ain
in the dominions of Burgundy.

Amidst so great an abundance of materials, it was difficult to select
such as should be most intelligible and interesting to the reader: and
the author had to regret, that though he made liberal use of the power
of departing from the reality of history, he felt by no means confident
of having brought his story into a pleasing, compact, and sufficiently
intelligible form. The mainspring of the plot is that which all who know
the least of the feudal system can easily understand, though the facts
are absolutely fictitious. The right of a feudal superior was in nothing
more universally acknowledged than in his power to interfere in the
marriage of a female vassal. This may appear to exist as a contradiction
both of the civil and canon laws, which declare that marriage shall be
free, while the feudal or municipal jurisprudence, in case of a fief
passing to a female, acknowledges an interest in the superior of
the fief to dictate the choice of her companion in marriage. This is
accounted for on the principle that the superior was, by his bounty, the
original granter of the fief, and is still interested that the marriage
of the vassal shall place no one there who may be inimical to his liege
lord. On the other hand, it might be reasonably pleaded that this
right of dictating to the vassal to a certain extent in the choice of
a husband, is only competent to the superior from whom the fief is
originally derived. There is therefore no violent improbability in a
vassal of Burgundy flying to the protection of the King of France, to
whom the Duke of Burgundy himself was vassal; not is it a great stretch
of probability to affirm that Louis, unscrupulous as he was, should have
formed the design of betraying the fugitive into some alliance which
might prove inconvenient, if not dangerous, to his formidable kinsman
and vassal of Burgundy.

[Some of these departures from historical accuracy, as when the death
of the Bishop of Liege is antedated, are duly set forth in the notes.
It should be mentioned that Mr. J. F. Kirk, in his elaborate History of
Charles the Bold, claims that in some points injustice has been done
to the Duke in this romance. He says: "The faults of Charles were
sufficiently glaring, and scarcely admitted of exaggeration; but his
breeding had been that of a prince, his education had been better than
that of other princes of his time, his tastes and habits were more, not
less, refine