2.  Louis XI.’s Policy.—­Louis XI. succeeded his father Charles in 1461.  He was a man of great skill and craft, with an iron will, and subtle though pitiless nature, who knew in what the greatness of a king consisted, and worked out his ends mercilessly and unscrupulously.  The old feudal dukes and counts had all passed away, except the Duke of Brittany; but the Dukes of Orleans, Burgundy, and Anjou held princely appanages, and there was a turbulent nobility who had grown up during the wars, foreign and civil, and been encouraged by the favouritism of Charles VI.  All these, feeling that Louis was their natural foe, united against him in what was called the “League of the Public Good,” with his own brother, the Duke of Berry, and Count Charles of Charolais, who was known as Charles the Bold, the son of Duke Philip of Burgundy, at their head.  Louis was actually defeated by Charles of Charolais in the battle of Montlhery; but he contrived so cleverly to break up the league, by promises to each member and by sowing dissension among them, that he ended by becoming more powerful than before.

3.  Charles the Bold.—­On the death of Philip the Good, in 1467, Charles the Bold succeeded to the duchy of Burgundy.  He pursued more ardently the plan of forming a new kingdom of Burgundy, and had even hopes of being chosen Emperor.  First, however, he had to consolidate his dominions, by making himself master of the countries which parted Burgundy from the Netherlands.  With this view he obtained Elsass in pledge from its owner, a needy son of the house of Austria, who was never likely to redeem it.  Lorraine had been inherited by Yolande, the wife of Rene, Duke of Anjou and titular King of Sicily, and had passed from her to her daughter, who had married the nearest heir in the male line, the Count of Vaudemont; but Charles the Bold unjustly seized the dukedom, driving out the lawful heir, Rene de Vaudemont, son of this marriage.  Louis, meantime, was on the watch for every error of Charles, and constantly sowing dangers in his path.  Sometimes his mines exploded too soon, as when he had actually put himself into Charles’s power by visiting him at Peronne at the very moment when his emissaries had encouraged the city of Liege to rise in revolt against their bishop, an ally of the duke; and he only bought his freedom by profuse promises, and by aiding Charles in a most savage destruction of Liege.  But after this his caution prevailed.  He gave secret support to the adherents of Rene de Vaudemont, and intrigued with the Swiss, who were often at issue with the Burgundian bailiffs and soldiery in Elsass—­greedy, reckless men, from whom the men of Elsass revolted in favour of their former Austrian lord.  Meantime Edward IV. of England, Charles’s brother-in-law, had planned with him an invasion of France and division of the kingdom, and in 1475 actually crossed the sea with a splendid host; but while Charles was prevented from joining him by the siege of Neuss, a city in