Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

MEN AND BOOKS
Charles's texts and Latin sentiments ; he had his
back to the wall, the future of France was at stake ;
and if all the old men in the world had crossed his
path, they would have had the rough side of his
tongue hke Charles of Orleans. I have found
nowhere what he said, but it seems it was mon-
strously to the point, and so rudely conceived that
the old duke never recovered the indignity. He
got home as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two
days after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the seventy-fourth year
of his age. And so a whifF of pungent prose stopped
the issue of melodious rondels to the end of time.
V
The futility of Charles's public life was of a piece
throughout. He never succeeded in any single
purpose he set before him ; for his deliverance from
England, after twenty-five years of failure, and at
the cost of dignity and consistency, it would be
ridiculously hyperbolical to treat as a success.
During the first part of his life he was the stalking-
horse of Bernard d'Armagnac ; during the second,
he was the passive instrument of English diplomat-
ists ; and before he was well entered on the third,
he hastened to become the dupe and cat's-paw of
Burgundian treason. On each of these occasions
a strong and not dishonourable personal motive
determined his behaviour. In 1407 and the follow-
ing years he had his father's murder uppermost
in his mind. During his English captivity, that
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