ce in her, and she does with them just as she pleases." This was
all that was gained during the year of Julius II.'s death by Louis XII.'s
attempts to break up or weaken the coalition against France; and these
feeble diplomatic advantages were soon nullified by the unsuccess of the
French expedition in Milaness. Louis de la Tremoille had once more
entered it with a strong army; but he was on bad terms with his principal
lieutenant, John James Trivulzio, over whom he had not the authority
wielded by the young and brilliant Gaston de Foix; the French were close
to Novara, the siege of which they were about to commence; they heard
that a body of Swiss was advancing to enter the place; La Tremoille
shifted his position to oppose them, and on the 5th of June, 1513, he
told all his captains in the evening that "they might go to their
sleeping-quarters and make good cheer, for the Swiss were not yet ready
to fight, not having all their men assembled;" but early next morning the
Swiss attacked the French camp. "La Tremoille had hardly time to rise,
and, with half his armor on, mount his horse; the Swiss outposts and
those of the French were already at work pell-mell over against his
quarters." The battle was hot and bravely contested on both sides; but
the Swiss by a vigorous effort got possession of the French artillery,
and turned it against the infantry of the lanzknechts, which was driven
in and broken. The French army abandoned the siege of Novara, and put
itself in retreat, first of all on Verceil, a town of Piedmont, and then
on France itself. "And I do assure you," says Fleuranges, an eye-witness
and partaker in the battle, "that there was great need of it; of the
men-at-arms there were but few lost, or of the French foot; which turned
out a marvellous good thing for the king and the kingdom, for they found
him very much embroiled with the English and other nations." War
between, France and England had recommenced at sea in 1512: two
squadrons, one French, of twenty sail, and the other English, of more
than forty, met on the 10th of August somewhere off the island of Ushant;
a brave Breton, Admiral Herve Primoguet, aboard of "the great ship of the
Queen of France," named the Cordeliere, commanded the French squadron,
and Sir Thomas Knyvet, a young sailor "of more bravery than experience,"
according to the historians of his own country, commanded, on board of a
vessel named the Regent, the English squadron. The two