The Swiss, puffed up with their victory at Novara and egged on by Emperor Maximilian, had to the number of thirty thousand entered Burgundy, and on the 7th of September laid siege to Dijon, which was rather badly fortified.

La Tremoille, governor of Burgundy, shut himself up in the place and bravely repulsed a first assault, but "sent post-haste to warn the king to send him aid; whereto the king made no reply beyond that he could not send him aid, and that La Tremoille should do the best he could for the advantage and service of the kingdom." La Tremoille applied to the Swiss for a safe-conduct, and "without arms and scantily attended" he went to them to try whether "in consideration of a certain sum of money for the expenses of their army they could be packed off to their own country without doing further displeasure or damage." He found them proud and arrogant of heart, for they styled themselves chastisers of princes," and all he could obtain from them was "that the king should give up the duchy of Milan and all the castles appertaining thereto, that he should restore to the pope all the towns, castles, lands, and lordships which belonged to him, and that he should pay the Swiss four hundred thousand crowns, to wit, two hundred thousand down and two hundred thousand at Martinmas in the following winter." [_Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens,_ by Dumont, t.vi.

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175.] As brave in undertaking a heavy responsibility as he was in delivering a battle, La Tremoille did not hesitate to sign, on the 13th of September, this harsh treaty; and, as he had not two hundred thousand crowns down to give the Swiss, he prevailed upon them to be content with receiving twenty thousand at once, and he left with them as hostage, in pledge of his promise, his nephew Rend d'Anjou, lord of Mezieres, "one of the boldest and discreetest knights in France." But for this honorable defeat, the veteran warrior thought the kingdom of France had been then undone; for, assailed at all its extremities, with its neighbors for its foes, it could not, without great risk of final ruin, have borne the burden and defended itself through so many battles.

La Tremoille sent one of the gentlemen of his house, the chevalier Reginald de Moussy, to the king, to give an account of what he had done, and of his motives.