"I will--I will, indeed," replied the Princess; "for it would be hard to make me suppose that you, whom I have seen act so nobly in circumstances of personal danger and difficulty, would forget your honour and integrity, when trusted by our countrymen and your sovereign."
A slight flush passed over the cheek of Albert Maurice, at such praise. It was not exactly that he knew himself undeserving of it, for he had laboured hard and successfully to convince his own mind that his aggrandizement, the welfare of the country--ay, and he almost hoped, the happiness of Mary herself, were inseparably united. He replied, however--not with words of course, for his lightest thoughts were seldom commonplace--but vaguely; and, after a few questions addressed to the man who bore the ring, which he seemed unwilling to answer, the princess rendered her promise to liberate the Duke of Gueldres definite, and the messenger was suffered to depart.
At the meeting of the council, which followed immediately, the matter was discussed and concluded, and the orders to set the duke at liberty were instantly despatched. They were accompanied, however, by an express command from the princess--whose abhorrence for that base, unnatural son, turbulent subject, and faithless friend, was unconcealed--that he should immediately retire to his own domains, and never present himself before her.
Most important matters occupied the council also. New tidings had been received from the frontiers; and all those tidings were evil. No doubt could now exist, that while his principal officers were invading the Duchy of Burgundy in the east, Louis XI., with an overwhelming force, was marching onward towards Flanders, taking possession of all those fair lands which had descended to the unhappy princess at the death of her father, and meeting with little opposition on his way. Already Abbeville had thrown open its gates. Ham, Bohain, St. Quentin, Roye, and Montdidier, had followed; and Peronne--proud impregnable Peronne--had been yielded at the first summons.
Again the Lord of Imbercourt boldly and strongly urged the absolute necessity of propitiating the King of France, and arresting his farther progress, by the immediate union, or at least affiancing, of the Princess of Burgundy and the heir of the French crown. It was the only means, he said--it was the only hope of preserving any part of the dominions, which, by various events, had been united under the coronet of Burgundy; and was it not better, he asked, for the princess to carry them as a dowry to her husband, than to come portionless to the same prince at last, and receive the honour of his alliance as a matter of grace and favour?
"My lords," replied Albert Maurice, rising as soon as the other had sat down, "already a thousand times have you heard my arguments against the base and ungenerous step proposed; often have I shown, by reasoning, that the interests of France and Burgundy are as distinct as it is possible to conceive, and that centuries must elapse before they can be united. But, if such be the case with the duchy of Burgundy itself, and all its immediate dependencies, how much more so is it the case with Flanders and Brabant. With England, the eternal enemy of France, has ever been our great commercial intercourse; to our friendship with England do we owe our commercial existence; and the moment that this land is united to the enemy of that great country, that moment our wealth, our prosperity, our being a distinct land, is at an end. All this I have shown, taking a mere political view: but remembering that I spoke to knights and nobles, to men who can feel for national honour, and fear national disgrace, I have also pointed out the shame--the burning shame--it would be in the eyes of all Christendom, the moment that your bold and gallant prince is dead, to truckle to his often worsted enemy; to yield to Louis the lands which Charles the Bold so stoutly maintained against him; and to give his daughter's hand to the son of that base foe, whose dark and traitorous intrigues effected, more than aught on earth, your sovereign's overthrow and death. Already have I demanded why, instead of all those degrading concessions, you do not prepare defences in the field: and why, rather than talk of yielding tamely to an unjust tyrant, you do not go forth to encounter him with lance and sword, as in the days of the great duke? But now I must use another language--language more bold and more decided--and say that Flanders, Hainault, and Brabant, will never consent to be the slaves of France: France, who has so often wronged us, and whose efforts, vain as they have been, have never ceased to grasp at the dominion of these lands. More! I say--and by my voice the three united states now speak to the councils of Burgundy--that we will consider and pursue, as a false and perfidious traitor, bought with the gold of France to betray his lady's interest, that man, whoever he may be, who henceforth proposes the subjection of these lands to a French prince."
The Duke of Cleves eagerly supported the bold speech of the young citizen, as did also the Bishop of Liege, more perhaps from personal hatred to Imbercourt, than from any real disapprobation of the French alliance. Warm and violent words passed on all parts; and the discussion had reached a pitch of dangerous turbulence, when it was announced that the Count de Meulan, envoy extraordinary from the King of France, had just entered the city, and taken up his abode at the principal inn of the place.
This news gave a different turn to the deliberations of the council; and after determining that the reception of the ambassador should take place the following day, the assembly broke up; and its various members separated, with those feelings of personal animosity burning in their bosoms, which have so often proved fatal to great designs.
CHAPTER XXV.
About seven o'clock at night, a post arrived in Ghent, bearing the unwelcome intelligence that Hesden, Montreul, Boulogne, Cambray, and many other places, had yielded to the arms of France; that Philippe de Crevecœur, the oldest and most tried servant of the house of Burgundy, had gone over to the enemy; and that Arras itself was lost to Flanders. Such were the tidings that reached Albert Maurice, while busily debating with Ganay, in a private chamber of the Hotel de Ville, the means of raising, as rapidly as possible, a large force for the defence of the country.