The king, after pausing a little, turned towards me, saying, with a sort of shout, ‘Let them fight! let them fight!’ ’Well, then, there is no more to be said,’ replied the admiral; ’if you lose, you alone will be the cause of the loss; and, if you win, in like manner; and you, all alone, will have the satisfaction of it, you alone having given the leave.’  Then the king and every one rose up, and, as for me, I tingled with joy.  His Majesty began talking with the admiral about my despatch and about giving orders for the pay which was in arrears.  And M. de St. Pol accosted me, saying with a laugh, ’Rabid madman, thou wilt be cause of the greatest weal that could happen to the king, or of the greatest woe.’”

Montluc’s boldness and Francis I.’s confidence in yielding to it were not unrewarded.  The battle was delivered at Ceresole on the 14th of April, 1544; it was bravely disputed and for some time indecisive, even in the opinion of the anxious Count d’Enghien, who was for a while in an awkward predicament; but the ardor of the Gascons and the firmness of the Swiss prevailed, and the French army was victorious.  Montluc was eagerly desirous of being commissioned to go and carry to the king the news of the victory which he had predicted and to which he had contributed; but another messenger had the preference; and he does not, in his Memoires, conceal his profound discontent; but he was of those whom their discontent does not dishearten, and he continued serving his king and his country with such rigorous and stubborn zeal as was destined hereafter, in the reign of Henry III., to make him Marshal of France at last.  He had to suffer a disappointment more serious than that which was personal to himself; the victory of Ceresole had not the results that might have been expected.  The war continued; Charles V. transferred his principal efforts therein to the north, on the frontiers of the Low Countries and France, having concluded an alliance with Henry VIII. for acting in concert and on the offensive.  Champagne and Picardy were simultaneously invaded by the Germans and the English; Henry VIII. took Boulogne; Charles V. advanced as far as Chateau-Thierry and threatened Paris.  Great was the consternation there; Francis I. hurried up from Fontainebleau and rode about the streets, accompanied by the Duke of Guise, and everywhere saying, “If I cannot keep you from fear, I will keep you from harm.”  “My God,” he had exclaimed, as he started from Fontainebleau, “how dear Thou sellest me my kingdom!” The people recovered courage and confidence; they rose in a body; forty thousand armed militiamen defiled, it is said, before the king.  The army arrived by forced marches, and took post between Paris and Chateau-Thierry.

[Illustration:  Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise——­130]