In August, 1477, the battle of Nancy had been fought; Charles the Rash had been killed; and the line of the Dukes of Burgundy had been extinguished. Louis XI. remained master of the battle-field on which the great risks and great scenes of his life had been passed through. It seemed as if he ought to fear nothing now, and that the day for clemency had come. But such was not the king’s opinion; two cruel passions, suspicion and vengeance, had taken possession of his soul; he remained convinced, not without reason, that nearly all the great feudal lords who had been his foes were continuing to conspire against him, and that he ought not, on his side, ever to cease from striving against thorn. The trial of the constable, St. Pol, had confirmed all his suspicions; he had discovered thereby traces and almost proofs of a design for a long time past conceived and pursued by the constable and his associates--the design of seizing the king, keeping him prisoner, and setting his son, the _dauphin_, on the throne, with a regency composed of a council of lords. Amongst the declared or presumed adherents of this project, the king had found James d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, the companion and friend of his youth; for his father, the Count of Pardiac, had been governor to Louis, at that time _dauphin_. Louis, on becoming king, had loaded James d’Armagnac with favors; had raised his countship of Nemours to a duchy-peerage of France; had married him to Louise of Anjou, daughter of the Count of Maine and niece of King Rend. The new Duke of Nemours entered, nevertheless, into the League of Common Weal against the king. Having been included, in 1465, with the other chiefs of the league in the treaty of Conflans, and reconciled with the king, the Duke of Nemours made oath to him, in the Sainte-Chapelle, to always be to him a good, faithful, and loyal subject, and thereby obtained the governorship of Paris and Ile-de-France. But, in 1469, he took part in the revolt of his cousin, Count John d’Armagnac, who was supposed to be in communication with the English; and having been vanquished by the Count de Dampmartin, he had need of a fresh pardon from the king, which he obtained on renouncing the privileges of the peerage if he should offend again. He then withdrew within his own domains, and there lived in tranquillity and popularity, but still keeping up secret relations with his old associates, especially with the Duke of Burgundy and the constable of St. Pol. In 1476, during the Duke of Burgundy’s first campaign against the Swiss, the more or less active participation of the Duke of Nemours with the king’s enemies appeared to Louis so grave, that he gave orders to his son-in-law, Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, to go and besiege him in his castle of Carlat, in Auvergne. The Duke of Nemours was taken prisoner there and carried off to Vienne, in Dauphiny, where the king then happened to be. In spite of the prisoner’s entreaties, Louis absolutely refused to see him, and had him confined in the tower of Pierre-Encise. The Duke of Nemours was so disquieted at his position and the king’s wrath, that his wife, Louise of Anjou, who was in her confinement at Carlat, had a fit of terror and died there; and he himself, shut up at Pierre-Encise, in a dark and damp dungeon, found his hair turn white in a few days. He was not mistaken about the gravity of the danger. Louis was both alarmed at these incessantly renewed conspiracies of the great lords and vexed at the futility of his pardons. He was determined to intimidate his enemies by a grand example, and avenge his kingly self-respect by bringing his power home to the ingrates who made no account of his indulgence. He ordered that the Duke of Nemours should be removed from Pierre-Encise to Paris, and put in the Bastille, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1476, and that commissioners should set about his trial. The king complained of the gentleness with which the prisoner had been treated on arrival, and wrote to one of the commissioners, “It seems to me that you have but one thing to do; that is, to find out what guarantees the Duke of Nemours had given the constable of being at one with him in making the Duke of Burgundy regent, putting me to death, seizing my lord the _dauphin_, and taking the authority and government of the realm. He must he made to speak clearly on this point, and must get hell (be put to the torture) in good earnest. I am not pleased at what you tell me as to the irons having been taken off his legs, as to his being let out from his cage, and as to his being taken to the mass to which the women go.