lted to
the highest offices in the state two new men, Charles, Duke of Bourbon,
who was still a mere youth, but already a warrior of renown, and Anthony
Duprat, the able premier president of the Parliament of Paris; the former
he made constable, and the latter chancellor of France. His mother,
Louise of Savoy, was not unconcerned, it is said, in both promotions;
she was supposed to feel for the young constable something more than
friendship, and she regarded the veteran magistrate, not without reason,
as the man most calculated to unreservedly subserve the interests of the
kingly power and her own.

These measures, together with the language and the behavior of Francis
I., and the care he took to conciliate all who approached him, made a
favorable impression on France and on Europe. In Italy, especially,
princes as well as people, and Pope Leo X. before all, flattered
themselves, or were pleased to appear as if they flattered themselves,
that war would not come near them again, and that the young king had his
heart set only on making Burgundy secure against sudden and outrageous
attacks from the Swiss. The aged King of Spain, Ferdinand the Catholic,
adopting the views of his able minister, Cardinal Ximenes, alone showed
distrust and anxiety. "Go not to sleep," said he to his former allies;
"a single instant is enough to bring the French in the wake of their
master whithersoever he pleases to lead them; is it merely to defend
Burgundy that the King of France is adding fifteen hundred lances to his
men-at-arms, and that a huge train of artillery is defiling into
Lyonness, and little by little approaching the mountains?"

[Illustration: Cardinal Ximenes----14]

Ferdinand urged the pope, the Emperor Maximilian, the Swiss, and
Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan, to form a league for the defence of
Italy; but Leo X. persisted in his desire of remaining or appearing
neutral, as the common father of the faithful. Meanwhile the French
ambassador at Rome, William Bude, "a man," says Guicciardini, "of
probably unique erudition amongst the men of our day," and, besides, a
man of keen and sagacious intellect, was unfolding the secret working of
Italian diplomacy, and sending to Paris demands for his recall, saying,
"Withdraw me from this court full of falsehoods; this is a residence too
much out of my element." The answer was, that he should have patience,
and still negotiate; for France, meeting ruse by ruse, was willing to