During this long period, examples are to be found which show that although the combat was falling into disuse, it was still a legal procedure, which in certain cases could be claimed as a right, or which could be decreed and enforced by competent judicial authority. Among the privileges of the town of Valenciennes was one to the effect that any homicide taking refuge there could swear that the act had been committed in self-defence, when he could be appealed only in battle. This gave occasion to a combat in 1455 between a certain Mahuot and Jacotin Plouvier, the former of whom had killed a kinsman of the latter. Neither party desired the battle, but the municipal government insisted upon it, and furnished them with instructors to teach the use of the club and buckler allowed as arms. The Comte de Charolois, Charles le Téméraire, endeavored to prevent the useless cruelty, but the city held any interference as an infringement of its chartered rights; and, after long negotiations, Philippe le Bon, the suzerain, authorized the combat and was present at it. The combatants, according to custom, had the head shaved and the nails pared on both hands and feet; they were dressed from head to foot in a tight-fitting suit of hardened leather, and each was anointed with grease to prevent his antagonist from clutching him. The combat was long and desperate, but at length the appellant literally tore out the heart of his antagonist.[776] Such incidents among roturiers, however, were rare. More frequently some fiery gentleman claimed the right of vindicating his quarrel at the risk of his life. Thus, in 1482, shortly after the battle of Nancy had reinstated René, Duke of Lorraine, on the ruins of the second house of Burgundy, two gentlemen of the victor’s court, quarrelling over the spoils of the battle-field, demanded the _champ-clos_; it was duly granted, and on the appointed day the appellant was missing, to the great discomfiture and no little loss of his bail.[777] When Charles d’Armagnac, in 1484, complained to the States General of the inhuman destruction of his family, committed by order of Louis XI., the Sieur de Castlenau, whom he accused of having poisoned his mother, the Comtesse d’Armagnac, appeared before the assembly, and, his advocate denying the charge, presented his offer to prove his innocence by single combat.[778] In 1518, Henry II. of Navarre ordered a judicial duel at Pau between two contestants, of whom the appellant made default; the defendant was accordingly pronounced innocent, and was empowered to drag through all cities, villages, and other places through which he might pass, the escutcheon and effigy of his adversary, who was further punished by the prohibition thenceforth to wear arms or knightly bearings.[779] In 1538, Francis I. granted the combat between Jean du Plessis and Gautier de Dinteville, which would appear to have been essentially a judicial proceeding, since the