederic did not wish to tarry longer at Cologne.  In January he took his departure, having directed Hermann of Hesse to protect that see against all aggression.

Apparently, at that time, in spite of the manifesto, there was no formal treaty between Charles and Robert, but there are two drafts for such a treaty in existence,[5] wherein the former pledged himself to force chapter, nobles, and city to submission, in consideration of the sum of 200,000 florins, while the archbishop gave permission to his ally to garrison all strongholds, including Cologne.  Pending his autumn sojourn in the upper Rhinelands, Charles had, therefore, plans regarding Cologne definitely in mind.

Lorraine

This duchy was even more interesting to Charles than Cologne, and there were many matters in its regard which demanded his urgent attention in 1473.  It, too, was a pleasant territory, and conveniently adjacent to Burgundian lands.  A natural means of annexation had been considered by Charles in the proposed marriage between Nicholas, Duke of Lorraine, and Mary of Burgundy.  When that project was abandoned to suit Charles’s pleasure, he retained the friendship of his rejected son-in-law until the latter’s death in the spring of 1473.  So unexpected was this event, that there was the usual suspicion of poisoning, and this crime, too, was charged to the account of Louis XI., apparently without foundation.  Certainly that monarch reaped no immediate advantage from the death, for the family to whom the succession passed was more friendly to Burgundy than to France.