known in earnest, was
far away in Ghent when the fatal news of her father's death was brought.
Before it could reach her it had reached the crafty old king. For Louis
it was the sweetest news he could have heard; his greatest foe was
providentially removed, and as his adversary in Burgundy there was now
but a girl scarcely grown, a girl whose selfish advisers he well knew
how to bribe or to ruin, as suited his interest. Well may we believe
that when the news of Charles's death reached that French court where so
many of the nobles had felt him to be their only help against the
anti-feudal policy of Louis, "not one ate half he could at dinner," as
the shrewd Comines says; now that the pillar of independent baronage was
gone, who could tell what the king might do?

Marie de Bourgogne was almost a prisoner among her too devoted subjects,
the burghers of Ghent. She and her counsellors realized from the first
that the real danger was to come from Louis XI, who would now seek to
re-annex to the crown those large portions of the Burgundian domain that
had originally come from France. Perhaps the letter of the feudal law
was on the side of the king, who claimed the right of wardship over his
female vassal; but Marie knew full well that this claim was but the
first of a long series that would culminate in the actual seizure of
French Burgundy as soon as Louis should feel himself strong enough. But
though Louis was the ultimate and the greater danger, he could be put
off, it was thought, by conciliatory messages; an immediate danger lay
in turbulent Flanders, which even the strong duke could not master, and
which now, in the midst of much exuberant devotion for mademoiselle,
kept her in a state of constant uneasiness. Something must be done to
quiet the Flemings.

Marie, in imitation of all new-made sovereigns whose crowns are none too
secure, began by granting most liberal charters and privileges to her
loyal subjects in Flanders. For the most part, the liberties thus
granted had been ancient liberties, temporarily denied under the
Burgundians, and now resumed by the people with or without the official
consent of their duchess. The Ghenters at once exercised their right of
being their own judges, and arrested the magistrates who had dared to
surrender the city's liberties to Charles and had governed in his name.
But neither the granting of privileges to Flanders nor the grateful
affection of the Ghenters could defend from Louis