It is said that, at the very moment of execution, Semblancay, waiting on

the scaffold for at least a commutation of the penalty, said, “Had I

served God as I have served the king, He would not have made me wait so

long.” Nearly two centuries later, in 1683, a more celebrated minister

than Semblancay, Colbert, in fact, as he was dying tranquilly in his bed,

after having for twenty years served Louis XIV., and in that service made

the fortune of his family as well as his own, said also, “Had I done for

God what I have done for yonder man, I had been twice saved; and now I

know not what will become of me.” A striking similarity in language and

sentiment, in spite of such different ends, between two great councillors

of kings, both devoted during their lives to the affairs of the world,

and both passing, at their last hour, this severe judgment, as

Christians, upon the masters of the world and upon themselves.

About the same time the government of Francis I. was involved, through

his mother’s evil passions, not in an act more morally shameful, but in

an event more politically serious, than the execution of Semblancay.

There remained in France one puissant prince, the last of the feudal

semi-sovereigns, and the head of that only one of the provincial

dynasties sprung from the dynasty of the Capetians which still held its

own against the kingly house. There were no more Dukes of Burgundy,

Dukes of Anjou, Counts of Provence, and Dukes of Brittany; by good

fortune or by dexterous management the French kingship had absorbed all

those kindred and rival states. Charles II., Duke of Bourbon, alone was

invested with such power and independence as could lead to rivalry. He

was in possession of Bourbonness, of Auvergne, of Le Forez, of La Marche,

of Beaujolais, and a large number of domains and castles in different

parts of France. Throughout all these possessions he levied taxes and

troops, convoked the local estates, appointed the officers of justice,

and regulated almost the whole social organism. He was born on the 10th

of February, 1490, four years before Francis I.; he was the head of the

younger branch of the Bourbons-Montpensier; and he had married, in 1515,

his cousin, Suzanne of Bourbon, only daughter of Peter II., head of the

elder branch, and Anne of France, the able and for a long while puissant

daughter of Louis XI. Louis XII. had taken great interest in this

marriage, and it had been stipulated in the contract “that the pair

should make a mutual and general settlement of all their possessions in

favor of the survivor.” Thus the young duke, Charles, had united all the

possessions of the house of Bourbon; and he held at Moulins a brilliant

princely court, of which he was himself the most brilliant ornament.

Having been trained from his boyhood in all chivalrous qualities, he was

an accomplished knight before becoming a tried warrior; and he no sooner

appeared upon the field of battle than he won renown not only as a

valiant prince, but as an eminent soldier. In 1509, at the battle of

Agnadello, under the eye of Louis XII. himself, he showed that he was a

worthy pupil of La Tremoille, of La Palice, and of Bayard; and in 1512,

at that of Ravenna, his reputation was already so well established in the

army that, when Gaston de Foix was killed, they clamored for Duke Charles

of Bourbon, then twenty-two years old, as his successor. Louis XII.

gave him full credit for his bravery and his warlike abilities; but the

young prince’s unexpansive character, haughty independence, and momentary

flashes of audacity, caused the veteran king some disquietude. “I wish,”

said he, “he had a more open, more gay, less taciturn spirit; stagnant

water affrights me.” In 1516, the year after Louis XII.’s death, Andrew

Trevisani, Venetian ambassador at Milan, wrote to the Venetian council,

“This Duke of Bourbon handles a sword most gallantly and successfully; he

fears God, he is devout, humane, and very generous; he has a revenue of

one hundred and twenty thousand crowns, twenty thousand from his

mother-in-law, Anne of France, and two thousand a month as constable of

France; and, according to what is said by M. de Longueville, governor of

Paris, he might dispose of half the king’s army for any enterprise he

pleased, even if the king did not please.”

Scarcely had Francis I. ascended the throne, on the 12th of January,

1515, when he made the Duke of Bourbon’s great position still greater by

creating him constable of France. Was it solely to attach to himself the

greatest lord and one of the most distinguished soldiers of the kingdom,

or had, perhaps, as has already been hinted, the favor of the

queen-mother something to do with the duke’s speedy elevation? The whole

history of Charles of Bourbon tends to a belief that the feelings of

Louise of Savoy towards him, her love or her hate, had great influence

upon the decisive incidents of his life. However that may be, the young

constable, from the moment of entering upon his office, fully justified

the king’s choice.

[Illustration: The Constable de Bourbon----53]

He it was who, during the first campaign in Italy, examined in person,

with the shepherd who had pointed it out, an unknown passage across the

Alps; and, on the 13th and 14th of September, he contributed greatly to

the victory of Melegnano. “I can assure you,” wrote Francis I. to his

mother, the regent, “that my brother the constable and M. de St. Pol

splintered as many lances as any gentlemen of the company whosoever; and

I speak of this as one who saw; they spared themselves as little as if

they had been wild boars at bay.” On returning to France the king

appointed the constable governor of conquered Milaness; and to give him a

further mark of favor, “he granted him the noble privilege of founding

trades in all the towns of the kingdom. This, when the Parliament

enregistered the king’s letters patent, was expressly stated to be in

consideration of Bourbon’s extraordinary worth, combined with his quality

as a prince of the blood, and not because of his office of constable.”

[_Histoire de la Maison de Bourbon,_ by M. Desormeaux, t. ii. p. 437.]

The constable showed that he was as capable of governing as of

conquering. He foiled all Emperor Maximilian’s attempts to recover

Milaness; and, not receiving from the king money for the maintenance and

pay of his troops, he himself advanced one hundred thousand livres,

opened a loan-account in his own name, raised an army-working-corps of

six thousand men to repair the fortifications of Milan, and obtained from

the Swiss cantons permission to enlist twelve thousand recruits amongst

them. His exercise of authority over the Lombard population was

sometimes harsh, but always judicious and efficient. Nevertheless, in

the spring of 1516, eight months after the victory of Melegnano and but

two months after he had driven Emperor Maximilian from Milaness, the Duke

of Bourbon was suddenly recalled, and Marshal de Lautrec was appointed

governor in his place. When the constable arrived at Lyons, where the

court then happened to be, “the king,” says Fleuranges in his Memoires,

“gave him marvellously good welcome;” but kings are too ready to imagine

that their gracious words suffice to hide or make up for their acts of

real disfavor; and the Duke of Bourbon was too proud to delude himself.

If he had any desire to do so, the way in which the king’s government

treated him soon revealed to him his real position: the advances he had

made and the debts he had contracted for the service of the crown in

Milaness, nay, his salary as constable and his personal pensions, were

unpaid. Was this the effect of secret wrath on the part of the

queen-mother, hurt because he seemed to disdain her good graces, or an

act arising may be from mistrust and may be from carelessness on the

king’s part, or merely a result of the financial disorder into which the

affairs of Francis I. were always falling? These questions cannot be

solved with certainty. Anyhow the constable, though thus maltreated,

did not cry out; but his royal patroness and mother-in-law, Anne of

France, daughter of Louis XI., dowager-duchess of the house of Bourbon,

complained of these proceedings to the king’s mother, and uttered the

word ingratitude. The dispute between the two princesses grew rancorous;

the king intervened to reconcile them; speedy payment was promised of

all that was due to the constable, but the promise was not kept. The

constable did not consider it seemly to wait about; so he quitted the

court and withdrew into his own duchy, to Moulins, not openly disgraced,

but resolved to set himself, by his proud independence, above the reach

of ill-will, whether on the king’s part or his mother’s.

Moulins was an almost kingly residence. “The dukes,” said the Venetian

traveller Andrew Navagero, in 1528, “have built there fortress-wise a

magnificent palace, with beautiful gardens, groves, fountains, and all

the sumptuous appliances of a prince’s dwelling.” No sooner did the

constable go to reside there than numbers of the nobility flocked thither

around him. The feudal splendor of this abode was shortly afterwards

enhanced by an auspicious domestic incident. In 1517 the Duchess of

Bourbon was confined there of a son, a blessing for some time past

unhoped for. The delighted constable determined to make of the child’s

baptism a great and striking event; and he begged the king to come and be

godfather, with the dowager Duchess of Bourbon as godmother. Francis I.

consented and repaired to Moulins with his mother and nearly all his

court. The constable’s magnificence astonished even the magnificent king

“five hundred gentlemen, all clad in velvet, and all wearing a chain of

gold going three times round the neck,” were in habitual attendance upon

the duke; “the throng of the invited was so great that neither the castle

of Moulins nor the town itself sufficed to lodge them; tents had to be

pitched in the public places, in the streets, in the park.” Francis I.

could not refrain from saying that a King of France would have much

difficulty in making such a show; the queen-mother did not hide her

jealousy; regal temper came into collision with feudal pride. Admiral

Bonnivet, a vassal of the constable and a favorite of the king, was

having built, hard by Chatellerault, a castle so vast and so magnificent,

“that he seemed,” says Brantome, “to be minded to ride the high horse

over the house of M. de Bourbon, in such wise that it should appear only

a nest beside his own.” Francis I., during a royal promenade, took the

constable one day to see the edifice the admiral was building, and asked

him what he thought of it. “I think,” said Bourbon, “that the cage is

too big and too fine for the bird.” “Ah!” said the king, “do you not

speak with somewhat of envy?” “I!” cried the constable; “I feel envy of

a gentleman whose ancestors thought themselves right happy to be squires

to mine!” In their casual and familiar conversations the least pretext

would lead to sharp words between the Duke of Bourbon and his kingly

guest. The king was rallying him one day on the attachment he was

suspected of having felt for a lady of the court. “Sir,” said the

constable, “what you have just said has no point for me, but a good deal

for those who were not so forward as I was in the lady’s good graces.”

