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Caracciolo, de Varietate Fortunæ, Muratori, vol. xxii. p. 87, exposes this system in a passage which should be compared with Infessura on the practices of Sixtus. De Comines, lib. vii. cap. 11, may be read with profit on the same subject.
As he descended from his horse to cross the drawbridge, over a moat of unusual width and depth, he looked on the sentinels, and observed to Comines, who accompanied him, with other Burgundian nobles, "They wear Saint Andrew's crosses but not those of my Scottish Archers."
"I am the bearer of no propositions, my lord," said De Comines; "the Duke will soon explain his own pleasure; but some things occur to me as proposals, for which your Majesty ought to hold yourself prepared. As, for example, the final cession of these towns here upon the Somme." "I expected so much," said Louis. "That you should disown the Liegeois, and William de la Marck."
"Why so, knave?" said Charles. "Because they belong to the Sieur D'Hymbercourt and De Comines, who are gone so far to fly their falcons, that they have forgot their supper. They who would rather look at a kite on the wing than a pheasant on the board, are of kin to the fool, and he should succeed to the stools, as a part of their movable estate."
"The same, as I think," said De Comines; "he was made prisoner along with the Countess, travelling almost alone together." "Now, our Lord and our Lady, and Monseigneur Saint Martin, and Monseigneur Saint Julian, be praised every one of them!" said the King, "and all laud and honour to the learned Galeotti; who read in the stars that this youth's destiny was connected with mine!
And when all is said, it was no very helpful preparation for the battle of life. "I believe Louis XI.," writes Comines, "would not have saved himself, if he had not been very differently brought up from such other lords as I have seen educated in this country; for these were taught nothing but to play the jackanapes with finery and fine words."
'At this moment, says De Comines, 'not a single man of us could have escaped if our ranks had once been broken. The French army was divided into three main bodies. The vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, 3000 Switzers, 300 archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, and the artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard.
Montesquieu, in the eighteenth century, extolled it as the best in the world. And would it not be madness in us to throw away what such men thought the most precious of all our blessings? But was the constitution which Montesquieu praised the same with the constitution which Comines praised? No, Sir; if it had been so, Montesquieu never would have praised it.
I know you will not counsel your master to abuse such an opportunity as fortune, and, to speak plain, De Comines, as my own folly, has afforded him." "To abuse it, by no means," answered the historian, "but most certainly to use it." "How, and in what degree?" said Louis.
Cellini often recalled with pleasure the four years he spent with the gran re Francesco at Paris. "The French are remembered in Italy only by the graves they left there," said De Comines, and once again the Italian campaigns ended in disaster.
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