“After the duke had been discomfited the second time by the Swiss before Morat, believing that he could do the thing secretly, he made a plan to kidnap Mme. of Savoy and her children and take them to Burgundy, and he ordered me, I being at Geneva, on my head to capture Mme. of Savoy and her children and bring them to him.  In order to obey my prince and master I did his behest quite against my heart, and I took madame and her children near the gate of Geneva.  But the Duke of Savoy was stolen away from me (for it was two o’clock in the night) by the means of some of our own company who were subjects of the Duke of Savoy, and, assuredly, they did no more than their duty.  What I did was simply to save my life, for the duke, my master, was the kind that insisted on having his will done under penalty of losing one’s head.  So I took my way, and carried Mme. of Savoy behind me, and her two daughters followed and two or three of her maids, and we took the road over the mountain to reach St. Claude.  I was well assured of the second son, and had him carried by a gentleman.  I thought I was assured of the Duke of Savoy, but he was stolen from me as I said.  As soon as we were at a distance, the people of the duchess, and especially the seigneur de Manton, had torches brought and took the duke back to Geneva, in which they had great joy.  And I with Mme. of Savoy and the little boy (who was not the duke), crossed the mountain in the black night and came to a place called Mijoux, and thence to St. Claude.

“You must know that the duke gave very bad cheer to the company, and chiefly to me.  I was in danger of my life because I had not brought the Duke of Savoy.  Then the duke went on to Salins without speaking to me or giving me any orders.  However, I escorted Mme. of Savoy after him, and he ordered me to take her to the castle of Rochefort.  Thence she was taken to Rouvre in Burgundy.  After that I had nothing more to do with her or her affairs.”

This queer story is undoubtedly true, and the tone in which La Marche relates it indicates that he, too, was alienated by the duke’s manner, and might have been more willing to lend an ear to Louis’s suggestions than he had been five years previously.

It is not evident that he played his master false or that he was cognisant of the recapture of the little duke, but he says himself that he thought the attendants were absolutely justified in it.

It is after this incident that the astute Panigarola returns and joins the duke’s suite at Salins.  He finds Charles a changed man, indulging in strange fits of hilarity, expressing the wish that a couple of thousand more of his troops had been killed, “French at heart” as they were.  He refused to see Yolande, after thus forcibly obtaining the means of so doing, and sent her to the castle of the Sire of Rochefort for safe-keeping.  Abstemious as he had been all his life, never taking wine without water, the strong Burgundy in which he now suddenly indulged went to his head.