, and served as a
rampart against the repeated incursions of the English, the masters of
Calais. Charles knew that it was ill supplied with troops and munitions
of war; and the court of Henry II., intoxicated with the deliverance of
Metz, spoke disdainfully of the emperor, and paid no heed to anything but
balls, festivities, and tournaments in honor of the marriage between
Diana d'Angouleme, the king's natural daughter, and Horatio Farnese, Duke
of Castro. All on a sudden it was announced that the troops of Charles
V. were besieging Therouanne. The news was at first treated lightly; it
was thought sufficient to send to Therouanne some re-enforcements under
the orders of Francis de Montmorency, nephew of the constable; but the
attack was repulsed with spirit by the besiegers, and brave as was the
resistance offered by the besieged, who sustained for ten hours a
sanguinary assault, on the 20th of June, 1553, Francis de Montmorency saw
the impossibility of holding out longer, and, on the advice of all his
officers, offered to surrender the place; but he forgot to stipulate in
the first place for a truce; the Germans entered the town, thrown open
without terms of capitulation; it was given up as prey to an army itself
a prey to all the passions of soldiers as well as to their master's
vengeful feelings, and Therouanne, handed over for devastation, was for a
whole month diligently demolished and razed to the ground. When Charles
V., at Brussels, received news of the capture, "bonfires were lighted
throughout Flanders; bells were rung, cannon were fired." It was but a
poor revenge for so great a sovereign after the reverse he had just met
with at Metz; but the fall of Therouanne was a grievous incident for
France. Francis I. was in the habit of saying that Therouanne in
Flanders and Acqs (now Dax) on the frontier of Guienne were, to him, like
two pillows on which he could rest tranquilly. [_Histoire universelle,_
t. ii. p. 352.]

Whilst these events were passing in Lorraine and Flanders, Henry II. and
his advisers were obstinately persisting in the bad policy which had been
clung to by Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., that, in fact, of
making conquests and holding possessions in Italy. War continued, from
Turin to Naples, between France, the emperor, the pope, and the local
princes, with all sorts of alliances and alternations, but with no
tangible result. Blaise de Montluc defended the fortress of Sienna f