They begged for peace, assuring Charles that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry.

But the more they humbled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness raised.

It appeared that he had at this period conceived the project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions of Lothaire I., who had possessed the whole of the countries traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po; and he even spoke of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.
Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered.
The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached from the heights and hurled down upon their heads.

Charles, after this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy.

But Louis had despatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss--a force in which they were before deficient; and thus augmented, their army amounted to thirty-four thousand men.