a great embassy with the Count
d'Eu at the head. Demands were made that I should be delivered to
him to be punished as he would, because he claimed that I had been
the cause of the arrest of the bastard of Rubempre and also of the
duke's departure from Hesdin without saying adieu to the King of
France, but the good duke, moderate in all his actions, replied
that I was his subject and his servitor, and that if the king or
any one else had a grievance against me he would investigate it.
The matter was finally smoothed over [adds La Marche], and Louis
evinced a readiness to conciliate his offended cousin."

In spite of La Marche, the matter proved to be one not easily disposed
of by soft phrases flung into the breach. Charles obeyed his father
and prepared in advance his defence to the chancellor. When he had
finished his own statement about Rubempre, he proceeded to the point
of his friendship with the Duke of Brittany, declaring that it was
right and proper and that if King Louis knew what was to the advantage
of the French sovereign, he would be glad to see his nobles welded
together as a bulwark to his throne. As to his pension, he had never
received but one quarter, nine thousand francs. He had made no suit
for the remainder nor for the government of Normandy. So long as he
enjoyed the favour and good will of his father he had no need to crave
favour of any man.

"I think verily had it not been for the reverence he bore to his said
father who was there present" continues the observant page, "and to
whom he addressed his speech that he would have used much bitterer
terms. In the end, Duke Philip very wisely and humbly besought the
king not lightly to conceive an evil opinion of him or his son but to
continue his favour towards them. Then the banquet was brought in and
the ambassadors took their leave. As they passed out Charles stood
apart from his father and said to the archbishop of Narbonne, who
brought up the rear of the little company:

"'Recommend me very humbly to the good grace of the king. Tell him he
has had me scolded here by the chancellor but that he shall repent it
before a year is past.'" His message was duly delivered and to this
incident Commines attributes momentous results.

Exasperated at the nonchalant manner in which Louis's ambassadors
treated him, indignant at the injury to his heritage by the redemption
of the towns on the Somme, and further, already ali