But the warrior’s heroism, in conjunction with what is outwardly

brilliant and winning in the man, exercises a great influence over

people. The Viceroy of Naples perceived and grew anxious at the

popularity of which Francis I. was the object at Pizzighittone. The

lanzknechts took an open interest in him and his fortunes; the Italians

fixed their eyes on him; and Bourbon, being reconciled to him, might

meditate carrying him off. Lannoy resolved to send him to Naples, where

there would be more certainty of guarding him securely. Francis made no

objection to this design. On the 12th of May, 1525, he wrote to his

mother, “Madame, the bearer has assured me that he will bring you this

letter safely; and, as I have but little time, I will tell you nothing

more than I shall be off to Naples on Monday--, and so keep a lookout at

sea, for we shall have only fourteen galleys to take us and eighteen

hundred Spaniards to man them; but those will be all their arquebusiers.

Above all, haste: for, if that is made, I am in hopes that you may soon

see your most humble and most obedient son.” There was no opportunity

for even attempting to carry off the king as he went by sea to Naples;

instead of taking him to Naples, Lannoy transported him straight to

Spain, with the full assent of the king and the regent themselves, for it

was in French galleys manned by Spanish troops that the voyage was made.

Instead of awaiting the result of such doubtful chances of deliverance as

might occur in Italy, Francis I., his mother, and his sister Margaret,

entertained the idea that what was of the utmost importance for him was

to confer and treat in person with Charles V., which could not be done

save in Spain itself. In vain did Bourbon and Pescara, whose whole

influence and ambitious hopes lay in Italy, and who, on that stage,

regarded Francis I. as their own prisoner rather than Charles V.’s, exert

themselves to combat this proposal; the Viceroy of Naples, in concert, no

doubt, with Charles V. himself as well as with Francis I. and his

mother, took no heed of their opposition; and Francis I., disembarking at

the end of June at Barcelona first and then at Valentia, sent, on the 2d

of July, to Charles V. the Duke de Montmorency, with orders to say that

he had desired to approach the emperor, “not only to obtain peace and

deliverance in his own person, but also to establish and confirm Italy in

the state and fact of devotion to the emperor, before that the potentates

and lords of Italy should have leisure to rally together in opposition.”

The regent, his mother, and his sister Margaret congratulated him

heartily on his arrival in Spain, and Charles V. himself wrote to him,

“It was a pleasure to me to hear of your arrival over here, because that,

just now, it will be the cause of a happy general peace for the great

good of Christendom, which is what I most desire.”

It is difficult to understand how Francis I. and Charles V. could rely

upon personal interviews and negotiations for putting an end to their

contentions and establishing a general peace. Each knew the other’s

pretensions, and they knew how little disposed they were, either of them,

to abandon them. On the 28th of March, 1525, a month after the battle of

Pavia, Charles V. had given his ambassadors instructions as to treating

for the ransom and liberation of the King of France. His chief

requirements were, that Francis I. should renounce all attempts at

conquest in Italy, that he should give up the suzerainty of the

countships of Flanders and Artois, that he should surrender to Charles V.

the duchy of Burgundy with all its dependencies, as derived from Mary of

Burgundy, daughter of the last duke, Charles the Rash; that the Duke of

Bourbon should be reinstated in possession of all his domains, with the

addition thereto of Provence and Dauphiny, which should form an

independent state; and, lastly, that France should pay England all the

sums of money which Austria owed her. Francis I., on hearing, at

Pizzighittone, these proposals read out, suddenly drew his sword as if to

stab himself, saying, “It were better for a king to end thus.” His

custodian, Alancon, seized his arm, whilst recalling him to his senses.

Francis recovered calmness, but without changing his resolution; he would

rather, he said, bury himself in a prison forever than subscribe to

conditions destructive of his kingdom, and such as the States General of

France would never accept. When Francis I. was removed to Spain he had

made only secondary concessions as to these requirements of Charles V.,

and Charles V. had not abandoned any one of his original requirements.

Marshal de Montmorency, when sent by the king to the emperor on the 2d of

July, 1525, did not enter at all into the actual kernel of the

negotiation; after some conventional protestations of a pacific kind, he

confined himself to demanding “a safe conduct for Madame Marguerite of

France, the king’s only sister, Duchess of Alencon and Berry, who would

bring with her such and so full powers of treating for peace, the

liberation of the king, and friendly alliance to secure the said peace,

that the emperor would clearly see that the king’s intentions were pure

and genuine, and that he would be glad to conclude and decide in a month

what might otherwise drag on for a long while to the great detriment of

their subjects.” The marshal was at the same time to propose the

conclusion of a truce during the course of the negotiations.

Amongst the letters at that time addressed to Francis I., a prisoner of

war, is the following, dated March, 1525, when he was still in Italy:--

“My lord, the joy we are still feeling at the kind letters which you

were pleased to write yesterday to me and to your mother, makes us

so happy with the assurance of your health, on which our life

depends, that it seems to me that we ought to think of nothing but

of praising God and desiring a continuance of your good news, which

is the best meat we can have to live on. And inasmuch as the

Creator bath given us grace that our trinity should be always

united, the other two do entreat you that this letter, presented to

you, who are the third, may be accepted with the same affection with

which it is cordially offered you by your most humble and most

obedient servants, your mother and sister--

LOUISE, MARGUERITE.”

This close and tender union of the three continued through all

separations and all trials; the confidence of the captive king was

responsive to the devotion of his mother the regent and of his sister who

had become his negotiatrix. When the news came of the king’s captivity,

the regency threatened for a moment to become difficult and stormy; all

the ambition and the hatred that lay dormant in the court awoke; an

attempt was made to excite in the Duke of Vendome, the head of the

younger branch of the House of Bourbon, a desire to take the regent’s

place; the Parliament of Paris attacked the chancellor, Duprat, whom they

hated--not without a cause; but the Duke of Vendome was proof against the

attempts which were made upon him, and frankly supported the regent,

who made him the chief of her council; and the regent supported the

chancellor. She displayed, in these court-contentions, an ability

partaking both of firmness and pliancy. The difficulties of foreign

policy found her equally active and prudent. The greatest peril which

France could at that time incur arose from the maintenance of the union

between the King of England and Charles V. At the first news of the

battle of Pavia, Henry VIII. dreamed for a moment of the partition of

France between Charles and himself, with the crown of France for his own

share; demonstrations of joy took place at the court of London; and

attempts were made to levy, without the concurrence of Parliament,

imposts capable of sufficing for such an enterprise. But the English

nation felt no inclination to put up with this burden and the king’s

arbitrary power in order to begin over again the Hundred Years’ War.

The primate, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Cardinal Wolsey,

“It is reported to me that when the people had orders to make bonfires

for the capture of the King of France, many folks said that it was more

reason for weeping than for rejoicing. Others openly expressed their

desire that the King of France might be set at liberty, that a happy

peace might be concluded, and that the king might not attempt to conquer

France again, a conquest more burdensome than profitable, and more

difficult to keep than to make.” Wolsey himself was cooled towards

Charles V., who, instead of writing to him as of old, and signing with

his own hand, “your son and cousin,” now merely put his name, Charles.

The regent, Louise of Savoy, profited ably by these feelings and

circumstances in England; a negotiation was opened between the two

courts; Henry VIII. gained by it two millions of crowns payable by annual

instalments of fifty thousand crowns each, and Wolsey received a pension

of a hundred thousand crowns. At first a truce for four months, and then

an alliance, offensive and defensive, were concluded on the 30th of

August, 1525, between France and England; and the regent, Louise of

Savoy, had no longer to trouble herself about anything except the

captivity of the king her son and the departure of her daughter Margaret

to go and negotiate for the liberation of the prisoner.

The negotiation had been commenced, as early as the 20th of July, at

Toledo, between the ambassadors of Francis I. and the advisers of Charles

V., but without any symptom of progress. Francis I., since his arrival

in Spain, had been taken from strong castle to strong castle, and then

removed to Madrid, everywhere strictly guarded, and leading a sad life,

without Charles V.’s coming to visit him or appointing him any

meeting-place. In vain did the emperor’s confessor, the Bishop of Osma,

advise him to treat Francis I. generously, and so lay upon him either the

obligation of thankfulness or the burden of ingratitude; the majority of

his servants gave him contrary counsel. “I know not what you mean to

do,” wrote his brother, the Archduke Ferdinand; “but, if I were wise

enough to know how to give you good counsel, it seems to me that such an

opportunity should not be lost, but that you should follow up your good

fortune and act in such wise that neither the King of France nor his

successors should have power hereafter to do harm to you or yours.”

That, too, was Charles V.’s own way of thinking; but, slow and patient

as he was by nature, he relied upon the discomforts and the wearisomeness

of prolonged captivity and indecision for tiring out Francis I. and

overcoming his resistance to the harsh conditions he would impose upon

him. The regent, Louise, made him an offer to go herself and treat with

him, at Perpignan, for the king’s liberation; but he did not accept that

overture. The Duke of Alencon, son-in-law of Louise, had died at Lyons,

unable to survive the shame of his flight at the battle of Pavia; and the

regent hinted that her daughter Marguerite, three months a widow, “would

be happy if she could be agreeable to his Imperial Majesty,” but Charles

let the hint drop without a reply. However, at the end of August, 1525,

he heard that Francis I. was ill: “from great melancholy he had fallen

into a violent fever.” The population of Madrid was in commotion;

Francis I. had become popular there; many people went to pray for him in

the churches; the doctors told the emperor that there was fear for the

invalid’s life, and that he alone could alleviate the malady by

administering some hope. Charles V. at once granted the safe-conduct

which had been demanded of him for Marguerite of France, and on the 18th

of September he himself went to Madrid to pay a visit to the captive.

