Beneath the discreet reserve inspired by a remnant of doubt concerning the death of his enemy, this letter contained the essence of Louis XI.’s grand and very natural stroke of policy. Charles the Rash had left only a daughter, Mary of Burgundy, sole heiress of all his dominions. To annex this magnificent heritage to the crown of France by the marriage of the heiress with the _dauphin_ who was one day to be Charles VIII., was clearly for the best interests of the nation as well as of the French kingship, and such had, accordingly, been Louis XI.’s first idea. “When the Duke of Burgundy was still alive,” says Commynes, “many a time spoke the king to me of what he would do if the duke should happen to die; and he spoke most reasonably, saying that he would try to make a match between his son (who is now our king) and the said duke’s daughter (who was afterwards Duchess of Austria); and if she were not minded to hear of it for that my lord, the _dauphin_, was much younger than she, he would essay to get her married to some younger lord of this realm, for to keep her and her subjects in amity, and to recover without dispute that which he claimed as his; and still was the said lord on this subject a week before he knew of the said duke’s death. . . . Howbeit it seems that the king our master took not hold of matters by the end by which he should have taken hold for to come out triumphant, and to add to his crown all those great lordships, either by sound title or by marriage, as easily he might have done.”