a distance, the people of the duchess, and
especially the seigneur de Manton, had torches brought and took
the duke back to Geneva, in which they had great joy. And I with
Mme. of Savoy and the little boy (who was not the duke), crossed
the mountain in the black night and came to a place called Mijoux,
and thence to St. Claude.

"You must know that the duke gave very bad cheer to the company,
and chiefly to me. I was in danger of my life because I had not
brought the Duke of Savoy. Then the duke went on to Salins without
speaking to me or giving me any orders. However, I escorted Mme.
of Savoy after him, and he ordered me to take her to the castle of
Rochefort. Thence she was taken to Rouvre in Burgundy. After that
I had nothing more to do with her or her affairs."

This queer story is undoubtedly true, and the tone in which La Marche
relates it indicates that he, too, was alienated by the duke's manner,
and might have been more willing to lend an ear to Louis's suggestions
than he had been five years previously.

It is not evident that he played his master false or that he was
cognisant of the recapture of the little duke, but he says himself
that he thought the attendants were absolutely justified in it.

It is after this incident that the astute Panigarola returns and joins
the duke's suite at Salins. He finds Charles a changed man, indulging
in strange fits of hilarity, expressing the wish that a couple of
thousand more of his troops had been killed, "French at heart" as they
were. He refused to see Yolande, after thus forcibly obtaining the
means of so doing, and sent her to the castle of the Sire of Rochefort
for safe-keeping. Abstemious as he had been all his life, never taking
wine without water, the strong Burgundy in which he now suddenly
indulged went to his head.

Rumours went abroad that his mental balance was shaken. That does
not seem to have been true to the extent of insanity. He was only
infinitely chagrined but he certainly put on a brave front and
retained his self-confidence and declared

"They are wrong if they believe me defeated. Providence has
provided me with so many people and estates with such abundant
resources, that many such defeats would be needed to ruin them. At
the moment when the world imagines that I am annihilated, I will
reopen the campaign with an army of 150,000 men."[22]

[Footnote 1: _Lettres de Loui