Soon after his return from this expedition, and a short time before the marriage of Charles the Bold, which took place on the 16th of February, 1468, Commines was appointed chamberlain and councillor of that prince. The privileges of this double office secured him, though he was only about twenty years of age, the right of entrance into the Burgundian council, and a sort of respectful intimacy with his master. Doubtless the duties of a councillor could not have been easy to fulfil in the household of a prince of such unmanageable disposition, and “who despised all other advice in the world, except only his own;” but the chamberlain, at all events, might make himself agreeable, and succeed in obtaining a considerable degree of familiar intimacy with his sovereign. Commines soon obtained this, either from trying some indirect, but certain means of acquiring influence over the mind of the duke, or because daily communications between two persons not separated by any great difference of age naturally led to this result. The influence to which we refer, and which we have no wish to exaggerate, was ere long to be subjected to a decisive test, under very memorable circumstances. In the month of October, 1468, Louis XI. came to Peronne, and imprudently placed himself at the mercy of Charles the Bold, against whom he was then secretly instigating the Liegeois to revolt. This step involved him in great peril, and his danger was increased by the fact that the duke, irritated at so audacious a piece of perfidy, was surrounded by scarcely any persons who were not animated by powerful motives of hatred against the king. The most violent counsels were given, and favourably received by a prince who was naturally inclined to extreme courses. Commines, aided by some other servants of the duke, few in number, but more sensible, more jealous of the honour of their master, and, in a word, more politic than his other advisers, succeeded in partially allaying the storm; but it soon burst out afresh with still greater vehemence. The king alone could avert its direful consequences. In his first alarm he had recourse to means of safety whose efficacy was well known to him: now, gold was of no further avail; he must bow his royal head.