er the old duke being too feeble to
withstand him; the Dukes of Brittany, Nemours, Bourbon, John of Anjou,
Duke of Calabria, the Comte d'Armagnac, the aged Dunois, and a host of
other princes and nobles flocked in; and the King had scarcely any forces
at his back with which to withstand them. His plans for the campaign
against the league were admirable, though they were frustrated by the bad
faith of his captains, who mostly sympathised with this outbreak of the
feudal nobility. Louis himself marched southward to quell the Duc de
Bourbon and his friends, and returning from that task, only half done for
lack of time, he found that Charles of Charolais had passed by Paris,
which was faithful to the King, and was coming down southwards, intending
to join the Dukes of Berri and Brittany, who were on their way towards
the capital. The hostile armies met at Montleheri on the Orleans road;
and after a strange battle--minutely described by Commines--a battle in
which both sides ran away, and neither ventured at first to claim a
victory, the King withdrew to Corbeil, and then marched into Paris
(1465). There the armies of the league closed in on him; and after a
siege of several weeks, Louis, feeling disaffection all around him, and
doubtful how long Paris herself would bear for him the burdens of
blockade, signed the Peace of Conflans, which, to all appearances,
secured the complete victory to the noblesse, "each man carrying off his
piece." Instantly the contented princes broke up their half-starved
armies and went home, leaving Louis behind to plot and contrive against
them, a far wiser man, thanks to the lesson they had taught him. They
did not let him wait long for a chance. The Treaty of Conflans had given
the duchy of Normandy to the King's brother Charles; he speedily
quarrelled with his neighbour, the Duke of Brittany, and Louis came down
at once into Normandy, which threw itself into his arms, and the whole
work of the league was broken up. The Comte de Charolais, occupied with
revolts at Dinan and Liege, could not interfere, and presently his
father, the old Duke Philip, died (1467), leaving to him the vast
lordships of the House of Burgundy.

And now the "imperial dreamer," Charles the Bold, was brought into
immediate rivalry with that royal trickster, the "universal spider,"
Louis XI. Charles was by far the nobler spirit of the two: his vigour
and intelligence, his industry and wish to raise all around him t