for so great a prince, if once a
captive, might scarcely hope to leave his prison alive. Toward morning
Charles determined to content himself with insisting that Louis should
sign a peace on such terms as he should dictate, and accompany him
against Liege. The King, says Comines, had a friend who informed him that
he would be safe if he agreed to these conditions, but that otherwise his
peril would be extreme. This friend was Comines himself, and Louis never
forgot so timely a service. The two days during which his fate was being
decided had been passed by him in the greatest agony of mind. Though he
had been allowed to communicate freely with the French nobles and his own
attendants, he had been ominously neglected by the Burgundian courtiers.
As soon as the Duke had determined what conditions he intended to impose,
he hastened to the castle to visit his captive. The memorable interview
is described by two eye-witnesses--Comines and Olivier de la Marche.
Charles entered the King's presence with a lowly obeisance; but his
gestures and his unsteady voice betrayed his suppressed passion. The King
could not conceal his fear. "My brother," he asked, "am I not safe in
your dominions?"

"Yes, sire, so safe that if I saw a cross-bow pointed at you I would
throw myself before you to shield you from the bolt."

He then asked the King to swear a peace on the proposed basis: (i) The
faithful execution of the treaty of Conflans; (2) the abolition of the
jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris over Flanders; (3) the surrender
of all regalian rights in Picardy; (4) the release of the Duke from all
fealty to the King if the treaty was in any way infringed or imperfectly
executed. Louis agreed, and Charles requested his assistance in punishing
the rebellion of Liege. The King expressed his perfect readiness. The
princes then signed a draft of the treaty and swore to execute it
faithfully on the cross of St. Laud. Charles had insisted that Louis
should swear on the relic, a fragment of the true Cross once kept in the
Church of St. Laud at Angers, which the King always carried with him,
esteeming it highly, because he believed that whoever forswore himself on
it would surely die within the year. The Duke at the same time promised
to do homage for the fiefs he held of the crown of France, but the
execution of this promise was evaded.

On the 15th the Duke, with an army of forty thousand men, and the King
with his slender escort, and so