d he must die." On the 2nd of July, 1461, he asked what day it was,
and was told that it was St. Magdalen's day. "Ah!" said he, "I do laud
my God, and thank Him for that it hath pleased Him that the most sinful
man in the world should die on the sinful woman's day! Dampmartin," said
he to the count of that name, who was leaning over his bed, "I do beseech
you that after my death you will serve so far as you can the little lord,
my son Charles." He called his confessor, received the sacraments, gave
orders that he should be buried at St. Denis beside the king his father,
and expired. No more than his son Louis, though for different reasons,
was his wife, Queen Mary of Anjou, at his side. She was living at
Chinon, whither she had removed a long while before by order of the king
her husband. Thus, deserted by them of his own household, and disgusted
with his own life, died that king of whom a contemporary chronicler,
whilst recommending his soul to God, re-marked, "When he was alive, he
was a right wise and valiant lord, and he left his kingdom united, and in
good case as to justice and tranquillity."

CHAPTER XXV.----LOUIS XI. (1461-1483.)

Louis XI. was thirty-eight years old, and had been living for five years
in voluntary exile at the castle of Genappe, in Hainault, beyond the
dominions of the king his father, and within those of Philip the Good,
Duke of Burgundy, when, on the 23d of July, 1461, the day after Charles
VII.'s death, he learned that he was King of France. He started at once
to return to his own country, and take possession of his kingdom. He
arrived at Rheims on the 14th of August, was solemnly crowned there on
the 18th, in presence of the two courts of France and Burgundy, and on
the 30th made his entry into Paris, within which he had not set foot for
six and twenty years. In 1482, twenty-one years afterwards, he, sick and
almost dying in his turn at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, went,
nevertheless, to Amboise, where his son the _dauphin_, who was about to
become Charles VIII., and whom he had not seen for several years, was
living. "I do expressly enjoin upon you," said the father to the son,
"as my last counsel and my last instructions, not to change a single one
of the chief officers of the crown. When my father. King Charles VII.,
went to God, and I myself came to the throne, I disappointed [i.e.,
deprived of their appointments] all the good and notable knights of the
kingdom wh