to them." "Howbeit," says
Fleuranges, "not a single captain was there, nor, likewise, the said lord
duke, but understood well how it was with people besieged, as indeed came
to pass, for at the end of three days, during which the people of Tournai
were besieged, they treated for appointment (terms) with the King of
England." Other bad news came to Amiens. The Swiss, puffed up with
their victory at Novara and egged on by Emperor Maximilian, had to the
number of thirty thousand entered Burgundy, and on the 7th of September
laid siege to Dijon, which was rather badly fortified. La Tremoille,
governor of Burgundy, shut himself up in the place and bravely repulsed a
first assault, but "sent post-haste to warn the king to send him aid;
whereto the king made no reply beyond that he could not send him aid, and
that La Tremoille should do the best he could for the advantage and
service of the kingdom." La Tremoille applied to the Swiss for a
safe-conduct, and "without arms and scantily attended" he went to them to
try whether "in consideration of a certain sum of money for the expenses
of their army they could be packed off to their own country without doing
further displeasure or damage." He found them proud and arrogant of
heart, for they styled themselves chastisers of princes," and all he
could obtain from them was "that the king should give up the duchy of
Milan and all the castles appertaining thereto, that he should restore to
the pope all the towns, castles, lands, and lordships which belonged to
him, and that he should pay the Swiss four hundred thousand crowns, to
wit, two hundred thousand down and two hundred thousand at Martinmas in
the following winter." [_Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens,_ by
Dumont, t. vi. part 1, p. 175.] As brave in undertaking a heavy
responsibility as he was in delivering a battle, La Tremoille did not
hesitate to sign, on the 13th of September, this harsh treaty; and, as he
had not two hundred thousand crowns down to give the Swiss, he prevailed
upon them to be content with receiving twenty thousand at once, and he
left with them as hostage, in pledge of his promise, his nephew Rend
d'Anjou, lord of Mezieres, "one of the boldest and discreetest knights in
France." But for this honorable defeat, the veteran warrior thought the
kingdom of France had been then undone; for, assailed at all its
extremities, with its neighbors for its foes, it could not, without great
risk of final ruin