"As to that," said the pope, "I could not grant what your predecessors demanded; but be not uneasy; I have a compensation to propose to you which will prove to you how dear your interests are to me." The two sovereigns had, without doubt, already come to an understanding on this point, when, after a three days' interview with Leo X., Francis I.returned to Milan, leaving at Bologna, for the purpose of treating in detail the affair of the Pragmatic Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, who had accompanied him during all this campaign as his adviser and negotiator.
In him the king had, under the name and guise of premier magistrate of the realm, a servant whose bold and complacent abilities he was not slow to recognize and to put in use.

Being irritated "for that many, not having the privilege of sportsmen, do take beasts, both red and black, as hares, pheasants, partridges, and other game, thus frustrating us of our diversion and pastime that we take in the chase," Francis I.issued, in March, 1516, an ordinance which decreed against poachers the most severe penalties, and even death, and which "granted to all princes, lords, and gentlemen possessing forests or warrens in the realm, the right of upholding therein by equally severe punishments the exclusive privileges of their preserves." The Parliament made remonstrances against such excessive rigor, and refused to register the ordinance.

The chancellor, Duprat, insisted, and even threatened.

"To the king alone," said he, "belongs the right of regulating the administration of his state obey, or the king will see in you only rebels, whom he will know how to chastise." For a year the Parliament held out; but the chancellor persisted more obstinately in having his way, and, on the 11th of February, 1517, the ordinance was registered under a formal order from the king, to which the name was given of "letters of command." [Illustration: Anthony Duprat----24] At the commencement of the war for the conquest of Milaness there was a want of money, and Francis I.

hesitated to so soon impose new taxes.
Duprat gave a scandalous extension to a practice which had been for a long while in use, but had always been reprobated and sometimes formally prohibited, namely, the sale of public appointments or offices: not only did he create a multitude of financial and administrative offices, the sale of which brought considerable sums into the treasury, but he introduced the abuse into the very heart of the judicial body; the tribunals were encumbered by newly-created magistrates.