"The King of France requires no man to avenge his quarrels, Earl of Angus," retorted the Scoto-French Lord of Concressault, turning abruptly round. "Drummond," said the king, "what sayst thou?" "I agree with Angus," replied Lord Drummond. "Why should we imitate England of old, by waging wanton wars, and violating the rights of a free people?" "There are some fine harbours off the Breton coast," said Sir Andrew Wood; "gadzooks, Robbie Barton, we know Nantes well, with its castle at the mouth of the Sevre." "King Charles desired me to say," continued Sieur de Monipennie, without heeding the nobles, "that twenty thousand men will be sufficient to reduce the Bretons, with such French forces as he would send against them by the way of Maine and Anjou, together with all the Scottish troops now in the service of France--to wit, Sir Robert Patulloch's gard du corps Ecossaises; my thousand lances of Concressault, and those of John of Darnley, the mareschal Stuart d'Aubigne, who has just been created Comte d'Evereaux; and those would enter by the way of Poitou, as these letters will show." Whatever James thought of this splendid offer from the wily ministers of his cousin Charles the Affable, who was then in his eighteenth year, he had not time given him to say. In 1473, the proposition had been made before, and he had then intended to annex Brittany, at the head of 6000 Scottish infantry; but the Parliament opposed it; and now nearly with one unanimous voice, the nobles said, and perhaps with some feeling of justice-- "Not a man of us will draw a sword or lift a lance in this cause!" "The Bretons have never wronged us," added Lord Drummond; "and woe be to those who wage an unjust war!" "You forget, my lords, that the barons and burgesses are yet to be consulted," replied the king, with rising anger; "and if _their_ voice is for the annexation of Brittany to our realm, by the Black Rood of Scotland, I will march without my recreant nobles, or create _new ones_ on the field!"