Towards the middle of the year, the king became sufficiently convalescent to be able to inspect the troops which had been collected by his orders near Pont-de-l’Arche. Thence he proceeded to Tours, where he had a relapse; “again he lost his speech, and for two hours we thought he was dead; he lay in a gallery, on a mattrass.” The servants who attended him, Du Bouchage, Commines and others, vowed him to St. Claude; “immediately his speech returned to him, and within the hour he went about the house again.” He soon resumed his old habits, and made an excursion to one of the estates he had given to Commines. He remained for a month at the Chateau of Argenton; a longer time, probably, than he had intended, but he was detained by illness. Such royal visits are usually an expensive honour to those who receive them; but the chamberlain of Louis XI. did not suffer by his hospitality, for his master contributed handsomely to the embellishment of his residence. From Argenton the king went to Thouars, where he made some stay, on account of ill-health; and on leaving that town, he repaired to St. Claude, doubtless to perform the vow made by his faithful servants. Before he left Thouars, he confided to the Lord of Argenton a difficult and delicate mission, of which Commines gives us only a confused idea; we will, therefore, briefly state its object. Yolande of France, Duchess of Savoy, had died on the 29th of August, 1478, leaving as her successor a son under thirteen years of age. The appointment of a regent devolved on Louis XI., the uncle of the young duke, who conferred that office on the Count de la Chambre, who, he believed, would prove a pliant instrument in his hands. In this expectation he was deceived, and the object of Commines’ mission was to assist the Count of Bresse, one of the paternal uncles of the Duke of Savoy, in deposing the obnoxious regent, and taking possession of the government. In the meanwhile, Louis XI. daily grew more infirm; his moral energy alone sustained him, and, as in past times, he continued to travel about the country. Commines, on his return from his embassy, joined him at Beaujeu: and he was struck by the ravages which disease had wrought in the person of the prince, whose last hour, he felt, was at hand. We shall not attempt to describe the final scene; in his Memoirs, Commines has given a wonderful picture of the dying agonies of his sovereign. Louis XI. breathed his last on the 30th of August, 1483, and from that moment, a new era began in the life of Commines, as fatal to his honour and fortune, as the preceding period had been propitious to his ambition and interests.