For a time Frederic III. seemed inclined to refrain from interference, then something influenced him in another direction. When he arrived at Cologne in November, he received a warm welcome and costly gifts, which he repaid by conferring a mass of privileges on his "good city,"—cheap and easy benefits,—but he did not prove an efficient arbitrator, simply postponing any decision from day to day, though he was begged to settle all difficulties before Charles should attempt to relieve him of the trouble.
True, Charles was detained elsewhere. But he no longer felt the need of conciliating the emperor, and at Thionville, on December 11, 1473, he issued a manifesto declaring that his friend Robert was entirely in the right, his opponents in the wrong.[4] As these latter defied papal legate and arbitrator duly authorised to settle the points of dispute, he, Charles of Burgundy, would constitute himself defender of the insulted archbishop. At the same time, he despatched Ètienne de Lavin to check the encroachments of the insolent rebels. The declaration emboldened Robert to defy the emperor's summons to meet him and the papal legate. They both declared that they would take measures to bring him to obedience, but Frederic did not wish to tarry longer at Cologne. In January he took his departure, having directed Hermann of Hesse to protect that see against all aggression.
Apparently, at that time, in spite of the manifesto, there was no formal treaty between Charles and Robert, but there are two drafts for such a treaty in existence,[5] wherein the former pledged himself to force chapter, nobles, and city to submission, in consideration of the sum of 200,000 florins, while the archbishop gave permission to his ally to garrison all strongholds, including Cologne. Pending his autumn sojourn in the upper Rhinelands, Charles had, therefore, plans regarding Cologne definitely in mind.
Lorraine
This duchy was even more interesting to Charles than Cologne, and there were many matters in its regard which demanded his urgent attention in 1473. It, too, was a pleasant territory, and conveniently adjacent to Burgundian lands. A natural means of annexation had been considered by Charles in the proposed marriage between Nicholas, Duke of Lorraine, and Mary of Burgundy. When that project was abandoned to suit Charles's pleasure, he retained the friendship of his rejected son-in-law until the latter's death in the spring of 1473. So unexpected was this event, that there was the usual suspicion of poisoning, and this crime, too, was charged to the account of Louis XI., apparently without foundation. Certainly that monarch reaped no immediate advantage from the death, for the family to whom the succession passed was more friendly to Burgundy than to France.
The heir to the childless Nicholas was his aunt Yolande of Anjou, daughter of old King René of Anjou, sister to the unfortunate Margaret, late Queen of England, and widow of the Duke of Vaudemont. The council of Lorraine lost no time in acknowledging Yolande as their duchess. She hastened to Nancy, the capital, with her son René, aged twenty-two, where they were received hospitably, and then Yolande formally abdicated in favour of the young man, who was duly accepted as Duke of Lorraine.
Now there was a large party of Burgundian sympathisers in Nancy, and it was probably owing to their pressure that very strong links were at once forged between Charles and the new sovereign of the duchy. The apprehension lest the former should protect the land as he had the heritage of his namesake, little Charles of Guelders, was expressed by the timorous, but their counsels were overweighted, and, on October 15th, René accepted a treaty whose terms were very favourable to Burgundy. In exchange for being "protector,"—an office that the emperor had already been asked to change into suzerainty,—René cemented an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Charles, giving the latter full permission to march his forces across Lorraine. Further, he pledged himself to appoint as officials in all important places on the route "men bound by oath to the Duke of Burgundy." Yes, more, these were discharged from fidelity to Renè in case he abandoned Burgundian interests.
Yolande of Vaudemont endorsed these articles by adding her signature to that of her son. Charles feared, however, that the provisions might not be adhered to by the Lorrainers—so humiliating were the terms—and exacted in addition the signatures of the chief nobles. On November 18th, seventy-four of these gentlemen attested their approval of an act that practically delivered their land to a stranger,—evidence that they doubted the ability of their hereditary chief, and preferred Burgundy to France.
There is a story that Charles tried other methods than diplomacy, before he got the better of the young duke in this bargain, that he actually had him stolen away from the castle of Joinville where he was staying with his mother.[6] Louis promptly came forward and arrested a nephew of the emperor, a student in the University of Paris, and kept him as a hostage until the release of René. Rumour, too, asserts that there was a treaty of Joinville, wherein René asserted his friendship with Louis, which was intermitted by his relations with Charles, to be resumed later. That also seems to be improbable. The formal alliance with Louis did not come then, though the king took immediate care to build up a party in his behalf in Lorraine, and to keep himself informed of the progress of the new regime.
From Thionville, Charles journeyed on to Nancy, where he was welcomed by his protégé, outside the city walls, and the two rode in together as the duke and the emperor had entered Trèves. Charles had been so long keeping up a show of obsequiousness which he did not feel that, undoubtedly, he enjoyed again being the first personage.[7] He refused, however, to accept the young man's hospitality, and spent the two days of his sojourn in the house of a certain Malhortie, where he felt more at ease in his conferences with Lorrainers willing to proceed further to the disadvantage of their new sovereign.