take a great deal to make M. de Bourbon obey me.”  Henry remembered the cold and proud bearing which the constable had maintained towards him at the Field of Cloth of Gold.  He, nevertheless, engaged to supply half the expenses and a body of troops for the projected invasion of France.  Charles V. immediately despatched Beaurain to the Duke of Bourbon, who had removed to Montbrison, in the most mountainous part of his domains, on pretext of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame du Puy.  Beaurain was conducted thither, in great secrecy, on the 17th July, 1523, by two of the duke’s gentlemen, and passed two days there shut up in a room adjoining the constable’s apartment, never emerging save at night to transact business with him.  On the 18th of July, in the evening, he put into Bourbon’s hands his letters of credit, running thus:  “My dear cousin, I send to you Sieur de Beaurain, my second chamberlain.  I pray you to consider him as myself, and, so doing, you will find me ever your good cousin and friend.”  The negotiation was speedy.  Many historians have said that it was confined to verbal conventions, and that there was nothing in writing between the two contracting parties.  That is a mistake.  A treaty was drawn up in brief terms by Beaurain’s secretary, and two copies were made, of which one was to be taken to Charles V. and the other to be left with the Duke of Bourbon.  It stipulated the mutual obligations of the three contracting parties in their offensive and defensive league.  Bourbon engaged to attack Francis I. but he would not promise to acknowledge Henry VIII. as King of France.  “I am quite willing to be his ally,” he said, “but his subject, his vassal, no!  All I can do is to leave myself, as to my relations towards him, in the emperor’s hands.”  A strange and noble relic of patriotism in that violent and haughty soul, more concerned for its rights than its duties, and driven to extremity by the acts of ungrateful and unthoughtful injustice, to which the great lord and the valiant warrior had been subjected.  The treaty having been signed with this reservation, Bourbon sent, about midnight, for Saint-Bonnet, Lord of Branon, whom he intended to despatch to Charles V., and, after having sworn him, “I send you,” said he, “to the emperor, to whom you will say that I commend myself humbly to his good graces, that I beg him to give me his sister in marriage, and that, doing me this honor, he will find me his servant, his good brother, and friend.”

The fatal step was taken.  Bourbon was now engaged in revolt against his king and his country, as well as in falsehood and treason—­preliminary conditions of such a course.  He needed tools and accomplices; and though he had a numerous and devoted following, he could not feel sure of them all for such a purpose.  The very day after the conclusion of his treaty with Charles V., one of his most intimate and important confidants, John of Poitiers, Lord of St. Vallier, who was present at Montbrison