LITMIR.BIZ

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progress through his dominions. He succeeded so well in this latter part of his scheme, that the embassy did not reach Paris until the close of Lent. Louis, who seldom resided in his capital, took good care to be absent at this season. The ambassadors in the interim were entertained with balls, military reviews, and whatever else might divert them from the real objects of their mission. All communication was cut off with their own government, as their couriers were stopped and their despatches intercepted, so that John knew as little of his envoys or their proceedings, as if they had been in Siberia or Japan. In the mean time, formidable preparations were making in the south of France for a descent on Roussillon; and when the ambassadors, after a fruitless attempt at negotiation, which evaporated in mutual crimination and recrimination, set out on their return to Aragon, they were twice detained, at Lyons and Montpelier, from an extreme solicitude, as the French government expressed it, to ascertain the safest route through a country intersected by hostile armies; and all this, notwithstanding their repeated protestations against this obliging disposition, which held them prisoners, in opposition to their own will and the law of nations. The prince who descended to such petty trickery passed for the wisest of his time. [25]

      In the mean while, the Seigneur du Lude had invaded Roussillon at the head of nine hundred French lances and ten thousand infantry, supported by a powerful train of artillery, while a fleet of Genoese transports, laden with supplies, accompanied the army along the coast. Elna surrendered after a sturdy resistance; the governor and some of the principal prisoners were shamefully beheaded as traitors; and the French then proceeded to invest Perpignan. The king of Aragon was so much impoverished by the incessant wars in which he had been engaged, that he was not only unable to recruit his army, but was even obliged to pawn the robe of costly fur, which he wore to defend his person against the inclemencies of the season, in order to defray the expense of transporting his baggage. In this extremity, finding himself disappointed in the cooperation, on which he had reckoned, of his ancient allies the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, he again summoned Ferdinand to his assistance, who, after a brief interview with his father in Barcelona, proceeded to Saragossa, to solicit aid from the estates of Aragon.

      An incident occurred on this visit of the prince worth noticing, as strongly characteristic of the lawless habits of the age. A citizen of Saragossa, named Ximenes Gordo, of noble family, but who had relinquished the privileges of his rank in order to qualify himself for municipal office, had acquired such ascendency over his townsmen, as to engross the most considerable posts in the city for himself and his creatures. This authority he abused in a shameless manner, making use of it not only for the perversion of justice, but for the perpetration of the most flagrant crimes. Although these facts were notorious, yet such were his power and popularity with the lower classes, that Ferdinand, despairing of bringing him to justice in the ordinary way, determined on a more summary process. As Gordo occasionally visited the palace to pay his respects to the prince, the latter affected to regard him with more than usual favor, showing him such courtesy as might dissipate any distrust he had conceived of him. Gordo, thus assured, was invited at one of those interviews to withdraw into a retired apartment, where the prince wished to confer with him on business of moment. On entering the chamber he was surprised by the sight of the public executioner, the hangman of the city, whose presence, together with that of a priest, and the apparatus of death with which the apartment was garnished, revealed at once the dreadful nature of his destiny.

      He was then charged with the manifold crimes of which he had been guilty, and sentence of death was pronounced on him. In vain did he appeal to Ferdinand, pleading the services which he had rendered on more than one occasion to his father. Ferdinand assured him that these should be gratefully remembered in the protection of his children, and then, bidding him unburden his conscience to his confessor, consigned him to the hand of the executioner. His body was exposed that very day in the market-place of the city, to the dismay of his friends and adherents, most of whom paid the penalty of their crimes in the ordinary course of justice. This extraordinary proceeding is highly characteristic of the unsettled times in which it occurred; when acts of violence often superseded the regular operation of the law, even in those countries, whose forms of government approached the nearest to a determinate constitution. It will doubtless remind the reader of the similar proceeding imputed to Louis the Eleventh, in the admirable sketch given us of that monarch in "Quentin Durward." [26]

      The supplies furnished by the Aragonese cortes were inadequate to King John's necessities, and he was compelled, while hovering with his little force on the confines of Roussillon, to witness the gradual reduction of its capital, without being able to strike a blow in its defence. The inhabitants, indeed, who fought with a resolution worthy of ancient Numantia or Saguntum, were reduced to the last extremity of famine, supporting life by feeding on the most loathsome offal, on cats, dogs, the corpses of their enemies, and even on such of their own dead as had fallen in battle! And when at length an honorable capitulation was granted them on the 14th of March, 1475, the garrison who evacuated the city, reduced to the number of four hundred, were obliged to march on foot to Barcelona, as they had consumed their horses during the siege. [27]

      The terms of capitulation, which permitted every inhabitant to evacuate, or reside unmolested in the city, at his option, were too liberal to satisfy the vindictive temper of the king of France. He instantly wrote to his generals, instructing them to depart from their engagements, to keep the city so short of supplies as to compel an emigration of its original inhabitants, and to confiscate for their own use the estates of the principal nobility; and after delineating in detail the perfidious policy which they were to pursue, he concluded with the assurance, "that, by the blessing of God and our Lady, and Monsieur St. Martin, he would be with them before the winter, in order to aid them in its execution." [28] Such was the miserable medley of hypocrisy and superstition, which characterized the politics of the European courts in this corrupt age, and which dimmed the lustre of names, most conspicuous on the page of history.

      The occupation of Roussillon was followed by a truce of six months between the belligerent parties. The regular course of the narrative has been somewhat anticipated, in order to conclude that portion of it relating to the war with Prance, before again reverting to the affairs of Castile, where Henry the Fourth, pining under an incurable malady, was gradually approaching the termination of his disastrous reign.

      This event, which, from the momentous consequences it involved, was contemplated with the deepest solicitude, not only by those who had an immediate and personal interest at stake, but by the whole nation, took place on the night of the 11th of December, 1474. [29] It was precipitated by the death of the grand master of St. James, on whom the feeble mind of Henry had been long accustomed to rest for its support, and who was cut off by an acute disorder but a few months previous, in the full prime of his ambitious schemes. The king, notwithstanding the lingering nature of his disease gave him ample time for preparation, expired without a will, or even, as generally asserted, the designation of a successor. This was the more remarkable, not only as being contrary to established usage, but as occurring at a period when the succession had been so long and hotly debated. [30] The testaments of the Castilian sovereigns, though never esteemed positively binding, and occasionally, indeed, set aside, when deemed unconstitutional or even inexpedient by the legislature, [31] were always allowed to have great weight with the nation.

      With Henry the Fourth terminated the male line of the house of Trastamara, who had kept possession of the throne for more than a century, and in the course of only four generations had exhibited every gradation of character from the bold and chivalrous enterprise of the first Henry of that name, down to the drivelling imbecility of the last.

      The character of Henry the Fourth has been sufficiently delineated in that of his reign. He was not without certain amiable qualities, and may be considered as a weak, rather than a wicked prince. In persons, however, intrusted with the degree of power exercised by sovereigns of even the most limited monarchies of this period, a weak man may be deemed more mischievous to the state over which he presides than a wicked one. The latter, feeling himself responsible in the eyes of the nation for his actions, is more likely to consult appearances, and, where his own passions or interests are not immediately involved, to legislate with reference to the general interests of his subjects. The former, on the contrary, is too often a mere tool in the hands of favorites, who, finding themselves screened by the interposition of royal authority from the consequences of

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