The Burgundian Wars 75
court.76 Moreover, he nursed a grudge against Savoy. In the autumn of 1474 he
was returning from France, dressed incognito as a merchant, but was recognized
and set upon by Savoy partisans, first at Geneva, and again in Vevey, suffering loss
of face and fortune.77 Thereafter his military leadership was motivated by a desire
to avenge himself upon Savoy.78
At the turn of the year Bern and its allies found themselves in an impasse. The
Vaud was an important corridor for the passage of troops westwards. In January
1475 envoys of Bern, Count Philippe of Bresse, and Count François de Gruyère,
marshal of Savoy, on behalf of Duchess Yolande met at Lausanne in an attempt to
resolve the situation. After reaffirming the existing alliances between Bern and
Savoy some remarkable proposals were placed on the table, namely that Yolande
declare war on Charles the Bold, and recall Count Jacob de Romont from
Burgundian service. Furthermore, all strongholds and passes were to be open to
both parties, while Count Jacob was forbidden from alienating the Vaud without
Bern’s permission. Moreover, as compensation for the affront to Niklaus von
Diesbach Morat, Yverdon, and Nyon were to be mortgaged to Bern.79 These were
clearly maximalist demands put forward by Bern, with any conclusion subject to
ratification by both sides.80 Yolande ignored the proposals since she was simultan-
eously pursuing an alliance with Gian Maria Sforza of Milan and the Burgundian
duke, intended to allow Milan to send troops through Savoy. The Treaty of
Moncalieri which they concluded left Bern deeply apprehensive.81 Bern’s plans
were further undermined by the refusal of the Swiss diet, given the humiliation of
the previous autumn, to countenance any renewal of an ‘imperial’ war.82
Yet worse was to befall. Some freebooters on their own initiative began to
mount raids into the Sundgau, Franche-Comté, and even Neuchâtel, despite the
latter’s Burgrecht with Bern, while others, from Luzern, Unterwalden, and
beyond, rallied at Solothurn, not to attack Burgundy but to lay waste to the
Vaud—the very action which Bern had been seeking to prevent.83 It took
76 Esch, ‘Alltag der Entscheidung’, 64, 72–3. And not least that he received a substantial French
pension. Bittmann, Memoiren, 343, too, is adamant that Diesbach’s strategy was not pro-French but
independent, and his view has recently been endorsed by Bastian Walter, ‘Kontore, Kriege, Königshof.
Der Aufstieg der Berner Familie von Diesbach im Hinblick auf die städtische Außenpolitik’, in
Christian Jörg and Michael Jucker (eds), Politisches Wissen, Spezialisierung und Professionalisierung.
Träger und Foren städtischer ‘Außenpolitik’ während des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit
(Wiesbaden, 2010), 161–91, here at 186.
77 Bittmann, Memoiren, 767. Bern calculated his loss at 12,000 fl, which should be contrasted with
the 18,200 francs he received from the French crown between 1466 and 1475! Walter, ‘Kontore’, 177.
78 Bittmann, Memoiren, 770. 79 EA II, 525 (no. 773) (21 Jan. 1475).
80 Stettler, Eidgenossenschaft, 247; Bittmann, Memoiren, 772 is less precise.
81 Stettler, Eidgenossenschaft, 247; Bittmann, Memoiren, 777; Richard Vaughan, Valois Burgundy
(London, 1975), 209. The treaty was concluded on 30 Jan.
82 Bittmann, Memoiren, 786; Stettler, Eidgenossenschaft, 248.
83 The fundamental inability of Bittmann to see beyond his literal reading of the sources is here cru-
elly exposed. He quotes the Milanese envoys who reported to Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza that Bern was
a city bent on war, conscious of its own power and might. Bittmann, Memoiren, 802, following Frédéric
de Gingins La Sarra (ed.), Dépêches des ambassadeurs milanais sur les campagnes de Charles-le-Hardi duc de
Bourgogne de 1474 à 1477 (Paris/Geneva, 1858), 1, 48–50. Whatever the envoys suggested, they cer-
tainly made no mention of any predeterminate hostility on the part of Bern towards Savoy!