Francis, on seeing him enter the chamber, said, “So your Majesty has come

to see your prisoner die?” “You are not my prisoner,” answered Charles,

“but my brother and my friend: I have no other purpose than to give you

your liberty and every satisfaction you can desire.” Next day Marguerite

arrived; her mother, the regent, had accompanied her as far as

Pont-Saint-Esprit; she had embarked, on the 27th of August, at

Aigues-Mortes, and, disembarking at Barcelona, had gone to Madrid by

litter; in order to somewhat assuage her impatience she had given

expression to it in the following tender stanzas:

“For the bliss that awaits me so strong

Is my yearning that yearning is pain;

One hour is a hundred years long;

My litter, it bears me in vain;

It moves not, or seems to recede;

Such speed would I make if I might:

O, the road, it is weary indeed,

Where lies--at the end--my delight!

“I gaze all around me all day

For some one with tidings to bring,

Not ceasing--ne’er doubt me--to pray

Unto God for the health of my king

I gaze; and when none is descried,

Then I weep; and, what else? if you ask,

To my paper my grief I confide

This, this is my sorrowful task.

“O, welcome be he who at length

Shall tap at my door and shall cry,

‘The king to new health and new strength

Is returning; the king will not die!’

Then she, who were now better dead,

Will run, the news-bearer to see,

And kiss him for what he hath said,

That her brother from danger is free.”

Francis was not “free from danger” when his sister arrived; she took her

post at his side; on the 25th of September a serious crisis came on; and

he remained for some time “without speaking, or hearing, or seeing.”

Marguerite had an altar set up in her chamber; and all the French, of the

household, great lords and domestics, knelt beside the sick man’s sister,

and received the communion from the, hands of the Archbishop of Embrun,

who, drawing near the bed, entreated the king to turn his eyes to the

holy sacrament. Francis came out of his lethargy, and asked to

communicate likewise, saying, “God will cure me, soul and body.” He

became convalescent, and on the 20th of October he was sufficiently

recovered for Marguerite to leave Madrid, and go and resume negotiations

at Toledo, whither Charles V. had returned.

The day but one after her arrival she wrote to the king, “The emperor

gave me courteous and kind reception, and, after coming to meet me at the

entrance of this house, he used very kind and courteous language to me.

He desired that he and I should be alone in the same room, and one of my

women to keep the door. This evening I will send you word of what has

been done; entreating you, my lord, to put on before Sieur Alancon (the

king’s custodian) an air of weakness and weariness, for your debility

will strengthen me and will hasten my despatch, which seems to me slower

than I can tell you; as well for the sake of seeing you liberated, which

you will be by God’s help, as of returning and trying whether your dear

hand can be of any use to you.” Marguerite was impressed by the

good-will she discovered at the court of Toledo in respect of the King of

France, his liberation, and the establishment of peace; she received from

the people in the streets, as well as from the great lords in their

houses, the most significant proofs of favor. Charles V. took umbrage at

it, and had the Duke of Infantado, amongst others, informed that, if he

wished to please the emperor, neither he nor his sons must speak to

Madame d’Alencon. “But,” said she, “I am not tabooed to the ladies, to

whom I will speak double.” She contracted a real intimacy with even the

sister of Charles V., Eleanor, widow of the King of Portugal, whom

Charles had promised to the Duke of Bourbon, and between whom and her

brother, King Francis, Marguerite set brewing a marriage, which was not

long deferred. But, in spite of her successes at the court, and even in

the family of the emperor, Marguerite had no illusions touching the small

chance of bringing her grand object of negotiation to a happy issue.

“Every one tells me,” she wrote, “that he loves the king; but there is

small experience of it. . . . If I had to do with good sort of

people, who understand what honor is, I would not care; but the contrary

is the case.” She did not lose courage, however: “she spoke to the

emperor so bravely and courteously,” says Brantome, “that he was quite

astounded, and she said still worse to those of his council, at which

she had audience; there she had full triumph of her good speaking and

haranguing, with an easy grace in which she was not deficient; and she

did so well with her fine speaking that she made herself rather agreeable

than hateful or tiresome, that her reasons were found good and pertinent,

and that she remained in high esteem with the emperor, his council, and

his court.”

But neither good and pertinent reasons, nor the charm of eloquence in the

mouth of a pleasing and able woman, are sufficient to make head against

the passions and interests of the actors who are at a given moment in

possession of the political arena; it needs time, a great deal of time,

before the unjust or unreasonable requirements and determinations of a

people, a generation, and the chief of a state become acknowledged as

such and abandoned. At the negotiations entered upon, in 1525, between

Francis I. and Charles V., Francis I. was prompt in making large and

unpalatable concessions: he renounced his pretensions, so far as Italy

was concerned, to the duchy of Milan, to Genoa, and to the kingdom of

Naples; his suzerainty over the countships of Flanders and Artois, and

possession of Hesdin and Tournay; he consented to reinstate Duke Charles

of Bourbon in all his hereditary property and rights, and to pay three

millions of crowns in gold for his own ransom; but he refused to cede

Provence and Dauphiny to the Duke of Bourbon as an independent state,

and to hand over the duchy of Burgundy to Charles V., as heir of his

grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, only daughter of Charles the Rash.

Charles V., after somewhat lukewarmly persisting, gave up the demand he

had made on behalf of the Duke of Bourbon, for having Provence and

Dauphiny erected into an independent state; but he insisted absolutely,

on his own behalf, in his claim to the duchy of Burgundy as a right and a

condition, sine qua non, of peace. The question at the bottom of the

negotiations between the two sovereigns lay thus: the acquisition of

Burgundy was for Charles V. the crowning-point of his victory and of his

predominance in Europe; the giving up of Burgundy was for Francis I. a

lasting proof of his defeat and a dismemberment of his kingdom: one would

not let his prisoner go at any price but this, the other would not

purchase at this price even his liberty and his restoration to his

friends. In this extremity Francis I. took an honorable and noble

resolution; in October, 1525, he wrote to Charles V., “Sir, my brother,

I have heard from the Archbishop of Embrun and my premier-president at

Paris of the decision you have expressed to them as to my liberation, and

I am sorry that what you demand of me is not in my power. But feeling

that you could not take a better way of telling me that you mean to keep

me prisoner forever than by demanding of me what is impossible on my

part, I have made up my mind to put up with imprisonment, being sure that

God, who knows that I have not deserved a long one, being a prisoner of

fair war, will give me strength to bear it patiently. And I can only

regret that your courteous words, which you were pleased to address to me

in my illness, should have come to nothing.” [_Documents inedits sur

l’Histoire de France. Captivite du roi Francois I._, p. 384.]

The resolution announced in this letter led before long to the official

act which was certain to be the consequence of it. In November, 1525, by

formal letters patent, Francis I., abdicating the kingship which he could

not exercise, ordered that his eldest son, the dauphin Francis, then

eight years old, should be declared, crowned, anointed, and consecrated

Most Christian King of France, and that his grandmother, Louise of Savoy,

Duchess of Angouleme, or, in default of her, his aunt Marguerite, Duchess

of Alencon, should be regent of the kingdom: “If it should please God

that we should recover our personal liberty, and be able to proceed to

the government and conduct of our kingdom, in that case our most dear and

most beloved son shall quit and give up to us the name and place of king,

all things re-becoming just as they were before our capture and

captivity.” The letters patent ordered the regent “to get together a

number of good and notable personages from the three estates in all the

districts, countries, and good towns of France, to whom, either in a body

or separately, one after another, she should communicate the said will of

the king, as above, in order to have their opinion, counsel, and

consent.” Thus, during the real king’s very captivity, and so, long as

it lasted, France was again about to have a king whom the States General

of France would be called upon to support with their counsels and

adhesion.

[Illustration: Louise of Savoy and Marguerite de Valois----102]

This resolution was taken and these letters patent prepared just at the

expiry of the safe-conduct granted to the Princess Marguerite, and,

consequently, just when she would have to return to France. Charles V.

was somewhat troubled at the very different position in which he was

about to find himself, when he would have to treat no longer at Madrid

with a captive king, but at Paris with a young king out of his power and

with his own people about him. Marguerite fully perceived his

embarrassment. From Toledo, where she was, she wrote to her brother,

“After having been four days without seeing the emperor, when I went to

take leave I found him so gracious that I think he is very much afraid of

my going; those gentry yonder are in a great fix, and, if you will be

pleased to hold firm, I can see them coming round to your wishes. But

they would very much like to keep me here doing nothing, in order to

promote their own affairs, as you will be pleased to understand.”

Charles V., in fact, signified to the king his desire that the

negotiations should be proceeded with at Madrid or Toledo, never ceasing

to make protestations of his pacific intentions. Francis I. replied

that, for his part, “he would not lay any countermand on the duchess,

that he would willingly hear what the emperor’s ambassadors had to say,

but that, if they did not come to any conclusion as to a peace and his

own liberation, he would not keep his own ambassadors any longer, and

would send them away.” Marguerite set out at the end of November; she at

first travelled slowly, waiting for good news to reach her and stop her

on the road; but, suddenly, she received notice from Madrid to quicken

her steps; according to some historians, it was the Duke of Bourbon who,

either under the influence of an old flame or in order to do a service to

the king he had betrayed, sent word to the princess that Charles V.,

uneasy about what she was taking with her to France, had an idea of

having her arrested the moment her safe-conduct had expired. According

to a more probable version, it was Francis I. himself who, learning that

three days after Marguerite’s departure Charles V. had received a copy of

the royal act of abdication, at once informed his sister, begging her to

make all haste. And she did so to such purpose that, “making four days’

journey in one,” she arrived at Salces, in the Eastern Pyrenees, an hour

before the expiry of her safe-conduct. She no doubt took to her mother,

the regent, the details of the king’s resolutions and instructions; but

the act itself containing them, the letters patent of Francis I., had not

been intrusted to her; it was Marshal de Montmorency who, at the end of

December, 15225, was the first bearer of them to France.

