ent on his crimes he might suffer
them to pass out of the recollection of the celestial patrons, whose aid
he invoked for his body.

So great were the well merited tortures of this tyrant's deathbed, that
Philip de Comines enters into a regular comparison between them and the
numerous cruelties inflicted on others by his order; and considering
both, comes to express an opinion that the worldly pangs and agony
suffered by Louis were such as might compensate the crimes he had
committed, and that, after a reasonable quarantine in purgatory, he
might in mercy he found duly qualified for the superior regions...
The instructive but appalling scene of this tyrant's sufferings was at
length closed by death, 30th August, 1483.

The selection of this remarkable person as the principal character in
the romance--for it will be easily comprehended that the little love
intrigue of Quentin is only employed as the means of bringing out the
story--afforded considerable facilities to the author. In Louis XI's
time, extraordinary commotions existed throughout all Europe. England's
Civil Wars were ended, rather in appearance than reality, by the short
lived ascendancy of the House of York. Switzerland was asserting that
freedom which was afterwards so bravely defended. In the Empire and in
France, the great vassals of the crown were endeavouring to emancipate
themselves from its control, while Charles of Burgundy by main force,
and Louis more artfully by indirect means, laboured to subject them to
subservience to their respective sovereignties. Louis, while with one
hand he circumvented and subdued his own rebellious vassals, laboured
secretly with the other to aid and encourage the large trading towns of
Flanders to rebel against the Duke of Burgundy, to which their wealth
and irritability naturally disposed them. In the more woodland districts
of Flanders, the Duke of Gueldres, and William de la Marck, called from
his ferocity the Wild Boar of Ardennes, were throwing off the habits
of knights and gentlemen to practise the violences and brutalities of
common bandits.

[Chapter I gives a further account of the conditions of the period which
Quentin Durward portrays.]

A hundred secret combinations existed in the different provinces of
France and Flanders; numerous private emissaries of the restless
Louis, Bohemians, pilgrims, beggars, or agents disguised as such, were
everywhere spreading the discontent which it was his policy to maint