ain of carts filled with plate, silk tents, rich rugs, and precious
jewels; for, with all his bravery, this duke's ruling passion was the
love of display in the presence of foreigners.

I shall not give the story of this disastrous war in detail; that lies
in the province of history, and my story relates only to Max and
Yolanda, and to the manner in which they were affected by the results
of the war.

We marched with forty thousand men, and laid siege to the city of
Granson, in the district of Vaud. The Swiss sent ambassadors under a
flag of truce, begging Charles to spare them, and saying, according to
my friend Comines, that "there were among them no good prisoners to
make, and that the spurs and horses' bits of the duke's army were worth
more money than all the people of Switzerland could pay in ransoms, even
if they were taken." Charles rejected all overtures, and on the third of
March the brave little Swiss army sallied against us, "heralding their
advances by the lowings of the Bull of Uri and the Cow of Unterwalden,
two enormous instruments which had been given to their ancestors by
Charlemagne."

God was against Charles of Burgundy, and his army was utterly routed by
one of less than a fourth its size. I was with Charles after the battle,
and his humiliation was more pitiful than his bursts of ungovernable
wrath were disgusting. The king of France, hoping for this disaster, was
near by at Lyons.

A cruel man is always despicable in misfortune. Charles at once sent to
King Louis a conciliatory, fawning letter, recanting all that he had
said in his last missive from Peronne, and expressing the hope that His
Majesty would adhere to the treaty and would consent to the marriage of
Princess Mary and the Dauphin at once. In this letter Yolanda had no
opportunity to insert a disturbing "t." Louis answered graciously,
saying that the treaty should be observed, and that the marriage should
take place immediately upon the duke's return to Burgundy.

"We have already forwarded instructions to Paris," wrote King Louis,
"directing that preparations be made at once for the celebration of this
most desired union at the holy church of St. Denis. We wondered much at
Your Grace's first missive, in which you so peremptorily desired us not
to move in this matter till your return; and we wondered more at Your
Lordship's ungracious reply to our answer in which we consented to the
delay Your Grace had asked."

Well might King Lo