When the pope had mounted his litter, he was not a stone's throw gone when there fell from heaven the most sharp and violent shower that had been seen for a hundred years.

'Holy father,' said the Cardinal of Pavia to the pope, 'it is not possible to go along this country so long as this lasts; meseems you must turn back again; 'to which the pope agreed; but, just as he was arriving at St.Felix, and was barely entering within the castle, he heard the shouts of the fugitives whom the good knight was pursuing as hard as he could spur; whereupon he had such a fright, that, suddenly and without help, he leaped out of his litter, and himself did aid in hauling up the bridge; which was doing like a man of wits, for had he waited until one could say a _Pater noster,_ he had been snapped up.

Who was right down grieved, that was the good knight; never man turned back so melancholic as he was to have missed so fair a take; and the pope, from the good fright he had gotten, shook like a palsy the live-long day." [_Histoire du ben Chevalier Ballard,_ t.

i.
pp.

346-349.] [Illustration: Chaumont d'Amboise----350] From 1510 to 1512 the war in Italy was thus proceeding, but with no great results, when Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, came to take the command of the French army.