On the 15th of August 1461, Louis was anointed at Reims, and Philip of
Burgundy, as _doyen_ of the peers of France, placed the crown on his
head. For two months Philip acted as though the king were still his
protégé. But in the midst of the festivities with which he was
entertaining Paris, the duke found that Louis ventured to refuse his
candidates for office, and on the 24th of September the new king left
abruptly for Touraine. His first act was to strike at the faithful
ministers of Charles VII. Pierre de Brézé and Antoine de Chabannes were
captured and imprisoned, as well as men of sterling worth like Étienne
Chevalier. But the king's shrewdness triumphed before long over his
vengeance, and the more serviceable of the officers of Charles VII. were
for the most part soon reinstated, Louis' advisers were mostly men of
the middle class. He had a ready purse for men of talent, drawing them
from England, Scotland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Such a motley throng
of competent men had never before been seen at the court of France.
Their origin, their previous crimes or virtues, their avarice or
brutality, were indifferent to him so long as they served him loyally.
Torture and imprisonment awaited them, whether of high or low degree, if
he fancied that they were betraying him. Among the most prominent of
these men in addition to Brézé, Chevalier and Chabannes, were Tristan
Lermite, Jean de Daillon, Olivier le Dain (the barber), and after 1472,
Philippe de Commines, drawn from the service of Charles the Bold of
Burgundy, who became his most intimate adviser and biographer.
Surrounded by men like these Louis fought the last great battle of
French royalty with feudalism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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