Did Francis I. flatter himself that his order to have his son the dauphin

declared and crowned king, and the departure of his sister Marguerite,

who was going, if not to carry the actual text of the resolution, at any

rate to announce it to the regent and to France, would embarrass Charles

V. so far as to make him relax in his pretensions to the duchy of

Burgundy and its dependencies? There is nothing to show that he was

allured by such a hope; any how, if it may have for a moment arisen in

his mind, it soon vanished. Charles V. insisted peremptorily upon his

requirements; and Francis I. at once gave up his attitude of firmness,

and granted, instead, the concession demanded of him, that is, the

relinquishment of Burgundy and its dependencies to Charles V., “to hold

and enjoy with every right of supremacy until it hath been judged,

decided, and determined, by arbiters elected on the emperor’s part and

our own, to whom the said duchy, countships, and other territories

belong. . . . And for guarantee of this concession, the dauphin, the

king’s eldest son, and his second son, Henry, Duke of Orleans, or other

great personages, to the number of twelve, should be sent to him and

remain in his keeping as hostages.” The regent, Louise, was not without

a hand in this determination of the king; her maternal affection took

alarm at the idea of her son’s being for an indefinite period a prisoner

in the hands of his enemy. Besides, in that case, war seemed to her

inevitable; and she dreaded the responsibility which would be thrown upon

her. Charles V., on his side, was essentially a prudent man; he disliked

remaining, unless it were absolutely necessary, for a long while in a

difficult position. His chancellor, Gattinera, refused to seal a treaty

extorted by force and violated, in advance, by lack of good faith.

“Bring the King of France so low,” he said, “that he can do you no harm,

or treat him so well that he can wish you no harm, or keep him a

prisoner: the worst thing you can do is to let him go half satisfied.”

Charles V. persisted in his pacific resolution. There is no knowing

whether he was tempted to believe in the reality of Francis I.’s

concession, and to regard the guarantees as seriously meant; but it is

evident that Francis I. himself considered them a mere sham; for four

months previously, on the 22d of August, 1525, at the negotiations

entered into on this subject, he had taken care to deposit in the hands

of his negotiators a nullifying protest “against all pacts, conventions,

renunciations, quittances, revocations, derogations, and oaths that he

might have to make contrary to his honor and the good of his crown, to

the profit of the said emperor or any other whosoever.” And on the 13th

of January, 1526, four weeks after having given his ambassadors orders

to sign the treaty of Madrid containing the relinquishment of Burgundy

and its dependencies, the very evening before the day on which that

treaty was signed, Francis I. renewed, at Madrid itself, and again placed

in the hands of his ambassadors, his protest of the 22d of August

preceding against this act, declaring “that it was through force and

constraint, confinement and length of imprisonment, that he had signed

it, and that all that was contained in it was and should remain null and

of no effect.” We may not have unlimited belief in the scrupulosity of

modern diplomats; but assuredly they would consider such a policy so

fundamentally worthless that they would be ashamed to practise it. We

may not hold sheer force in honor; but open force is better than

mendacious weakness, and less debasing for a government as well as for a

people.

“As soon as the treaty of Madrid was signed, the emperor came to Madrid to

see the king; then they went, both in one litter, to see Queen Eleanor,

the emperor’s sister and the king of Portugal’s widow, whom, by the said

treaty, the king was to espouse before he left Spain, which he did.”

[_Memoires de Martin Du Bellay,_ t. ii. p. 15.] After which Francis was

escorted by Lannoy to Fontarabia, whilst, on the other hand, the regent

Louise, and the king’s two sons who were to go as hostages to Spain, were

on their way to Bayonne. A large bark was anchored in the middle of the

Bidassoa, the boundary of the two kingdoms, between Irun and Andaye.

Lannoy put the king on board, and received in exchange, from the hands of

Marshal Lautrec, the little princes Francis and Henry. The king gave his

children his blessing, and reached the French side whilst they were being

removed to the Spanish; and as soon as he set foot on shore, he leaped

upon a fine Turkish horse, exclaiming, as he started at a gallop for

Bayonne, where his mother and his sister awaited him, “So now I am king

again!”

On becoming king again, he fell under the dominion of three personal

sentiments, which exercised a decisive influence upon his conduct, and,

consequently, upon the destiny of France joy at his liberation, a

thirsting for revenge, we will not say for vengeance, to be wreaked on

Charles V., and the burden of the engagement he had contracted at Madrid

in order to recover his liberty, alternately swayed him. From Bayonne he

repaired to Bordeaux, where he reassembled his court, and thence to

Cognac, in Saintonge, where he passed nearly three months, almost

entirely abandoning himself to field-sports, galas, diversions, and

pleasures of every kind, as if to indemnify himself for the wearisomeness

and gloom in which he had lived at Madrid. “Age subdues the blood,

adversity the mind, risks the nerve, and the despairing monarch has no

hope but in pleasures,” says Tavannes in his Memoires: “such was Francis

I., smitten of women both in body and mind. It is the little circle of

Madame d’Etampes that governs.” One of the regent’s maids of honor, Anne

d’Heilly, whom Frances I. made Duchess of Etampes, took the place of the

Countess of Chateaubriant as his favorite. With strange indelicacy

Francis demanded back from Madame de Chateaubriant the beautiful jewels

of gold which he had given her, and which bore tender mottoes of his

sister Marguerite’s composition. The countess took time enough to have

the jewels melted down, and said to the king’s envoy, “Take that to the

king, and tell him that, as he has been pleased to recall what he gave

me, I send it back to him in metal. As for the mottoes, I cannot suffer

any one but myself to enjoy them, dispose of them, and have the pleasure

of them.” The king sent back the metal to Madame de Chateaubriant; it

was the mottoes that he wished to see again, but he did not get them.

At last it was absolutely necessary to pass from pleasure to business.

The envoys of Charles V., with Lannoy, the Viceroy of Naples, at their

head, went to Cognac to demand execution of the treaty of Madrid.

Francis waited, ere he gave them an answer, for the arrival of the

delegates from the estates of Burgundy, whom he had summoned to have

their opinion as to the cession of the duchy. These delegates, meeting

at Cognac in June, 1527, formally repudiated the cession, being opposed,

they said, to the laws of the kingdom, to the rights of the king, who

could not by his sole authority alienate any portion of his dominions,

and to his coronation-oath, which superseded his oaths made at Madrid.

Francis invited the envoys of Charles V. to a solemn meeting of his court

and council present at Cognac, at which the delegates from Burgundy

repeated their protest. Whilst availing himself of this declaration as

an insurmountable obstacle to the complete execution of the treaty of

Madrid, Francis offered to give two million crowns for the redemption of

Burgundy, and to observe the other arrangements of the treaty, including

the relinquishment of Italy and his marriage with the sister of Charles

V. Charles formally rejected this proposal. “The King of France,” he

said, “promised and swore, on the faith of an honest king and prince,

that, if he did not carry out the said restitution of Burgundy, he would

incontinently come and surrender himself prisoner to H. M. the emperor,

wherever he might be, to undergo imprisonment in the place where the said

lord the emperor might be pleased to order him, up to and until the time

when this present treaty should be completely fulfilled and accomplished.

Let the King of France keep his oath.” [_Traite de Madrid,_ 14th of

January, 1526: art. vi.]

However determined he was, at bottom, to elude the strict execution of

the treaty of Madrid, Francis was anxious to rebut the charge of perjury

by shifting the responsibility on to the shoulders of the people

themselves and their representatives. He did not like to summon the

states-general of the kingdom, and recognize their right as well as their

power; but, after the meeting at Cognac, he went to Paris, and, on the

12th of December, 1527, the Parliament met in state with the adjunct of

the princes of the blood, a great number of cardinals, bishops, noblemen,

deputies from the Parliaments of Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rouen, Dijon,

Grenoble, and Aix, and the municipal body of Paris. In presence of this

assembly the king went over the history of his reign, his expeditions in

Italy, his alternate successes and reverses, and his captivity. “If my

subjects have suffered,” he said, “I have suffered with them.” He then

caused to be read the letters patent whereby he had abdicated and

transferred the crown to his son the dauphin, devoting himself to

captivity forever. He explained the present condition of the finances,

and what he could furnish for the ransom of his sons detained as

hostages; and he ended by offering to return as a prisoner to Spain if no

other way could be found out of a difficult position, for he acknowledged

having given his word, adding, however, that he had thought it pledged

him to nothing, since it had not been given freely.

This last argument was of no value morally or diplomatically; but in his

bearing and his language Francis I. displayed grandeur and emotion. The

assembly also showed emotion; they were four days deliberating; with some

slight diversity of form the various bodies present came to the same

conclusion; and, on the 16th of December, 1527, the Parliament decided

that the king was not bound either to return to Spain or to execute, as

to that matter, the treaty of Madrid, and that he might with full

sanction and justice levy on his subjects two millions of crowns for the

ransom of his sons and the other requirements of the state.

