with such a combination of valor and generosity that the king sent him as a present his own sword, writing to him at the same time, “The opinion I have of your merit has become rooted even amongst foreigners.  The emperor says that he would make himself monarch of the whole world if he had a Brissac to second his plans.”  His men, irritated at getting no pay, one day surrounded Brissac, complaining vehemently.  “You will always get bread by coming to me,” said he; and he paid the debt of France by sacrificing his daughter’s dowry and borrowing a heavy sum from the Swiss on the security of his private fortune.  It was by such devotion and such sacrifices that the French nobility paid for and justified their preponderance in the state; but they did not manage to succeed in the conduct of public affairs, and to satisfy the interests of a nation progressing in activity, riches, independence, and influence.  Disquieted at the smallness of his success in Italy, Henry II. flattered himself that he would regain his ascendency there by sending thither the Duke of Guise, the hero of Metz, with an army of about twenty thousand men, French or Swiss, and a staff of experienced officers; but Guise was not more successful than his predecessors had been.  After several attempts by arms and negotiation amongst the local sovereigns, he met with a distinct failure in the kingdom of Naples before the fortress of Civitella, the siege of which he was forced to raise on the 15th of May, 1557.  Wearied out by want of success, sick in the midst of an army of sick, regretting over “the pleasure of his field-sports at Joinville, and begging his mother to have just a word or two written to him to console him,” all he sighed for was to get back to France.  And it was not long before the state of affairs recalled him thither.  It was now nearly two years ago that, on the 25th of October, 1555, and the 1st of January, 1556, Charles V. had solemnly abdicated all his dominions, giving over to his son Philip the kingdom of Spain, with the sovereignty of Burgundy and the Low Countries, and to his younger brother, Ferdinand, the empire together with the original heritage of the House of Austria, and retiring personally to the monastery of Yuste, in Estramadura, there to pass the last years of his life, distracted with gout, at one time resting from the world and its turmoil, at another vexing himself about what was doing there now that he was no longer in it.  Before abandoning it for good, he desired to do his son Philip the service of leaving him, if not in a state of definite peace, at any rate in a condition of truce with France.  Henry II. also desired rest; and the Constable de Montmorency wished above everything for the release of his son Francis, who had been a prisoner since the fall of Thorouanne.  A truce for five years was signed at Vaucelles on the 5th of February, 1556; and Coligny, quite young still, but already admiral and in high esteem, had the conduct of the negotiation.