with the exception,
however, of seven persons whom he did not name. They were the most
faithful and most able advisers of the king his father, those who had
best served Charles VII. even in his embroilments with the _dauphin_, his
conspiring and rebellious son, viz., Anthony de Chabannes, Count of
Dampmartin, Peter de Breze, Andrew de Laval, Juvenal des Ursins, &c.
Some lost their places, and were even, for a while, subjected to
persecution; the others, remaining still at court, received there many
marks of the king's disfavor. On the other hand, Louis made a show of
treating graciously the men who had most incurred and deserved disgrace
at his father's hands, notably the Duke of Alencon and the Count of
Armagnac. Nor was it only in respect of persons that he departed from
paternal tradition; he rejected it openly in the case of one of the most
important acts of Charles VII.'s reign, the Pragmatic Sanction, issued by
that prince at Bourses, in 1438, touching the internal regulations of the
Church of France and its relations towards the papacy. The popes, and
especially Pius II., Louis XI.'s contemporary, had constantly and
vigorously protested against that act. Barely four months after his
accession, on the 27th of November, 1461, Louis, in order to gain favor
with the pope, abrogated the Pragmatic Sanction, and informed the pope of
the fact in a letter full of devotion. There was great joy at Rome, and
the pope replied to the king's letter in the strongest terms of gratitude
and commendation. But Louis's courtesy had not been so disinterested as
it was prompt. He had hoped that Pius II. would abandon the cause of
Ferdinand of Arragon, a claimant to the throne of Naples, and would
uphold that of his rival, the French prince, John of Anjou, Duke of
Calabria, whose champion Louis had declared himself. He bade his
ambassador at Rome to remind the pope of the royal hopes. "You know,"
said the ambassador to Pius II., "it is only on this condition that
the king my master abolished the Pragmatic; he was pleased to desire that
in his kingdom full obedience should be rendered to you; he demands, on
the other hand, that you should be pleased to be a friend to France;
otherwise I have orders to bid all the French cardinals withdraw, and you
cannot doubt but that they will obey." But Pius II. was more proud than
Louis XI. dared to be imperious. He answered, "We are under very great
obligations to the King of France, but