[At this period princes of the blood, when speaking to the king, said

Monsieur; when they wrote to him, they called him Monseigneur.] Francis

I., to whom this scarcely veiled allusion referred, was content to reply,

“Ah! my dear cousin, you fly out at everything, and you are mighty

short-tempered.” The nickname of short-tempered stuck to the constable

from that day, and not without reason. With anybody but the king the

constable was a good deal more than short-tempered the chancellor,

Duprat, who happened to be at Moulins, and who had a wish to become

possessed of two estates belonging to the constable, tried to worm

himself into his good graces; but Bourbon gave him sternly to understand

with what contempt he regarded him, and Duprat, who had hitherto been

merely the instrument of Louise of Savoy’s passions, so far as the duke

was concerned, became henceforth his personal enemy, and did not wait

long for an opportunity of making the full weight of his enmity felt.

The king’s visit to Moulins came to an end without any settlement of

the debts due from the royal treasury to the constable. Three years

afterwards, in 1520, he appeared with not a whit the less magnificence

at the Field of Cloth of Gold, where he was one of the two great lords

chosen by Francis I. to accompany him at his interview with Henry VIII.;

but the constable had to put up with the disagreeableness of having for

his associate upon that state occasion Admiral Bonnivet, whom he had but

lately treated with so much hauteur, and his relations towards the court

were by no means improved by the honor which the king conferred upon him

in summoning him to his side that day. Henry VIII., who was struck by

this vassal’s haughty bearing and looks, said to Francis I., “If I had a

subject like that in my kingdom, I would not leave his head very long on

his shoulders.”

More serious causes of resentment came to aggravate a situation already

so uncomfortable. The war, which had been a-hatching ever since the

imperial election at Frankfort, burst out in 1521, between Francis I.

and Charles V. Francis raised four armies in order to face it on all his

frontiers, in Guienne, in Burgundy, in Champagne, and in Picardy, “where

there was no army,” says Du Bellai, “however small.” None of these great

commands was given to the Duke of Bourbon; and when the king summoned him

to the army of Picardy, whither he repaired in all haste with six

thousand foot and three hundred men-at-arms raised in his own states,

the command of the advance-guard, which belonged to him by right of his

constableship, was given to the Duke of Alencon, who had nothing to

recommend him beyond the fact that he was the husband of Marguerite de

Valois and brother-in-law of the king. Bourbon deeply resented this

slight; and it was remarked that he frequently quoted with peculiar

meaning a reply made by a Gascon gentleman to King Charles VII., who had

asked him if anything could shake his fidelity, “Nothing, sir, nothing;

not even an offer of three such kingdoms as yours; but an affront might.”

The constable did not serve a whit the less valiantly and brilliantly in

this campaign of Picardy; he surprised and carried the town of Hesdin,

which was defended by a strong garrison; but after the victory he treated

with a generosity which was not perhaps free from calculation the

imperialist nobility shut up in the castle; he set all his prisoners at

large, and paid particular attention to the Countess de Roeux, of the

house of Croy, whom he knew to have influence with Charles V. He was

certainly not preparing just then to abandon the King of France and go

over to the camp of the emperor; but he was sufficiently irritated

against Francis I. to gladly seize an opportunity of making new friends

on the rival side.

Meanwhile there occurred the event which was to decide his conduct and

his destiny. His wife, Suzanne of Bourbon, died at Chatellerault, in

April, 1521, after having lost the son whose birth had been celebrated

with such brilliancy at Moulins, and having confirmed by her will the

settlement upon her husband of all her possessions, which had already

been conferred upon him by their marriage contract. From whom came the

first idea of the proposal to which this death was ere long to lead? Was

it the chancellor, Duprat, who told the mother of Francis I. that the

will and the settlement might be disputed at law, and that she would then

enter into possession of a great part of what belonged to the House of

Bourbon? Was it Louise of Savoy herself who conceived the hope of

satisfying at one and the same time her cupidity and the passion she felt

for the constable, by having an offer made to him of her hand, with the

retention secured to him of those great possessions which, otherwise,

would be disputed, and which a decree of Parliament might take away from

him? Between these two explanations of what occurred at that time, there

is no certain choice afforded by historical documents; but the more

reasonable conviction is, that the passion of Louise of Savoy was the

first and the decisive cause of the proposal made to the constable. He

was then thirty years old; Louise of Savoy was forty-five, but she was

still beautiful, attractive, and puissant; she had given the constable

unmistakable proofs of her inclination for him and of the influence which

his inclinations exercised over her: she might well flatter herself that

he would be attracted by the prospect of becoming the king’s step-father

and almost a sharer in the kingly power, whilst retaining that of the

great feudal lord. The chancellor, Duprat, full of ability and

servility, put all his knowledge, all his subtlety in argument, and all

his influence in the Parliament at the disposal of Madame Louise, who, as

a nearer relative than the constable, claimed the possessions left by his

wife, Suzanne of Bourbon. Francis I., in the name of the crown, and in

respect of the constable’s other possessions, joined his claims to those

of his mother. Thus the lawsuit with which the duke was threatened

affected him in every part of his fortune. It was in vain that more or

less direct overtures, on behalf of Madame Louise and of the king

himself, were made to induce him to accept the bargain offered: his

refusal was expressed and given with an open contempt that verged upon

coarseness. “I will never,” said he, “marry a woman devoid of modesty.”

The lawsuit was begun and prosecuted with all the hatred of a great lady

treated with contempt, and with all the knowingness of an unscrupulous

lawyer eager to serve, in point of fact, his patroness, and to

demonstrate, in point of law, the thesis he had advanced. Francis I.,

volatile, reckless, and ever helpless as he was against the passions of

his mother, who whilst she adored, beguiled him, readily lent himself to

the humiliation of a vassal who was almost his rival in puissance, and

certainly was in glory. Three lawyers of renown entered upon the

struggle. Poyet maintained the pretensions of the queen-mother; Lizet

developed Duprat’s argument in favor of the king’s claims; Montholon

defended the constable. The Parliament granted several adjournments,

and the question was in suspense for eleven months. At last, in August,

1523, the court interest was triumphant; Parliament, to get rid of direct

responsibility, referred the parties, as to the basis of the question, to

the king’s council; but it placed all the constable’s possessions under

sequestration, withdrawing the enjoyment of them wholly from him. A few

years afterwards Poyet became chancellor, and Lizet premier-president of

Parliament. “Worth alone,” say the historians, “carved out for Montholon

at a later period the road to the office of keeper of the seals.”

The constable’s fall and ruin were complete. He at an early stage had a

presentiment that such would be the issue of his lawsuit, and sought for

safeguards away from France. The affair was causing great stir in

Europe. Was it, however, Charles V. who made the first overtures as the

most efficient supporter the constable could have? Or was it the

constable himself who, profiting by the relations he had established

after the capture of Hesdin with the Croys, persons of influence with the

emperor, made use of them for getting into direct communication with

Charles V., and made offer of his services in exchange for protection

against his own king and his own country? In such circumstances and in

the case of such men the sources of crime are always surrounded with

obscurity. One is inclined to believe that Charles V., vigilant and

active as he was, put out the first feelers. As soon as he heard that

Bourbon was a widower, he gave instructions to Philibert Naturelli, his

ambassador in France, who said, “Sir, you are now in a position to marry,

and the emperor, my master, who is very fond of you, has a sister

touching whom I have orders to speak to you if you will be pleased to

hearken.” It was to Charles V.’s eldest sister, Eleanor, widow of Manuel

the Fortunate, King of Portugal, that allusion was made. This overture

led to nothing at the time; but the next year, in 1522, war was declared

between Francis I. and Charles V.; the rupture between Francis I. and the

Duke of Bourbon took place; the Bourbon lawsuit was begun; and the duke’s

mother-in-law, Anne of France, daughter of Louis XI., more concerned for

the fate of her House than for that of her country, and feeling herself

near her end, said one day to her son-in-law, “My son, reflect that the

House of Bourbon made alliance with the House of Burgundy, and that

during that alliance it always prospered. You see at the present moment

what is the state of our affairs, and the lawsuit in which you are

involved is proceeded with only for want of alliances. I do beg and

command you to accept the emperor’s alliance. Promise me to use thereto

all the diligence you can, and I shall die more easy.” She died on the

14th of November, 1522, bequeathing all her possessions to the constable,

who was day by day more disposed to follow her counsels. In the summer

of 1522, he had, through the agency of Adrian de Croy, Lord of Beaurain,

entered into negotiations not only with Charles V., but also with Henry

VIII., King of England, deploring the ill behavior of Francis I. and the

enormity of existing abuses, and proposing to set on foot in his own

possessions a powerful movement for the reformation of the kingdom and

the relief of the poor people, if the two sovereigns would send “persons

of trust and authority into the vicinity of his principality of Dombes,

to Bourg-en-Bresse, whither he on his side would send his chancellor to

come to an agreement with them and act in common.” In the month of

March, 1523, whilst the foreign negotiations thus commenced and the

home-process against the constable were pursuing a parallel course,

Bourbon one day paid a visit to Queen Claude of France at the hour when

she was dining alone. She was favorably disposed towards him, and would

have liked to get him married to her sister Renee, who subsequently

became Duchess of Ferrara. She made him sit down. Francis I., who was

at dinner in an adjacent room, came in. Bourbon rose to take leave.

