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A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
page 28 of 392 (07%)
your other eye put out." Clisson went out, mounted his horse, returned
to his house, set his affairs in order, and departed, with two
attendants, to his strong castle of Montlhery. The two dukes were very
sorry that they had not put him under arrest on the spot. The rupture
came to a climax. Of the king's four other councillors one escaped in
time; two were seized and thrown into prison; the fourth, Bureau de la
Riviere was at his castle of Auneau, near Chartres, honored and beloved
by all his neighbors. Everybody urged him to save himself. "If I were
to fly or hide myself," said he, "I should acknowledge myself guilty of
crimes from which I feel myself free. Here, as elsewhere, I am at the
will of God; He gave me all I have, and He can take it away whensoever He
pleases. I served King Charles of blessed memory, and also the king, his
son; and they recompensed me handsomely for my services. I will abide
the judgment of the parliament of Paris touching what I have done
according to my king's commands as to the affairs of the realm." He was
told that the people sent to look for him were hard by, and was asked,
"Shall we open to them?" "Why not?" was his reply. He himself went to
meet them, and received them with a courtesy which they returned. He was
then removed to Paris, where he was shut up with his colleagues in the
Louvre.

Their trial before parliament was prosecuted eagerly, especially in the
case of the absent De Clisson, whom a royal decree banished from the
kingdom "as a false and wicked traitor to the crown, and condemned him to
'pay a hundred thousand marks of silver, and to forfeit forever the
office of constable.'" It is impossible in the present day to estimate
how much legal justice there was in this decree; but, in any case, it was
certainly extreme severity to so noble and valiant a warrior who had done
so much for the safety and honor of France. The Dukes of Burgundy and
Berry and many barons of the realm signed the decree; but the king's
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