It will be seen from this that Jeanne was already married, and that the king himself had taken some sort of personal interest in her case, supplying the very necessary dot for the bride. She had not sought an alliance out of her own class, for Colin Pilon was a simple man-at-arms, who did not live long to enjoy either the love of his wife or the favor of the king, for he fell at the siege of Nancy, in 1477. A few years later, Jeanne married a cousin, one Fourquet, a soldier of fortune, at one time in the personal guard of the king. Henceforth nothing more is known of her, not even the date of her death. But popular fancy associated her so intimately with the siege of Beauvais that, be her real surname what it might, she was always Jeanne Hachette; and even in the nineteenth century a certain Pierre Fourquet d'Hachette, claiming descent from the humble heroine, received a pension from Charles X. In Beauvais, too, her name and the memory of her good service were kept alive not only by the annual parade on the festival of Saint Agadresme, but also by a faded, ancient standard, borne by the young girls in the procession, at other times carefully guarded among the treasures of the city. It was a standard of white damasked cloth, bearing figures and mottoes in gilt and colored paints. Even now one can decipher the haughty device of Charles le téméraire: Je l'ay emprins (I have undertaken it), and beside it the emblems of the great order of the Golden Fleece. It is the very standard that the girl snatched from the Burgundian soldier more than four centuries ago.
The story of Jeanne Hachette is but an episode, of course; but in reading it we should remember that, however small the part she played in the great history of the world, she had one rare trait, a trait often distinctive of the best figures in history, though not always of the most notable--modesty. Like Jeanne d'Arc, her task once accomplished she was content to be what she had been before; more fortunate than that other Jeanne, she lived to see herself honored, and was not spoiled thereby any more than Jeanne d'Arc was spoiled by her far greater triumphs.
If Jeanne Hachette was a representative of that class now about to assume greater importance in the life of France, namely the artisans, the unfortunate daughter of Charles le téméraire was, in her character as well as in the events of her life, as surely representative of disappearing feudalism and chivalry. Marie de Bourgogne was all her life but the plaything of a court that would use her in its pageants and in its schemes of aggrandizement with utter disregard of what might be her personal preferences. Reared amidst surroundings that suggested the pomp and glory of chivalry and were eloquent of feminine dependence if not of feminine inferiority, she was suddenly left to cope with one of the ablest and one of the most unscrupulous politicians in history.
Marie de Bourgogne was born at Brussels in 1457, being the first child born of the union of Isabelle de Bourbon and the haughty young Count de Charolais, who had been most unwilling to espouse this bride of his father's choice and who yet made a devoted and faithful husband. When Marie was born she was still but the daughter of the Count de Charolais, for ten years more of life remained for the worn out old Philippe le Bon. Still, she was prospective heiress of the great duchy of Burgundy, though none could yet foresee that she was the only hope of the great family that had made itself, in the hundred years of its existence, the most dangerous enemy, the most indispensable ally of France, nay, even the rival of France among the great powers of Europe.
The little countess was but eight years of age when her mother died, scarcely old enough to appreciate the loss, except perhaps to grieve that she must be reared by a great lady of her grandfather's court, the Countess of Crèvecoeur. Three years more, and she had to take part in the greeting given to her father's second wife, Margaret of York. Little could Marie have understood of the political significance of this union which united the fortunes of the house of Burgundy with those of a family whose brief ascendency was marked by almost continual war and by political crimes of the darkest hue: the brothers of her stepmother were the handsome voluptuary, Edward IV., "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, that stabbed" young Edward of Lancaster "in the field by Tewkesbury," and the dark-minded Richard of Gloucester. It was a union of sinister omen for Charles, and one that had been opposed by his father: no good did or could come of it for Charles, and yet, to spite France, he persevered in his design, and brought Marie to take her small part in the brilliant reception accorded Margaret at Bruges. Marie must have witnessed and enjoyed the great show, and the famous tournament of the perron d'or (golden beam), in which her father condescended to break a lance or two in honor of his bride; but she is hardly mentioned in the glowing accounts of these festivities, in which the ancient glories of chivalry were revived and surpassed. She was but a daughter, and though her father loved her it was only natural that he should yet hope for a son who might wear his ducal coronet.
