Charles the Bold eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 423 pages of information about Charles the Bold.

Charles the Bold eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 423 pages of information about Charles the Bold.

After July 17th constant bulletins from the king’s bedside came to Louis.  Genappe was too far and the anxious son moved to Avesnes in order to receive his messages more speedily.  Our chronicler Chastellain[19] begins his story of Louis’s accession as follows: 

“Since I am not English but French, I who am neither Spanish nor Italian but French, I have written of two Frenchmen, the one king, the other duke.  I have written of their works and their quarrels and of the favour and glories which God has given them in their time.

* * * * *

“Kings die, reigns vanish but virtue alone and meritorious works
serve man on his bier and gain him eternal glory.  O you Frenchmen,
see the cause and the end in my labours!”

The guest who had displayed so much humility and thankfulness when he arrived, who had deprecated honours to his high birth and desired to offer all the courtesies, departed from the residence so generously given him for five years in a very cavalier manner.

“Now the king left the duke’s territories without having taken leave nor said adieu to the Countess of Charolais,[20] although he was in her neighbourhood, and he left behind him the queen, his wife.  The said queen had neither hackneys nor vehicles with which to follow her husband.  Therefore, the king ordered her to borrow the hackneys of the countess and chariots, too.  Heartily did the countess accede to this request in spite of the fact that the thing seemed to her rather strange that a noble king, and one who had received so much honour and service from the House of Burgundy and had promised to recognise it when the hour came, should thus depart thence without saying a word.  However, in spite of all, the countess would gladly have given the queen the hackneys as a gift if they had been asked, and she sent them to her by one of her equerries named Corneille de la Barre, together with chariots and waggons.  And thus the queen left the country just as her husband had done without saying a word either to the duke or the countess, and Corneille went with her on foot to bring back the hackneys when the queen had arrived at the place of her desire.”

Philip had difficulty in persuading his quondam guest to show outward respect to his father’s memory.  The duke clad himself and his suite in deep mourning before setting out to join Louis at Avesnes, whither representatives from the University of Paris and from all parts of the realm had flocked to greet their new sovereign.

It was a great concourse that marched from Avesnes as escort to the uncrowned king.  Philip was magnificent in his appointments as he entered Rheims, and behind him came his son,

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Charles the Bold from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.