ned him so that he could never regain any
great power. In this the statesmen of the day did not agree with him, as
they were not ready to believe that the king of France would live up to
conditions of such severity, forced from him under constraint.

[Illustration: FRANCIS I. REFUSING THE DEMANDS OF THE EMPEROR.]

FRANCIS I. REFUSING THE DEMANDS OF THE EMPEROR.

The treaty signed, the two monarchs seemed to become at once the best of
friends. They often appeared together in public; they had long conferences
in private; they travelled in the same litter and joined in the same
amusements; the highest confidence and affection seemed to exist between
them. Yet this love was all a false show,--Francis still distrusted the
emperor, and Charles still had him watched like a prisoner.

In about a month the ratification of the treaty was brought from France,
and Francis set out from Madrid with the first true emotions of joy which
he had felt for a year. He was escorted by a body of horse under Alarcon,
who, when the frontiers of France were reached, guarded him as
scrupulously as ever. On arriving at the banks of the Andaye River, which
there separated the two kingdoms, Lautrec appeared on the opposite bank,
with a guard of horse equal to that of Alarcon. An empty bark was moored
in mid-stream. The cavalry drew up in order on each bank. Lannoy, with
eight gentlemen and the king, put off in a boat from the Spanish side of
the stream. Lautrec did the same from the French side, bringing with him
the dauphin and the Duke of Orleans. The two parties met in the empty
vessel, where in a moment the exchange was made, Francis embracing his
sons and then handing them over as hostages. Leaping into Lautrec's boat,
he was quickly on the soil of France.

Mounting a Barbary horse which awaited him, the freed captive waved his
hand triumphantly over his head, shouted joyfully several times, "I am yet
a king!" and galloped away at full speed for Bayonne. He had been held in
captivity for a year and twenty-two days.

Our tale of the captivity of the king ends here, but the consequences of
that captivity must be told. A league was immediately afterwards formed
against Charles, named the Holy League, from the Pope being at its head.
The nobles of Burgundy refused to be handed over to the imperial realm,
and an assembly called by Francis absolved him from his oath to keep the
treaty of Madrid. Francis, bewailing his lack of