The lawsuit was begun and prosecuted with all the hatred of a great lady treated with contempt, and with all the knowingness of an unscrupulous lawyer eager to serve, in point of fact, his patroness, and to demonstrate, in point of law, the thesis he had advanced.  Francis I., volatile, reckless, and ever helpless as he was against the passions of his mother, who whilst she adored, beguiled him, readily lent himself to the humiliation of a vassal who was almost his rival in puissance, and certainly was in glory.  Three lawyers of renown entered upon the struggle.  Poyet maintained the pretensions of the queen-mother; Lizet developed Duprat’s argument in favor of the king’s claims; Montholon defended the constable.  The Parliament granted several adjournments, and the question was in suspense for eleven months.  At last, in August, 1523, the court interest was triumphant; Parliament, to get rid of direct responsibility, referred the parties, as to the basis of the question, to the king’s council; but it placed all the constable’s possessions under sequestration, withdrawing the enjoyment of them wholly from him.  A few years afterwards Poyet became chancellor, and Lizet premier-president of Parliament.  “Worth alone,” say the historians, “carved out for Montholon at a later period the road to the office of keeper of the seals.”

The constable’s fall and ruin were complete.  He at an early stage had a presentiment that such would be the issue of his lawsuit, and sought for safeguards away from France.  The affair was causing great stir in Europe.  Was it, however, Charles V. who made the first overtures as the most efficient supporter the constable could have?  Or was it the constable himself who, profiting by the relations he had established after the capture of Hesdin with the Croys, persons of influence with the emperor, made use of them for getting into direct communication with Charles V., and made offer of his services in exchange for protection against his own king and his own country?  In such circumstances and in the case of such men the sources of crime are always surrounded with obscurity.  One is inclined to believe that Charles V., vigilant and active as he was, put out the first feelers.  As soon as he heard that Bourbon was a widower, he gave instructions to Philibert Naturelli, his ambassador in France, who said, “Sir, you are now in a position to marry, and the emperor, my master, who is very fond of you, has a sister touching whom I have orders to speak to you if you will be pleased to hearken.”  It was to Charles V.’s eldest sister, Eleanor, widow of Manuel the Fortunate, King of Portugal, that allusion was made.  This overture led to nothing at the time; but the next year, in 1522, war was declared between Francis I. and Charles V.; the rupture between Francis I. and the Duke of Bourbon took place; the Bourbon lawsuit was begun; and the duke’s mother-in-law, Anne of France, daughter of Louis XI., more concerned for