the period," though it need not be said that the lesser chroniclers
received due attention. It is interesting to note that in writing
to his friend, Daniel Terry, the actor and manager, Scott says,
"I have no idea my present labours will be dramatic in situation;
as to character, that of Louis XI, the sagacious, perfidious,
superstitious, jocular, politic tyrant, would be, for a historical
chronicle containing his life and death, one of the most powerful
ever brought on the stage." So thought the poet, Casimir Delavigne
-- writing when Scott's influence was marked upon French literature
-- whose powerful drama, Louis XI, was a great Parisian success.
Later Charles Kean and Henry Irving made an English version of it
well known in England and America.



CHAPTER I: THE CONTRAST

Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

HAMLET


The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future
events that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power
which has ever since been from time to time the principal object
of jealousy to the other European nations. Before that period she
had to struggle for her very existence with the English already
possessed of her fairest provinces while the utmost exertions of
her King, and the gallantry of her people, could scarcely protect