“Nay, keep your seat,” said the king; “and so it is true that you are

going to be married?” “Not at all, sir.” “O, but I know it; I am sure

of it; I know of your dealings with the emperor. And bear well in mind

what I have to say to you on the subject.” “Sir! is this a threat, pray?

I have not deserved such treatment.” After dinner he departed and went

back to his hotel hard by the Louvre; and many gentlemen who happened to

be at court accompanied him by way of escort. He was as yet a powerful

vassal, who was considered to be unjustly persecuted.

Charles V. accepted eagerly the overtures made to him by Bourbon in

response to his own; but, before engaging in action, he wished to be

certified about the disposition of Henry VIII., King of England, and he

sent Beaurain to England to take accurate soundings. Henry at first

showed hesitation. When, Beaurain set before him all the advantages that

would accrue to their coalition from the Duke of Bourbon’s alliance: “And

I,” said the king, brusquely, “what, pray, shall I get?” “Sir,” answered

Beaurain, “you will be King of France.” “Ah!” rejoined Henry, “it will

take a great deal to make M. de Bourbon obey me.” Henry remembered the

cold and proud bearing which the constable had maintained towards him at

the Field of Cloth of Gold. He, nevertheless, engaged to supply half the

expenses and a body of troops for the projected invasion of France.

Charles V. immediately despatched Beaurain to the Duke of Bourbon, who

had removed to Montbrison, in the most mountainous part of his domains,

on pretext of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame du Puy. Beaurain was conducted

thither, in great secrecy, on the 17th July, 1523, by two of the duke’s

gentlemen, and passed two days there shut up in a room adjoining the

constable’s apartment, never emerging save at night to transact business

with him. On the 18th of July, in the evening, he put into Bourbon’s

hands his letters of credit, running thus: “My dear cousin, I send to you

Sieur de Beaurain, my second chamberlain. I pray you to consider him as

myself, and, so doing, you will find me ever your good cousin and

friend.” The negotiation was speedy. Many historians have said that it

was confined to verbal conventions, and that there was nothing in writing

between the two contracting parties. That is a mistake. A treaty was

drawn up in brief terms by Beaurain’s secretary, and two copies were

made, of which one was to be taken to Charles V. and the other to be

left with the Duke of Bourbon. It stipulated the mutual obligations of

the three contracting parties in their offensive and defensive league.

Bourbon engaged to attack Francis I. but he would not promise to

acknowledge Henry VIII. as King of France. “I am quite willing to be his

ally,” he said, “but his subject, his vassal, no! All I can do is to

leave myself, as to my relations towards him, in the emperor’s hands.”

A strange and noble relic of patriotism in that violent and haughty soul,

more concerned for its rights than its duties, and driven to extremity by

the acts of ungrateful and unthoughtful injustice, to which the great

lord and the valiant warrior had been subjected. The treaty having been

signed with this reservation, Bourbon sent, about midnight, for

Saint-Bonnet, Lord of Branon, whom he intended to despatch to Charles

V., and, after having sworn him, “I send you,” said he, “to the emperor,

to whom you will say that I commend myself humbly to his good graces,

that I beg him to give me his sister in marriage, and that, doing me

this honor, he will find me his servant, his good brother, and friend.”

The fatal step was taken. Bourbon was now engaged in revolt against his

king and his country, as well as in falsehood and treason--preliminary

conditions of such a course. He needed tools and accomplices; and though

he had a numerous and devoted following, he could not feel sure of them

all for such a purpose. The very day after the conclusion of his treaty

with Charles V., one of his most intimate and important confidants, John

of Poitiers, Lord of St. Vallier, who was present at Montbrison during

the negotiation of the treaty, said to him in the morning, “Sir, it was

your wish; I heard all; and I spent the whole night thinking about it;

tell me, I pray you, do you feel sure of your friend?” “I was not more

fond of the brother I lost at Melegnano,” said the constable; “I should

not have felt more sure of him.” “Well, then,” rejoined St. Vallier,

“fancy that it is that brother who is speaking to you, and take in good

part what he is about to say to you. This alliance which is offered to

you will bring upon France the Germans, the Spaniards, and the English;

think of the great mischief which will ensue--human bloodshed,

destruction of towns, of good families and of churches, violation of

women, and other calamities that come of war. Reflect also on the great

treason you are committing; when the king has started for Italy and left

you in France, putting his trust in you, you will go and stab him in the

back, and destroy him as well as his kingdom. You belong to the House of

France, and are one of the chief princes of the country, so beloved and

esteemed by all that everybody is gladdened at the very sight of you. If

you should come to be the cause of so great ruin, you will be the most

accursed creature that ever was, accursed for a thousand years after your

death. For the love of God consider all this; and if you have no regard

for the king and Madame his mother, who, you say, are treating you

wrongfully, at least have some regard for the queen and the princes her

children, and do not wilfully cause the perdition of this kingdom, whose

enemies, when you have let them into it, will drive you out of it

yourself.” “But, cousin,” said the constable, quite overcome, “what

would you have me to do? The king and Madame mean to destroy me; they

have already taken away a part of my possessions.” “Sir,” replied

Saint-Vallier, “give up, I pray you, all these wicked enterprises; commend

yourself to God, and speak frankly to the king.” If we are to believe

Saint-Vallier’s deposition, when, six months afterwards, he was put on

his trial and convicted for his participation in the plot and treason,

the constable was sufficiently affected by his representations to promise

that he would abandon his design and make his peace with the king: but

facts refute this assertion. In the latter months of 1523, the

stipulations of the treaty concluded at Montbrison on the 18th of July

were put into execution by all the contracting parties; letters of

exchange from Henry VIII. were sent to Bale for the German lanzknechts he

was to pay; the lanzknechts crossed the Rhine on the 26th of August, and

marched through Franche-Comte in spite of its neutrality; the English

landed at Calais between the 23d and 30th of August, to co-operate with

the Flemings; the Spaniards began the campaign, on the 6th of September,

in the direction of the Pyrenees; and the Duke, of Bourbon on his side

took all the necessary measures for forming a junction with his allies,

and playing that part in the coalition which had been assigned to him.

According to what appears, he had harbored a design of commencing his

enterprise with a very bold stroke. Being informed that Francis I. was

preparing to go in person and wage war upon Italy, he had resolved to

carry him off on the road to Lyons, and, when once he had the king in his

hands, he flattered himself he would do as he pleased with the kingdom.

If his attempt were unsuccessful, be would bide his time until Francis I.

was engaged in Milaness, Charles V. had entered Guienne, and Henry VIII.

was in Picardy: he would then assemble a thousand men-at-arms, six

thousand foot and twelve thousand lanzknechts, and would make for the

Alps to cut the king off from any communication with France. This plan

rested upon the assumption that the king would, as he had announced,

leave the constable in France with an honorable title and an apparent

share in the government of the kingdom, though really isolated and

debarred from action. But Francis had full cognizance of the details of

the conspiracy through two Norman gentlemen whom the constable had

imprudently tried to get to join in it, and who, not content with

refusing, had revealed the matter at confession to the Bishop of Lisieux,

who had lost no time in giving information to Sire de Breze, grand

seneschal of Normandy. Breze at once reported it to the king, and his

letter ran: “Sir, there is need also to take care of yourself, for there

has been talk of an attempt to carry you off between here and Lyons, and

conduct you to a strong place in the Bourbon district or on the borders

of Auvergne.” Being at last seriously disquieted for the consequences of

his behavior towards the constable, Francis took two resolutions: one

was, not to leave him in France during his own absence; the other was,

to go and see him at Moulins, at the same time taking all necessary

precautions for his own safety, and win him over once more by announcing

an intention of taking him off to Italy and sharing with him the command

of the army. On approaching Moulins the king recalled the lanzknechts

who had already passed the town, entered it himself surrounded by his

guards, and took up his quarters in the castle, of which he seized the

keys. At his first interview with the constable, who was slightly

indisposed and pretended to be very much so, “I know,” said he, “that you

are keeping up a connection with the emperor, and that he is trying to

turn your discontent to advantage, so as to beguile you; but I have faith

in you; you are of the House of France and of the line of Bourbon, which

has never produced a traitor.” “It is true, sir,” said the constable,

without any confusion; “the emperor, informed by public rumor of the

position to which I am reduced, sent Beaurain to offer me an asylum in

his dominions and a fortune suitable to my birth and my rank; but I know

the value of empty compliments. Hearing that your Majesty was to pass by

Moulins, I thought it my duty to wait and disclose this secret to you

myself rather than intrust it to a letter.” The king showed signs of

being touched. “I have an idea of taking you away with me to Italy,”

said he: “would you come with me willingly?” “Not only to Italy,” was

the answer, “but to the end of the world. The doctors assure me that I

shall soon be in a condition to bear the motion of a litter; I already

feel better; your Majesty’s kindnesses will soon complete my cure.”

