tion with
my loss. I have always had such confidence in your great kindness and
humanity, that I am assured that your magnificences will have compassion
on me and my wife, who is departing to solicit you as humbly as possible
to pardon my not appearing before you, as my heart is so desolate that I
can say or do naught to help in these circumstances. Therefore, may it
please you to listen to her proposition and to grant as great a degree
of honor and welfare as is possible to your child."

Although Berne had permitted the temporary residence of the deposed
count at Oron, and had granted to the countess the revenues of a small
piece of land, the refugees soon left the "logis" which they found "_si
froid et si mal fourni de vivres_," and repaired to Burgundy and the
protection of their powerful de Vergy relatives. For many years the
dispossessed princeling was destined to pursue his adventurous career in
the various kingdoms of Europe. With his immediate necessities supplied
by his wife's income, in the accustomed luxury of the chateaux of his
relatives he quickly recovered his old pose of an independent and only
temporarily deposed potentate, and proceeding to Paris in his character
as Chevalier du Roi, was able to obtain a surprising degree of
recognition. Welcomed by Catherine de Medici as a Catholic among the
Catholics, he was present as a councilor of the King's Order at the
private and preliminary trial conducted by the queen mother of the
assassin of his old general and commander the Duc de Guise. King Charles
IX may possibly have granted a part of Count Michel's claims upon the
French crown, and was in any case so much influenced by his
representations that he wrote to Berne and Fribourg recommending his
reestablishment in his estates. When informed by the council of the
respective cities of the conditions of his dispossession, King Charles
made no further effort on his behalf. The still undiscouraged adventurer
then repaired to Flanders to the palace and protection of his powerful
aunt the Seneschale of Hainault. From Hainault as a base of supplies, he
journeyed about Flanders and Belgium, finding temporary sympathizers and
supporters in various notabilities with whom he consulted as to the best
method of recovering his estates, or at least wresting them from the
hands of Berne and Fribourg. The Cardinal de Granvelle, who was
intimately known to the king of Spain, and the Belgian ambassador to the
Spanish court we