Upon the return of the French king to his dominions, the eyes of all the powers in Europe were fixed upon him, that, by observing his first motions, they might form a judgment concerning his subsequent conduct. They were not held long in suspense.

Francis, as soon as he arrived at Bayonne, wrote to the king of England, thanking him for the zeal and affection wherewith he had interposed in his favor, to which be acknowledged that he owed the recovery of his liberty. Next day the emperor’s ambassadors demanded audience, and, in their master’s name, required him to issue such orders as were necessary for carrying the treaty of Madrid into immediate and full execution; he coldly answered, that though, for his own part, he determined religiously to perform all that he had promised, the treaty contained so many articles relative not to himself alone, but affecting the interests of the French monarchy, that he could not take any further step without consulting the states of his kingdom, and that some time would be necessary, in order to reconcile their minds to the hard conditions which he had consented to ratify. This reply was considered as no obscure discovery of his being resolved to elude the treaty; and the compliment paid to Henry appeared a very proper step towards securing the assistance of that monarch in the war with the emperor, to which such a resolution would certainly give rise.

These circumstances, added to the explicit declarations which Francis made in secret to the ambassadors from several of the Italian powers, fully satisfied them that their conjectures with regard to his conduct had been just, and that, instead of intending to execute an unreasonable treaty, he was eager to seize the first opportunity of revenging those injuries which had compelled him to feign an approbation of it. Even the doubts, and fears, and scruples, which used, on other occasions, to hold Clement in a state of uncertainty, were dissipated by Francis's seeming, impatience to break through all his engagements with the emperor. The situation, indeed, of affairs in Italy at that time, did not allow the pope to hesitate long. Sforza was still besieged by the Imperialists in the castle of Milan. That feeble prince, deprived now of Morone’s advice, and unprovided with everything necessary for defence, found means to inform Clement and the Venetians, that he must soon surrender if they did not come to his relief. The Imperial troops, as they had received no pay since the battle of Pavia, lived at discretion in the Milanese, levying such exorbitant contributions in that duchy, as amounted, if we may rely on Guicciardini’s calculation, to no less a sum than five thousand ducats a-day; nor was it to be doubted but that the soldiers, as soon as the castle should submit, would choose to leave a ruined country which hardly afforded them subsistence, that they might take possession of more comfortable quarters in the fertile and untouched territories of the pope and Venetians. The assistance of the French king was the only thing which could either save Sforza, or enable them to protect their own dominions from the insults of the Imperial troops.

For these reasons, the pope, the Venetians, and duke of Milan, were equally impatient to come to an agreement with Francis, who, on his part, was no less desirous of acquiring such a considerable accession both of strength and reputation as such a confederacy would bring along with it. The chief objects of this alliance, which was concluded at Cognac on the twenty-second of May, though kept secret for some time, were to oblige the emperor to set at liberty the French king’s sons, upon payment of a reasonable ransom; to re-establish Sforza in the quiet possession of the Milanese. If Charles should refuse either of these, the contracting parties bound themselves to bring into the field an army of thirty-five thousand men, with which, after driving the Spaniards out of the Milanese, they would attack the kingdom of Naples. The king of England was declared protector of this league, which they dignified with the name of Holy, because the pope was at the head of it; and in order to allure Henry more effectually, a principality in the kingdom of Naples, of thirty thousand ducats yearly revenue, was to be settled on him; and lands to the value of ten thousand ducats on Wolsey his favorite.

No sooner was this league concluded, than Clement, by the plenitude of his papal power, absolved Francis from the oath which he bad taken to observe the treaty of Madrid. This right, how pernicious soever in its effects, and destructive of that integrity which is the basis of all transactions among men, was the natural consequences of the powers which the popes arrogated as the infallible vicegerents of Christ upon earth. But as, in virtue of this pretended prerogative, they had often dispensed with obligations which were held sacred, the interest of some men, and the credulity of others, led them to imagine, that the decisions of a sovereign pontiff authorized or justified actions which would, otherwise, have been criminal and impious.

The discovery of Francis’s intention to elude the treaty of Madrid, filled the emperor with a variety of disquieting thoughts. He had treated an unfortunate prince in the most ungenerous manner; he had displayed an insatiable ambition in all his negotiations with his prisoner; he knew what censures the former had drawn upon him, and what apprehensions the latter had excited in every court of Europe; nor had he reaped from the measures which he pursued, any of those advantages which politicians are apt to consider as an excuse for the most criminal conduct, and a compensation for the severest reproaches. Francis was now out of his hands, and not one of all the mighty consequences, which he had expected from the treaty that set him at liberty, was likely to take place. His rashness in relying so far on his own judgment as to trust to the sincerity of the French king, in opposition to the sentiments of his wisest ministers, was now apparent; and he easily conjectured, that the same confederacy, the dread of which had induced him to set Francis at liberty, would now be formed against him with that gallant and incensed monarch at its head.

Self-condemnation and shame, on account of what was past, with anxious apprehensions concerning what might happen, were the necessary result of these reflections on his own conduct and situation. Charles, however, was naturally firm and inflexible in all his measures. To have receded suddenly from any article in the treaty of Madrid, would have been a plain confession of imprudence, and a palpable symptom of fear; he determined, therefore, that it was most suitable to his dignity, to insist, whatever might be the consequences, on the strict execution of the treaty, and particularly not to accept of anything which might be offered as an equivalent for the restitution of Burgundy.

In consequence of this resolution, he appointed Lannoy and Alarcon to repair, as his ambassadors, to the court of France, and formally to summon the king, either to execute the treaty with the sincerity that became him, or to return according to his oath, a prisoner to Madrid. Instead of giving them an immediate answer, Francis admitted the deputies of the states of Burgundy to an audience in their presence. They humbly represented to him, that he had exceeded the powers vested in a king of France, when he consented to alienate their country from the crown, the domains of which he was bound by his coronation oath to preserve entire and un impaired. Francis, in return, thanked them for their attachment to his crown, and entreated them, though very faintly, to remember the obligations which he lay under to fulfill his engagements with the emperor.

The deputies, assuming a higher tone, declared, that they would not obey commands which they considered as illegal; and, if he should abandon them to the enemies of France, they had resolved to defend themselves to the best of their power, with a firm purpose rather to perish than submit to a foreign dominion. Upon which Francis, turning towards the Imperial ambassadors, represented to them the impossibility of performing what he had undertaken, and offered, in lieu of Burgundy, to pay the emperor two millions of crowns. The viceroy and Alarcon, who easily perceived, that the scene to which they had been witnesses, was concerted between the king and his subjects in order to impose upon them, signified to him their master’s fixed resolution not to depart in the smallest point from the terms of the treaty, and withdrew. Before they left the kingdom, they had the mortification to hear the holy league against the emperor published with great solemnity [June 11].

 

THE SACK OF ROME