that they had set a definite limit to royal pretensions, at least, on
paper.

After the treaty was signed, the king showed no resentment at his
defeat but urged his cousin to amuse himself a while in Paris before
returning home. Charles was rash, but he had not the temerity to trust
himself so far. Pleading a promise to his father to enter no city gate
until on paternal soil, he declined the invitation and soon returned
to the Netherlands, where his own household had suffered change.
During his absence, the Countess of Charolais had died and been buried
at Antwerp. Charles is repeatedly lauded for his perfect faithfulness
to his wife, but her death seems to have made singularly little ripple
on the surface of his life. The chroniclers touch on the event very
casually, laying more stress on the opportunity it gave Louis XI.
to offer his daughter Anne as her successor, than on the event
itself.[15]


[Footnote 1: La Marche, ii., 227. Peter von Hagenbach was the
chamberlain to enforce this.]

[Footnote 2: The receipt for this half payment was signed October
8, 1462. (Comines, _Mémoires_, Lenglet du Fresnoy edition, ii.,
392-403.)]

[Footnote 3: Du Clercq, iii., 236; Comines-Lenglet, ii., 393.]

[Footnote 4: Commines, _Mêmoires_ I., ch. i. In the above passages
Dannett's translation is followed for the racy English.]