round in their course
a proper conjuncture for such an exploit."

In these words did King Louis XI give the first hint of the
extraordinary resolution which he afterwards adopted in order to dupe
his great rival, the subsequent execution of which had very nearly
proved his own ruin.

He parted with his counsellor, and presently afterwards went to the
apartment of the Ladies of Croye. Few persuasions beyond his mere
license would have been necessary to determine their retreat from the
Court of France, upon the first hint that they might not be eventually
protected against the Duke of Burgundy; but it was not so easy to induce
them to choose Liege for the place of their retreat. They entreated
and requested to be transferred to Bretagne or Calais, where, under
protection of the Duke of Bretagne or King of England, they might remain
in a state of safety, until the sovereign of Burgundy should relent in
his rigorous purpose towards them. But neither of these places of safety
at all suited the plans of Louis, and he was at last successful in
inducing them to adopt that which did coincide with them.

The power of the Bishop of Liege for their defence was not to be
questioned, since his ecclesiastical dignity gave him the means of
protecting the fugitives against all Christian Princes; while, on
the other hand, his secular forces, if not numerous, seemed at least
sufficient to defend his person, and all under his protection, from any
sudden violence. The difficulty was to reach the little Court of the
Bishop in safety; but for this Louis promised to provide, by spreading
a report that the Ladies of Croye had escaped from Tours by night, under
fear of being delivered up to the Burgundian Envoy, and had taken their
flight towards Bretagne. He also promised them the attendance of a small
but faithful retinue, and letters to the commanders of such towns and
fortresses as they might pass, with instructions to use every means for
protecting and assisting them in their journey.

The Ladies of Croye, although internally resenting the ungenerous and
discourteous manner in which Louis thus deprived them of the promised
asylum in his Court, were so far from objecting to the hasty departure
which he proposed, that they even anticipated his project, by entreating
to be permitted to set forward that same night. The Lady Hameline was
already tired of a place where there were neither admiring courtiers,
nor festivities to be witnessed; a