The Memoirs of Philip de Commines, Lord of Argenton: Containing the Histories of Louis XI and Charles VIII, Kings of France and of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Volume 2

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Page i - Bohn's Library of French Memoirs. UNIFORM WITH THE STANDARD LIBRARY, AT 3s. 6'L PER VOLUME. Memoirs of Philip de Commines, containing the Histories of Louis XI. and Charles VIII, and of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. To which is added, The Scandalous Chronicle, or Secret History of Louis XL Portraits.
Page 63 - Richard desired to live in the same friendship with our king as his brother had done, and 1 believe would have had his pension continued ; but our king looked upon him as an inhuman and cruel person, and would neither answer his letters nor give audience to his ambassador...
Page 76 - Catalonian and prisoner of war, besides others of several countries too numerous to be mentioned in this place. This by way of digression. But to return to my principal design. As in his time this barbarous variety of prisons was invented, so before he died he himself was in greater torment, and more terrible apprehension, than those whom he had imprisoned, which I look upon as a great mercy towards him, and part of his purgatory ; and I have mentioned it here to show that there is no person, of...
Page 227 - I did it myself, and was two days without eating any thing but bread, and that none of the best. It was the most painful and incommodious march I ever made, though I have been in several bad enough with Charles duke of Burgundy. We marched no faster than our artillery, and were forced often to halt on purpose to mend them, which, besides the deficiency of horses to draw them, incommoded us extremely.
Page 80 - SMALL hopes and comfort ought poor and inferior people to have in this world, considering what so great a king suffered and underwent, and how he was at last forced to leave all, and could not, with all his care and diligence, protract his life one single hour. I knew him and was entertained in his service in the flower of his age and at the height of his prosperity, yet I never saw him free from labor and care. Of all diversions he loved hunting and hawking in their seasons; but his chief delight...
Page 77 - Plessis was never opened nor the drawbridge let down before eight o'clock in the morning, at which time the officers were let in; and the captains ordered their guards to their several posts, with pickets of archers in the middle of the court, as in a town upon the frontiers that is closely guarded ; nor was any person admitted to enter except by the wicket and with the King's knowledge, unless it were the steward of his household, and such persons as were not admitted into the royal presence.
Page 75 - I lay in one of them eight months together in the minority of our present king. He also ordered heavy and terrible fetters to be made in Germany, and particularly a certain ring for the feet, which was extremely hard to be opened and fitted like an iron collar, with a thick weighty chain and a great globe of iron at the end of it most unreasonably heavy ; which engines were called the
Page 286 - I am a sinner ; I have not the presumption to perform miracles, nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to withhold my life, if, in sacrificing it, I might precipitate into hell a heresiarch, who has already drawn into it so many souls.
Page 74 - ... so as no notice might be taken. Behold, then, if he had caused many to live under him in continual fear and apprehension, whether it was not returned to him again ; for of whom could he be secure when he was afraid of his son-in-law, his daughter and his own son ? I speak this not only of him, but of all other princes who desire to be feared, that...
Page 98 - ... make Venice mistress of the whole of Romagna. The Venetians offered the pope the same submission, the same annual tribute, for which those petty princes were acknowledged pontifical vicars. But Julius II., who had succeeded Borgia, although violent and irascible, had a strong sense of his duty as a pontiff and as an Italian. He was determined on preserving the states of the church intact for his successors. He rejected all nepotism, all aggrandisement of his family; and would have accused himself...

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