Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/314

170 legacy from one generation to another. In the autumn of the same year a treaty of peace was definitively adjusted between the plenipotentiaries of Castile and France, at St. Jean de Luz, in which it was stipulated as a principal article, that Louis the Eleventh should disconnect himself from his alliance with Portugal, and give no further support to the pretensions of Joanna.

{{left sidenote|Active measure of Isbella.)) Thus released from apprehension in this quarter, the sovereigns were enabled to give their undivided attention to the defence of the western borders. Isabella, accordingly, early in the ensuing winter, passed into Estremadura for the purpose of repelling the Portuguese, and still more of suppressing the insurrectionary movements of certain of her own subjects, who, encouraged by the vicinity of Portugal, carried on from their private fortresses a most desolating and predatory warfare over the circumjacent territory. Private mansions and farm-houses were pillaged and burnt to the ground, the cattle and crops swept away in their forays, the highways beset, so that all travelling was at an end, all communication cut off, and a rich and populous {{smallrefs}}{{sidenotes end}}