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Updated: June 23, 2025
Mandrot, editor of Commynes , i., 230, considers the whole story a malicious fabrication of Odet d'Aydie, and other authorities refer the cause to disease. It is the deposition of several old people who had been just old enough to remember that awful experience of their youth. The fugitive did not enter immediately into his new possessions.
The very day of his departure, at six A. M., Duke Charles had a seizure made of all the goods and all the rights belonging to the fugitive; "but what Commynes lost on one side," says his editor, "he was about to recover a hundred fold on the other; scarcely had he arrived at the court of Louis XI. when he received at once the title of councillor and chamberlain to the king; soon afterwards a pension of six thousand livres of Tours was secured to him, by way of giving him wherewithal to honorably maintain his position; he was put into the place of captain of the castle and keep of the town of Chinon; and lastly, a present was made to him of the rich principality of Talmont."
"Those who treated with him," says Commynes, "told me, turning him to scorn and ridicule, that they were dumbfounded at his so readily granting so great a matter and what they were not prepared for." Feelings were raised to the highest pitch at Florence when his weaknesses were known.
"Would to God," says Commynes, "that the king had been pleased to listen then! Some were sitting upon a staircase leading to the benches, and had their heads resting upon their hands, others otherwise, all showing that they had great sadness at heart.
He was, nevertheless, most proper in his behavior and language towards Duke Charles, who sent to him Sire de Contay "with humble and gracious words, which was contrary to his nature and his custom," says Commynes; "but see how an hour's time changed him; he prayed the king to be pleased to observe loyally the truce concluded between them, he excused himself for not having appeared at the interview which was to have taken place at Auxerre, and he bound himself to be present, shortly, either there or elsewhere, according to the king's good pleasure."
Commynes hesitated a long while; but Louis was even more perseveringly persistent than Commynes was hesitating. The king backed up his handsome offers by substantial and present gifts. In 1471, according to what appears, he lent Commynes six thousand livres of Tours, which the Duke of Burgundy's councillor lodged with a banker at Tours.
I dated her decline from the year 1418; Foscari became doge five years later, and in his reign the first marked signs appear in architecture of that mighty change which Philippe de Commynes notices as above, the change to which London owes St. Paul's, Rome St.
He has had the good fortune to be described and appraised, in his own day too, by the most distinguished and independent of his councillors, Philip de Commynes, and, three centuries afterwards, by one of the most thoughtful and the soundest intellects amongst the philosophers of the eighteenth century, Duclos, who, moreover, had the advantage of being historiographer of France, and of having studied the history of that reign in authentic documents.
Commynes thus stands on the brink of the modern world; though his style is that of his own time, his matter belongs to the future: he looks forward into the Renaissance. At the opposite end of the social scale from this rich and powerful diplomatist, VILLON gave utterance in language of poignant beauty to the deepest sentiments of the age that was passing away.
The king said that there was nothing in the world he would not do to thrust the King of England out of the realm, save only that he would never consent that the English should have a bit of territory there; and, rather than suffer that, he would put everything to jeopardy and risk." Commynes had good reason to say that the kingdom was in great peril.
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