The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charles the Bold, by Ruth Putnam

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Title: Charles the Bold
Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477

Author: Ruth Putnam

Release Date: December 28, 2004 [EBook #14496]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: CHARLES THE BOLD OF BURGUNDY (1433-1477) (FROM MS.
STATUTE BOOK OF THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VIENNA) PAINTED
BETWEEN 1518-1531]

CHARLES THE BOLD

LAST DUKE OF BURGUNDY

1433-1477

BY

RUTH PUTNAM

AUTHOR OF "WILLIAM THE SILENT," "A MEDIAEVAL PRINCESS," ETC.

* * * * *

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1908

* * * * *

COPYRIGHT 1908,

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

* * * * *

PREFACE

The admission of Charles, Duke of Burgundy into the series of Heroes
of the Nations, is justified by his relation to events rather than by
his national or his heroic qualities. _"Il n'avait pas assez de sens
ni de malice pour conduire ses entreprises,"_ is one phrase of Philip
de Commines in regard to the master he had once served. Render _sens_
by _genius_ and _malice_ by _diplomacy_ and the words are not far
wrong. Yet in spite of the failure to obtain either a kingly or an
imperial crown, the story of those same unaccomplished enterprises
contains the germs of much that has happened later in the borderlands
of France and Germany where the projected "middle kingdom" might have
been erected. A sketch of the duke's character with its traits of
ambition and shortcomings may therefore be placed, not unfitly, among
the pen portraits of individuals who have attempted to change the map
of Europe.

The materials for an exhaustive study of the times, and of the
participants in the scenes thereof, are almost overwhelming
in quantity. Into this narrative, I have woven the words of
contemporaries when these related what they saw and thought, or at
lea