The majority of the French captains repudiated the idea, but the king entertained it.

His first impulses were sympathetic and generous.

"I would not purchase," said he to Marshal de Lautrec, "with the blood of my subjects, or even with that of my enemies, what I can pay for with money." Parleys were commenced; and an agreement was hit upon with conditions on which the Swiss would withdraw from Italy and resume alliance with the French.

A sum of seven hundred thousand crowns, it was said, was the chief condition; and the king and the captains of his army gave all they had, even to their plate, for the first instalment which Lautrec was ordered to convey to Bufalora, where the Swiss were to receive it.

But it was suddenly announced that the second army of twenty thousand Swiss, which the Cardinal of Sion had succeeded in raising, had entered Italy by the valley of the Ticino.