camp. There was a terrible fight; the Burgundians were routed, and after
long search the corpse of Duke Charles was found in a frozen pool,
stripped, plundered, and covered with blood. He was the last of the male
line of Burgundy, and its great possessions broke up with his death. His
only child, Marie, did not inherit the French dukedom nor the county,
though most of the fiefs in the Low Countries, which could descend to
the female line, were her undisputed portion. Louis tried, by stirring
up her subjects, to force her into a marriage with his son Charles; but
she threw herself on the protection of the house of Austria, and
marrying Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick III., carried her
border lands to swell the power of his family.


5. Louis's Home Government.--Louis's system of repression of the
nobles went on all this time. His counsellors were of low birth (Oliver
le Daim, his barber, was the man he most trusted), his habits frugal,
his manners reserved and ironical; he was dreaded, hated, and
distrusted, and he became constantly more bitter, suspicious, and
merciless. Those who fell under his displeasure were imprisoned in iron
cages, or put to death; and the more turbulent families, such as the
house of Armagnac, were treated with frightful severity. But his was not
wanton violence. He acted on a regular system of depressing the lawless
nobility and increasing the royal authority, by bringing the power of
the cities forward, by trusting for protection to the standing army,
chiefly of hired Scots, Swiss, and Italians, and by saving money. By
this means he was able to purchase the counties of Roussillon and
Perpignan from the King of Aragon, thus making the Pyrenees his
frontier, and on several occasions he made his treasury fight his
battles instead of the swords of his knights. He lived in the castle of
Plessis les Tours, guarded by the utmost art of fortification, and