cret league with the Duke of Savoy
"against the ministers of the King of France, his enemies." In 1456, in
order to escape from the perils brought upon him by the plots which he,
in the heart of Dauphiny, was incessantly hatching against his father,
Louis fled from Grenoble and went to take refuge in Brussels with the
Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, who willingly received him, at the
same time excusing himself to Charles VII. "on the ground of the respect
he owed to the son of his suzerain," and putting at the disposal of
Louis, "his guest," a pension of thirty-six thousand livres. "He has
received the fox at his court," said Charles: "he will soon see what will
become of his chickens." But the pleasantries of the king did not chase
away the sorrows of the father. "Mine enemies have full trust in me,"
said Charles, "but my son will have none. If he had but once spoken with
me, he would have known full well that he ought to have neither doubts
nor fears. On my royal word, if he will but come to me, when he has
opened his heart and learned my intentions, he may go away again
whithersoever it seems good to him." Charles, in his old age and his
sorrow, forgot how distrustful and how fearful he himself had been. "It
is ever your pleasure," wrote one of his councillors to him in a burst of
frankness, "to be shut up in castles, wretched places, and all sorts of
little closets, without showing yourself and listening to the complaints
of your poor people." Charles VII. had shown scarcely more confidence to
his son than to his people. Louis yielded neither to words, nor to
sorrows of which proofs were reaching him nearly every day. He remained
impassive at the Duke of Burgundy's, where he seemed to be waiting with
scandalous indifference for the news of his father's death. Charles sank
into a state of profound melancholy and general distrust. He had his
doctor, Adam Fumee, put in prison; persuaded himself that his son had
wished, and was still wishing, to poison him; and refused to take any
kind of nourishment. No representation, no solicitation, could win him
from his depression and obstinacy. It was in vain that Charles, Duke of
Berry, his favorite child, offered to first taste the food set before
him. It was in vain that his servants "represented to him with tears,"
says Bossuet, "what madness it was to cause his own death for fear of
dying; when at last he would have made an effort to eat, it was too late,
an