expenditure. In
1521, Lautrec, Francois's general in Italy, drew on the royal treasury
for four hundred thousand ecus to pay his Swiss mercenaries. Semblancay
was about to send him the money, when he was summoned, according to the
generally received story, by Louise de Savoie, to hand it over to her,
which he did. Owing to the defection of his unpaid Swiss, Lautrec was
defeated at the Bicoque and lost the Milanaise; when bitterly reproached
by the king for his ill-success, the facts in the case came out. The
queen-mother admitted having received the money and applied it to her
own use, but she declared that it was a portion of her private funds
which she had previously deposited with the treasurer-general.
Semblancay was accordingly brought to trial, but, though he demonstrated
that the king was in his debt to the amount of three hundred thousand
livres, he was condemned for peculation and hung on the gibbet at
Montfaucon, notwithstanding his blameless life and his seventy-two
years. "I have, indeed, deserved death," he said, "for having served men
more faithfully than God." Clement Marot, the court poet, wrote an
epigram on the _juge d'enfer_ who had condemned this worthy servant of
the king, and a popular tumult was averted with difficulty; two years
later, the clerks whom the queen-mother had employed to steal her
receipts from the treasurer's coffers confessed, he was declared
innocent, and his confiscated property restored to his grandson.

Charles V, who more than once threatened Paris with his victorious
arms,--in 1544 he was at Chateau-Thierry, twenty-four leagues from the
capital, and the affrighted citizens had begun to transport themselves
and their worldly goods to Orleans,--visited the city in peace, on the
1st of January, 1540, on his way to Flanders to subdue the revolted
burghers of Ghent. Francois was strongly tempted to break his royal
promises, as he had done once before, and retain so valuable a prisoner,
but confined himself to hints as to what he might do, and displayed on
the part of his court and his capital an ostentation of luxury almost
equal to that of the Field of the Cloth of Gold twenty years before,
when he had met Henry VIII of England--"that spot of blood and grease on
the pages of history." The capital, indeed, was much embellished and
made more healthful under Francois I; the municipality were enjoined to
pave and to clean the streets, and the king caused to be drawn up minute
regula