Nor did he prove a pleasant surprise to his people, better than the promise of his youth, as some reckless princes have done.  On the contrary, ignorant, sensuous, extortionate, he was soon at drawn swords with his subjects.  After a time he withdrew to Huy where he indulged in gross pleasures while he attempted to check the rebellious citizens of his capital by trying some of the measures of coercion used by his predecessors as a last resort.

Liege was lashed into a state of fury.  Matters dragged on for a long time.  The people appealed to Cologne, to the papal legate, to the pope, and to the “pope better informed,” but no redress was given.  Philip continued to protect the bishop, and none dared put themselves in opposition to him.  Finally, the people turned to Louis XI. for aid.  Their appeal was heard and the king’s agent arrived in the city just as one of the bishop’s interdicts was about to be enforced, an interdict, too, endorsed by a papal bull, threatening the usual anathema if the provisions were not obeyed.

It was the moment for a demagogue and one appeared in the person of Raes de la Riviere, lord of Heers.  On July 5, 1465, there was to be unbroken silence in all sacred edifices.  Heers and his followers proclaimed that every priest who refused to chant should be thrown into the river.  Mass was said under those unpeaceful and unspiritual conditions, and the presence of the French envoys gave new heart to the bishop’s opponents.  A treaty was signed between the Liegeois and Louis; wherein mutual pledges were made that no peace should be concluded with Burgundy in which both parties were not included.  It was a solemn pledge but it did not hamper Louis when he signed the treaty of Conflans whose articles contained not a single reference to the Liegeois.

Meanwhile, it chanced that the first report of the battle of Montl’hery reaching Liege gave the victory to Louis, a report that spurred on the Liegeois to carry their acts of open hostility to their neighbour, still farther afield.  The other towns of the Church state were infected by an anti-Burgundian sentiment.  In Dinant this feeling was high, and there was, moreover, a manifestation of special animosity against the Count of Charolais.  A rabble marched out of the city to the walls of Bouvignes, a town of Namur, loyal to Burgundy, carrying a stuffed figure with a cow-bell round its neck.  Certain well-known emblems of Burgundy on a tattered mantle showed that this represented Charles of Burgundy.  With rude words the crowd declared that they were going to hang the effigy as his master, the King of France, had already hanged Count Charles in reality.  Further, they said that he was no count at all, but the son of their old bishop, Heinsberg.  They went so far as to suspend the effigy on a gallows and then riddled it with arrows and left it dangling like a scarecrow in sight of the citizens of Bouvignes.[8]

The actual contents of the treaty made at Conflans did not reach Liege until messages from Louis had assured them that he had been mindful of their interests in making his own terms, assurances, however, coupled with advice to make peace with their good friend the duke.  But there speedily came later information that the only mention of Liege in the new treaty was an apology that Louis had ever made friends in that city!