After this failure Louis set to work to repair his mistakes. The duke of
Bourbon was won over by the gift of the government of the centre of
France, and Dunois and Chabannes by restoring them their estates. Two
months after he had granted Normandy to Charles, he took advantage of a
quarrel between the duke of Brittany and his brother to take it again,
sending the duke of Bourbon "to aid" Charles, while Dunois and Chabannes
prepared for the struggle with Burgundy. The death of Duke Philip, on
the 15th of June 1467, gave Charles the Bold a free hand. He gained over
Edward IV. of England, whose sister Margaret he married; but while he
was celebrating the wedding Louis invaded Brittany and detached Duke
Francis from alliance with him. Normandy was completely reduced. The
king had won a great triumph. It was followed by his greatest mistake.
Eager as he always was to try diplomacy instead of war, Louis sent a
gift of 60,000 golden crowns to Charles and secured a safe conduct from
him for an interview. The interview took place on the 9th of October
1468 at Péronne. News came on the 11th that, instigated by the king of
France, the people of Liége had massacred their bishop and the ducal
governor. The news was false, but Charles, furious at such apparent
duplicity, took Louis prisoner, only releasing him, three days later, on
the king signing a treaty which granted Flanders freedom from
interference from the parlement of Paris, and agreeing to accompany
Charles to the siege of his own ally, Liége. Louis made light of the
whole incident in his letters, but it marked the greatest humiliation of
his life, and he was only too glad to find a scapegoat in Cardinal Jean
Balue, who was accused of having plotted the treason of Péronne. Balue
thereupon joined Guillaume de Harancourt, bishop of Verdun, in an
intrigue to induce Charles of France to demand Champagne and Brie in
accordance with the king's promise to Charles the Bold, instead of
distant Guienne where the king was determined to place him. The
discovery of this conspiracy placed these two high dignitaries in prison
(April 1469). Balue (q.v.) spent eleven years in prison quarters,
comfortable enough, in spite of the legend to the contrary, while
Harancourt was shut up in an iron cage until 1482. Then Louis, inducing
his brother to accept Guienne,--where, surrounded by faithful royal
officers, he was harmless for the time being,--undertook to play off the
Lancastrians against Edward IV. who, as the ally of Charles the Bold,
was menacing the coast of Normandy. Warwick, the king-maker, and Queen
Margaret were aided in the expedition which in 1470 again placed Henry
VI. upon the English throne. In the autumn Louis himself took the
offensive, and royal troops overran Picardy and the Maconnais to
Burgundy itself. But the tide turned against Louis in 1471. While Edward
IV. won back England by the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, Charles
the Bold besieged Amiens, and Louis was glad to make a truce, availing
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