sed. Finding that it amounted to 350,000 livres, he ordered his
officers to take and convert it into money, which he retained, giving
the owners twelve per cent. as interest on the compulsory loan. They
were informed, and were doubtless gratified to learn, that the measure
was not only one of urgency, but also precautionary--lest the necessity
should arise for the _seizure_ of the plate, without compensation, it
may be presumed. Reg. des ordon., _apud_ Felibien, H. de Paris, preuves,
v. 287-290.]

[Footnote 675: Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 270.]

[Footnote 676: De Thou, ii. 584, 585, 660, etc.]

[Footnote 677: More than one hundred thousand lives and forty millions
crowns of gold, if we may believe the Memoires de Vieilleville, ii. 408,
409. "Quod multo sanguine, pecunia incredibili, spatio multorum annorum
Galli acquisierant, uno die _magna cum ignominia_ tradiderunt," says the
papal nuncio, Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. com., 1437. See,
however, Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Am. tr., p. 127.]

[Footnote 678: Mem. de Vieilleville, _ubi supra_. The text of the treaty
is given in Recueil gen. des anc. lois francaises, xiii. 515, etc., and
in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. pt. 1, pp. 34, etc.; the treaty
between France and England, with scrupulous exactness, as usual, in Dr.
P. Forbes, State Papers, i. 68, etc.]

[Footnote 679: The prevalent sentiment in France is strongly expressed
by Brantome, by the memoirs of Vieilleville, of Du Villars, of Tavannes,
etc. "La paix honteuse fut dommageable," says Tavannes; "les associez y
furent trahis, les capitaines abandonnez a leurs ennemis, le sang, la
vie de tant de Francais negligee, cent cinquante forteresses rendues,
pour tirer de prison un vieillard connestable, et se descharger de deux
filles de France." Mem. de Gaspard de Saulx, seign. de Tavannes, ii.
242. Du Villars represents the Duke of Guise as remonstrating with Henry
for giving up in a moment more than he could have lost in thirty years,
and as offering to guard the least considerable city among the many he
surrendered against all the Spanish troops: "Mettez-moy dedans la pire
ville de celles que vous voulez rendre, je la conserveray plus
glorieusement sur la bresche, etc." (Ed. Petitot, ii. 267, liv. 10). But
the duke's own brother was one of the commissioners; and Soldan affirms
the existence of a letter from Guise to Nevers (of March 27, 1559) in
the National Library, fully establishing t