rejected as an insult to misfortune; for of the estates thus offered, two only did not proceed from the spoils of the house of Amboise. But Commines was not discouraged by this refusal. What the father had rejected might probably, he thought, be accepted by the children. These young persons, though still minors, were drawing near the age when the young nobility usually aspired to rank among men of war; and their forced idleness was irksome to them. Louis XI. would not admit them into his service, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of their brother-in-law, the Bastard of Maine; but it was intimated to them that they might overcome the monarch's resistance, and even obtain his favour, by condescension to his wishes. This implied acquiescence in all the past, as they well understood; but they resigned themselves to their fate, in appearance at least. At the same time that they consented to the transfer, they executed, in the presence of a notary, a deed claiming the rights which they were about to renounce, in which they stated that, being compelled to yield to the moral violence exercised over them, they protested beforehand against anything they might be forced to do. A few days after the estates had thus passed once more into the hands of the king, he renewed his gift of them to Commines, by letters patent, which, thanks to the show of legality by which the agreement between the two parties was surrounded, were registered without obstacle by both the parliament and the Cour des Comptes.

Commines' high favour had now reached its climax; it seemed impossible for it to increase. A terrible accident however, which threatened to deprive him of his royal protector, served to make it still more evident. In the month of March, 1481, Louis XI. was attacked by a fit of apoplexy, which temporarily deprived him of speech, memory, and sense. As soon as he came to himself, he sent for his confessor and for Commines, who was at the time at Argenton. Commines hastened to rejoin the king, and by his order (expressed by signs, for he had not yet sufficiently recovered his speech), he slept in his room, and served him at table and in other respects, for fifteen days, as a valet de chambre. After two or three days, Louis XI. recovered sense and speech, but not so perfectly as to render Com

mines' constant attentions unnecessary: for he alone was able accurately to understand him. He was even obliged to act as his interpreter to the official of Tours, and to acquaint him with the state of mind of his royal penitent, "for otherwise they would not have understood each other." Public affairs remained for a time in suspense, although Commines read most of the despatches which arrived to the king, who either by word or sign indicated the answer he wished to have made; but no one was willing to execute these doubtful orders. "We did little business," says Commines, "awaiting the termination of his illness; for he was not a master to be trifled with."

Towards the middle of the year, the king became sufficiently convalescent to be able to inspect the troops which had been collected by his orders near Pont-de-l'Arche. Thence he proceeded to Tours, where he had a relapse; "again he lost his speech, and for two hours we thought he was dead; he lay in a gallery, on a mattrass." The servants who attended him, Du Bouchage, Commines and others, vowed him to St. Claude; "immediately his speech returned to him, and within the hour he went about the house again." He soon resumed his old habits, and made an excursion to one of the estates he had given to Commines. He remained for a month at the Château of Argenton; a longer time, probably, than he had intended, but he was detained by illness. Such royal visits are usually an expensive honour to those who receive them; but the chamberlain of Louis XI. did not suffer by his hospitality, for his master contributed handsomely to the embellishment of his residence. From Argenton the king went to Thouars, where he made some stay, on account of ill-health; and on leaving that town, he repaired to St. Claude, doubtless to perform the vow made by his faithful servants. Before he left Thouars, he confided to the Lord of Argenton a difficult and delicate mission, of which Commines gives us only a confused idea; we will, therefore, briefly state its object.

Yolande of France, Duchess of Savoy, had died on the 29th of August, 1478, leaving as her successor a son under thirteen years of age. The appointment of a regent de volved on Louis XI., the uncle of the young duke, who conferred that office on the Count de la Chambre, who, ha

believed, would prove a pliant instrument in his hands. In this expectation he was deceived, and the object of Commines' mission was to assist the Count of Bresse, one of the paternal uncles of the Duke of Savoy, in deposing the obnoxious regent, and taking possession of the government.

In the meanwhile, Louis XI. daily grew more infirm; his moral energy alone sustained him, and, as in past times, he continued to travel about the country. Commines, on his return from his embassy, joined him at Beaujeu : and he was struck by the ravages which disease had wrought in the person of the prince, whose last hour, he felt, was at hand. We shall not attempt to describe the final scene; in his Memoirs, Commines has given a wonderful picture of the dying agonies of his sovereign. Louis XI. breathed his last on the 30th of August, 1483, and from that moment, a new era began in the life of Commines, as fatal to his honour and fortune, as the preceding period had been propitious to his ambition and interests.

