Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/124

98 98 INSANITY OF JOANNA. II. I'ART of the king of Navarre, along the frontiers of whose dominions its route necessarily lay. Ferdinand had assured himself of the favorable dispositions of this prince, the situation of whose kingdom, more than its strength, made his friendship important ; and the lord d'Albret, whether from a direct un- derstanding with the Spanish monarch, or fearful of the consequences which might result to his son from the hostility of the latter, detained the forces intrusted to him, so long among the bleak and bar- ren fastnesses of the mountains, that at length, exhausted by fatigue and want of food, the army melted away without even reaching the enemy's borders.'^ The force directed against Roussillon was of a more formidable character. It was commanded bv the marechal de Rieux, a brave and experienced officer, though much broken by age and bodily in- firmities. It amounted to more than twenty thou- sand men. Its strength, however, lay chiefly in its numbers. It was, with the exception of a few thousand lansquenets under William de la Marck,'® made up of the arriere-ban of the kingdom, and the undisciplined militia from the great towns of ^8 Aleson, Annales de Navarra, Hist, de IjOuj's XII., pait. 2, pp. torn. V. pp. 110- 112. 103, 186.) The reader will not The king of Navarre promised confound him with his namesake, to oppose the passage of the the famous " boar of Ardennes," French, if attempted, through his — more familiar to us now in the dominions ; and, in order to obviate pages of romance than history, — any distrust on the part of Ferdi- who perished ignominiously some nand, sent his daughter Margaret to twenty years before this period, reside at the court of Castile, as a in 1484. not in fight, but by the filcdpe for his fidelity. Ferreras, hands of the common executioner list. d'Espagne, torn. viii. p. 235. at Utrecht. Duclos, Hist, de Louis '9 Younger brother of Robert, XL, tom. ii. p. 379. third duke of Bouillon. (D'Auton,