Francis testified his satisfaction. Some of his advisers, with more

distrust and more prevision, pressed him to order the arrest of so

dangerous a man, notwithstanding his protestations; but Francis refused.

According to what some historians say, if he had taken off the

sequestration laid upon the constable’s possessions, actually restored

them to him, as well as discharged the debts due to him and paid his

pensions, and carried him off to Italy, if, in a word, he had shown a

bold confidence and given back to him at once and forever the whole of

his position, he would, perhaps, have weaned him from his plot, and would

have won back to himself and to France that brave and powerful servant.

But Francis wavered between distrust and hope; he confined himself to

promising the constable restitution of his possessions if the decree of

Parliament was unfavorable to him; he demanded of him a written

engagement to remain always faithful to him and to join him in Italy as

soon as his illness would allow him; and, on taking leave of him, left

with him one of his own gentlemen, Peter de Brentonniere, Lord of Warthy,

with orders to report to the king as to his health. In this officer

Bourbon saw nothing more or less than a spy, and in the king’s promises

nothing but vain words dependent as they were upon the issue of a lawsuit

which still remained an incubus upon him. He had no answer for words but

words; he undertook the engagements demanded of him by the king without

considering them binding; and he remained ill at Moulins, waiting till

events should summon him to take action with his foreign allies.

This state of things lasted far nearly three weeks. The king remained

stationary at Lyons waiting for the constable to join him; and the

constable, saying he was ready to set out and going so far as to actually

begin his march, was doing his three leagues a day by litter, being

always worse one day than he was the day before. Peter de Warthy, the

officer whom the king had left with him, kept going and coming from Lyons

to Moulins and from Moulins to Lyons, conveying to the constable the

king’s complaints and to the king the constable’s excuses, without

bringing the constable to decide upon joining the king at Lyons and

accompanying him into Italy, or the king upon setting out for Italy

without the constable. “I would give a hundred thousand crowns,” the

king sent word to Bourbon, “to be in Lombardy.” “The king will do well,”

answered Bourbon, “to get there as soon as possible, for despatch is

needful beyond everything.” When Warthy insisted strongly, the constable

had him called up to his bedside; and “I feel myself,” said he, “the

most unlucky man in the world not to be able to serve the king; but if I

were to be obstinate, the doctors who are attending me would not answer

for my life, and I am even worse than the doctors think. I shall never

be in a condition to do the king service any more. I am going back to my

native air, and, if I recover a day’s health, I will go to the king.”

“The king will be terribly put out,” said Warthy; and he returned to

Lyons to report these remarks of the real or pretended invalid. While he

was away, the constable received from England and Spain news which made

him enter actively upon his preparations; he heard at the same time that

the king was having troops marched towards Bourbonness so as to lay

violent hands on him if he did not obey; he, therefore, decided to go and

place himself in security in his strong castle of Chantelle, where he

could await the movements of his allies; he mounted his horse, did six

leagues at one stretch, and did not draw bridle until he had entered

Chantelle. Warthy speedily came and rejoined him. He found the

constable sitting on his bed, dressed like an invalid and with his head

enveloped in a night-cap. “M. de Warthy,” said Bourbon, “you bring your

spurs pretty close after mine.” “My lord,” was the reply, “you have

better ones than I thought.” “Think you,” said Bourbon, “that I did not

well, having but a finger’s breadth of life, to put it as far out of the

way as I could to avoid the king’s fury?” “The king,” said Warthy, “was

never furious towards any man; far less would he be so in your case.”

“Nay, nay,” rejoined the constable, “I know that the grand master and

Marshal de Chabannes set out from Lyons with the archers of the guard and

four or five thousand lanzknechts to seize me; and that is what made me

come to this house whilst biding my time until the king shall be pleased

to hear me.” He demanded that the troops sent against him should be

ordered to halt till the morrow, promising not to stir from Chantelle

without a vindication of himself. “Whither would you go, my lord?” said

Warthy: “if you wished to leave the kingdom, you could not; the king has

provided against that everywhere.”

“Nay,” said Bourbon, “I have no wish to leave the kingdom; I have

friends and servants there.” Warthy went away from Chantelle in company

with the Bishop of Autun, Chiverny, who was one of the constable’s most

trusted friends, and who was bearer to the king of a letter which ran

thus: “Provided it please the king to restore to him his possessions, my

lord of Bourbon promises to serve him well and heartily, in all places

and at all times at which it shall seem good to him. In witness whereof,

he has signed these presents, and begs the king to be pleased to pardon

those towards whom he is ill disposed on account of this business.

CHARLES.” In writing this letter the constable had no other object than

to gain a little time, for, on bidding good by to the Bishop of Autun,

he said to him, “Farewell, my dear bishop; I am off to Carlat, and from

Carlat I shall slip away with five or six horses on my road to Spain.”

On the next day but one, indeed, the 8th of September, 1523, whilst the

Bishop of Autun was kept prisoner by the troops sent forward to

Chantelle, the constable sallied from it about one in the morning, taking

with him five-and-twenty or thirty thousand crowns of gold sewn up in

from twelve to fifteen jackets, each of which was intrusted to a man in

his train. For a month he wandered about Bourbonness, Auvergne,

Burgundy, Beaujolais, Vienness, Languedoc, and Dauphiny, incessantly

changing his road, his comrades, his costume, and his asylum,

occasionally falling in with soldiers of the king who were repairing to

Italy, and seeking for some place whence he might safely concert with and

act with his allies. At last, in the beginning of October, he arrived at

Saint-Claude, in Franche-Comte, imperial territory, and on the 9th of

October he made his entry into Besancon, where there came to join him

some of his partisans who from necessity or accident had got separated

from him, without his having been able anywhere in his progress to excite

any popular movement, form any collection of troops, or intrench himself

strongly in his own states. To judge from appearances, he was now but a

fugitive conspirator, without domains and without an army.

Such, however, were his fame and importance as a great lord and great

warrior, that Francis I., as soon as he knew him to be beyond his reach

and in a fair way to co-operate actively with his enemies, put off his

departure for Italy, and “offered the redoubtable fugitive immediate

restitution of his possessions, reimbursement from the royal treasury of

what was due to him, renewal of his pensions and security that they would

be paid him with punctuality.” Bourbon refused everything. “It is too

late,” he replied. Francis I.’s envoy then asked him to give up the

sword of constable and the collar of the order of St. Michael. “You

will tell the king,” rejoined Bourbon, “that he took from me the sword

of constable on the day that he took from me the command of the

advance-guard to give it to M. d’Alencon. As for the collar of his

order, you will find it at Chantelle under the pillow of my bed.”

Francis I., in order to win back Bourbon, had recourse to his sister, the

Duchess of Lorraine [Renee de Bourbon, who had married, in 1515, Antony,

called the Good, Duke of Lorraine, son of Duke Rend II. and his second

wife, Philippine of Gueldres]: but she was not more successful. After

sounding him, she wrote to Francis I. that the duke her brother “was

determined to go through with his enterprise, and that he proposed to

draw off towards Flanders by way of Lorraine with eighteen hundred horse

and ten thousand foot, and form a junction with the King of England.”

[M. Mignet, _Etude sur le Connetable de Bourbon, in the Revue des Deux

Mondes_ of January 15, 1854, and March 15 and April 1, 1858.]

Under such grave and urgent circumstances, Francis I. behaved on the one

hand with more prudence and efficiency than he had yet displayed, and on

the other with his usual levity and indulgence towards his favorites.

Abandoning his expedition in person into Italy, he first concerned

himself for that internal security of his kingdom, which was threatened

on the east and north by the Imperialists and the English, and on the

south by the Spaniards, all united in considerable force and already in

motion. Francis opposed to them in the east and north the young Count

Claude of Guise, the first celebrity amongst his celebrated race, the

veteran Louis de La Tremoille, the most tried of all his warriors, and

the Duke of Vendome, head of the younger branch of the House of Bourbon.

Into the south he sent Marshal de Lautrec, who was more brave than

successful, but of proved fidelity. All these captains acquitted

themselves honorably. Claude of Guise defeated a body of twelve thousand

lanzknechts who had already penetrated into Champagne; he hurled them

back into Lorraine, and dispersed them beneath the walls of the little

town of Neufchateau, where the princesses and ladies of Lorraine, showing

themselves at the windows, looked on and applauded their discomfiture.

La Tremoille’s only forces were very inferior to the thirty-five thousand

Imperialists or English who had entered Picardy; but he managed to make

of his small garrisons such prompt and skilful use that the invaders were

unable to get hold of a single place, and advanced somewhat heedlessly to

the very banks of the Oise, whence the alarm spread rapidly to Paris.

The Duke of Vendome, whom the king at once despatched thither with a

small body of men-at-arms, marched night and day to the assistance of the

Parisians, harangued the Parliament and Hotel de Ville vehemently on the

conspiracy of the Constable de Bourbon, and succeeded so well in

reassuring them that companies of the city militia eagerly joined his

troops, and the foreigners, in dread of finding themselves hemmed in,

judged it prudent to fall back, leaving Picardy in a state of equal

irritation and devastation. In the south, Lautrec, after having made

head for three days and three nights against the attacks of a Spanish

army which had crossed the Pyrenees under the orders of the Constable of

Castille, forced it to raise the siege and beat a retreat. Everywhere,

in the provinces as well as at the court, the feudal nobility, chieftains

and simple gentlemen, remained faithful to the king; the magistrates and

the people supported the military; it was the whole nation that rose

against the great lord, who, for his own purposes, was making alliance

with foreigners against the king and the country.