But the years passed, and still there was no son: Mademoiselle de Bourgogne seemed fated to wear that ducal coronet. Charles grew in power, in arrogance, in ambition; it was to be no longer a mere coronet, but a crown; he would found a new dynasty that would eclipse that of the elder branch of the Valois; at one time the very crown was made ready and exposed to the admiring yet fearful eyes of his future subjects. Marie, who had grown into a handsome if not beautiful girl, carefully trained in all the accomplishments that befitted her rank, became a personage of great importance in the ambitious schemes of her father. According to the custom of princes, her name was used as a lure in securing desirable alliances; and her wishes were but little regarded in the selection of her future husband. She was merely a sort of asset to be reckoned among the other properties of which Charles might dispose to the highest bidder in furtherance of his projects. Her charms would naturally be set forth to the best advantage, therefore, in the pages of loyal Burgundian chroniclers, and in the midst of the diplomatic bargaining we forget not only that Marie was a girl, with at least some girlish fancies and preferences and romantic dreams, but we fail to distinguish the actual features of the girl. If one may judge from the portraits, Marie could not have been really a beauty; though there are upon the face the indefinable marks of high breeding, its lines are too heavy, moulded too obviously on the pattern of the features of her redoubtable father; above all, there is that heavy lip and protruding jaw, so very noticeable in her descendants as to become a distinguishing family mark, albeit they call it Austrian, not Burgundian. But she was a comely girl; besides, would suitors hang back because the richest heiress in Europe was not at the same time a Venus?
Charles met with no difficulty in finding suitors for his daughter's hand; there was merely the embarrassment of choice among so many who might be considered or who considered themselves eligible. At length, in 1473, Marie was betrothed to Nicholas of Calabria. But Nicholas died, and Marie was again to be disposed of; the betrothal had been too absolutely a matter of politics to justify any delay in seeking a new husband now that death had removed Nicholas. It happened that just at this time Charles was very eager to propitiate the empire, in furtherance of those schemes of monarchy that now began to assume definite shape in his imagination. The Archduke Maximilian, though somewhat more than three years younger than Marie, and though poor, was nevertheless the son of the emperor, and might be considered useful to Burgundy. The negotiations were conducted quietly; Charles did not, it appears, wish to show himself too anxious; perhaps he was thinking that circumstances might change, and therefore did not wish to commit himself to this match beyond the power of recall.
For the present, however, the noble lovers, who had never met, were both rather young; there was no need to hurry matters, since Charles himself was still in the prime of life. The disastrous campaign of the great duke in Switzerland has been described many a time, by historians friendly and unfriendly, and by a great romancer who loved all chivalry and who yet could not withhold his admiration from the intrepid Swiss freemen who bore down the power of Burgundy at Granson, at Morat, and at Nancy. Yet, whether we consider Charles a great ruler and leader or a mere military ruffian, no one can look without pity upon that snow-covered battlefield of Nancy, where a generous foe and the heartbroken servants of "the pride of chivalry" must look in vain for two days for the body of Charles; none could surely tell how he had fallen; and when they found his frozen body the dogs had eaten half of one cheek, and the wounds on the head rendered it almost unrecognizable.
Mademoiselle de Bourgogne, as she was now to be known in earnest, was far away in Ghent when the fatal news of her father's death was brought. Before it could reach her it had reached the crafty old king. For Louis it was the sweetest news he could have heard; his greatest foe was providentially removed, and as his adversary in Burgundy there was now but a girl scarcely grown, a girl whose selfish advisers he well knew how to bribe or to ruin, as suited his interest. Well may we believe that when the news of Charles's death reached that French court where so many of the nobles had felt him to be their only help against the anti-feudal policy of Louis, "not one ate half he could at dinner," as the shrewd Comines says; now that the pillar of independent baronage was gone, who could tell what the king might do?
Marie de Bourgogne was almost a prisoner among her too devoted subjects, the burghers of Ghent. She and her counsellors realized from the first that the real danger was to come from Louis XI, who would now seek to re-annex to the crown those large portions of the Burgundian domain that had originally come from France. Perhaps the letter of the feudal law was on the side of the king, who claimed the right of wardship over his female vassal; but Marie knew full well that this claim was but the first of a long series that would culminate in the actual seizure of French Burgundy as soon as Louis should feel himself strong enough. But though Louis was the ultimate and the greater danger, he could be put off, it was thought, by conciliatory messages; an immediate danger lay in turbulent Flanders, which even the strong duke could not master, and which now, in the midst of much exuberant devotion for mademoiselle, kept her in a state of constant uneasiness. Something must be done to quiet the Flemings.