that
three days after Marguerite's departure Charles V. had received a copy of
the royal act of abdication, at once informed his sister, begging her to
make all haste. And she did so to such purpose that, "making four days'
journey in one," she arrived at Salces, in the Eastern Pyrenees, an hour
before the expiry of her safe-conduct. She no doubt took to her mother,
the regent, the details of the king's resolutions and instructions; but
the act itself containing them, the letters patent of Francis I., had not
been intrusted to her; it was Marshal de Montmorency who, at the end of
December, 15225, was the first bearer of them to France.

Did Francis I. flatter himself that his order to have his son the dauphin
declared and crowned king, and the departure of his sister Marguerite,
who was going, if not to carry the actual text of the resolution, at any
rate to announce it to the regent and to France, would embarrass Charles
V. so far as to make him relax in his pretensions to the duchy of
Burgundy and its dependencies? There is nothing to show that he was
allured by such a hope; any how, if it may have for a moment arisen in
his mind, it soon vanished. Charles V. insisted peremptorily upon his
requirements; and Francis I. at once gave up his attitude of firmness,
and granted, instead, the concession demanded of him, that is, the
relinquishment of Burgundy and its dependencies to Charles V., "to hold
and enjoy with every right of supremacy until it hath been judged,
decided, and determined, by arbiters elected on the emperor's part and
our own, to whom the said duchy, countships, and other territories
belong. . . . And for guarantee of this concession, the dauphin, the
king's eldest son, and his second son, Henry, Duke of Orleans, or other
great personages, to the number of twelve, should be sent to him and
remain in his keeping as hostages." The regent, Louise, was not without
a hand in this determination of the king; her maternal affection took
alarm at the idea of her son's being for an indefinite period a prisoner
in the hands of his enemy. Besides, in that case, war seemed to her
inevitable; and she dreaded the responsibility which would be thrown upon
her. Charles V., on his side, was essentially a prudent man; he disliked
remaining, unless it were absolutely necessary, for a long while in a
difficult position. His chancellor, Gattinera, refused to seal a treaty
extorted by force and violated, in advance,