No sooner had the deceased monarch been laid in his grave than, in virtue of letters patent granted by the new king, at the solicitation of the La Tremoille family, Jean Douhalle, lieutenant-general of the Governor of Touraine, proceeded to make inquiries to substantiate the fact that, in his last moments, Louis XI., stung by remorse, had declared to the Bailiff of Meaux that he had wrongfully and illegally seized on the inheritance of La Tremoille, and had enjoined the bailiff to request the dauphin to restore Talmont to its legitimate owners, and to compensate Commines for its loss by the gift of a pension of 2000 livres. Ten witnesses deposed unanimously to the truth of this statement: and in consequence, on the 29th of September, 1483, Charles VIII. directed his chancellor to reinstate the family of La Tremoille in the possession of the property of which they had been so unjustly deprived.

Commines resisted this order on the ground that there were no title-deeds to justify the restitution of the estates. But though these documents had been destroyed, they had once existed; and numerous witnesses were ready to reveal the manner in which they had been made away with. Inquiries were instituted as to the result of the examination of the papers in the Chateau de Thouars, and Commines

himself was interrogated. At first he could remember nothing, but on being compelled to speak, he strove hard to make no confession which his enemies might afterwards turn against him; but though his answers were carefully weighed, and coupled with endless restrictions and explanations, he was unable to invalidate the testimony of the other witnesses. Fully conscious of the weakness of his cause, his only object was to gain time, and to this end, he put in requisition all the thousand subtleties of legal chicanery. At length, on the 9th of March, 1486, the parliament pronounced sentence against him. Commines appealed, but in vain; and he was finally condemned to restore to the La Tremoille family the estates of which they had been unjustly deprived, to disgorge the revenues he had derived from them during his unlawful possession, and to pay the expenses of the suit, amounting altogether to 7811 livres 4 sous parisis. Thus, after having lasted nineteen years, this affair was terminated, and Commines was enabled to satisfy the demands of his opponents by means of an indemnity of 30,000 livres granted him by Charles VIII.

We must now take up our history at the death of Louis XI. One of the first acts of Madame de Beaujeu, the eldest sister of Charles VIII., was to confirm in their governments, positions and offices, all those who had held them at the accession of the new king. This was a wise measure, and Louis XI. had more than once repented that he had acted otherwise towards the servants of his father. Commines was maintained on the list of royal councillors, and continued in the office of Seneschal of Poitou. Shortly afterwards, he was sent on an embassy to the Duke of Bretagne, with the Lords of Châtillon and Richebourg. Finally, he had the honour to be one of the fifteen notable persons whom the princess suggested to the States-general for admission into the council of the young king. In that council, at which the most important affairs of the realm were decided, Commines one day had to defend the rights of Charles VIII. over the county of Provence against the pretensions of a prince, Duke René II. of Lorraine, whom all the courtiers treated with the greatest consideration. He maintained the interests of the crown with so much heat that the duke, in anger, addressed him "in rough and foolish words;" and even succeeded in

obtaining his banishment from court. The disgraced courtier easily found a refuge with one of those princes who, dissatisfied with the narrow share allotted to their ambition by the States-general of the kingdom, held themselves aloof from Madame de Beaujeu, and openly fomented rebellion against her administration. It was to Moulins, where the Duke of Bourbon then resided, that the Lord of Argenton betook himself. He met with a gracious reception, and his counsels were listened to with favour: but the duke was a man of notoriously feeble character, and Commines had to employ all his ingenuity to keep him faithful to the opposition party. In this he so far succeeded as to induce the duke to go to the king for the purpose of complaining of the evil administration of his government; but one of the consequences of this interview between Charles VIII. and his uncle was, that Commines was dismissed from the Duke of Bourbon's service. Upon this, he transferred his allegiance to the Duke of Orleans, whose intrigues were secretly favoured by the king himself, who, as he grew in years, became impatient of the wise, but imperious control of Madame de Beaujeu. In concert with some other nobles, Commines made an attempt to carry off the young king, and place him under the care of the Duke of Orleans; but although Charles was a party to their design, they failed, and he punished them for their failure. Commines was arrested at Amboise, and conducted to Loches, where he was confined for eight months in an iron cage, which had been constructed by order of Louis XI. By decree of the Parliament of Paris, his property was confiscated, and on the 17th of July, 1487, he was brought to Paris, and imprisoned in the Conciergerie. There he remained for twenty months, until, on the 24th of March, 1489, he was condemned to be banished for ten years to one of his estates, and to give bail to the amount of 10,000 golden crowns for his good behaviour.

Long before the expiration of this sentence, in December, 1492, Commines had been recalled to his seat in the council of Charles VIII. He now gave most evident proof of his sagacity and devotedness by joining, with other enlightened servants of the crown, in a vain attempt to dissuade the young monarch from engaging in an expedition into Italy. Interested advice, however, prevailed over their wise counsels,