“Illustrious prince [wrote the King of Hungary[18]], we cannot sufficiently wonder that you should have been so gravely deceived and that, after having once found that you were lured into loss and disgrace, again you let yourself be snared in a labyrinth from which you will either never escape, or escape only with damage and shame....  Without risk to himself [your foe] has precipitated you into an abyss and tied you where you are exposed to the loss of your possessions and your life....  We exhort you to pause before incurring heavier losses and greater dangers.  If fortune smiles upon you in your attack on that people, you will have the whole empire against you.  In the opposite event—­which God avert—­it will be turned into a common tale how a mighty prince was overcome by rustics whom there would have been no honour in conquering, while to be conquered by them would be an eternal disgrace.”

This plain-spoken epistle failed to reach its destination until after the prophecy had been fulfilled.  Its warning would probably have been futile had Charles read it before he marched on towards Berne, on June 8th.  On the road that he chose lay the town of Morat, which had made ready for his approach.  A few days to reduce it, and then on to Berne was his plan.  His force succeeded in holding the ground and cutting off communication with Berne for three days.  On the 14th, a messenger made his way through from the beleaguered city to Berne, and all the allies were then urged to do their best.  The result was encouraging.  “There are three times as many as at Granson, but let no one be dismayed, with God’s help we will kill them all,” wrote a leader of Berne.

The encounter came on June 23d.  The force was really a formidable one.  Rene of Lorraine was among the commanders on the side of the Swiss.  It was a tremendous fight, brief as it was savage; at two o’clock the assault was made and within an hour Charles was repulsed.  Almost all the infantry perished.  The slain is estimated variously from ten to twenty-two thousand.  Charles did not keep his vow to perish if defeated.  To his assured allies he clung closely, and none had more reason to be faithful to him than Yolande of Savoy.  After Granson he hastened to give the duchess his own view of the disaster: 

“It has given me a singular pleasure to hear of your calmness and constancy of soul; for the thought of your affliction weighed more heavily upon me than what has befallen me ... every day diminishes the inconvenience and proves that the loss in men is less than we thought. Such as it is it came from a mere skirmish.  The bulk of the armies did not engage, to my great displeasure.  Had they fought the victory would have been mine.  There has been none on either side.  God, I trust, reserves it for you and for me ... the hope you have placed in me shall not be vain.”

Thus he wrote on March 7th to encourage his anxious protegee.