r dispositions. He was
at no pains to show the King more courtesy than the laws of hospitality
positively demanded; but, on the other hand, he evinced no purpose of
overleaping their sacred barriers.

On the following morning after the King's arrival, there was a general
muster of the troops of the Duke of Burgundy, which were so numerous
and so excellently appointed, that, perhaps, he was not sorry to have an
opportunity of displaying them before his great rival. Indeed, while he
paid the necessary compliment of a vassal to his Suzerain, in declaring
that these troops were the King's and not his own, the curl of his upper
lip and the proud glance of his eye intimated his consciousness that the
words he used were but empty compliment, and that his fine army at his
own unlimited disposal, was as ready to march against Paris as in any
other direction. It must have added to Louis's mortification that
he recognised, as forming part of this host, many banners of French
nobility, not only of Normandy and Bretagne, but of provinces more
immediately subjected to his own authority, who, from various causes of
discontent, had joined and made common cause with the Duke of Burgundy.

True to his character, however, Louis seemed to take little notice of
these malcontents, while, in fact, he was revolving in his mind the
various means by which it might be possible to detach them from the
banners of Burgundy and bring them back to his own, and resolved for
that purpose that he would cause those to whom he attached the greatest
importance to be secretly sounded by Oliver and other agents.

He himself laboured diligently, but at the same time cautiously, to make
interest with the Duke's chief officers and advisers, employing for
that purpose the usual means of familiar and frequent notice, adroit
flattery, and liberal presents; not, as he represented, to alienate
their faithful services from their noble master, but that they might
lend their aid in preserving peace betwixt France and Burgundy--an end
so excellent in itself, and so obviously tending to the welfare of both
countries and of the reigning Princes of either.

The notice of so great and so wise a King was in itself a mighty bribe;
promises did much, and direct gifts, which the customs of the time
permitted the Burgundian courtiers to accept without scruple, did still
more. During a boar hunt in the forest, while the Duke, eager always
upon the immediate object, whether busi