rust the king's promises;
and one amongst those lords was too powerful to yield without a fight.
At the beginning Louis had, in Auvergne and in Berry, some successes,
which decided a few of the rebels, the most insignificant, to accept
truces and enter upon parleys; but the great princes, the Dukes of
Burgundy, Brittany, and Berry, waxed more and more angry. The aged Duke
of Burgundy, Philip the Good himself, sobered and wearied as he was,
threw himself passionately into the struggle. "Go," said he to his son,
Count Charles of Charolais, "maintain thine honor well, and, if thou have
need of a hundred thousand more men to deliver thee from difficulty, I
myself will lead them to thee." Charles marched promptly on Paris.
Louis, on his side, moved thither, with the design and in the hope of
getting in there without fighting. But the Burgundians, posted at St.
Denis and the environs, barred his approach. His seneschal, Peter de
Breze, advised him to first attack the Bretons, who were advancing to
join the Burgundians. Louis, looking at him somewhat mistrustfully,
said, "You, too, Sir Seneschal, have signed this League of the Common
Weal." "Ay, sir," answered Brez, with a laugh, "they have my signature,
but you have myself." "Would you be afraid to try conclusions with the
Burgundians?" continued the king. "Nay, verily," replied the seneschal;
"I will let that be seen in the first battle." Louis continued his march
on Paris. The two armies met at Montlhery, on the 16th of July, 1465.
Breze, who commanded the king's advance-guard, immediately went into
action, and was one of the first to be killed. Louis came up to his
assistance with troops in rather loose order; the affair became hot and
general; the French for a moment wavered, and a rumor ran through the
ranks that the king had just been killed.

"No, my friends," said Louis, taking off his helmet, "no, I am not dead;
defend your king with good courage." The wavering was transferred to the
Burgundians. Count Charles himself was so closely pressed that a French
man-at-arms laid his hand on him, saying, "Yield you, my lord; I know you
well; let not yourself be slain." "A rescue!" cried Charles; "I'll not
leave you, my friends, unless by death: I am here to live and die with
you." He was wounded by a sword-thrust which entered his neck between
his helmet and his breastplate, badly fastened. Disorder set in on both
sides, without either's being certain how thin