eldest son, and the very day and hour for the coronation were fixed.  But the Burgundian had an enemy in Louis XI of France, who was as prudent and far-seeing as his rival was rash and impetuous, and who was far more than his match in political craft and cunning.  French secret agents stirred up Frederick’s suspicions against Charles’ designs, and the emperor suddenly left Trier, where he had felt humiliated by the splendour of his powerful vassal.

The duke was furious at his disappointment, but was only the more obstinately bent on carrying out his plans.  But Louis had been meanwhile forming a strong league (League of Constance, March 1474) of various states threatened by Charles’ ambitious projects.  Duke Sigismund of Austria, Baden, Basel, Elsass, and the Swiss Cantons united under the leadership of France to resist them.  Charles led an army of 60,000 men to aid the Archbishop of Cologne against his subjects, but spent eleven months in a fruitless attempt to take a small fortified town, Neuss, in which a considerable portion of his army perished.  He was compelled to raise large sums of money from his unwilling subjects in the Netherlands to repair his losses, and in 1475 he attacked Duke Rene of Lorraine, captured Nancy and conquered the duchy, which had hitherto separated his Netherland from his French possessions.  It was the first step in the accomplishment of his scheme for the restoration of the Lotharingian kingdom.  In Elsass, however, the populace had risen in insurrection against the tyranny of the Burgundian governor, Peter van Hagenbach, and had tried and executed him.  Finding that the Swiss had aided the rebels, Charles now, without waiting to consolidate his conquest of Lorraine, determined to lead his army into Switzerland.  At the head of a splendidly equipped force he encountered the Confederates near Granson (March 2, 1476) and was utterly routed, his own seal and order of the Golden Fleece, with vast booty, falling into the hands of the victors.  A few months later, having recruited and reorganised his beaten army, he again led them against the Swiss.  The encounter took place (June 21, 1476) at Morat and once more the chivalry of Burgundy suffered complete defeat.  Charles fled from the field, half insane with rage and disappointment, when the news that Duke Rene had reconquered Lorraine roused him from his torpor.  He hastily gathered together a fresh army and laid siege to Nancy.  But in siege operations he had no skill, and in the depth of winter (January 5, 1477) he was attacked by the Swiss and Lorrainers outside the walls of the town.  A panic seized the Burgundians; Charles in person in vain strove to stem their flight, and he perished by an unknown hand.  His body was found later, stripped naked, lying frozen in a pool.