which would be the total ruin of the empire and a manifest loss to your kingdom.  Wherefore, take possession of the said towns, since opportunity offers, which will be about forty leagues of country gained without the loss of a single man, and an impregnable rampart for Champagne and Picardy; and, besides, a fine and perfectly open road into the heart of the duchy of Luxembourg and the districts below it as far as Brussels.”

However pacific the king’s first words had been, and whatever was the influence of the constable, the proposal of Vieilleville had a great effect upon the council.  The king showed great readiness to adopt it.  “I think,” said he to the constable, “that I was inspired of God when I created Vieilleville of my council to-day.”  “I only gave the opinion I did,” replied Montmorency, “in order to support the king’s sentiments; let your Majesty give what orders you please.”  The king loudly proclaimed his resolve.  “Then let every one,” he said, “be ready at an early date, with equipment according to his ability and means, to follow me; hoping, with God’s help, that all will go well for the discomfiture of so pernicious a foe of my kingdom and nation, and one who revels and delights in tormenting all manner of folks, without regard for any.”  There was a general enthusiasm; the place of meeting for the army was appointed at Chalons-sur-Marne, March 10, 1552; more than a thousand gentlemen flocked thither as volunteers; peasants and mechanics from Champagne and Picardy joined them; the war was popular.  “The majority of the soldiers,” says Rabutin, a contemporary chronicler, “were young men whose brains were on fire.”  Francis de Guise and Gaspard de Coligny were their chief leaders.  The king entered Lorraine from Champagne by Joinville, the ordinary residence of the Dukes of Guise.  He carried Pont-a-Mousson; Toul opened its gates to him on the 13th of April; he occupied Nancy on the 14th, and on the 18th he entered Metz, not without some hesitation amongst a portion of the inhabitants and the necessity of a certain show of military force on the part of the leaders of the royal army.  The king would have given the command of this important place to Vieilleville, but he refused it, saying, “I humbly thank your Majesty, but I do not think that you should establish in Metz any governor in your own name, but leave that duty to the mayor and sheriffs of the city, under whose orders the eight captains of the old train-bands who will remain there with their companies will be.”  “How say you!” said the king:  “can I leave a foreign lieutenant in a foreign country whose oath of fidelity I have only had within the last four-and-twenty hours, and with all the difficulties and disputes in the world to meet too?” “Sir,” rejoined Vieilleville, “to fear that this master sheriff, whose name is Tallanges, might possibly do you a bad turn, is to wrongly estimate his own competence, who never put his nose anywhere but into a bar-parlor