Exasperated at the nonchalant manner in which Louis's ambassadors treated him, indignant at the injury to his heritage by the redemption of the towns on the Somme, and further, already alienated from his royal cousin through the long series of petty occasions where the different natures of the two young men clashed, in this year 1464, Charles was certainly more than ready to enter into an open contest with the French monarch. It was not long before the opportunity came for him to do so with a certain éclat.
In the early years of his own freedom, before he learned wisdom, Louis XI. had planted many seeds of enmity which brought forth a plentiful crop, and the fruit was an open conspiracy among the nobles of the land.
One of the causes of loosening feudal ties was the gradual growth of the body of standing troops instituted in 1439 by Charles VII. These, in the regular pay of the crown, gave the king a guarantee of support without the aid of his nobles. By the date of Louis's accession, certain ducal houses besides that of Burgundy had grown very independent within their own boundaries: Orleans, Anjou, Bourbon, not to speak of Brittany.[7] Now the efforts to curtail the prerogatives of these petty sovereigns, begun by Charles VII., were steady and persistent in the new reign. They had no longer the power of coining money, of levying troops, or of imposing taxes, while the judicial authority of the crown had been extended little by little over France. Then their privileges were further attacked by Louis's restrictions of the chase.
It was the accumulation of these invasions of local authority, added to a real disbelief in the king's ability, that led to a formation of a league among the nobles, designed to check the centralisation policy of the monarch, a League of Public Weal to form a bulwark against the tyrannical encroachments of their liege lord.
Not to follow the steps of the growth of this coalition, it is sufficient for the thread of this narrative to say that it comprised all the great French nobles, the princes of the blood as well as others. Men whom Louis had flattered as well as those whom he had slighted alike fell from his standards, distrustful of his ability to withstand organised opposition, and they threw in their lot with the protestors so as not to miss their share of the spoil.
The Count of Charolais, as already mentioned, was in a mood when his ears were eagerly open to overtures from Louis's critics. The redemption of the towns on the Somme he was unable to prevent, but the affair left him very sore. Shortly after its completion, the count did, indeed, succeed in depriving the Croys of their ascendency over the Duke of Burgundy, but when that long desired victory was attained, the towns had one and all accepted their transfer and were under French sovereignty. When the count joined the league, the hope of ultimate restoration was undoubtedly prominent among the motives for his own course of action, though his intimacy with the chief leader of the revolt, the Duke of Brittany, might easily have led to the same result.
Towards Francis of Brittany, Louis XI. had been especially wanting in tact during the first months of his reign. The king treated him as a vassal of France, while the duke held that he and his forbears owed simple homage to the crown, not dependence. Therefore, in order to resist being subordinated, the Duke of Brittany resolved not to leave his estates except in a suitable manner. His messages to the king were sent in all ceremony, he rendered proper homage, declared his readiness to serve him as a kinsman and as a vassal for certain territories, but demanded freedom to exercise his hereditary rights and to enjoy his hereditary dignities.[8]
"Rude and strange" were the terms employed by the king in response to these statements, and then he proceeded to encroach still farther on the duke's seigniorial rights by attempts to dispose of the hands of Breton heiresses in unequal marriages, and to arrogate to himself other rights—all sufficient provocation to justify Francis of Brittany in becoming one of the chiefs in the league. Very delightful is Chastellain's colloquy with himself [9] as to the difficulty of maintaining perfect impartiality in discussing the cause of this Franco-Burgundian war, but unfortunately the result of his patient efforts is lost.
Olivier de La Marche and Philip de Commines, however, were both present in the Burgundian army and their stories are preserved. La Marche had reason to remember the first actual engagement between the royal and invading forces at Montl'héry, "because on that day I was made knight." He does not say, as does Commines, that this battle was against the king's desire. Louis had hoped to avoid any use of arms and to coerce his rebellious nobles into quiescence by other methods. Not that they characterised themselves as rebellious, far from it. Clear and definite was their statement that in their obligation
"to give order to the estate, the police and the government of the kingdom, the princes of the blood as chief supports of the crown, by whose advice and not by that of others, the business of the king and of the state ought to be directed, are ready to risk their persons and their property, and in this laudable endeavour all virtuous citizens ought to aid." [10]