Balue, Jean [key], c.1421–1491, French statesman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. A trusted adviser of the French king Louis XI, he saved Paris for the king during the revolt of the League of the Public Weal (1465). Subsequently he conspired with Charles the Bold of Burgundy against Louis and arranged the meeting of the two rulers at Péronne (1468), where Charles made Louis a prisoner. After his release Louis held Balue prisoner from 1469 to 1480, when the pope intervened. The legend that Balue was kept in an iron cage is unproved. Balue went to Rome, but in 1484 he returned temporarily to France as a papal legate.
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