Among the most conspicuous of those who felt his anger was Anthony de Chabannes, count of Dammartin. Chabannes had played an active part in the long war between Charles VII. and the English, and, on various occasions had done signal service. Like many other nobles of that period, he was, however, possessed of far more courage than honourable principles. To swell his coffers with plunder, he did not hesitate to put himself at the head of the ferocious banditti known by the descriptive name of _écorcheurs_, or flayers, with whom he ravaged the north-eastern provinces of France, as far as the Swiss frontier. He quitted them in 1439, to marry a rich wife, after which he again entered into the king’s service. Chabannes, as is often the case with criminals, could more easily commit crimes than bear to be told of them. The monarch having one day laughingly greeted him by the title of king of the flayers, he angrily replied, “I never flayed any but your enemies; and it appears to me that you have derived more benefit from their skins than I have.” Not satisfied with this retort, he further gratified his offended feelings by prompting the dauphin to become the leader of the malecontents, in the ephemeral civil war which is known as the war of the _Praguerie_. After the Praguerie was over, Chabannes was again received into favour by Charles, and he seems ever after to have remained faithful to him. He even disclosed a conspiracy which the dauphin had formed, to deprive the monarch of his crown and liberty. The dauphin, on being brought face to face with him, hardily denied the fact, and gave him the lie. The conduct of Chabannes, in this instance, was not undignified. “I know,” said he, “the respect which is due to the son of my master; but the truth of my deposition I am ready to maintain, by arms, against all those of the dauphin’s household who will come forward to contradict it.” No one was hardy enough to accept this challenge. It is less creditable to Chabannes, that he presided over the commission which was appointed to try, or rather to find guilty, the persecuted Jacques Cœur, and that he contrived to obtain, at a shamefully inadequate price, several of Cœur’s estates. In 1455, Chabannes, by performing his duty to his sovereign, gave fresh offence to the dauphin. Irritated at last by the political intrigues of his son, and by his having persisted for ten years to absent himself from the court, Charles determined to deprive him of the petty sovereignty of Dauphiné, and to secure his person. Chabannes was chosen to carry this determination into effect: and he acted with such vigour that, after having prevailed on the duke of Savoy to refuse the prince an asylum, he compelled him to seek shelter in the dominions of the duke of Burgundy.