Before inviting such manifestations Francis I. had taken measures to

prevent them from being in vain. Since the battle of Pavia and his

captivity at Madrid the condition and disposition of Europe, and

especially of Italy, had changed. From 1513 to 1523, three popes, Leo

X., Adrian VI., and Clement VII. had occupied the Holy See. Adrian VI.

alone embraced the cause of Charles V., whose preceptor he had been; but

he reigned only one year, eight months, and five days; and even during

that short time he made only a timid use of his power on his patron’s

behalf. His successor, Clement VII., was a Florentine and a Medici, and,

consequently, but little inclined to favor the emperor’s policy. The

success of Charles V. at Pavia and the captivity of Francis I. inspired

the pope and all Italy with great dread of the imperial pretensions and

predominance. A league was formed between Rome, Florence, Venice, and

Milan for the maintenance of Italian independence; and, as the pope was

at its head, it was called the Holy League. Secret messages and

communications were interchanged between these Italian states, the regent

Louise of Savoy at Paris, and King Henry VIII. in London, to win them

over to this coalition, not less important, it was urged, for the

security of Europe than of Italy. The regent of France and the King of

England received these overtures favorably; promises were made on either

side and a commencement was even made of preparations, which were hastily

disavowed both at Paris and in London, when Charles V. testified some

surprise at them. But when Francis I. was restored to freedom and

returned to his kingdom, fully determined in his own mind not to execute

the treaty of Madrid, the negotiations with Italy became more full of

meaning and reality. As early as the 22d of May, 1526, whilst he was

still deliberating with his court and Parliament as to how he should

behave towards Charles V. touching the treaty of Madrid, Francis I.

entered into the Holy League with the pope, the Venetians, and the Duke

of Milan for the independence of Italy; and on the 8th of August

following Francis I. and Henry VIII. undertook, by a special treaty, to

give no assistance one against the other to Charles V., and Henry VIII.

promised to exert all his efforts to get Francis I.’s two sons, left as

hostages in Spain, set at liberty. Thus the war between Francis I. and

Charles V., after fifteen months’ suspension, resumed its course.

It lasted three years in Italy, from 1526 to 1529, without interruption,

but also without result; it was one of those wars which are prolonged

from a difficulty of living in peace rather than from any serious

intention, on either side, of pursuing a clear and definite object.

Bourbon and Lannoy commanded the imperial armies, Lautrec the French

army. Only two events, one for its singularity and the other for its

tragic importance, deserve to have the memory of them perpetuated in

history.

After the battle of Pavia and whilst Francis I. was a captive in Spain,

Bourbon, who had hitherto remained in Italy, arrived at Madrid on the

13th of November, 1525, almost at the same time at which Marguerite de

Valois was leaving it for France. Charles V. received the hero of Pavia

with the strongest marks of consideration and favor; and the Spanish army

were enthusiastic in their attachment to him. Amongst the great Spanish

lords there were several who despised him as a traitor to his king and

country. Charles V. asked the Marquis de Villena to give him quarters in

his palace. “I can refuse the king nothing,” said the marquis; “but as

soon as the traitor is out of the house, I will fire it with my own hand;

no man of honor could live in it any more.” Holding this great and at

the same time doubtful position, Bourbon remained in Spain up to the

moment when the war was renewed between Francis I. and Charles V. The

latter could not at that time dispense with his services in Italy for the

only soldier who could have taken his place there, the Marquis of

Pescara, had died at Milan on the 30th of November, 1525, aged

thirty-six. Charles V. at once sent Bourbon to take the command of the

imperial armies in Italy. On arriving at Milan in July, 1527, Bourbon

found not only that town, but all the emperor’s party in Italy, in such a

state of disorder, alarm, and exhaustion as to render them incapable of

any great effort. In view of this general disturbance, Bourbon, who was

as ambitious as able, and had become the chief of the great adventurers

of his day, conceived the most audacious hopes. Charles V. had promised

him the duchy of Milan; why should he not have the kingdom of Naples

also, and make himself independent of Charles V.? He had immense

influence over his Spanish army; and he had recruited it in Germany with

from fourteen to fifteen thousand lanzknechts, the greater part of them

Lutherans, and right glad to serve Charles V., then at war with the pope.

Their commander, Freundsberg, a friend of Bourbon’s, had got made a

handsome gold chain, “expressly,” he said, “to hang and strangle the pope

with his own hand, because ‘honor to whom honor is due;’ and since the

pope called himself premier in Christendom, he must be deferred to

somewhat more than others.” [Brantome, t. i. p. 354.] On the 30th of

January, 1527, at Piacenza, Bourbon, late Constable of France, put

himself at the head of this ruck of bold and greedy adventurers. “I am

now,” said he to them, “nothing but a poor gentleman, who hasn’t a penny

to call his own any more than you have; but, if you will have a little

patience, I will make you all rich or die in the attempt;” and, so

saying, he distributed amongst them all he had left of money, rings, and

jewels, keeping for himself nothing but his clothes and a jacket of

silver tissue to put on over his armor. “We will follow you everywhere,

to the devil himself!” shouted the soldiers; “no more of Julius Caesar,

Hannibal, and Scipio! Hurrah! for the fame of Bourbon!” Bourbon led

this multitude through Italy, halting before most of the towns, Bologna

and Florence even, which he felt a momentary inclination to attack, but,

after all, continuing his march until, having arrived in sight of Rome on

the 5th of March, 1527, in the evening, he had pitched his camp, visited

his guards, and ordered the assault for the morrow. “The great chances

of our destiny,” said he to his troops, “have brought us hither to the

place where we desired to be, after traversing so many bad roads, in

midwinter, with snows and frosts so great, with rain, and mud, and

encounters of the enemy, in hunger and thirst, and without a halfpenny.

Now is the time to show courage, manliness, and the strength of your

bodies. If this bout you are victorious, you will be rich lords and

mighty well off; if not, you will be quite the contrary. Yonder is the

city whereof, in time past, a wise astrologer prophesied concerning me,

telling me that I should die there; but I swear to you that I care but

little for dying there, if, when I die, my corpse be left with endless

glory and renown throughout the world.” Afterwards he gave the word for

retiring, some to rest, and some on guard, and for every one to be ready

to assault on the morrow early. . . . “After that the stars became

obscured by the greater resplendency of the sun and the flashing arms of

the soldiers who were preparing for the assault, Bourbon, clad all in

white that he might be better known and seen (which was not the sign of a

coward), and armor in hand, marched in front close up to the wall, and,

when he had mounted two rungs of his ladder, just as he had said the

night before, so did it happen to him, that envious, or, to more properly

speak, traitorous Fortune would have an arquebuse-shot to hit him full in

the left side and wound him mortally. And albeit she took from him his

being and his life, yet could she not in one single respect take away his

magnanimity and his vigor so long as his body had sense, as he well

showed out of his own mouth, for, having fallen when he was hit, he told

certain of his most faithful friends who were nigh him, and especially

the Gascon captain, Jonas, to cover him with a cloak and take him away,

that his death might not give occasion to the others to leave an

enterprise so well begun. . . . Just then, as M. de Bourbon had

recommended,--to cover and hide his body,--so did his men; in such sort

that the escalade and assault went on so furiously that the town, after a

little resistance, was carried; and the soldiers, having by this time got

wind of his death, fought the more furiously that it might be avenged,

the which it certainly was right well, for they set up a shout of, ‘Slay,

slay! blood, blood! Bourbon, Bourbon!’” [Brantome, t. i. pp. 262-269.]

The celebrated artist-in-gold, Benvenuto Cellini, says, in his Life

written by himself, that it was he who, from the top of the wall of the

Campo Santo at Rome, aiming his arquebuse at the midst of a group of

besiegers, amongst whom he saw one man mounted higher than the rest, hit

him, and that he then saw an extraordinary commotion around this man, who

was Bourbon, as he found out afterwards. [_Vita di Benvenuto Cellini,_

ch. xvii. pp. 157-159.] “I have heard say at Rome,” says Brantome on

the contrary, “that it was held that he who fired that wretched

arquebuse-shot was a priest.” [Brantome, t. ii. p. 268.]

Whatever hand it was that shot down Bourbon, Rome, after his death, was

plundered, devastated and ravaged by a brutal, greedy, licentious, and

fanatical soldiery. Europe was moved at the story of the sack of Rome

and the position of the pope, who had taken refuge in the castle of St.

Angelo. Francis I. and Henry VIII. renewed their alliance; and a French

army under the command of Lautrec advanced into Italy. Charles V.,

fearing lest it should make a rapid march to Rome and get possession of

the pope whilst delivering him from captivity, entered into negotiations

with him; and, in consideration of certain concessions to the emperor,

it was arranged that the pope should be set at liberty without delay.

Clement VII. was so anxious to get out of his position, lately so

perilous and even now so precarious, that he slank out of the castle of

St. Angelo in the disguise of a tradesman the very night before the day

fixed by the emperor for his liberation; and he retired to Orvieto, on

the territory occupied by the French army. During this confusion of

things in Italy, Charles V. gave orders for arresting in Spain the

ambassadors of Francis I. and of Henry VIII., who were in alliance

against him, and who, on their side, sent him two heralds-at-arms to

declare war against him. Charles V. received them in open audience at

Burgos, on the 22d of January, 1528. “I am very much astonished,” said

he to the French envoy, “to find the King of France declaring against me

a war which he has been carrying on for seven years; he is not in a

position to address to me such a declaration; he is my prisoner. Why has

he taken no notice of what I said to his ambassador immediately after his

refusal to execute the treaty of Madrid?” Charles V. now repeated, in

the very terms addressed to the French ambassador, the communication to

which he alluded: “The king your master acted like a Bastard and a

scoundrel in not keeping his word that he gave me touching the treaty of

Madrid; if he likes to say to the contrary, I will maintain it against

him with my body to his.” When these words were reported to Francis I.,

he summoned, on the 27th of March, 1528, the princes of the blood, the

cardinals, the prelates, the grandees of the kingdom, and the ministers

from foreign courts, and, after having given a vivid account of his

relations with Charles V., “I am not the prisoner of Charles,” he said:

“I have not given him my word; we have never met with arms in our hands.”

