Extravagant but poor, Sigmund failed to find even that modest sum, and applied to Louis of France for help, but was by him referred to Charles of Burgundy. The astute Louis saw that a quarrel between the dukes would be injurious and possibly fatal to Charles, who, all unaware of the pitfall prepared for him, readily fell in with the proposals of Sigmund. He was anxious to join together Alsace, Breisgau, the Aargau towns on the Rhine, &c., and advanced fifty thousand florins as mortgage on the dominions of Sigmund, expecting they would soon fall to him entirely. By the treaty of St Omer, in 1469, their mutual terms of agreement were thus fixed:--Charles to give help in case of need against the Swiss, and Sigmund to promote the long-planned marriage between the son of his cousin and Maria of Burgundy. Rejoicing at this turn of fortune, the emperor at once disannulled the treaty of Waldshut, and the new lands were by Charles the Bold entrusted to the management of his favourite, Peter von Hagenbach.[40] A tyrant and a libertine, his acts of violence, and those of his foreign soldiery, exasperated the German populations of Alsace, Basel, Bern, and Solothurn. Their merchants being robbed on the Rhine, their envoys imprisoned--one Bernese man was killed in a fray--they complained to the duke, but without result for the cruelties and oppression continued. Artful and ever on the watch, Louis found that the Eidgenossen, disgusted by the grasping tendencies of Charles, were fast drifting away from their good understanding with Burgundy, and strove to draw them to his own side. Anxious to secure a friend, the Swiss lent willing ears to the flattery and insinuations of the crafty Louis. He actually succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between the Eidgenossen and Austria. It was a cleverly calculated bit of diplomacy, that secured for the Swiss their recent conquests, isolated Charles, and strengthened the opposition against him. Louis fixed a pension on Sigmund, and urged him to pay off the mortgage on his lands, whilst the Alsacian towns likewise leagued themselves with the Swiss, and actually advanced Sigmund the sum of money required. Charles, however, disappointed in his plans, refused to receive the money. A popular rising took place at Breisach, and Hagenbach was seized, imprisoned, and brought before a tribunal, at which some of the Eidgenossen assisted. He was condemned to death, and publicly beheaded, as a sort of popular judgment. Enraged beyond measure though he was, yet Charles deferred vengeance for the death of his favourite, being, indeed, at the time, otherwise engaged. Taking advantage of this delay, Louis won over to his side Frederick, also lavishing flatteries on the Swiss, and pensions on Nicolas von Diesbach and his followers. This Nicolas was a Bernese nobleman and a skilled politician, and was a fit instrument in the hands of a king who calculated his schemes rather on men's _mauvaises passions_ than on their virtues.