"M.

de Warthy," said Bourbon, "you bring your spurs pretty close after mine." "My lord," was the reply, "you have better ones than I thought." "Think you," said Bourbon, "that I did not well, having but a finger's breadth of life, to put it as far out of the way as I could to avoid the king's fury ?" "The king," said Warthy, "was never furious towards any man; far less would he be so in your case." "Nay, nay," rejoined the constable, "I know that the grand master and Marshal de Chabannes set out from Lyons with the archers of the guard and four or five thousand lanzknechts to seize me; and that is what made me come to this house whilst biding my time until the king shall be pleased to hear me." He demanded that the troops sent against him should be ordered to halt till the morrow, promising not to stir from Chantelle without a vindication of himself.

"Whither would you go, my lord ?" said Warthy: "if you wished to leave the kingdom, you could not; the king has provided against that everywhere." "Nay," said Bourbon, "I have no wish to leave the kingdom; I have friends and servants there." Warthy went away from Chantelle in company with the Bishop of Autun, Chiverny, who was one of the constable's most trusted friends, and who was bearer to the king of a letter which ran thus: "Provided it please the king to restore to him his possessions, my lord of Bourbon promises to serve him well and heartily, in all places and at all times at which it shall seem good to him.

In witness whereof, he has signed these presents, and begs the king to be pleased to pardon those towards whom he is ill disposed on account of this business.
CHARLES." In writing this letter the constable had no other object than to gain a little time, for, on bidding good by to the Bishop of Autun, he said to him, "Farewell, my dear bishop; I am off to Carlat, and from Carlat I shall slip away with five or six horses on my road to Spain." On the next day but one, indeed, the 8th of September, 1523, whilst the Bishop of Autun was kept prisoner by the troops sent forward to Chantelle, the constable sallied from it about one in the morning, taking with him five-and-twenty or thirty thousand crowns of gold sewn up in from twelve to fifteen jackets, each of which was intrusted to a man in his train.

For a month he wandered about Bourbonness, Auvergne, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Vienness, Languedoc, and Dauphiny, incessantly changing his road, his comrades, his costume, and his asylum, occasionally falling in with soldiers of the king who were repairing to Italy, and seeking for some place whence he might safely concert with and act with his allies.