He then handed his herald, Guyenne, a cartel written with his own hand,

and ending with these words addressed to Charles V.: “We give you to

understand that, if you have intended or do intend to charge us with

anything that a gentleman loving his honor ought not to do, we say that

you have lied in your throat, and that, as often as you say so, you will

lie. Wherefore for the future write us nothing at all; but appoint us

the time and place of meeting, and we will bring our sword for you to

cross; protesting that the shame of any delay in fighting shall be yours,

seeing that, when it comes to an encounter, there is an end of all

writing.” Charles V. did not receive Francis I.’s challenge till the 8th

of June; when he, in his turn, consulted the grandees of his kingdom,

amongst others the Duke of Infantado, one of the most considerable in

rank and character, who answered him in writing: “The jurisdiction of

arms extends exclusively to obscure and foggy matters in which the

ordinary rules of justice are at a discount; but, when one can appeal to

oaths and authentic acts, I do not think that it is allowable to come to

blows before having previously tried the ordinary ways of justice. . .

It seems to me that this law of honor applies to princes, however great

they may be, as well as to knights. It would be truly strange, my lord,

that a debt so serious, so universally recognized, as that contracted by

the King of France, should be discharged by means of a personal

challenge.” Charles V. thereupon sent off his herald, Burgundy, with

orders to carry to Francis I. “an appointment for a place of meeting

between Fontarabia and Andaye, in such a spot as by common consent should

be considered most safe and most convenient by gentlemen chosen on each

side;” and this offer was accompanied by a long reply which the herald

was at the same time to deliver to the King of France, whilst calling on

him to declare his intention within forty days after the delivery of that

letter, dated the 24th of June, “in default whereof,” said Charles, “the

delay in fighting will be yours.”

[Illustration: Francis I.----115]

On arriving at the frontier of France the Spanish herald demanded a

safe-conduct. He was made to wait seven weeks, from the 30th of June to

the 19th of August, without the king’s cognizance, it is said. At last,

on the 19th of September, 1528, Burgundy entered Paris, and was

conducted to the palace. Francis I. received him in the midst of his

court; and, as soon as he observed the entrance of the herald, who made

obeisance preliminary to addressing him, “Herald,” cried the king, “all

thy letters declare that thou bringest appointment of time and place;

dost thou bring it?” “Sir,” answered the Spaniard, “permit me to do my

office, and say what the emperor has charged me to say.” “Nay, I will

not listen to thee,” said Francis, “if thou do not first give me a

patent signed by thy master, containing an appointment of time and

place.” “Sir, I have orders to read you the cartel, and give it you

afterwards.” “How, pray!” cried the king, rising up angrily: “doth thy

master pretend to introduce new fashions in my kingdom, and give me laws

in my own court?” Burgundy, without being put out, began again: “Sir,

. . . “ “Nay,” said Francis, “I will not suffer him to speak to me

before he has given me appointment of time and place. Give it me, or

return as thou hast come.” “Sir, I cannot, without your permission, do

my office; if you will not deign to grant it to me, let me have your

refusal handed me, and your ratification I of my safe-conduct for my

return.” “I am quite willing,” said the king; “let him have it!”

Burgundy set off again for Madrid, and the incident was differently

reported by the two courts; but there was no further question of a duel

between the two kings.

One would not think of attempting to decide, touching this question of

single combat, how far sincerity was on the side of Francis or of

Charles. No doubt they were both brave; the former with more brilliancy

than his rival, the latter, at need, with quite as much firmness. But in

sending challenges one to the other, as they did on this occasion, they

were obeying a dying-out code, and rather attempting to keep up

chivalrous appearances than to put seriously in practice the precedents

of their ancestors. It was no longer a time when the fate of a people

could be placed in the hands of a few valiant warriors, such as the three

Horatii and the three Curiatii, or the thirty Bretons and thirty English.

The era of great nations and great contests was beginning, and one is

inclined to believe that Francis I. and Charles V. were themselves aware

that their mutual challenges would not come to any personal encounter.

The war which continued between them in Italy was not much more serious

or decisive; both sides were weary of it, and neither one nor the other

of the two sovereigns espied any great chances of success. The French

army was wasting itself, in the kingdom of Naples, upon petty,

inconclusive engagements; its commander, Lautrec, died of the plague on

the 15th of August, 1528; a desire for peace became day by day stronger;

it was made, first of all, at Barcelona, on the 20th of June, 1529,

between Charles V. and Pope Clement VII.; and then a conference was

opened at Cambrai for the purpose of bringing it about between Charles V.

and Francis I. likewise. Two women, Francis I.’s mother and Charles V.’s

aunt, Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, had the real negotiation

of it; they had both of them acquired the good sense and the moderation

which come from experience of affairs and from difficulties in life; they

did not seek to give one another mutual surprises and to play-off one

another reciprocally; they resided in two contiguous houses, between

which they had caused a communication to be made on the inside, and they

conducted the negotiation with so much discretion, that the petty Italian

princes who were interested in it did not know the results of it until

peace was concluded on the 5th of August, 1529. Francis I. yielded on

all the Italian and Flemish questions; and Charles V. gave up Burgundy,

and restored to liberty the King of France’s two sons, prisoners at

Madrid, in consideration of a ransom put at two millions of crowns and of

having the marriage completed between his sister Eleanor and Francis I.

King Henry VIII. complained that not much account had been made of him,

either during the negotiations or in the treaty; but his discontent was

short-lived, and he none the less came to the assistance of Francis I.

in the money-questions to which the treaty gave rise. Of the Italian

states, Venice was most sacrificed in this accommodation between the

kings. “The city of Cambrai,” said the doge, Andrew Gritti, “is the

purgatory of the Venetians; it is the place where emperors and kings of

France make the Republic expiate the sin of having ever entered into

alliance with them.” Francis went to Bordeaux to meet his sons and his

new wife. At Bordeaux, Cognac, Amboise, Blois, and Paris, galas, both at

court and amongst the people, succeeded one another for six months; and

Europe might consider itself at peace.

The peace of Cambrai was called the ladies’ peace, in honor of the two

princesses who had negotiated it. Though morally different and of very

unequal worth, they both had minds of a rare order, and trained to

recognize political necessities, and not to attempt any but possible

successes. They did not long survive their work: Margaret of Austria

died on the 1st of December, 1530, and Louise of Savoy on the 22d of

September, 1531. All the great political actors seemed hurrying away

from the stage, as if the drama were approaching its end. Pope Clement

VII. died on the 26th of September, 1534. He was a man of sense and

moderation; he tried to restore to Italy her independence, but he forgot

that a moderate policy is, above all, that which requires most energy and

perseverance. These two qualities he lacked totally; he oscillated from

one camp to the other without ever having any real influence anywhere. A

little before his death he made France a fatal present; for, on the 28th

of October, 1533, he married his niece Catherine de’ Medici to Francis

I.’s second son, Prince Henry of Valois, who by the death of his elder

brother, the Dauphin Francis, soon afterwards became heir to the throne.

The chancellor, Anthony Duprat, too, the most considerable up to that

time amongst the advisers of Francis I., died on the 9th of July, 1535.

According to some historians, when he heard, in the preceding year, of

Pope Clement VII.’s death, he had conceived a hope, being already

Archbishop of Sens, and a cardinal, of succeeding him; and he spoke to

the king about it. “Such an election would cost too dear,” said Francis

I.; “the appetite of cardinals is insatiable; I could not satisfy it.”

“Sir,” replied Duprat, “France will not have to bear the expense; I will

provide for it; there are four hundred thousand crowns ready for that

purpose.” “Where did you get all that money, pray?” asked Francis,

turning his back upon him; and next day he caused a seizure to be made

of a portion of the chancellor-cardinal’s property. “This, then,”

exclaimed Duprat, “is the king’s gratitude towards the minister who has

served him body and soul!” “What has the cardinal to complain of?” said

the king: “I am only doing to him what he has so often advised me to do

to others.” [_Trois Magestrats Francais du Seizieme Siecle,_ by Edouard

Faye de Brys, 1844, pp. 77-79.] The last of the chancellor’s

biographers, the Marquis Duprat, one of his descendants, has disputed

this story. [_Vie d’Antoine Duprat,_ 1857, p. 364.] However that may

be, it is certain that Chancellor Duprat, at his death, left a very large

fortune, which the king caused to be seized, and which he partly

appropriated. We read in the contemporary _Journal d’un Bourgeois de

Paris_ [published by Ludovic Lalanne, 1854, p. 460], “When the chancellor

was at the point of death, the king sent M. de Bryon, Admiral of France,

who had orders to have everything seized and all his property placed in

the king’s hands. . . . They found in his place at Nantouillet eight

hundred thousand crowns, and all his gold and silver plate . . . and

in his Hercules-house, close to the Augustins’, at Paris, where he used

to stay during his life-time, the sum of three hundred thousand livres,

which were in coffers bound with iron, and which were carried off by the

king for and to his own profit.” In the civil as well as in the military

class, for his government as well as for his armies, Francis I. had, at

this time, to look out for new servants.

