is was composed for a separate
work and then incorporated into the memoirs.]

[Footnote 8: There is a beautiful portrait of her in MS. 9275 in the
Bibliotheque de Burgogne. _See_ also Wavrin, _Anchiennes Croniques
d'Engleterre_, ii., 368.]

[Footnote 9: III., 108.]

[Footnote 10: _The Paston Letters_, ii., 317.]

CHAPTER XI

THE MEETING AT PERONNE

1468

"My brother, I beseech you in the name of our affection and of
our alliance, come to my aid, come as speedily as you can, come
without delay. Written by the own hand of your brother.

"FRANCIS."

Such were the concluding sentences of a fervent appeal from the
Duke of Brittany that followed Charles into Holland, whither he had
hastened after the completion of the nuptial festivities.

The titular Duke of Normandy found that his royal brother was in no
wise inclined to fulfil the solemn pledges made at Conflans. His ally,
Francis, Duke of Brittany, was plunged into terror lest the king
should invade his duchy and punish him for his share in the
proceedings that had led up to that compact.

It is in this year that Louis XI. begins to show his real astuteness.
Very clever are his methods of freeing himself from the distasteful
obligations assumed towards his brother. They had been easy to make
when a hostile army was encamped at the gates of Paris. Then Normandy
weighed lightly when balanced by the desire to separate the allies.
That separation accomplished, the point of view changed. Relinquish
Normandy, restored by the hand of heaven to its natural liege lord
after its long retention by the English kings? Louis's intention
gradually became plain and he proved that he was no longer in the
isolated position in which the War for Public Weal had found him. He
had won to himself many adherents, while the general tone towards
Charles of Burgundy had changed.[1]

In April, 1468, the States-General of France assembled at Tours in
response to royal writs issued in the preceding February.[2] The
chancellor, Jouvencal, opened the session with a tedious, long-winded
harangue calculated to weary rather than to illuminate the assembly.
Then the king took the floor and delivered a telling speech. With
trenchant and well chosen phrases he set forth the reasons why
Normandy ought to be an intrinsic part of the French realm. The
advantages of centralisation, the weakness of decentralisation, were
skilfully drawn. The matter was one affecting the