ded by any
principle but that of fierce and brutal selfishness.

In this mood he soon became tired of the service of his nobles
and of the national militia, who only maintained toward him a
forced and modified obedience founded on the usages and rights
of their several provinces; and he took into his pay all sorts
of adventurers and vagabonds who were willing to submit to him as
their absolute master. When the taxes necessary for the support
and pay of these bands of mercenaries caused the people to murmur,
Charles laughed at their complaints, and severely punished some
of the most refractory. He then entered France at the head of
his army, to assist the duke of Brittany; but at the moment when
nothing seemed to oppose the most extensive views of his ambition
he lost by his hot-brained caprice every advantage within his
easy reach: he chose to sit down before Beauvais; and thus made
of this town, which lay in his road, a complete stumbling-block
on his path of conquest.

The time he lost before its walls caused the defeat and ruin
of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally,
who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's
presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage
and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders
from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of
it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in
this family that the children should revolt and rebel against their
parents. Adolphus had the effrontery to found his justification
on the argument that his father having reigned forty-four years,
he was fully entitled to his share--a fine practical authority
for greedy and expectant heirs. The old father replied to this
reasoning by offering to meet his son in single combat. Charles
cut short the affair by making Adolphus prisoner and seizing
on the disputed territory; for which he, however, paid Arnoul
the sum of two hundred and twenty thousand florins.

After this acquisition Charles conceived and had much at heart
the design of becoming king, the first time that the Netherlands
were considered sufficiently important and consolidated to entitle
their possessor to that title. To lead to this object he offered
to the emperor of Germany the hand of his daughter Mary for his
son Maximilian. The emperor acceded to this proposition, and
repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance
his coronatio