The policy of “frightfulness” had its advantages to its perpetrator, however, and the other rebellious cities surrendered at discretion, losing their treasured liberties and becoming simply communities in a united and centralised state. In the end Charles lost, for Louis XI was a schemer of such profound duplicity that only the devil himself could have matched him in the long run, and on even terms. The duke met failure at every turn: in his effort to co-ordinate his unruly provinces into a working organism, in his ambition to become King of Burgundy instead of duke, in his last war against the Swiss when he was utterly defeated and slain. He was succeeded by his daughter, the famous Mary of Burgundy, who also became a victim of the royal spider of France, but countered on him by suddenly marrying Maximilian, son of the Emperor, and so beginning that train of events that severed Burgundy from its French associations and brought its several parts into a relationship with Germany that continued for nearly three centuries. Young, beautiful, clever, and immensely popular, Mary of Burgundy seemed destined to accomplish what her father had failed to bring about, the unification and restoration of a great Burgundian state, but after only five years of rule she was killed by a fall from her horse while hunting, and Philip, her infant son, became duke in name, and the old political troubles rose to a climax that in the end brought in the Spanish dominion and the ruin that followed in its wake.