190                 MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATION

most influential members of the Council of Berne.
The Bernese began a war against Charles the Bold,
when their allies, the Swiss mountaineers, were in-
volved in spite of themselves, for they had always been
the friends of the Duke of Burgundy. Charles had
the imprudence to lead into the Swiss mountains all his
knights, who were surprised and massacred in the two
battles of Granson and Morat (1476). Then he re-
turned to besiege Nancy and was killed in a skirmish.

This death did more for the King of France than
all his policy had done. Charles left only a daughter,
Louis XL sent an army into the duchy of Burgundy,
which submitted without much resistance.

Louis XI. also had the advantage of inheriting from
the family of Anjou, which became extinct, in leaving
to him Maine, Anjou and Provence. He caused the
condemnation of the Duke of Alengon, who had con-
spired against him, and confiscated his duchy. He also-
caused the punishment of other less powerful lords,
the Count de St. Pol, who had twice betrayed him;
the Count d'Armagnac, the Count d'Albret and the
Duke of Nemours, whom he had shut up in iron cages.

These condemnations and the bitterness which he
showed towards his victims gave him a reputation for
cruelty. He was not loved, it was thought that he
showed the manners of a bourgeois rather than those
of a knight; in place of riding horseback and hunting
like the other princes of his time, he remained shut up
in his cabinet, clothed in a robe and cap in the style
of a magistrate.

He frequented the company of the bourgeoisie and
lived familiarly with his domestics. That which makes