ly as they could in a fortnight.

The summary of this report of 1471 was that there was little present
prospect that Charles would be able to reimburse himself for his
necessary expenses. An undue portion of authority and of revenue was
legally lodged in alien hands. Charles was possessed of germs of
rights rather than of actual rights. The earlier creditors of Austria
held all the best mortgages with their attendant emoluments. The
immediate profits accruing to the Duke of Burgundy fell far short
of the minimum necessary to disburse to keep his government, his
strongholds, his highways in repair. Very disturbed were the good
treasurer of Vesoul and the procureur-general of Amont at this state
of affairs, and distressed at the prospect of the ampler receipts from
Burgundy being required to relieve the pressing necessities of the
poor territories _de par de la_.

To avoid this contingency, the commissioners recommended the duke
to redeem all the existing mortgages great and small. It would cost
140,000 florins, but the revenue would at once increase with the new
security which would immediately follow under firm Burgundian rule.
Sole master, Charles could then enforce obedience from nobles and
cities and better conditions would be inaugurated.

Evidently this rational advice was not taken, for it is repeated by
Coutault in 1473. Redemption of the mortgages, "if your affairs can
afford it," is the counsel given by the chamber of accounts at Dijon,
though this sage board adds that they were well aware that in the
previous month Monseigneur could not put his hands on a hundred
florins to redeem one wretched little _gagerie._ The native coffers of
the region did not suffice to settle the salaries of the officers in
charge.

Such then was the new acquisition of Charles after four years of his
administration. Peter von Hagenbach, his deputy in charge of this
unremunerative territory, is a character painted in the darkest
colours by all historians. It is more than probable that his unpopular
efforts to make bricks without straw were largely responsible for his
unenviable reputation. Ground between the upper and lower millstones
of Charles's clamours for revenues and popular clamours that the
people had nothing wherewith to pay, Hagenbach developed into a
taskmaster of the hardest and most unpitying type, who made himself
thoroughly hated by the people he was set to rule.

It must be remembered that there was no cleft in n