In respect of Italy, Francis I. was less wise and less successful. Not

only did he persist in the stereotyped madness of the conquest of

Milaness and the kingdom of Naples, but abandoning for the moment the

prosecution of it in person, he intrusted it to his favorite, Admiral

Bonnivet, a brave soldier, alternately rash and backward, presumptuous

and irresolute, who had already lost credit by the mistakes he had

committed and the reverses he had experienced in that arena. At the very

juncture when Francis I. confided this difficult charge to Bonnivet, the

Constable de Bourbon, having at last got out of France, crossed Germany,

repaired to Italy, and halted at Mantua, Piacenza, and Genoa; and, whilst

waiting for a reply from Charles V., whom he had informed of his arrival,

he associated with the leaders of the imperial armies, lived amongst the

troops, inoculated them with his own ardor as well as warlike views, and

by his natural superiority regained, amongst the European coalition, the

consideration and authority which had been somewhat diminished by his

ill-success in his own country and his flight from it. Charles V. was

some time about sending an answer; for, in his eyes also, Bourbon had

fallen somewhat. “Was it prudent,” says the historian of Bourbon

himself, “to trust a prince who, though born near the throne, had

betrayed his own blood and forsworn his own country? Charles V. might no

doubt have insured his fidelity, had he given him in marriage Eleanor of

Austria, who was already affianced to him; but he could not make up his

mind to unite the destiny of a princess, his own sister, with that of a

prince whose position was equally pitiable and criminal. At last,

however, he decided to name him his lieutenant-general in Italy; but he

surrounded him with so many colleagues and so much surveillance that he

had nothing to fear from his remorse and repentance.” [_Histoire de la

Maison de Bourbon,_ t. ii. p. 531.] Bourbon, however, though thus placed

in a position of perplexity and difficulty, was none the less an

adversary with whom Bonnivet was not in a condition to cope.

It was not long before this was proved by facts. The campaign of 1524 in

Italy, brilliant as was its beginning, what with the number and the fine

appearance of the troops under Bonnivet’s orders, was, as it went on,

nothing but a series of hesitations, contradictory movements, blunders,

and checks, which the army itself set down to its general’s account.

Bonnivet, during his investment of Milan, had posted Bayard with a small

corps in the village of Rebec. “The good knight, who was never wont to

murmur at any commission given him, said, ‘Sir Admiral, you would send me

to a village hard by the enemy, the which is without any fortress, and

would need four times so many men as I have, for to be in safety and to

hold it.’ ‘Sir Bayard,’ said the admiral, ‘go in peace; on my faith I

promise you that within three days I will send you plenty of men with you

for to hold Rebec, since I well know that it is not to be held with so

few men; but never you mind; there shall not a mouse get out of Milan

without you have notice of it.’ And so much did he say of one sort and

another that the good knight, with great disgust, went away with the men

told off to him to his post in Rebec. He wrote many times to the admiral

that he was in very dangerous plight, and that, if he would have them

hold out long, he should send him aid; but he got no answer. The enemies

who were inside Milan were warned that the good knight was in Rebec with

very little company; so they decided on a night to go and surprise and

defeat him. And the good knight, who was ever on his guard, set nearly

every night half his men to watch and to listen, and himself passed two

or three nights at it, in such sort that he fell ill, as much from

melancholy as from cold, and far more than he let it appear; howbeit he

was forced to keep his room that day. When it came on towards night, he

ordered some captains who were with him to go on the watch. They went,

or made show of going; but, because it rained a little, back went all

those who were on the watch, save three or four poor archers, the which,

when the Spaniards approached within bow-shot of the village, made no

resistance, but took to flight, shouting, ‘Alarm alarm!’ The good

knight, who in such jeopardy never slept but with his clothes on, rose at

once, had the bridle put on a charger that was already saddled, and went

off with five or six men-at-arms of his, straight to the barrier whither

incontinently came up Captain Lorges and a certain number of his foot,

who bore themselves mighty well. The uproar was great and the alarm was

hot. Then said the good knight to Captain Lorges, ‘Lorges, my friend,

this is an unequal sort of game; if they pass this barrier we are cooked.

I pray you, retire your men, keep the best order you can, and march

straight to the camp at Abbiate-Grasso; I, with the horse I have, will

remain in the rear. We must leave our baggage to the enemy; there is no

help for it. Save we the lives if possible.’ . . . The enemy sought

on all sides for the good knight, but he had already arrived at

Abbiate-Grasso, where he had some unpleasant words with the admiral;

howbeit, I will not make any mention of them; but if they had both lived

longer than they did live, they would probably have gone a little

farther. The good knight was like to die of grief at the mishap that

had befallen him, even though it was not his fault; but in war there is

hap and mishap more than in all other things.” [_Histoire du bon

Chevalier sans Peur et sans Reproche,_ t. ii. pp. 120-123. _Les Gestes

et la Vie du Chevalier Bayard,_ by Champier, pp. 171-174.]

The situation of the French army before Milan was now becoming more and

more, not insecure only, but critical. Bonnivet considered it his duty

to abandon it and fall back towards Piedmont, where he reckoned upon

finding a corps of five thousand Swiss who were coming to support their

compatriots engaged in the service of France. Near Romagnano, on the

banks of the Sesia, the retreat was hotly pressed by the imperial army,

the command of which had been ultimately given by Charles V. to the

Constable de Bourbon, with whom were associated the Viceroy of Naples,

Charles de Lannoy, and Ferdinand d’Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, the most

able amongst the Neapolitan officers. On the 30th of April, 1524, some

disorder took place in the retreat of the French; and Bonnivet, being

severely wounded, had to give up the command to the Count of St. Pol and

to Chevalier Bayard. Bayard, last as well as first in the fight,

according to his custom, charged at the head of some men-at-arms upon the

Imperialists, who were pressing the French too closely, when he was

himself struck by a shot from an arquebuse, which shattered his reins.

“Jesus, my God,” he cried, “I am dead!” He then took his sword by the

handle, and kissed the cross-hilt of it as the sign of the cross, saying

aloud as he did so, “Have pity on me, O God, according to Thy great

mercy” (Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam);

thereupon he became incontinently quite pale, and all but fell; but he

still had heart enough to grasp the pommel of the saddle, and remained in

that condition until a young gentleman, his own house-steward, helped him

to dismount and set him down under a tree, with his face to the enemy.

The poor gentleman burst into tears, seeing his good master so mortally

hurt that remedy there was none; but the good knight consoled him gently,

saying, “Jacques, my friend, leave off thy mourning; it is God’s will to

take me out of this world; by His grace I have lived long therein, and

have received therein blessings and honors more than my due. All the

regret I feel at dying is that I have not done my duty so well as I

ought. I pray you, Jacques, my friend, let them not take me up from this

spot, for, when I move, I feel all the pains that one can feel, short of

death, which will seize me soon.” The Constable de Bourbon, being

informed of his wound, came to him, saying, “Bayard, my friend, I am sore

distressed at your mishap; there is nothing for it but patience; give not

way to melancholy; I will send in quest of the best surgeons in this

country, and, by God’s help, you will soon be healed.” “My lord,”

answered Bayard, “there is no pity for me; I die having done my duty; but

I have pity for you, to see you serving against your king, your country,

and your oath.” Bourbon withdrew without a word. The Marquis of Pescara

came passing by. “Would to God, gentle Sir Bayard,” said he, “that it

had cost me a quart of my blood, without meeting my death, that I had

been doomed not to taste meat for two years, and that I held you safe and

sound my prisoner, for by the treatment I showed you, you should have

understanding of how much I esteemed the high prowess that was in you.”

He ordered his people to rig up a tent over Bayard, and to forbid any

noise near him, so that he might die in peace. Bayard’s own gentlemen

would not, at any price, leave him. “I do beseech you,” he said to them,

“to get you gone; else you might fall into the enemy’s hands, and that

would profit me nothing, for all is over with me. To God I commend ye,

my good friends; and I recommend to you my poor soul; and salute, I pray

you, the king our master, and tell him that I am distressed at being no

longer able to do him service, for I had good will thereto. And to my

lords the princes of France, and all my lords my comrades, and generally

to all gentlemen of the most honored realm of France when ye see them.”

[Illustration: The Death of Bayard----76]

“He lived for two or three hours yet. There was brought to him a priest,

to whom he confessed, and then he yielded up his soul to God; whereat all

the enemy had mourning incredible. Five days after his death, on the 5th

of May, 1524, Beaurain wrote to Charles V., ‘Sir, albeit Sir Bayard was

your enemy’s servant, yet was it pity of his death, for ‘twas a gentle

knight, well beloved of every one, and one that lived as good a life as

ever any man of his condition. And in truth he fully showed it by his

end, for it was the most beautiful that I ever heard tell of.’ By the

chiefs of the Spanish army certain gentlemen were commissioned to bear

him to the church, where solemn service was done for him during two days.

