"How do you think," he asked, "the emperor will behave to me ?" "I think," replied Pescara, "I can answer for the emperor's moderation; I am sure that he will make a generous use of his victory.
If, however, he were capable of forgetting what is due to your rank, your merits, and your misfortunes, I would never cease to remind him of it, and I would lose what little claim upon him my services may have given me, or you should be satisfied with his behavior." The king embraced him warmly.

He asked to be excused from entering Pavia, that he might not be a gazing-stock in a town that he had so nearly taken.

He was, accordingly, conducted to Pizzighittone, a little fortress between Milan and Cremona.

He wrote thence two letters, one to his mother the regent and the other to Charles V., which are here given word for word, because they so well depict his character and the state of his mind in his hour of calamity:-- 1.

"To the Regent of France: Madame, that you may know how stands the rest of my misfortune: there is nothing in the world left to me but honor and my life, which is safe.