He did not find such as have deserved a place in history. After the

deaths of Louise of Savoy, of Chancellor Duprat, of La Tremoille, of La

Palice, and of all the great warriors who fell at the battle of Pavia, it

was still one more friend of Francis I.’s boyhood, Anne de Montmorency,

who remained, in council as well as army, the most considerable and the

most devoted amongst his servants. In those days of war and discord,

fraught with violence, there was no man who was more personally rough and

violent than Montmorency. From 1521 to 1541, as often as circumstances

became pressing, he showed himself ready for anything and capable of

anything in defence of the crown and the re-establishment of order. “Go

hang me such a one,” he would say, according to Brantome. “Tie you

fellow to this tree; give yonder one the pike or arquebuse, and all

before my eyes; cut me in pieces all those rascals who chose to hold such

a clock-case as this against the king; burn me this village; set me

everything a-blaze, for a quarter of a league all round.” In 1548,

a violent outbreak took place at Bordeaux on account of the gabel or

salt-tax; and the king’s lieutenant was massacred in it. Anne de

Montmorency, whom the king had made constable in 1538, the fifth of his

family invested with that dignity, repaired thither at once. “Aware of

his coming,” says Brantome, “MM. de Bordeaux went two days’ journey to

meet him and carry him the keys of their city: ‘Away, away,’ said he,

‘with your keys; I will have nothing to do with them; I have others which

I am bringing with me, and which will make other sort of opening than

yours (meaning his cannon); I will have you all hanged; I will teach you

to rebel against your king, and kill his governor and lieutenant.’ Which

he did not fail to do,” adds Brantome, “and inflicted exemplary

punishment, but not so severe assuredly as the case required.” The

narrator, it will be seen, was not more merciful than the constable.

Nor was the constable less stern or less thorough in battles than in

outbreaks. In 1562, at the battle of Dreux, he was aged and so ill that

none expected to see him on horseback. “But in the morning,” says

Brantome, “knowing that the enemy was getting ready, he, brimful of

courage, gets out of bed, mounts his horse, and appears at the moment the

march began; whereof I do remember me, for I saw him and heard him, when

M. de Guise came forward to meet him to give him good day, and ask how he

was. He, fully armed, save only his head, answered him, ‘Right well,

sir: this is the real medicine that hath cured me for the battle which is

toward and a-preparing for the honor of God and our king.’” In spite of

this indomitable aptness for rendering the king everywhere the most

difficult, nay, the most pitiless services, the Constable de Montmorency

none the less incurred, in 1541, the disfavor of Francis I.; private

dissensions in the royal family, the intrigues of rivals at court, and

the enmity of the king’s mistress, the Duchess of Etampes, effaced the

remembrance of all he had done and might still do. He did accept his

disgrace; he retired first to Chantilly, and then to Ecouen; and there he

waited for the dauphin, when he became King Henry II., to recall him to

his side and restore to him the power which Francis I., on his very

death-bed, had dissuaded his son from giving back. The ungratefulnesses

of kings are sometimes as capricious as their favors.

The ladies’ peace, concluded at Cambrai in 1529, lasted up to 1536;

incessantly troubled, however, by far from pacific symptoms, proceedings,

and preparations. In October, 1532, Francis I. had, at Calais, an

interview with Henry VIII., at which they contracted a private alliance,

and undertook “to raise between them an army of eighty thousand men to

resist the Turk, as true zealots for the good of Christendom.” The

Turks, in fact, under their great sultan, Soliman II., were constantly

threatening and invading Eastern Europe. Charles V., as Emperor of

Germany, was far more exposed to their attacks and far more seriously

disquieted by them than Francis I. and Henry VIII. were; but the peril

that hung over him in the East urged him on at the same time to a further

development of ambition and strength; in order to defend Eastern Europe

against the Turks he required to be dominant in Western Europe; and in

that very part of Europe a large portion of the population were disposed

to wish for his success, for they required it for their own security.

“To read all that was spread abroad hither and thither,” says William du

Bellay, “it seemed that the said lord the emperor was born into this

world to have fortune at his beck and call.” Two brothers, Mussulman

pirates, known under the name of Barbarossa, had become masters, one of

Algiers and the other of Tunis, and were destroying, in the

Mediterranean, the commerce and navigation of Christian states. It was

Charles V. who tackled them. In 1535 he took Tunis, set at liberty

twenty thousand Christian slaves, and remained master of the regency.

At the news of this expedition, Francis I., who, in concert with Henry

VIII., was but lately levying an army to “offer resistance,” he said, “to

the Turk,” entered into negotiations with Soliman II., and concluded a

friendly treaty with him against what was called the common enemy.

Francis had been for some time preparing to resume his projects of

conquest in Italy; he had effected an interview at Marseilles, in

October, 1533, with Pope Clement VII., who was almost at the point of

death, and it was there that the marriage of Prince Henry of France with

Catherine de’ Medici was settled. Astonishment was expressed that the

pope’s niece had but a very moderate dowry. “You don’t see, then,” said

Clement VII.’s ambassador, “that she brings France three jewels of great

price, Genoa, Milan, and Naples?” When this language was reported at the

court of Charles V., it caused great irritation there. In 1536 all

these combustibles of war exploded; in the month of February, a French

army entered Piedmont, and occupied Turin; and, in the month of July,

Charles V. in person entered Provence at the head of fifty thousand men.

Anne de Montmorency having received orders to defend southern France,

began by laying it waste in order that the enemy might not be able to

live in it; officers had orders to go everywhere and “break up the

bake-houses and mills, burn the wheat and forage, pierce the wine-casks,

and ruin the wells by throwing the wheat into them to spoil the water.”

In certain places the inhabitants resisted the soldiers charged with this

duty; elsewhere, from patriotism, they themselves set fire to their

corn-ricks and pierced their casks. Montmorency made up his mind to

defend, on the whole coast of Provence, only Marseilles and Arles; he

pulled down the ramparts of the other towns, which were left exposed to

the enemy. For two months Charles V. prosecuted this campaign without a

fight, marching through the whole of Provence an army which fatigue,

shortness of provisions, sickness, and ambuscades were decimating

ingloriously. At last he decided upon retreating. “From Aix to Frejus,

where the emperor at his arrival had pitched his camp, all the roads were

strewn with the sick and the dead pell-mell, with harness, lances, pikes,

arquebuses, and other armor of men and horses gathered in a heap. I say

what I saw,” adds Martin du Bellay, “considering the toil I had with my

company in this pursuit.” At the village of Mery, near Frejus, some

peasants had shut themselves up in a tower situated on the line of march;

Charles V. ordered one of his captains to carry it by assault; from his

splendid uniform the peasants, it is said, took this officer for the

emperor himself, and directed their fire upon him; the officer, mortally

wounded, was removed to Nice, where he died at the end of a few days. It

was Garcilaso de la Vega, the prince of Spanish poesy, the Spanish

Petrarch, according to his fellow-countrymen. The tower was taken, and

Charles V. avenged his poet’s death by hanging twenty-five of these

patriot-peasants, being all that survived of the fifty who had maintained

the defence.

On returning from his sorry expedition, Charles V. learned that those of

his lieutenants whom he had charged with the conduct of a similar

invasion in the north of France, in Picardy, had met with no greater

success than he himself in Provence. Queen Mary of Hungary, his sister

and deputy in the government of the Low Countries, advised a local truce;

his other sister, Eleanor, the Queen of France, was of the same opinion;

Francis I. adopted it; and the truce in the north was signed for a period

of three months. Montmorency signed a similar one for Piedmont. It was

agreed that negotiations for a peace should be opened at Locate in

Roussillon, and that, to pursue them, Francis should go and take up his

quarters at Montpellier, and Charles V. at Barcelona. Pope Paul III.

(Alexander Farnese), who, on the 13th of October, 1534, had succeeded

Clement VII., came forward as mediator. He was a man of capacity, who

had the gift of resolutely continuing a moderate course of policy, well

calculated to gain time, but insufficient for the settlement of great and

difficult questions. The two sovereigns refused to see one another

officially; they did not like the idea of discussing together their

mutual pretensions, and they were so different in character that, as

Marguerite de Valois used to say, “to bring them to accord, God would have

had to re-make one in the other’s image.” They would only consent to

treat by agents; and on the 15th of June, 1538, they signed a truce for

ten years, rather from weariness of a fruitless war than from any real

desire of peace; they, both of them, wanted time to bring them unforeseen

opportunities for getting out of their embarrassments. But for all their

refusal to take part in set negotiations, they were both desirous of

being personally on good terms again, and to converse together without

entering into any engagement. Charles V. being forced by contrary winds

to touch at the Island of Sainte-Marie, made a proposal to Francis I.

for an interview at Aigues Mortes; Francis repaired thither on the 14th

of July, 1538, and went, the very same day, in a small galley, to pay a

visit to the emperor, who stepped eagerly forward, and held out a hand to

him to help him on to the other vessel. Next day, the 15th of July,

Charles V., embarking on board one of the king’s frigates, went and

returned the visit at Aigues-Mortes, where Francis, with his whole court,

was awaiting him; after disembarkation at the port they embraced; and

Queen Eleanor, glad to see them together, “embraced them both,” says an

eyewitness, “a round the waist.” They entered the town amidst the roar

of artillery and the cheers of the multitude, shouting, “Hurrah! for the

emperor and the king!” The dauphin, Henry, and his brother Charles, Duke

of Orleans, arriving boot and spur from Provence, came up at this moment,

shouting likewise, “Hurrah! for the emperor and the king!” “Charles V.

dropped on his knees,” says the narrator, and embraced the two young

princes affectionately. They all repaired together to the house prepared

for their reception, and, after dinner, the emperor, being tired, lay

down to rest on a couch. Queen Eleanor, before long, went and tapped at

his door, and sent word to the king that the emperor was awake. Francis,

with the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Constable de Montmorency, soon

arrived. On entering the chamber, he found the emperor still lying down

and chatting with his sister the queen, who was seated beside him on a

chair. At sight of the king Charles V. sprang from the couch and went

towards him without any shoes on. “Well, brother,” said the king, “how

do you feel? Have you rested well?” “Yes,” said Charles; “I had made

such cheer that I was obliged to sleep it off.” “I wish you,” said

Francis, “to have the same power in France as you have in Flanders and in

Spain;” whereupon he gave him, as a mark of affection, a diamond valued

at thirty thousand crowns, and having on the ring in which it was set

this inscription: “A token and proof of affection” (Dilectionis testis

et exemplum). Charles put the ring on his finger; and, taking from his

neck the collar of the order (the Golden Fleece) he was wearing, he put

it upon the king’s neck. Francis did the converse with his own collar.