Then, by his own servitors was he carried into Dauphiny, and, on passing

through the territory of the Duke of Savoy, where the body was rested, he

did it as many honors as if it had been his own brother’s. When the news

of his death was known in Dauphiny, I trow that never for a thousand

years died there gentleman of the country mourned in such sort. He was

borne from church to church, at first near Grenoble, where all my lords

of the parliament court of Dauphiny, my lords of the Exchequer, pretty

well all the nobles of the country and the greater part of all the

burgesses, townsfolk, and villagers came half a league to meet the body:

then into the church of Notre-Dame, in the aforesaid Grenoble, where a

solemn service was done for him; then to a house of _Minimes,_ which had

been founded aforetime by his good uncle the bishop of Grenoble, Laurens

Alment; and there he was honorably interred. Then every one withdrew to

his own house; but for a month there was a stop put to festivals dances,

banquets, and all other pastimes. ‘Las! they had good reason; for

greater loss could not have come upon the country.” [_Histoire du bon

Chevalier sans Peur et sans Reproche,_ t. ii. pp. 125-132.]

It is a duty and an honor for history to give to such lives and such

deaths, as remarkable for modesty as for manly worth, the full place

which they ought to occupy in the memory of mankind.

The French army continued its retreat under the orders of the Count of

St. Pol, and re-entered France by way of Suza and Briancon. It was

Francis I.’s third time of losing Milaness. Charles V., enchanted at the

news, wrote on the 24th of May to Henry VIII., “I keep you advertised of

the good opportunity it has pleased God to offer us of giving a full

account of our common enemy. I pray you to carry into effect on your

side that which you and I have for a long while desired, wherein I for my

part will exert myself with all my might.” Bourbon proposed to the two

sovereigns a plan well calculated to allure them. He made them an offer

to enter France by way of Provence with his victorious army, to

concentrate there all the re-enforcements promised him, to advance up the

Rhone, making himself master as he went of the only two strong places,

Monaco and Marseilles, he would have to encounter, to march on Lyons from

the side on which that city was defenceless, and be in four months at

Paris, whether or no he had a great battle to deliver on the march. “If

the king wishes to enter France without delay,” said he to Henry VIII.’s

ambassador, “I give his Grace leave to pluck out my two-eyes if I am not

master of Paris before All Saints. Paris taken, all the kingdom of

France is in my power. Paris in France is like Milan in Lombardy; if

Milan is taken, the duchy is lost; in the same way, Paris taken, the

whole of France is lost.” By this plan Bourbon calculated on arriving

victorious at the centre of France, in his own domains, and there

obtaining, from both nobles and people, the co-operation that had failed

him at the outset of his enterprise. The two sovereigns were eager to

close with the proposal of the Frenchman, who was for thus handing over

to them his country; a new treaty was concluded between them on the 25th

of May, 1524, regulating the conditions and means of carrying out this

grand campaign; and it was further agreed that Provence and Dauphiny

should be added to the constable’s old possessions, and should form a

state, which Charles V. promised to raise to a kingdom. There was yet a

difficulty looming ahead. Bourbon still hesitated to formally

acknowledge Henry VIII. as King of France, and promise him allegiance.

But at last his resistance was overcome. At the moment of crossing the

frontier into France, and after having taken the communion, he said to

the English ambassador, Sir Richard Pace, in the presence of four of his

gentlemen, “I promise you, on my faith, to place the crown, with the help

of my friends, on the head of our common master.” But, employing a ruse

of the old feudal times, the last gasp of a troubled conscience, Bourbon,

whilst promising allegiance to Henry VIII., persisted in refusing to do

him homage. Sir Richard Pace none the less regarded the question as

decided; and, whilst urging Cardinal Wolsey to act swiftly and resolutely

in the interests of their master, he added, “If you do not pay regard to

these matters, I shall set down to your Grace’s account the loss of the

crown of France.”

Bourbon entered Provence on the 7th of July, 1524, with an army of

eighteen thousand men, which was to be joined before long by six or seven

thousand more. He had no difficulty in occupying Antibes, Frejus,

Draguignan, Brignoles, and even Aix; and he already began to assume the

title of Count of Provence, whilst preparing for a rapid march along by

the Rhone and a rush upon Lyons, the chief aim of the campaign; but the

Spanish generals whom Charles V. had associated with him, and amongst

others the most eminent of them, the Marquis of Pescara, peremptorily

insisted that, according to their master’s order, he should besiege and

take Marseilles. Charles V. cared more for the coasts of the

Mediterranean than for those of the Channel; he flattered himself that he

would make of Marseilles a southern Calais, which should connect Germany

with Spain, and secure their communications, political and commercial.

Bourbon objected and resisted; it was the abandonment of his general plan

for this war and a painful proof how powerless he was against the wishes

of the two sovereigns, of whom he was only the tool, although they called

him their ally. Being forced to yield, he began the siege of Marseilles

on the 19th of August. The place, though but slightly fortified and ill

supplied, made an energetic resistance; the name and the presence of

Bourbon at the head of the besiegers excited patriotism; the burgesses

turned soldiers; the cannon of the besiegers laid open their walls, but

they threw up a second line, an earthen rampart, called the ladies’

rampart, because all the women in the city had worked at it. The siege

was protracted; the re-enforcements expected by Bourbon did not arrive; a

shot from Marseilles penetrated into Pescara’s tent, and killed his

almoner and two of his gentlemen. Bourbon rushed up. “Don’t you see?”

said Pescara to him, ironically, “here are the keys sent to you by the

timid consuls of Marseilles.” Bourbon resolved to attempt an assault;

the lanzknechts and the Italians refused; Bourbon asked Pescara for his

Spaniards, but Pescara would only consent on condition that the breach

was reconnoitered afresh. Seven soldiers were told off for this duty;

four were killed and the other three returned wounded, reporting that

between the open breach and the intrenchment extended a large ditch

filled with fireworks and defended by several batteries. The assembled

general officers looked at one another in silence. “Well, gentlemen,”

said Pescara, “you see that the folks of Marseilles keep a table well

spread for our reception; if you like to go and sup in paradise, you are

your own masters so far; as for me, who have no desire to go thither just

yet, I am off. But believe me,” he added seriously, “we had best return

to Milaness; we have left that country without a soldier; we might

possibly find our return cut off.” Whereupon Pescara got up and went

out; and the majority of the officers followed him. Bourbon remained

almost alone, divided between anger and shame. Almost as he quitted this

scene he heard that Francis I. was advancing towards Provence with an

army. The king had suddenly decided to go to the succor of Marseilles,

which was making so good a defence. Nothing could be a bitterer pill for

Bourbon than to retire before Francis I., whom he had but lately promised

to dethrone; but his position condemned him to suffer everything, without

allowing him the least hesitation; and on the 28th of September, 1524, he

raised the siege of Marseilles and resumed the road to Italy, harassed

even beyond Toulon by the French advance-guard, eager in its pursuit of

the traitor even more than of the enemy.

In the course of this year, 1524, whilst Bourbon was wandering as a

fugitive, trying to escape from his country, then returning to it, after

a few months, as a conqueror, and then leaving it again at the end of a

few weeks of prospective triumph, pursued by the king he had betrayed,

his case and that of his accomplices had been inquired into and disposed

of by the Parliament of Paris, dispassionately and almost coldly,

probably because of the small esteem in which the magistrates held the

court of Francis I., and of the wrong which they found had been done to

the constable. The Parliament was not excited by a feeling of any great

danger to the king and the country; it was clear that, at the core, the

conspiracy and rebellion were very circumscribed and impotent; and the

accusations brought by the court party or their servants against the

conspirators were laughable from their very outrageousness and

unlikelihood; according to them, the accomplices of the constable meant

not only to dethrone, and, if need were, kill the king, but “to make pies

of the children of France.” Parliament saw no occasion to proceed

against more than a half score of persons in confinement, and, except

nineteen defaulters who were condemned to death together with

confiscation of their property, only one capital sentence was pronounced,

against John of Poitiers, Lord of Saint-Vallier, the same who had exerted

himself to divert the constable from his plot, but who had nevertheless

not refrained from joining it, and was the most guilty of all the

accomplices in consequence of the confidential post he occupied near the

king’s person. The decree was not executed, however; Saint-Vallier

received his reprieve on the scaffold itself. Francis I. was neither

rancorous nor cruel; and the entreaties, or, according to some

evil-speakers of the day, the kind favors, of the Lady de Brew,

Saint-Vallier’s daughter and subsequently the celebrated Diana of

Poitiers, obtained from the king her father’s life.

Francis I., greatly vexed, it is said, at the lenity of the Parliament of

Paris, summoned commissions chosen amongst the Parliaments of Rouen,

Dijon, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and made them reconsider the case. The

provincial Parliaments decided as that of Paris had. The procedure

against the principal culprit was several times suspended and resumed

according to the course of events, and the decree was not pronounced so

long as the Duke of Bourbon lived. It was abroad and in his alliance

with foreign sovereigns that all his importance lay.

After Bourbon’s precipitate retreat, the position of Francis I. was a

good one. He had triumphed over conspiracy and invasion; the conspiracy

had not been catching, and the invasion had failed on all the frontiers.

