James Thomson Shotwell

“ When Sixtus threatened Florence after the Pazzi conspiracy, 1478, Louis aided Lorenzo dei Medici to form an alliance with Naples, which forced the papacy to come to terms.
More than any other king of France, Louis XI. was a “bourgeois king.” The upper bourgeois, the aristocracy of his “good cities,” were his allies both against the nobles and against the artisan class, whenever they revolted, driven to desperation by the oppressive royal taxes which furnished the money for his wars or diplomacy. He ruled like a modern capitalist ”

“ If, as has been claimed, Louis owed to them any of his tendency to prefer the society of the poor, or rather of the bourgeois, to that of the nobility, their example was his best lesson in the craft of kingship. ”

“ The alliance with Savoy was sealed by the marriage of Louis with Charlotte, daughter of Duke Lodovico, in 1452, in spite of the formal prohibition of Charles VII. The king marched south, but withdrew again leaving his son unsubdued. Four years later, as Charles came to the Bourbonnais, Louis, fearing for his life, fled to Flanders to the court of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, leaving Dauphiné to be definitely annexed to the crown of France. ”

“ He tried to bribe the saints of his enemies, as he did their ministers. An unfaltering faith taught him the value of religion—as a branch of politics. Finally, more in the spirit of orthodoxy, he used the same arts to make sure of heaven. ”

“ The dauphin Charles was to marry Edward’s daughter. Bribery of the English ministers was not spared, and in September the invaders recrossed to England. The count of Saint Pol, who had continued to play his double part, was surrendered by Charles to Louis, and executed, as was also Jacques d’Armagnac, duke of Nemours. With his vassals terrorized and subdued, Louis continued to subsidize the Swiss and René II. of Lorraine in their war upon Charles. The defeat and death of the duke of Burgundy at Nancy on the 5th of January 1477 was the crowning triumph of Louis’ diplomacy. ”

“ Among the most prominent of these men in addition to Brézé, Chevalier and Chabannes, were Tristan Lermite, Jean de Daillon, Olivier le Dain (the barber) , and after 1472, Philippe de Commines, drawn from the service of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who became his most intimate adviser and biographer. Surrounded by men like these Louis fought the last great battle of French royalty with feudalism.
Louis XI. began his reign with the same high-handed treatment of the nobles which had marked his rule in Dauphiné, going so far as to forbid them to hunt without his permission. ”

“ He forced the clergy to pay long-neglected feudal dues, and intrigued against the great houses of Anjou and Orleans in Italy. The malcontent nobles soon began to plan revolt. Discharged officers of Charles VII. like Jean Dunois and John II. duke of Bourbon, stirred up hostility to the new men of the king, and Francis II. duke of Brittany was soon embroiled with Louis over an attempt to assert royal control over that practically independent duchy. ”