The rich spoils of the Burgundian army produced a very unhappy effect. The gold, and silver, and jewels found in the deserted camp gave the conquerors a taste for riches to which they had hitherto been strangers. Formerly they had been a frugal and contented people, but a few short years produced a very striking change in this respect; a thirst for gold became general, bribes were openly offered and received, and foreign coin had an all-powerful influence in directing the course of their politics. Not only were the military openly in the pay of their neighbors, but the public men of the different cantons were only too well acquainted with German florins, Italian ducats, and French crowns. It is true, this fact was not considered so disgraceful in those times as it would be to-day. For, two hundred years since, half the court of England, with the king at their head, were in the pay of Louis XIV. But it would appear that bribery became more frequent and more impudent in Swiss politics than in those of other countries at the same period. On one occasion the French minister had his money-bags publicly opened at Berne, and the royal pensions or bribes distributed in the town with the sound of the trumpet. At Friburg heaps of crowns were openly displayed, piled up with shovels, and the bystanders were asked if the silver did not sound better than the empty promises of the Emperor Maximilian, nicknamed _Pochidanari_, or the Pennyless. At another time the French ambassador went to the baths of Baden, in Arau, where people from all parts of the country were assembled, kept open house, paid the score for large troops of the company, and actually threw gold into the bathing rooms, for the women to scramble for. The result of a course like this was very injurious to Swiss character. Highly honorable for courage and fidelity, it has yet been considered as too generally colored by the love of money, verifying the proverb, "_point d'argent, point de Suisse_."