recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately
belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would
be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The
infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying,
abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the
constable of St. Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his
independence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and
who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemy to
either. Charles now marched against, and soon overcame, Lorraine.
Thence he turned his army against the Swiss, who were allies
to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive
dissuasions to the invader. They begged for peace, assuring Charles
that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether
worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry. But the
more they humbled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness
raised. It appeared that he had at this period conceived the
project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions
of Lothaire I., who had possessed the whole of the countries
traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po; and he even spoke
of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.

Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the
rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered.
The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in
the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally
crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached
from the heights and hurled down upon their heads. Charles, after
this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied
his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy. But Louis had
despatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss--a force in which they