Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/199

55 MINORITY OF FERDINAND. OO Crowds of adventurers flocked to the standard of chapter a leader, whose ample inheritance of pretensions — had made him familiar with war from his earliest boyhood ; and he soon found himself at the head of eight thousand effective troops. Louis the Eleventh, although not directly aiding his enter- prise with supplies of men or money, was willing so far to countenance it, as to open a passage for him through the mountain fastnesses of Roussillon, then in his keeping, and thus enable him to descend with his whole army at once on the northern borders 1 4 o 7. of Catalonia.^* The kins of Aragon could oppose no force Distress auj " "-' A i embarrass- capable of resisting this formidable army. His Jolm!"' exchequer, always low, was completely exhausted by the extraordinary efforts, which he had made in the late campaigns ; and, as the king of France, either disgusted with the long protraction of the war, or from secret good-will to the enterprise of his feudal subject, withheld from King John the stipulated subsidies, the latter monarch found him- self unable, with every expedient of loan and exaction, to raise sufficient money to pay his troops, or to supply his magazines. In addition to this, he was now involved in a dispute with the count and countess of Foix, who, eager to anticipate the possession of Navarre, which had been guarantied 45 Villeneuve Bargemont, Hist. Zurita, Anales, torn. iv. fol. 150, de Ren6, torn. ii. pp. 168, 169. — 153. — Alonso de Palencia, Coro- Histoire de Louys XL, autrement nica, MS., part. 2, cap. 17. — Pa- dicte La Chronique Scandaleuse, lencia swells the numbers of the par un Greffier de THostel de Ville French in the service of the duke de Paris, (Paris, 1620,) p. 145. — of Lorraine to 20,000.