The dauphin, accompanied by many lords and captains, advanced as far as Basil; but when he had come within a league of that place he was met by about eight hundred Swiss, who took possession of an hospital and garden, where, considering the smallness of their numbers, they made a gallant defence, and killed the german nobleman whom the emperor had sent as a guide to the dauphin, with several others, although they lost the greater part of their own men. The dauphin now approached Basil, and the townsmen thinking his army must be fatigued, sallied out against him; but at this affair upward of a thousand Germans were slain, and from two to three hundred made prisoners: the rest took to flight. The dauphin next marched to the town of St Hipolyte[128] to take it by storm, but it capitulated, as did that of Vau-du-Lieure. The army began now to pillage and commit great devastations on the country round, insomuch that the Swiss and Germans rose in large bodies and killed numbers of the men. Their captains, perceiving that the whole country was rising against them, and that their leader, who was acquainted with all the passes, was dead, returned with the army to the king of France at Nancy. With the king were Réné king of Sicily, and numbers of great lords and knights, the queens of France and Sicily, the dauphiness, and the daughter of king Réné, whom the earl of Suffolk had come with a splendid embassy to demand in marriage for the king of England. After a few discussions, every thing was agreed on; but before their departure with the new queen a magnificent tournament was held, in which the kings of France and Sicily, the lord Charles d'Anjou, the counts de Foix, and de St Pol, the lord Ferry de Lorraine, and several other great lords, tilted. These feasts lasted eight days,--and the ladies were most splendidly dressed. The kings of France and of Sicily escorted the queen of England two leagues from Nancy, where the king took leave of his niece with many tears, and recommended her to the protection of God: their grief was so great that they could not speak. The king returned to Nancy,--but her father, the king of Sicily, accompanied her as far as Bar-le-Duc, where he and her mother took their leave of her, with floods of tears, and prayers for her welfare. Soon after the return of the dauphin, the Germans, in contempt of their oaths, gained the towns of St Hipolyte and Vau-du-Lieure, by force, and set fire to both of them. At this moment, the archbishop of Treves, elector of the holy roman empire, and the count de Blancquemain[129], came to the king of France from the Germans, to propose a perpetual peace and alliance[130].