FOOTNOTES:
[53] This quarrel was caused by reforms which the king wanted to make in his army, that devoured the country, and was very displeasing to the nobles, who fattened on the misery of the people. The commotion was called La Praguerie. The dukes of Alençon, Bourbon, Vendôme, and even the bastard of Orleans, the count de Dunois, entered into it. They complained that the king intrusted the government of the realm only to two or three private persons, and formed a league against the ministers. The duke of Alençon seduced the dauphin, then only sixteen years of age,—but whose turbulent disposition readily inclined him to make part of the conspiracy, in order to get rid of the count de Perdriac, his tutor.—Mezeray.
[54] Loches,—a town in Touraine, on the Indre, ten leagues from Tours.
[55] Moulins,—capital of the Bourbonnois, 43 leagues from Lyons.
[56] Cusset,—a town in the Bourbonnois, near St Gérond.
CHAP. XXXVI.
THE FRENCH OVERRUN THE LANDS OF NEEL, BELONGING TO SIR JOHN DE LUXEMBOURG.
In the month of July, of this year, while sir John de Luxembourg count de Ligny was at Neel in the Vermandois, the garrisons of Crespy in Valois[57], of Ver[58], and other places, to the amount of about one hundred combatants, advanced thither having crossed the Oise at the bridge of Saint Maixence, under the command of Gilbert de la Roche, a companion of arms to sir John de Luxembourg. They overran the country round Neel, belonging to the count de Ligny, and made great prizes of peasants, cattle, horses, and of all they could seize,—after which, they set out with their plunder, on their return home.