If the king, in security within his kingdom, had confined himself to it,

whilst applying himself to the task of governing it well, he would have

obtained all the strength he required to make himself feared and deferred

to abroad. For a while he seemed to have entertained this design: on the

25th of September, 1523, he published an important ordinance for the

repression of disorderliness and outrages on the part of the soldiery in

France itself; and, on the 28th of December following, a regulation as to

the administration of finances established a control over the various

exchequer-officers, and announced the king’s intention of putting some

limits to his personal expenses, “not including, however,” said he, “the

ordinary run of our little necessities and pleasures.” This singular

reservation was the faithful exponent of his character; he was licentious

at home and adventurous abroad, being swayed by his coarse passions and

his warlike fancies. Even far away from Paris, in the heart of the

provinces, the king’s irregularities were known and dreaded. In 1524,

some few weeks after the death [at Blois, July 20, 1524] of his wife,

Queen Claude, daughter of Louis XII., a virtuous and modest princess more

regretted by the people than by her husband, Francis made his entry into

Manosque, in Provence. The burgesses had the keys of their town

presented to him by the most beautiful creature they could find within

their walls; it was the daughter of Antony Voland, one of themselves.

The virtuous young girl was so frightened at the king’s glances and the

signs he made to his gentry, evidently alluding to her, that, on

returning home, she got some burning sulphur and placed herself for a

long while under the influence of its vapor, in order to destroy the

beauty which made her run the risk of being only too pleasing to the

king. Francis, who was no great or able captain, could not resist the

temptations of war any more than those of the flesh. When Bourbon and

the imperial army had evacuated Provence, the king loudly proclaimed his

purpose of pursuing them into Italy, and of once more going forth to the

conquest of Milaness, and perhaps also of the kingdom of Naples, that

incurable craze of French kings in the sixteenth century. In vain did

his most experienced warriors, La Tremoille and Chabannes, exert

themselves to divert him from such a campaign, for which he was not

prepared; in vain did his mother herself write to him, begging him to

wait and see her, for that she had important matters to impart to him.

He answered by sending her the ordinance which conferred upon her the

regency during his absence; and, at the end of October, 1524, he had

crossed the Alps, anxious to go and risk in Milaness the stake he had

just won in Provence against Charles V.

Arriving speedily in front of Milan, he there found the imperial army

which had retired before him; there was a fight in one of the outskirts;

but Bourbon recognized the impossibility of maintaining a siege in a town

of which the fortifications were in ruins, and with disheartened troops.

On the line of march which they had pursued, from Lodi to Milan, there

was nothing to be seen but cuirasses, arquebuses tossed hither and

thither, dead horses, and men dying of fatigue and scarcely able to drag

themselves along. Bourbon evacuated Milan, and, taking a resolution as

bold as it was singular, abruptly abandoned, so far as he was personally

concerned, that defeated and disorganized army, to go and seek for and

reorganize another at a distance. Being informed that Charles III., Duke

of Savoy, hitherto favorable to France, was secretly inclining towards

the emperor, he went to Turin, made a great impression by his confidence

and his grand spirit in the midst of misfortune upon both the duke and

his wife, Beatrix of Portugal, and obtained from them not only a

flattering reception, but a secret gift of their money and their jewelry;

and, equipped with these resources, he passed into Germany to recruit

soldiers there. The lanzknechts, who had formerly served under him in

France, rushed to him in shoals; he had received from nature the gifts

most calculated to gain the hearts of campaigners: kind, accessible,

affable and even familiar with the common soldier, he entered into the

details of his wants and alleviated them. His famous bravery, his

frankness, and his generosity gained over those adventurers who were

weary of remaining idle; their affection consoled Bourbon and stood him

in stead of all: his army became his family and his camp his country.

Proscribed and condemned in France, without any position secured to him

in the dominions of Charles V., envied and crossed by that prince’s

generals, he had found full need of all the strong tempering of his

character and of his warlike genius to keep him from giving way under so

many trials. He was beginning to feel himself near recovery: he had an

army, an army of his own; he had chosen for it men inured to labor and

fatigue, accustomed to strict discipline; and thereto he added five

hundred horsemen from Franche-Comte for whose devotion and courage he

could answer: and he gave the second command in this army to George of

Freundsberg, an old captain of lanzknechts and commandant of the

emperor’s guard, the same who, three years before, on seeing Luther

boldly enter Worms, said to him, with a slap on the shoulder, “Little

monk, this is a daring step thou art going to take! Nor I, nor any

captain of us, ever did the like. If thy cause is good, and if thou have

faith in thy cause, forward! little monk, in God’s name forward!” With

such comrades about him, Bourbon re-entered Milaness at the head of

twelve or thirteen thousand fighting men, three months after having left

it, alone and moneyless. His rivals about the person of Charles V.,

Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples, and the Marquis of Pescara, could not help

admiring him, and he regained in the imperial camp an ascendency which

had but lately been very much shaken.

He found the fresh campaign begun in earnest. Francis I.’s veteran

generals, Marshals La Tremoille and Chabannes, had advised him to pursue

without pause the beaten and disorganized imperial army, which was in

such plight that there was placarded on the statue of Pasquin at Rome,

“Lost--an army--in the mountains of Genoa; if anybody knows what has

become of it, let him come forward and say: he shall be well rewarded.”

If the King of France, it was said, drove back northward and forced into

the Venetian dominions the remnants of this army, the Spaniards would not

be able to hold their own in Milaness, and would have to retire within

the kingdom of Naples. But Admiral Bonnivet, “whose counsel the king

made use of more than of any other,” says Du Bellay, pressed Francis I.

to make himself master, before everything, of the principal strong places

in Lombardy, especially of Pavia, the second city in the duchy of Milan.

Francis followed this counsel, and on the 26th of August, 1524, twenty

days after setting out from Aix in Provence, he appeared with his army in

front of Pavia. On learning this resolution, Pescara joyously exclaimed,

“We were vanquished; a little while and we shall be vanquishers.” Pavia

had for governor a Spanish veteran, Antony de Leyva, who had

distinguished himself at the battle of Ravenna, in 1512, by his vigilance

and indomitable tenacity: and he held out for nearly four months, first

against assaults, and then against investment by the French army.

Francis I. and his generals occasionally proceeded during this siege to

severities condemned by the laws and usages of war. A small Spanish

garrison had obstinately defended a tower situated at the entrance of a

stone bridge which led from an island on the Ticino into Pavia. Marshal

de Montmorency at last carried the tower, and had all the defenders

hanged “for having dared,” he said, “to offer resistance to an army of

the king’s in such a pigeon-hole.” Antony de Leyva had the bridge

forthwith broken down, and De Montmorency was stopped on the borders of

the Ticino. In spite of the losses of its garrison in assaults and

sorties, and in spite of the sufferings of the inhabitants from famine

and from lack of resources of all sorts, Pavia continued to hold out.

There was a want of wood as well as of bread; and they knocked the houses

to pieces for fuel. Antony de Leyva caused to be melted down the vessels

of the churches and the silvern chandeliers of the university, and even a

magnificent chain of gold which he habitually wore round his neck. He

feared he would have to give in at last, for want of victuals and

ammunition, when, towards the end of January, 1525, he saw appearing, on

the northern side, the flags of the imperial army: it was Bourbon,

Lannoy, and Pescara, who were coming up with twenty thousand foot, seven

hundred men-at-arms, a troop of Spanish arquebusiers, and several pieces

of cannon. Bourbon, whilst on the march, had written, on the 5th of

January, to Henry VIII., and, after telling him what he meant to do, had

added, “I know through one of my servants that the French have said that

I retired from Provence shamefully. I remained there a space of three

months and eight days, waiting for battle. I hope to give the world to

know that I have no fear of King Francis, for, please God, we shall place

ourselves so close together that we shall have great trouble to get

disentangled without battle, and I shall so do that neither he nor they

who have held such talk about me shall say that I was afraid of being

there.” The situation was from that moment changed. The French army

found themselves squeezed between the fortress which would not surrender

and the imperial army which was coming to relieve it. Things, however,

remained stationary for three weeks. Francis I. intrenched himself

strongly in his camp, which the Imperialists could not attack without

great risk of unsuccess. “Pavia is doomed to fall,” wrote Francis to his

mother the regent on the 3d of February, “if they do not reenforce it

somehow; and they are beating about to make it hold on to the last gasp,

which, I think, will not be long now, for it is more than a month since

those inside have had no wine to drink and neither meat nor cheese to

eat; they are short of powder even.” Antony de Leyva gave notice to the

Imperialists that the town was not in a condition for further resistance.

On the other hand, if the imperial army put off fighting, they could not

help breaking up; they had exhausted their victuals, and the leaders

their money; they were keeping the field without receiving pay, and were

subsisting, so to speak, without resources. The prudent Marquis of

Pescara himself was for bringing on a battle, which was indispensable.

“A hundred years in the field,” said he, in the words of an old Italian

proverb, “are better than one day of fighting, for one may lose in a

doubtful melley what one was certain of winning by skilful manoeuvres;

but when one can no longer keep the field, one must risk a battle, so as

not to give the enemy the victory without a fight.” The same question

was being discussed in the French camp. The veteran captains, La

Tremoille and Chabannes, were of opinion that by remaining in the strong

position in which they were encamped they would conquer without fighting.

Bonnivet and De Montmorency were of the contrary opinion. “We French,”

said Bonnivet, “have not been wont to make war by means of military

artifices, but handsomely and openly, especially when we have at our head

a valiant king, who is enough to make the veriest dastards fight. Our

kings bring victory with them, as our little king Charles VIII. did at

the Taro, our king Louis XII. at Agnadello, and our king who is here

present at Melegnano.” Francis I. was not the man to hold out against

such sentiments and such precedents; and he decided to accept battle as

soon as it should be offered him. The imperial leaders, at a council

held on the 23d of February, determined to offer it next day. Bourbon

vigorously supported the opinion of Pescara.