Only seven of the attendants remained in the emperor’s chamber; and there

the two sovereigns conversed for an hour, after which they moved to the

hall, where a splendid supper awaited them. After supper the queen went

in person to see if the emperor’s room was ready; she came back to tell

him when it was, and Charles V. retired. Next morning, July 16, Francis

went to see him again in his room; they heard mass together; Charles

re-embarked the same day for Spain; Francis I. went and slept, on the

17th, at Nimes; and thus ended this friendly meeting, which left, if not

the principal actors, at any rate the people all around, brimful of

satisfaction, and feeling sure that the truce concluded in the previous

month would really at last be peace. The people are easily deceived; and

whenever they are pleased with appearances they readily take them for

realities.

An unexpected event occurred to give this friendly meeting at

Aigues-Mortes a value which otherwise it would probably never have

attained. A year afterwards, in August, 1539, a violent insurrection

burst out at Ghent. The fair deputy of the Low Countries had obtained

from the estates of Flanders a gratuitous grant of twelve hundred

thousand florins for the assistance of her brother the emperor, whom his

unfortunate expedition in Provence had reduced to great straits for want

of money; and the city of Ghent had been taxed, for its share, to the

extent of four hundred thousand florins. The Ghentese pleaded their

privilege of not being liable to be taxed without their own consent. To

their plea Charles V. responded by citing the vote of the estates of

Flanders and giving orders to have it obeyed. The Ghentese drove out the

officers of the emperor, entered upon open rebellion, incited the other

cities of Flanders, Ypres and Bruges amongst the rest, to join them, and,

taking even more decisive action, sent a deputation to Francis I., as

their own lord’s suzerain, demanding his support, and offering to make

him master of the Low Countries if he would be pleased to give them

effectual assistance. The temptation was great; but whether it were from

prudence or from feudal loyalty, or in consequence of the meeting at

Aigues-Mortes, and of the prospects set before him by Charles of an

arrangement touching Milaness, Francis rejected the offer of the

Ghentese, and informed Charles V. of it. The emperor determined

resolutely upon the course of going in person and putting down the

Ghentese; but how to get to Ghent? The sea was not safe; the rebels had

made themselves masters of all the ports on their coasts; the passage by

way of Germany was very slow work, and might be difficult by reason of

ill-will on the part of the Protestant states which would have to be

traversed. France was the only direct and quick route. Charles V. sent

to ask Francis I. for a passage, whilst thanking him for the loyalty

with which he had rejected the offers of the Ghentese, and repeating to

him the fair words that had been used as to Milaness. Francis announced

to his council his intention of granting the emperor’s request. Some of

his councillors pressed him to annex some conditions, such, at the least,

as a formal and written engagement instead of the vague and verbal

promises at Aigues-Mortes. “No,” said the king, with the impulsiveness

of his nature, “when you do a generous thing, you must do it completely

and boldly.” On leaving the council he met his court-fool Triboulet,

whom he found writing in his tablets, called Fools’ Diary, the name of

Charles V., “A bigger fool than I,” said he, “if he comes passing

through France.” “What wilt thou say, if I let him pass?” said the king.

“I will rub out his name and put yours in its place.” Francis I. was not

content with letting Charles V. pass; he sent his two sons, the dauphin

and the Duke of Orleans, as far as Bayonne to meet him, went in person to

receive him at Chatellerault, and gave him entertainments at Amboise, at

Blois, at Chambord, at Orleans, and Fontainebleau, and lastly at Paris,

which they entered together on the 1st of January, 1540. Orders had been

sent everywhere to receive him “as kings of France are received on their

joyous accession.” “The king gave his guest,” says Du Bellay, “all the

pleasures that can be invented, as royal hunts, tourneys, skirmishes,

fights a-foot and a-horseback, and in all other sorts of pastimes.” Some

petty incidents, of a less reassuring kind, were intermingled with these

entertainments. One day the Duke of Orleans, a young prince full of

reckless gayety, jumped suddenly on to the crupper of the emperor’s

horse, and threw his arms round Charles, shouting, “Your Imperial Majesty

is my prisoner.” Charles set off at a gallop, without turning his head.

[Illustration: The Duke of Orleans and Charles V.----128]

Another day the king’s favorite, the Duchess of Etampes, was present with

the two monarchs. “Brother,” said Francis, “you see yonder a fair dame

who is of opinion that I should not let you out of Paris without your

having revoked the treaty of Madrid.” “Ah! well,” said Charles, “if the

opinion is a good one, it must be followed.” Such freedom of thought and

speech is honorable to both sovereigns. Charles V., impressed with the

wealth and cheerful industry that met his eye, said, according to

Brantome, “There is not in the world any greatness such as that of a King

of France.” After having passed a week at Paris he started for the Low

Countries, halted at Chantilly, at the Constable de Montmorency’s, who,

as well as the king’s two sons, the dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, was

in attendance upon him, and did not separate from his escort of French

royalty until he arrived at Valenciennes, the first town in his Flemish

dominions. According to some historians there had been at Chantilly,

amongst the two young princes and their servants, some idea of seizing

the emperor and detaining him until he had consented to the concessions

demanded of him; others merely say that the constable, before leaving

him, was very urgent with him that he should enter into some positive

engagement as to Milaness. “No,” said Charles, “I must not bind myself

any more than I have done by my words as long as I am in your power; when

I have chastised my rebellious subjects I will content your king.”

He did chastise, severely, his Flemish subjects, but he did not content

the King of France. Francis I. was not willing to positively renounce

his Italian conquests, and Charles V. was not willing to really give them

up to him. Milaness was still, in Italy, the principal object of their

mutual ambition. Navarre, in the south-east of France, and the Low

Countries in the north, gave occasion for incessantly renewed disputes

between them. The two sovereigns sought for combinations which would

allow them to make, one to the other, the desired concessions, whilst

still preserving pretexts for and chances of recovering them. Divers

projects of marriage between their children or near relatives were

advanced with that object, but nothing came of them; and, after two years

and a half of abortive negotiations, another great war, the fourth, broke

out between Francis I. and Charles V., for the same causes and with the

same by-ends as ever. It lasted two years, from 1542 to 1544, with

alternations of success and reverse on either side, and several

diplomatic attempts to embroil in it the different European powers.

Francis I. concluded an alliance in 1543 with Sultan Soliman II., and, in

concert with French vessels, the vessels of the pirate Barbarossa cruised

about and made attacks upon the shores of the Mediterranean. An outcry

was raised against such a scandal as this. “Sir Ambassador,” said

Francis I. to Marino Giustiniano, ambassador from Venice, “I cannot deny

that I eagerly desire to see the Turk very powerful and ready for war;

not on his own account, for he is an infidel and all we are Christians,

but in order to cripple the power of the emperor, to force him into great

expense, and to give all other governments security against so great an

enemy.” “As for me,” says the contemporary Montluc in his Memoires, “if

I could summon all the spirits of hell to break the head of my enemy who

would fain break mine, I would do it with all my heart, God forgive me!”

On the other hand, on the 11th of February, 1543, Charles V. and Henry

VIII., King of England, concluded an alliance against Francis I. and the

Turks. The unsuccess which had attended the grand expedition conducted

by Charles V. personally in 1541, with the view of attacking Barbarossa

and the Mussulmans in Algiers itself, had opened his eyes to all the

difficulty of such enterprises, and he wished to secure the co-operation

of a great maritime power before engaging therein afresh. He at the same

time convoked a German diet at Spires in order to make a strong

demonstration against the alliance between Francis I. and the Turks, and

to claim the support of Germany in the name of Christendom. Ambassadors

from the Duke of Savoy and the King of Denmark appeared in support of the

propositions and demands of Charles V. The diet did not separate until

it had voted twenty-four thousand foot and four thousand horse to be

employed against France, and had forbidden Germans, under severe

penalties, to take service with Francis I. In 1544 the war thus became

almost European, and in the early days of April two armies were

concentrated in Piedmont, near the little town of Ceresole, the Spanish

twenty thousand strong and the French nineteen thousand; the former under

the orders of the Marquis del Guasto, the latter under those of the Count

d’Enghien; both ready to deliver a battle which was, according to one

side, to preserve Europe from the despotic sway of a single master, and,

according to the other, to protect Europe against a fresh invasion of

Mussulmans.

