difficulties which had arisen on this subject between the court of Rome
and the Kings of France, his predecessors. "As to that," said the pope,
"I could not grant what your predecessors demanded; but be not uneasy;
I have a compensation to propose to you which will prove to you how dear
your interests are to me." The two sovereigns had, without doubt,
already come to an understanding on this point, when, after a three days'
interview with Leo X., Francis I. returned to Milan, leaving at Bologna,
for the purpose of treating in detail the affair of the Pragmatic
Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, who had accompanied him during all this
campaign as his adviser and negotiator.

In him the king had, under the name and guise of premier magistrate of
the realm, a servant whose bold and complacent abilities he was not slow
to recognize and to put in use. Being irritated "for that many, not
having the privilege of sportsmen, do take beasts, both red and black, as
hares, pheasants, partridges, and other game, thus frustrating us of our
diversion and pastime that we take in the chase," Francis I. issued, in
March, 1516, an ordinance which decreed against poachers the most severe
penalties, and even death, and which "granted to all princes, lords, and
gentlemen possessing forests or warrens in the realm, the right of
upholding therein by equally severe punishments the exclusive privileges
of their preserves." The Parliament made remonstrances against such
excessive rigor, and refused to register the ordinance. The chancellor,
Duprat, insisted, and even threatened. "To the king alone," said he,
"belongs the right of regulating the administration of his state obey, or
the king will see in you only rebels, whom he will know how to chastise."
For a year the Parliament held out; but the chancellor persisted more
obstinately in having his way, and, on the 11th of February, 1517, the
ordinance was registered under a formal order from the king, to which the
name was given of "letters of command."