holy father was still asleep. "Wake him," said he; but the other refused. "Do as I tell you," insisted the ambassador. The chamberlain went in; and the pope, only half dressed, soon sallied from his room. "Holy father," said the Venetian, "your Holiness yesterday gave me some bad news which was false; to-day I have to give you some good news which is true: the Swiss are beaten." The pope read the letters brought by the ambassador, and some other letters also. "What will come of it for us and for you?" asked the pope. "For us," was the answer, "nothing but good, since we are with the Most Christian king; and your Holiness will not have aught of evil to suffer." "Sir Ambassador," rejoined the pope, "we will see what the Most Christian king will do; we will place ourselves in his hands, demanding mercy of him." "Holy father, your Holiness will not come to the least harm, any more than the holy See: is not the Most Christian king the church's own son?" And in the account given of this interview to the Senate of Venice the ambassador added, "The holy father is a good sort of man, a man of great liberality and of a happy disposition; but he would not like the idea of having to give himself much trouble."

Leo X. made up his mind without much trouble to accept accomplished facts. When he had been elected pope, he had said to his brother, Julian de' Medici, "Enjoy we the papacy, since God hath given it us" [Godiamoci il papato, poiche Dio ci l' ha dato]. He appeared to have no further thought than how to pluck from the event the advantages he could discover in it. His allies all set him an example of resignation. On the 15th of September, the day after the battle, the Swiss took the road back to their mountains. Francis I. entered Milan in triumph. Maximilian Sforza took refuge in the castle, and twenty days afterwards, on the 4th of October, surrendered, consenting to retire to France with a pension of thirty thousand crowns, and the promise of being recommended for a cardinal's hat, and almost consoled for his downfall "by the pleasure of being delivered from the insolence of the Swiss, the exactions of the Emperor Maximilian, and the rascalities of the Spaniards." Fifteen years afterwards, in June, 1530, he died in oblivion at Paris. Francis I. regained possession of all Milaness, adding thereto, with the pope's consent, the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had been detached from it in 1512. Two treaties, one of November 7, 1515, and the other of November 29, 1516, re-established not only peace, but perpetual alliance, between the King of France and the thirteen Swiss cantons, with stipulated conditions in detail. Whilst these negotiations were in progress, Francis I. and Leo X., by a treaty published at Viterbo on the 13th of October, proclaimed their hearty reconciliation. The pope guaranteed to Francis I. the duchy of Milan, restored to him those of Parma and Piacenza, and recalled his troops which were still serving against the Venetians; being careful, however, to cover his concessions by means of forms and pretexts which gave them the character of a necessity submitted to rather than that of an independent and definite engagement. Francis I., on his side, guaranteed to the pope all the possessions of the church, renounced the patronage of the petty princes of the ecclesiastical estate, and promised to uphold the family of the Medici in the position it had held at Florence since, with the King of Spain's aid, in 1512, it had recovered the dominion there at the expense of the party of republicans and friends of France.

The King of France and the pope had to discuss together questions far more important on both sides than those which had just been thus settled by their accredited agents. When they signed the treaty of Viterbo, it was agreed that the two sovereigns should have a personal interview, at which they should come to an arrangement upon points of which they had as yet said nothing. Rome seemed the place most naturally adapted for this interview; but the pope did not wish that Francis I. should go and display his triumph there. Besides, he foresaw that the king would speak to him about the kingdom of Naples, the conquest of which was evidently premeditated by the king; and when Francis I., having arrived at Rome, had already done half the journey, Leo X. feared that it would be more difficult to divert him. He resolved to make to the king a show of deference to conceal his own disquietude; and offered to go and meet him at Bologna, the town in the Roman States which was nearest to Milaness. Francis accepted the offer. The pope arrived at Bologna on the 8th of December, 1515, and the king the next day. After the public ceremonies, at which the king showed eagerness to tender to the pope acts of homage which the pope was equally eager to curtail without repelling them, the two sovereigns conversed about the two questions which were uppermost in their minds. Francis did not attempt to hide his design of reconquering the kingdom of Naples, which Ferdinand the Catholic had wrongfully usurped, and he demanded the pope's countenance. The pope did not care to refuse, but he pointed out to the king that everything foretold the very near death of King Ferdinand; and "Your majesty," said he, "will then have a natural opportunity for claiming your rights; and as for me, free, as I shall then be, from my engagements with the King of Arragon in respect of the crown of Naples, I shall find it easier to respond to your majesty's wish." The pope merely wanted to gain time. Francis, setting aside for the moment the kingdom of Naples, spoke of Charles VII.'s Pragmatic Sanction, and the necessity of putting an end to the difficulties which had arisen on this subject between the court of Rome and the Kings of France, his predecessors. "As to that," said the pope, "I could not grant what your predecessors demanded; but be not uneasy; I have a compensation to propose to you which will prove to you how dear your interests are to me." The two sovereigns had, without doubt, already come to an understanding on this point, when, after a three days' interview with Leo X., Francis I. returned to Milan, leaving at Bologna, for the purpose of treating in detail the affair of the Pragmatic Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, who had accompanied him during all this campaign as his adviser and negotiator.

In him the king had, under the name and guise of premier magistrate of the realm, a servant whose bold and complacent abilities he was not slow to recognize and to put in use. Being irritated "for that many, not having the privilege of sportsmen, do take beasts, both red and black, as hares, pheasants, partridges, and other game, thus frustrating us of our diversion and pastime that we take in the chase," Francis I. issued, in March, 1516, an ordinance which decreed against poachers the most severe penalties, and even death, and which "granted to all princes, lords, and gentlemen possessing forests or warrens in the realm, the right of upholding therein by equally severe punishments the exclusive privileges of their preserves." The Parliament made remonstrances against such excessive rigor, and refused to register the ordinance. The chancellor, Duprat, insisted, and even threatened. "To the king alone," said he, "belongs the right of regulating the administration of his state obey, or the king will see in you only rebels, whom he will know how to chastise." For a year the Parliament held out; but the chancellor persisted more obstinately in having his way, and, on the 11th of February, 1517, the ordinance was registered under a formal order from the king, to which the name was given of "letters of command."