Francis of Bourbon, Count d’Enghien, had received from the king a

prohibition to give battle. He was believed to be weaker than the

Marquis del Guasto, who showed eagerness to deliver it. Convinced that

such a position was as demoralizing as it was disagreeable for him, the

young Count d’Enghien sent a valiant and intelligent gentleman, Blaise de

Montluc, who had already had experience in the great wars of the reign,

to carry his representations to the king. Francis I. summoned the

messenger to a meeting of the council, at which the dauphin, Henry, stood

behind his father’s chair. “Montluc,” said the king, “I wish you to

return and report my deliberation and the opinion of my council to M.

d’Enghien, and to listen here to the difficulty that stands in the way of

our being able to grant him leave to give battle, as he demands.” The

Count de St. Pol spoke and set forth the reasons the king had for not

desiring battle; and the end of them all was that there was a chance of

losing, which would be a matter for regret beyond all comparison with the

advantage to be gained from winning. “I stamped with impatience to

speak,” says Montluc, “and would have broken in; but M. de St. Pol made

me a sign with his hand, saying, ‘Quiet! quiet!’ which made me hold my

tongue, and I saw that the king set on a-laughing. Then he told me that

he wished me to say freely what I thought about it. ‘I consider myself

most happy, sir,’ said I, ‘for when you were dauphin, and before you were

called to this great charge which God hath given you, you tried the

fortune of war as much as any king that ever hath been in France, without

sparing your own person any more than the meanest gentleman. Well, a

soldier-king is the only one I can address.’ The dauphin, who was facing

me,” continued Montluc, “made me a sign with his head, which caused me to

think that he wished me to speak boldly. Then said I, ‘Sir, I count that

there will be forty-five hundred or forty-six hundred of us Gascons, all

told; and all of us, captains and soldiers, will give you our names and

the places whence we come, and will stake our heads that we will fight on

the day of battle, if it should please you to grant it. It is a matter

that we have been awaiting and desiring this long while, without much

taking of counsel; be assured, sir, there are not more resolute soldiers

than yonder. There are, besides, thirteen companies of Swiss, who will

give you the same pledge as we who are your subjects; and we will hand in

to you the names of them all for to be sent to their cantons in order

that, if there be any who shall not do his duty, he may die. You have

thus nine thousand men and more of whom you may be certain that they will

fight to the last gasp of their lives. As for the Italians and

Provencals, I will not answer to you for them; but perhaps they will all

do as well as we, when they see us getting to work;’ and then I raised my

arm up, as if to strike, whereat the king smiled. Sir,’ said I, ‘I have

heard from wise captains that it is not the great number that wins, but

the stout heart; on a day of battle, a moiety doth not fight at all.

We desire no more; leave it to us.’ The king, who had very favorably

listened to me, and who took pleasure in seeing my impatience, turned his

eyes towards M. de St. Pol, who said, ‘Sir, would you change your opinion

at the words of this madcap, who has no thought for the calamity it would

be if we were to lose the battle? It is a matter too important to be

left for settlement to the brains of a young Gascon.’ I answered him,

‘Sir, let me assure you that I am no braggart, nor so hare-brained as you

consider me. All we have to do is not to go and attack the enemy in a

stronghold, as we did at La Bicocca; but M. d’Enghien has too many good

and veteran captains about him to commit such an error. The only

question will be to find means of coming at them in open country, where

there is neither hedge nor ditch to keep us from setting to work; and

then, sir, you shall hear talk of the most furious fights that ever were.

I do entreat you most humbly, sir, to admit no thought of anything but a

victory.’ The dauphin,” continues Montluc, “went on more and more

smiling, and making signs to me, which gave me still greater boldness in

speaking. All the rest spoke and said that the king must not place any

reliance upon my words. Admiral d’Annebaut said not a syllable, but

smiled; I suppose he had seen the signs the dauphin was making to me.

M. de St. Pol turns to speak to the king, and says, ‘How, sir! You seem

disposed to change your opinion, and listen to the words of this rabid

madman!’ To whom the king replied, ‘On my honor as a gentleman, cousin,

he has given me such great and clear reasons, and has represented to me

so well the good courage of my men, that I know not what to do.’ ‘I see

quite well,’ said the Lord of St. Pol, ‘that you have already turned

round.’ Whereupon the king, addressing the admiral, asked him what he

thought about it. ‘Sir,’ answered the admiral, ‘you have a great mind to

give them leave to fight. I will not be surety to you, if they fight,

for gain or loss, since God alone can know about that; but I will

certainly pledge you my life and my honor that all they whom he has

mentioned to you will fight, and like good men and true, for I know what

they are worth from having commanded them. Only do one thing; we know

well that you are half brought round and inclined rather to fighting than

the contrary; make, then, your prayer to God, and entreat Him to be

pleased this once to aid you and counsel you as to what you ought to do.’

Then the king lifted his eyes towards heaven, and, clasping his hands and

throwing his cap upon the table, said, ‘O God, I entreat Thee that it may

please Thee to this day give me counsel as to what I ought to do for the

preservation of my kingdom, and that all may be to Thy honor and glory!’

Whereupon the admiral asked him, ‘Sir, what opinion occurs to you now?’

The king, after pausing a little, turned towards me, saying, with a sort

of shout, ‘Let them fight! let them fight!’ ‘Well, then, there is no

more to be said,’ replied the admiral; ‘if you lose, you alone will be

the cause of the loss; and, if you win, in like manner; and you, all

alone, will have the satisfaction of it, you alone having given the

leave.’ Then the king and every one rose up, and, as for me, I tingled

with joy. His Majesty began talking with the admiral about my despatch

and about giving orders for the pay which was in arrears. And M. de St.

Pol accosted me, saying with a laugh, ‘Rabid madman, thou wilt be cause

of the greatest weal that could happen to the king, or of the greatest

woe.’”

Montluc’s boldness and Francis I.’s confidence in yielding to it were not

unrewarded. The battle was delivered at Ceresole on the 14th of April,

1544; it was bravely disputed and for some time indecisive, even in the

opinion of the anxious Count d’Enghien, who was for a while in an awkward

predicament; but the ardor of the Gascons and the firmness of the Swiss

prevailed, and the French army was victorious. Montluc was eagerly

desirous of being commissioned to go and carry to the king the news of

the victory which he had predicted and to which he had contributed; but

another messenger had the preference; and he does not, in his Memoires,

conceal his profound discontent; but he was of those whom their

discontent does not dishearten, and he continued serving his king and his

country with such rigorous and stubborn zeal as was destined hereafter,

in the reign of Henry III., to make him Marshal of France at last. He

had to suffer a disappointment more serious than that which was personal

to himself; the victory of Ceresole had not the results that might have

been expected. The war continued; Charles V. transferred his principal

efforts therein to the north, on the frontiers of the Low Countries and

France, having concluded an alliance with Henry VIII. for acting in

concert and on the offensive. Champagne and Picardy were simultaneously

invaded by the Germans and the English; Henry VIII. took Boulogne;

Charles V. advanced as far as Chateau-Thierry and threatened Paris.

Great was the consternation there; Francis I. hurried up from

Fontainebleau and rode about the streets, accompanied by the Duke of

Guise, and everywhere saying, “If I cannot keep you from fear, I will

keep you from harm.” “My God,” he had exclaimed, as he started from

Fontainebleau, “how dear Thou sellest me my kingdom!” The people

recovered courage and confidence; they rose in a body; forty thousand

armed militiamen defiled, it is said, before the king. The army arrived

by forced marches, and took post between Paris and Chateau-Thierry.

[Illustration: Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise----130]

Charles V. was not rash; he fell back to Crespy in Laonness, some few

leagues from his Low Countries. Negotiations were opened; and Francis

I., fearing least Henry VIII., being master of Boulogne, should come and

join Charles V., ordered his negotiator, Admiral d’Annebaut, to accept

the emperor’s offers, “for fear lest he should rise higher in his demands

when he knew that Boulogne was in the hands of the King of England.” The

demands were hard, but a little less so than those made in 1540; Charles

V. yielded on some special points, being possessed beyond everything with

the desire of securing Francis I.’s co-operation in the two great

contests he was maintaining, against the Turks in eastern Europe and

against the Protestants in Germany. Francis I. conceded everything in

respect of the European policy in order to retain his rights over

Milaness and to recover the French towns on the Somme. Peace was signed

at Crespy on the 18th of September, 1544; and it was considered so bad an

one that the dauphin thought himself bound to protest, first of all

secretly before notaries and afterwards at Fontainebleau, on the 12th of

December, in the presence of three princes of the royal house. This

feeling was so general that several great bodies, amongst others the

Parliament of Toulouse (on the 22d of January, 1545), followed the

dauphin’s example.

Francis I. was ill, saddened, discouraged, and still he thought of

nothing but preparing for a fifth great campaign against Charles V.

Since his glorious victory at Melegnano in the beginning of his reign,

fortune had almost invariably forsaken his policy and all his

enterprises, whether of war or of diplomacy; but, falling at one time a

victim to the defects of his mind and character, and being at another

hurried away by his better qualities and his people’s sympathy, he took

no serious note of the true causes or the inevitable consequences of his

reverses, and realized nothing but their outward and visible signs,

whilst still persisting in the same hopeful illusions and the same ways

of government. Happily for the lustre of his reign and the honor of his

name, he had desires and tastes independent of the vain and reckless

policy practised by him with such alternations of rashness and feebleness

as were more injurious to the success of his designs than to his personal

renown, which was constantly recovering itself through the brilliancy of

his courage, the generous though superficial instincts of his soul, and

the charm of a mind animated by a sincere though ill-regulated sympathy

for all the beautiful works of mankind in literature, science, and art,

and for all that does honor and gives embellishment to the life of human

beings.