Antony de Leyva was notified the same evening of their decision, and was

invited to make, as soon as he heard two cannon-shots, a sortie which

would place the French army between two fires. Pescara, according to his

custom, mustered the Spaniards; and, “My lads,” said he, “fortune has

brought you to such extremity that on the soil of Italy you have for your

own only that which is under your feet. All the emperor’s might could

not procure for you to-morrow morning one morsel of bread. We know not

where to get it, save in the Frenchman’s camp, which is before your eyes.

There they have abundance of everything, bread, meat, trout and carp from

the Lake of Garda. And so, my lads, if you are set upon having anything

to eat tomorrow, march we down on the Frenchmen’s camp.” Freundsberg

spoke in the same style to the German lanzknechts. And both were

responded to with cheers. Eloquence is mighty powerful when it speaks in

the name of necessity.

The two armies were of pretty equal strength: they had each from twenty

to five and twenty thousand infantry, French, Germans, Spaniards,

lanzknechts, and Swiss. Francis I. had the advantage in artillery and in

heavy cavalry, called at that time the gendarmerie, that is to say, the

corps of men-at-arms in heavy armor with their servants; but his troops

were inferior in effectives to the Imperialists, and Charles V.’s two

generals, Bourbon and Pescara, were, as men of war, far superior to

Francis I. and his favorite Bonnivet. In the night between the 23d and

24th of February they opened a breach of forty or fifty fathoms in the

wall around the park of Mirabello, where the French camp was situated; a

corps immediately passed through it, marching on Pavia to re-enforce the

garrison, and the main body of the imperial army entered the park to

offer the French battle on that ground. The king at once set his army in

motion; and his well-posted artillery mowed down the corps of Germans and

Spaniards who had entered the park. “You could see nothing,” says a

witness of the battle, “but heads and arms flying about.” The action

seemed to be going ill for the Imperialists; Pescara urged the Duke of

Bourbon and Lannoy, the Viceroy of Naples, to make haste and come up;

Lannoy made the sign of the cross, and said to his men, “There is no hope

but in God; follow me and do every one as I do.” Francis I., on his

side, advanced with the pick of his men-at-arms, burst on the

advance-guard of the enemy, broke it, killed with his own hand the

Marquis of Civita-San-Angelo, and dispersed the various corps he found in

his way. In the confidence of his joy he thought the victory decided,

and, turning to Marshal de Foix, who was with him, “M. de Lescun,” said

he, “now am I fain to call myself Duke of Milan.” But Bourbon and

Pescara were not the men to accept a defeat so soon; they united all

their forces, and resumed the offensive at all points; the French

batteries, masked by an ill-considered movement on the part of their own

troops, who threw themselves between them and the enemy, lost all

serviceability; and Pescara launched upon the French gendarmerie fifteen

hundred Basque arquebusiers, whom he had exercised and drilled to

penetrate into the midst of the horses, shoot both horses and riders, and

fall back rapidly after having discharged their pieces. Being attacked

by the German lanzknechts of Bourbon and Freundsberg, the Swiss in the

French service did not maintain their renown, and began to give way. “My

God, what is all this!” cried Francis I., seeing them waver, and he

dashed towards them to lead them back into action; but neither his

efforts, nor those of John of Diesbach and the Lord of Fleuranges, who

were their commanders, were attended with success. The king was only

the more eager for the fray; and, rallying around him all those of his

men-at-arms who would neither recoil nor surrender, he charged the

Imperialists furiously, throwing himself into the thickest of the melley,

and seeking in excess of peril some chance of victory; but Pescara,

though wounded in three places, was none the less stubbornly fighting on,

and Antony de Leyva, governor of Pavia, came with the greater part of the

garrison to his aid. At this very moment Francis I. heard that the

first prince of the blood, his brother-in-law the Duke of Alencon, who

commanded the rear-guard, had precipitately left the field of battle.

The oldest and most glorious warriors of France, La Tremoille, Marshal de

Chabannes, Marshal de Foix, the grand equerry San Severino, the Duke of

Suffolk, Francis of Lorraine, Chaumont, Bussy d’Amboise, and Francis de

Duras fell, here and there, mortally wounded. At this sight Admiral

Bonnivet in despair exclaimed, “I can never survive this fearful havoc;”

and raising the visor of his helmet, he rushed to meet the shots which

were aimed at him, and in his turn fell beside his comrades in arms.

Bourbon had expressly charged his men to search everywhere in the melley

for the admiral, and bring him in a prisoner. When, as he passed along

that part of the battle-field, he recognized the corpse, “Ah! wretch,” he

cried, as he moved away, “it is thou who hast caused the ruin of France

and of me!” Amidst these dead and dying, Francis still fought on;

wounded as he was in the face, the arms, and the legs, he struck right

and left with his huge sword, and cut down the nearest of his assailants;

but his horse, mortally wounded, dragged him down as it fell; he was up

again in an instant, and, standing beside his horse, he laid low two more

Spaniards who were pressing him closely; the ruck of the soldiers crowded

about him; they did not know him, but his stature, his strength, his

bravery, his coat of mail studded with golden lilies, and his helmet

overshadowed by a thick plume of feathers pointed him out to all as the

finest capture to make; his danger was increasing every minute, when one

of Bourbon’s most intimate confidants, the Lord of Pomperant, who, in

1523, had accompanied the constable in his flight through France, came up

at this critical moment, recognized the king, and, beating off the

soldiers with his sword, ranged himself at the king’s side, represented

to-him the necessity of yielding, and pressed him to surrender to the

Duke of Bourbon, who was not far off. “No,” said the king, “rather die

than pledge my faith to a traitor where is the Viceroy of Naples?” It

took some time to find Lannoy; but at last he arrived and put one knee on

the ground before Francis I., who handed his sword to him. Lannoy took

it with marks of the most profound respect, and immediately gave him

another. The battle was over, and Francis I. was Charles V.’s prisoner.

[Illustration: Capture of Francis I.----91]

He had shown himself an imprudent and unskilful general, but at the same

time a hero. His conquerors, both officers and privates, could not help,

whilst they secured his person, showing their admiration for him. When

he sat down to table, after having had his wounds, which were slight,

attended to, Bourbon approached him respectfully and presented him with a

dinner-napkin; and the king took it without embarrassment and with frigid

and curt politeness. He next day granted him an interview, at which an

accommodation took place with due formalities on both sides, but nothing

more. All the king’s regard was for the Marquis of Pescara, who came to

see him in a simple suit of black, in order, as it were, to share his

distress. “He was a perfect gentleman,” said Francis I., “both in peace

and in war.” He heaped upon him marks of esteem and almost of

confidence. “How do you think,” he asked, “the emperor will behave to

me?” “I think,” replied Pescara, “I can answer for the emperor’s

moderation; I am sure that he will make a generous use of his victory.

If, however, he were capable of forgetting what is due to your rank, your

merits, and your misfortunes, I would never cease to remind him of it,

and I would lose what little claim upon him my services may have given

me, or you should be satisfied with his behavior.” The king embraced him

warmly. He asked to be excused from entering Pavia, that he might not be

a gazing-stock in a town that he had so nearly taken. He was,

accordingly, conducted to Pizzighittone, a little fortress between Milan

and Cremona. He wrote thence two letters, one to his mother the regent

and the other to Charles V., which are here given word for word, because

they so well depict his character and the state of his mind in his hour

of calamity:--

1. “To the Regent of France: Madame, that you may know how stands

the rest of my misfortune: there is nothing in the world left to me

but honor and my life, which is safe. And in order that, in your

adversity, this news might bring you some little comfort, I prayed

for permission to write you this letter, which was readily granted

me; entreating you, in the exercise of your accustomed prudence, to

be pleased not to do anything rash, for I have hope, after all, that

God will not forsake me. Commending to you my children your

grandchildren, and entreating you to give the bearer a free passage,

going and returning, to Spain, for he is going to the emperor to

learn how it is his pleasure that I should be treated.”

2. “To the Emperor Charles V.: If liberty had been sooner granted

me by my cousin the viceroy, I should not have delayed so long to do

my duty towards you, according as the time and the circumstances in

which I am placed require; having no other comfort under my

misfortune than a reliance on your goodness, which, if it so please,

shall employ the results of victory with honorableness towards me;

having steadfast hope that your virtue would not willingly constrain

me to anything that was not honorable; entreating you to consult

your own heart as to what you shall be pleased to do with me;

feeling sure that the will of a prince such as you are cannot be

coupled with aught but honor and magnanimity. Wherefore, if it

please you to have so much honorable pity as to answer for the

safety which a captive King of France deserves to find, whom there

is a desire to render friendly and not desperate, you may be sure of

obtaining an acquisition instead of a useless prisoner, and of

making a King of France your slave forever.”

The former of these two letters has had its native hue somewhat altered

in the majority of histories, in which it has been compressed into those

eloquent words, “All is lost save honor.” The second needs no comment to

make apparent what it lacks of kingly pride and personal dignity.

Beneath the warrior’s heroism there was in the qualities of Francis I.

more of what is outwardly brilliant and winning than of real strength and

solidity.