The army advanced slowly
toward the French frontier, but for two months nothing effectual was
done.

[Illustration: LOUIS XI. OF FRANCE.]

In the mean time, Louis, the King of France, who was a very shrewd and
wily man, concluded that it would be better for him to buy off his
enemies than to fight them. So he continually sent messengers and
negotiators to Edward's camp with proposals of various sorts, made to
gain time, in order to enable him, by means of presents and bribes,
to buy up all the prominent leaders and counselors of the expedition.
He gave secretly to all the men who he supposed held an influence over
Edward's mind, large sums of money. He offered, too, to make a treaty
with Edward, by which, under one pretext or another, he was to pay him
a great deal of money. One of these proposed payments was that of a
large sum for the ransom of Queen Margaret, as mentioned in a
preceding chapter. The amount of the ransom money which he proposed
was fifty thousand crowns.

Besides these promises to pay money in case the treaty was concluded,
Louis made many rich and valuable presents at once. One day, while the
negotiations were pending, he sent over to the English camp, as a gift
to the king, three hundred cart-loads of wine, the best that could be
procured in the kingdom.

At one time, near the beginning of the affair, when a herald was sent
to Louis from Edward with a very defiant and insolent message, Louis,
instead of resenting the message as an affront, entertained the herald
with great politeness, held a long and friendly conversation with him,
and finally sent him away with three hundred crowns in his purse, and
a promise of a thousand more as soon as a peace should be concluded.
He also made him a present of a piece of crimson velvet "thirty ells
long." Such a gift as this of the crimson velvet was calculated,
perhaps, in those days of military foppery, to please the herald even
more than the money.

These things, of course, put Edward and nearly all his followers in
excellent humor, and disposed them to listen very favorably to any
propositions for settling the quarrel which Louis might be disposed to
make. At last, after various and long protracted negotiations, a
treaty was agreed upon, and Louis proposed that at the final execution
of it he and Edward should have a personal interview.

Edward acceded to this on certain conditions, and the circumstances
under which the interview took place, and the