is
said to have invented.

"Let him make proof of his own devices," said the King; "he is a man
of holy church--we may not shed his blood; but, Pasques dieu! his
bishopric, for ten years to come, shall have an impregnable frontier
to make up for its small extent!--And see the troops are brought up
instantly."

Perhaps, by this prompt acquiescence, Louis hoped to evade the
more unpleasing condition with which the Duke had clogged their
reconciliation. But if he so hoped, he greatly mistook the temper of his
cousin, for never man lived more tenacious of his purpose than Charles
of Burgundy, and least of all was he willing to relax any stipulation
which he made in resentment, or revenge, of a supposed injury.

No sooner were the necessary expresses dispatched to summon up the
forces who were selected to act as auxiliaries, than Louis was called
upon by his host to give public consent to the espousals of the Duke of
Orleans and Isabelle of Croye. The King complied with a heavy sigh, and
presently after urged a slight expostulation, founded upon the necessity
of observing the wishes of the Duke himself.

"These have not been neglected," said the Duke of Burgundy, "Crevecoeur
hath communicated with Monsieur d'Orleans, and finds him (strange to
say) so dead to the honour of wedding a royal bride, that he acceded to
the proposal of marrying the Countess of Croye as the kindest proposal
which father could have made to him."

"He is the more ungracious and thankless," said Louis, "but the whole
shall be as you, my cousin, will, if you can bring it about with consent
of the parties themselves."

"Fear not that," said the Duke, and accordingly, not many minutes after,
the affair had been proposed, the Duke of Orleans and the Countess
of Croye, the latter attended, as on the preceding occasion, by the
Countess of Crevecoeur and the Abbess of the Ursulines, were summoned
to the presence of the Princes, and heard from the mouth of Charles of
Burgundy, unobjected to by that of Louis, who sat in silent and moody
consciousness of diminished consequence, that the union of their hands
was designed by the wisdom of both Princes, to confirm the perpetual
alliance which in future should take place betwixt France and Burgundy.

The Duke of Orleans had much difficulty in suppressing the joy which
he felt upon the proposal, and which delicacy rendered improper in the
presence of Louis; and it required his habitual awe of that monarch to