Francis I.

had made choice one, Frances de Foix, countess of Chateaubriant, beautiful ambitious, dexterous, haughty, readily venturing upon rivalry with even the powerful queen-mother.

She had three brothers; Lautrec was one of the three, and she supported him in all his pretensions and all his trials of fortune.

When he set out to go and take the command in Italy, he found himself at the head of an army numerous indeed, but badly equipped, badly paid, and at grips with Prosper Colonna, the most able amongst the chiefs of the coalition formed at this juncture between Charles V.and Pope Leo X.against the French.

Lautrec did not succeed in preventing Milan from falling into the hands of the Imperialists, and, after an uncertain campaign of some months' duration, he lost at La Bicocca, near Monza, on the 27th of April, 1522, a battle, which left in the power of Francis I., in Lombardy, only the citadels of Milan, Cremona, and Novara.