master whithersoever he pleases to lead them; is it merely to defend
Burgundy that the King of France is adding fifteen hundred lances to his
men-at-arms, and that a huge train of artillery is defiling into
Lyonness, and little by little approaching the mountains?"

[Illustration: Cardinal Ximenes----14]

Ferdinand urged the pope, the Emperor Maximilian, the Swiss, and
Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan, to form a league for the defence of
Italy; but Leo X. persisted in his desire of remaining or appearing
neutral, as the common father of the faithful. Meanwhile the French
ambassador at Rome, William Bude, "a man," says Guicciardini, "of
probably unique erudition amongst the men of our day," and, besides, a
man of keen and sagacious intellect, was unfolding the secret working of
Italian diplomacy, and sending to Paris demands for his recall, saying,
"Withdraw me from this court full of falsehoods; this is a residence too
much out of my element." The answer was, that he should have patience,
and still negotiate; for France, meeting ruse by ruse, was willing to be
considered hoodwinked, whilst the eyes of the pope, diverted by a hollow
negotiation, were prevented from seeing the peril which was gathering
round the Italian league and its declared or secret champions.
[Gaillard, _Histoire de Francois 1er,_ t. i. p. 208.]

Neither the king nor the pope had for long to take the trouble of
practising mutual deception. It was announced at Rome that Francis I.,
having arrived at Lyons in July, 1515, had just committed to his mother,
Louise, the regency of the kingdom, and was pushing forward towards the
Alps an army of sixty thousand men and a powerful artillery. He had won
over to his service Octavian Fregoso, Doge of Genoa; and Barthelemy
d'Alviano, the veteran general of his allies the Venetians, was encamped