hin_. Louis, on becoming king, had
loaded James d'Armagnac with favors; had raised his countship of Nemours
to a duchy-peerage of France; had married him to Louise of Anjou,
daughter of the Count of Maine and niece of King Rend. The new Duke of
Nemours entered, nevertheless, into the League of Common Weal against the
king. Having been included, in 1465, with the other chiefs of the league
in the treaty of Conflans, and reconciled with the king, the Duke of
Nemours made oath to him, in the Sainte-Chapelle, to always be to him a
good, faithful, and loyal subject, and thereby obtained the governorship
of Paris and Ile-de-France. But, in 1469, he took part in the revolt of
his cousin, Count John d'Armagnac, who was supposed to be in
communication with the English; and having been vanquished by the Count
de Dampmartin, he had need of a fresh pardon from the king, which he
obtained on renouncing the privileges of the peerage if he should offend
again. He then withdrew within his own domains, and there lived in
tranquillity and popularity, but still keeping up secret relations with
his old associates, especially with the Duke of Burgundy and the
constable of St. Pol. In 1476, during the Duke of Burgundy's first
campaign against the Swiss, the more or less active participation of the
Duke of Nemours with the king's enemies appeared to Louis so grave, that
he gave orders to his son-in-law, Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, to
go and besiege him in his castle of Carlat, in Auvergne. The Duke of
Nemours was taken prisoner there and carried off to Vienne, in Dauphiny,
where the king then happened to be. In spite of the prisoner's
entreaties, Louis absolutely refused to see him, and had him confined in
the tower of Pierre-Encise. The Duke of Nemours was so disquieted at his
position and the king's wrath, that his wife, Louise of Anjou, who was in
her confinement at Carlat, had a fit of terror and died there; and he
himself, shut up at Pierre-Encise, in a dark and damp dungeon, found his
hair turn white in a few days. He was not mistaken about the gravity of
the danger. Louis was both alarmed at these incessantly renewed
conspiracies of the great lords and vexed at the futility of his pardons.
He was determined to intimidate his enemies by a grand example, and
avenge his kingly self-respect by bringing his power home to the ingrates
who made no account of his indulgence. He ordered that the Duke of
Nemours should be remove