that he threw
himself upon his face in the bed, and seemed ready to choke with the
sobs and tears which he endeavoured to stifle. Then starting from
the couch, he gave vent at once to another and more furious mood, and
traversed the room hastily, uttering incoherent threats, and still more
incoherent oaths of vengeance, while stamping with his foot, according
to his customary action, he invoked Saint George, Saint Andrew, and
whomsoever else he held most holy, to bear witness that he would take
bloody vengeance on De la Marck, on the people of Liege, and on him who
was the author of the whole.--These last threats, uttered more obscurely
than the others, obviously concerned the person of the King, and at
one time the Duke expressed his determination to send for the Duke of
Normandy, the brother of the King, and with whom Louis was on the worst
terms, in order to compel the captive monarch to surrender either the
Crown itself, or some of its most valuable rights and appanages.

Another day and night passed in the same stormy and fitful
deliberations, or rather rapid transitions of passion, for the Duke
scarcely ate or drank, never changed his dress, and, altogether,
demeaned himself like one in whom rage might terminate in utter
insanity. By degrees he became more composed, and began to hold, from
time to time, consultations with his ministers, in which much was
proposed, but nothing resolved on. Comines assures us that at one time a
courier was mounted in readiness to depart for the purpose of summoning
the Duke of Normandy, and in that event, the prison of the French
Monarch would probably have been found, as in similar cases, a brief
road to his grave.

At other times, when Charles had exhausted his fury, he sat with his
features fixed in stern and rigid immobility, like one who broods
over some desperate deed, to which he is as yet unable to work up his
resolution. And unquestionably it would have needed little more than an
insidious hint from any of the counsellors who attended his person to
have pushed the Duke to some very desperate action. But the nobles of
Burgundy, from the sacred character attached to the person of a King,
and a Lord Paramount, and from a regard to the public faith, as well as
that of their Duke, which had been pledged when Louis threw himself
into their power, were almost unanimously inclined to recommend moderate
measures; and the arguments which D'Hymbercourt and De Comines had now
and the