n the mighty host of "invincible" Charles was
overwhelmed by the Switzers in 1476. A year later, the whole fabric
of Burgundian ambition was shattered and the great duke lay a
mutilated and frozen corpse before the walls of Nancy. Louis' joy at
the destruction of his enemy was boundless, but in the very
culmination of his success he was struck down by paralysis, and though
he rallied for a time the end was near. Haunted by fear of treachery,
he immured himself in the gloomy fortress of Plessis. The saintly
Francesco da Calabria, relics from Florence, from Rome, the Holy Oil
from Rheims, turtles from Cape Verde Islands--all were powerless; the
arch dissembler must now face the ineluctable prince of the dark
realms, who was not to be bribed or cajoled even by kings.

[Footnote 98: The reader will hardly need to be reminded that this
amazing folly forms one of the principal episodes in Scott's _Quentin
Durward_.]

When at last Louis took to his bed, his physician, Jacques Cottier,
told him that most surely his hour was come. Confession made, he gave
much political counsel and some orders to be observed by _le Roi_, as
he now called his son, and spoke, says De Comines, "as dryly as if he
had never been ill. And after so many fears and suspicions Our Lord
wrought a miracle and took him from this miserable world in great
health of mind and understanding. Having received all the sacraments
and suffering no pain and always speaking to within a paternoster of
his death, he gave orders for his sepulture. May the Lord have his
soul and receive him in the realm of Paradise!"

It was in Louis' reign that the art of printing was introduced into
Paris. As early as 1458 the master of the mint had been sent to Mainz
to learn something of the new art, but without success. In 1463, Fust
and his partner, Schoeffer, had brought some printed books to Paris,
but the books were confiscated and the partners were driven out of the
city, owing to the jealousy of the powerful corporation of the scribes
and booksellers, who enjoyed a monopoly from the Sorbonne of the sale
of books in Paris; and in 1474 Louis paid an indemnity of 2500 crowns
to Schoeffer for the confiscation of his books and for the trouble he
had taken to introduce printed books into his capital. In 1470, at the
invitation of two doctors of the Sorbonne, Guillaume Fichet and Jean
de la Puin, Ulmer Gering of Constance and two other Swiss printers set
up a press near Fichet's room