-arms, splendidly accoutred, and
drawn up in martial array. Crossing the court, they entered the Council Hall,
which was in a much more modern part of the building than that of which Louis
had been the tenant, and, though in disrepair, had been hastily arranged for the
solemnity of a public council. Two chairs of state were erected under the same
canopy, that for the King being raised two steps higher than the one which the
Duke was to occupy; about twenty of the chief nobility sat, arranged in due
order, on either hand of the chair of state; and thus, when both the Princes
were seated, the person for whose trial, as it might be called, the council was
summoned, held the highest place, and appeared to preside in it.
    It was perhaps to get rid of this inconsistency, and the scruples which
might have been inspired by it, that Duke Charles, having bowed slightly to the
royal chair, bluntly opened the sitting with the following words: -
    »My good vassals and councillors, it is not unknown to you what disturbances
have arisen in our territories, both in our father's time, and in our own, from
the rebellion of vassals against superiors, and subjects against their princes.
And lately we have had the most dreadful proof of the height to which these
evils have arrived in our case, by the scandalous flight of the Countess
Isabelle of Croye, and her aunt the Lady Hameline, to take refuge with a foreign
power, thereby renouncing their fealty to us, and inferring the forfeiture of
their fiefs; and in another more dreadful and deplorable instance, by the
sacrilegious and bloody murder of our beloved brother and ally the Bishop of
Liege, and the rebellion of that treacherous city, which was but too mildly
punished for the last insurrection. We have been informed that these sad events
may be traced, not merely to the inconstancy and folly of women, and the
presumption of pampered citizens, but to the agency of foreign power, and the
interference of a mighty neighbour, from whom, if good deeds could merit any
return in kind, Burgundy could have expected nothing but the most sincere and
devoted friendship. If this should prove truth,« said the Duke, setting his
teeth, and pressing his heel against the ground, »what consideration shall
withhold us - the means being in our power - from taking such measures, as shall
effectually, and at the very source, close up the main spring, from which these
evils have yearly flowed on us?«
    The Duke had begun his speech with some