Another proclamation followed the above, stating, that whereas the king, to answer some urgent demands respecting the public welfare, had ordered a crown to be paid for every pipe of wine that was exported and that all other provision, was to pay in proportion, which taxes had for some time been neglected to be raised: he therefore ordered the tax of a crown to be paid from one extremity of the kingdom to the other, on every pipe of wine exported, but that the taxes on other provision were to cease and be annulled. Master Laurence Herbelot, king's counsellor, and Denis Chevalier, formerly notary to the Châtelet, were appointed to collect this tax,--although the king had, a little before, nominated master Pierre Jouvelin inspector of accounts, who was now displaced by this new appointment. In the month of February, the king left Tours and Amboise for the Bourbonnois and Auvergne. He there performed a nine-days devotion at the church of our Lady at Puy, and afterwards went into the Lyonnois and Dauphiny. During his stay at Puy, he received intelligence that the Swiss had met the duke of Burgundy and his army as they were on their march to enter Swisserland, and had defeated him with the loss of sixteen or eighteen thousand men, and taken all his artillery. It was thus told:--When the duke of Burgundy had won the town of Granson, he marched his army along the lake of Neufchâtel, toward Fribourg, and found means to gain two castles at the entrance of Swisserland. The Swiss though informed of this as well as of the capture of Granson, kept advancing to meet him, and, on the Friday preceding the first Sunday in Lent, surrounded these castles so effectually that none could come out. They posted two ambuscades in a small wood hard by, and near to the main body of the Burgundians. On the morrow very early, the duke began his march with the artillery; but he had no sooner passed the ambuscades than the Swiss, who did not amount to more than six thousand infantry armed with culverins, began to fire with such success on the enemy that the duke's van, panicstruck, took to flight with very great loss[62]. The Swiss charged the main body, which fled also; and the duke himself escaped with great difficulty, attended by only four persons: he never stopped, but often looked behind him, until he came to Joigné, which was eight country leagues from the place of his defeat, and equal to sixteen leagues of pretty France, which may God preserve and guard! The duke lost the greater part of his best captains,--and there was great slaughter among the Burgundians. After this disgraceful flight, and after the Swiss had taken all his artillery, plate, and baggage[63], they won the two castles, and hanged all the Burgundians within them. They also regained the town of Granson, and took down from the gibbets the Swiss and Germans, to the number of five hundred and twelve, whom the duke had caused to be hanged, and buried them. At the same time, they seized on