God will not forsake me.  Commending to you my children your grandchildren, and entreating you to give the bearer a free passage, going and returning, to Spain, for he is going to the emperor to learn how it is his pleasure that I should be treated.”

2.  “To the Emperor Charles V.:  If liberty had been sooner granted me by my cousin the viceroy, I should not have delayed so long to do my duty towards you, according as the time and the circumstances in which I am placed require; having no other comfort under my misfortune than a reliance on your goodness, which, if it so please, shall employ the results of victory with honorableness towards me; having steadfast hope that your virtue would not willingly constrain me to anything that was not honorable; entreating you to consult your own heart as to what you shall be pleased to do with me; feeling sure that the will of a prince such as you are cannot be coupled with aught but honor and magnanimity.  Wherefore, if it please you to have so much honorable pity as to answer for the safety which a captive King of France deserves to find, whom there is a desire to render friendly and not desperate, you may be sure of obtaining an acquisition instead of a useless prisoner, and of making a King of France your slave forever.”

The former of these two letters has had its native hue somewhat altered in the majority of histories, in which it has been compressed into those eloquent words, “All is lost save honor.”  The second needs no comment to make apparent what it lacks of kingly pride and personal dignity.  Beneath the warrior’s heroism there was in the qualities of Francis I. more of what is outwardly brilliant and winning than of real strength and solidity.

But the warrior’s heroism, in conjunction with what is outwardly brilliant and winning in the man, exercises a great influence over people.  The Viceroy of Naples perceived and grew anxious at the popularity of which Francis I. was the object at Pizzighittone.  The lanzknechts took an open interest in him and his fortunes; the Italians fixed their eyes on him; and Bourbon, being reconciled to him, might meditate carrying him off.  Lannoy resolved to send him to Naples, where there would be more certainty of guarding him securely.  Francis made no objection to this design.  On the 12th of May, 1525, he wrote to his mother, “Madame, the bearer has assured me that he will bring you this letter safely; and, as I have but little time, I will tell you nothing more than I shall be off to Naples on Monday—­, and so keep a lookout at sea, for we shall have only fourteen galleys to take us and eighteen hundred Spaniards to man them; but those will be all their arquebusiers.  Above all, haste:  for, if that is made, I am in hopes that you may soon see your most humble and most obedient son.”  There was no opportunity for even attempting to carry off the king as he went by sea to Naples; instead of taking him to Naples,