citizens of Brisac offered homage on their knees and had their
hopes raised high by their suzerain's pleasant greeting, but they
failed to obtain the hoped for assurance that the treaty of St. Omer
should be observed in all respects. Among the envoys were many who
undertook to remonstrate in a friendly fashion about the imposition
of the "Bad Penny" tax on the Alsatians, and the over-severity of
Hagenbach's administration. The cause of Mulhouse, too, was urged,
notably by Berne. The representations of these last envoys were
received most courteously. The duke rather thought that the city could
be detached from the league, and therefore gave himself some trouble
to establish friendly relations.

To Mulhouse, too, his tone was conciliatory. He wrote a pleasant
letter to the town and despatched a councillor thither, who would, he
assured them, arrange matters to their satisfaction. But an abortive
_coup d'etat_ on the part of the Burgundians, which would have given
them possession of Basel, destroyed the effect of these reassuring
phrases. The burghers were warned in time, looked to their defences,
and banished from their midst every individual suspected of Burgundian
sympathies. Every newcomer was carefully scrutinised before he was
admitted within the walls, and the Rhine was guarded most rigidly. The
propriety of these precautions was soon proven.

Charles ordered a review at Ensisheim, the official capital of the
landgraviate. Thither marched his troops from every quarter. Those
from Saeckingen, Lauffen, and Waldshut found their shortest route over
the bridge at Basel, and there they appeared and begged to be allowed
to cross. Their sincerity was doubted, and the least foothold on the
city's territory was sternly refused then and a week later, when the
request was renewed. The method of introducing friendly troops into a
town and then seizing it by a sudden _coup de main_ was what Charles
had been suspected of plotting for Metz, and later for Colmar, and
there seems to be no doubt that a third essay of this rather stupid
stratagem was planned, only to fail again, and this time to be
peculiarly disastrous in its reflex action.

The review took place and the strength of the Burgundian mercenaries
was duly displayed to the Alsatians, but no satisfactory assurances
were given to Brisac and the other towns that their suzerain
would restrict his measures of taxation and administration to the
stipulations of the contract