Meanwhile Charles's schemes of conquest were pressing harder and harder on his unfortunate subjects. In 1474 the Carthusian nuns of the Convent of St. Anne were forced to part with a portion of their property in order to pay their taxes, and the burghers grumbled louder than ever. The obstinate canons of St. Donatian went a step further; they absolutely refused payment, and were, in consequence, dragged to prison. In 1476 Charles made fresh demands, and the deputies of the estates of Flanders waited on him at Bruges to remonstrate, but after much haggling and many bitter words, granted a subsidy--a hundred thousand _ridders_ and the pay of four thousand sergeants. Presently fresh defeat constrained him to ask for more, and this time the communes refused. The people, they said, were overwhelmed with taxes, no further succour of men or money would they afford him for any of his foreign wars, but if he should haply find himself in peril from either Swiss or Germans, they would risk their lives and goods to bring him back safely to Flanders. Traitors and rebels! thundered Charles, they should soon learn how terrible was his vengeance. Vain threat; on the 5th of January 1477 the defeat of Nancy put an end to all his dreams of conquest. In the first shock of battle the Burgundians were dashed to pieces, and in the dismay and confusion which followed the Duke had disappeared. No one knew what had become of him. Some said they had seen him streaming with blood, but still defending himself like a man. Others averred that at the moment of defeat he had turned tail and fled. Three days later they discovered in a frozen pond the remains of a naked human body, scarred with wounds and half-devoured by beasts of prey. On one finger was a ring which a humble member of the Duke's household--the woman who washed his linen--fancied she recognized as having once been the property of her master. On this testimony the shattered fragments were said to be the body of Charles, and as such they were honourably buried in the Church of St. George at Nancy. They were not, however, suffered to rest there. More than fifty years later the Emperor Charles V. caused them to be brought to Bruges, and laid them up in the Church of St. Donatian. Five years afterwards his son, Philip II., translated them to a marvellous shrine in the Church of Notre Dame. Here they remained in peace till the close of the last century, when the iconoclasts of the Revolution scattered them, on the ground that they were the bones of a tyrant. May be they were, but it is equally likely that they were the relics of some humble toiler.