In 1482, twenty-one years afterwards, he, sick and almost dying in his turn at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, went, nevertheless, to Amboise, where his son the _dauphin_, who was about to become Charles VIII., and whom he had not seen for several years, was living.

"I do expressly enjoin upon you," said the father to the son, "as my last counsel and my last instructions, not to change a single one of the chief officers of the crown.

When my father.

King Charles VII., went to God, and I myself came to the throne, I disappointed [i.e., deprived of their appointments] all the good and notable knights of the kingdom who had aided and served my said father in conquering Normandy and Guienne, in driving the English out of the kingdom, and in restoring it to peace and good order, for so I found it, and right rich also.
Therefrom much mischief came to me, for thence I had the war called the Common Weal, which all but cost me my crown." With the experience and paternal care of an old man, whom the near prospect of death rendered perfectly disinterested, wholly selfish as his own life had been, Louis's heart was bent upon saving his son from the first error which he himself had committed on mounting the throne.
"Gentlemen," said Dunois on rising from table at the funeral-banquet held at the abbey of St.Denis in honor of the obsequies of King Charles VII., "we have lost our master; let each look after himself." The old warrior foresaw that the new reign would not be like that which had just ended.
Charles VII.

had been a prince of indolent disposition, more inclined to pleasure than ambition, whom the long and severe trials of his life had moulded to government without his having any passion for governing, and who had become in a quiet way a wise and powerful king, without any eager desire to be incessantly and everywhere chief actor and master.