contribution demanded of them for a foreign war, undertaken in
the family interests of their distant master. They could not find the
"Bargain of Flanders," but they got possession of the odious "calf skin,"
which was solemnly cut in two by the dean of the weavers. It was then
torn in shreds by the angry citizens, many of whom paraded the streets
with pieces of the hated document stuck in their caps, like plumes. From
these demonstrations they proceeded to intrigues with Francis the First.
He rejected them, and gave notice of their overtures to Charles, who now
resolved to quell the insurrection, at once. Francis wrote, begging that
the Emperor would honor him by coming through France; "wishing to assure
you," said he, "my lord and good brother, by this letter, written and
signed by my hand, upon my honor, and on the faith of a prince, and of
the best brother you have, that in passing through my kingdom every
possible honor and hospitality will be offered you, even as they could be
to myself." Certainly, the French king, after such profuse and voluntary
pledges, to confirm which he, moreover, offered his two sons and other
great individuals as hostages, could not, without utterly disgracing
himself, have taken any unhandsome advantage of the Emperor's presence in
his dominions. The reflections often made concerning the high-minded
chivalry of Francis, and the subtle knowledge of human nature displayed
by Charles upon the occasion, seem, therefore, entirely superfluous. The
Emperor came to Paris. "Here," says a citizen of Ghent, at the time, who
has left a minute account of the transaction upon record, but whose
sympathies were ludicrously with the despot and against his own
townspeople, "here the Emperor was received as if the God of Paradise had
descended." On the 9th of February, 1540, he left Brussels; on the 14th
he came to Ghent. His entrance into the city lasted more than six hours.
Four thousand lancers, one thousand archers, five thousand halberdmen and
musqueteers composed his bodyguard, all armed to the teeth and ready for
combat. The Emperor rode in their midst, surrounded by "cardinals,
archbishops, bishops, and other great ecclesiastical lords," so that the
terrors of the Church were combined with the panoply of war to affright
the souls of the turbulent burghers. A brilliant train of "dukes,
princes, earls, barons, grand masters, and seignors, together with most
of the Knights of the Fleece," were, according t