distrust and more prevision, pressed him to order the arrest of so
dangerous a man, notwithstanding his protestations; but Francis refused.
According to what some historians say, if he had taken off the
sequestration laid upon the constable's possessions, actually restored
them to him, as well as discharged the debts due to him and paid his
pensions, and carried him off to Italy, if, in a word, he had shown a
bold confidence and given back to him at once and forever the whole of
his position, he would, perhaps, have weaned him from his plot, and would
have won back to himself and to France that brave and powerful servant.
But Francis wavered between distrust and hope; he confined himself to
promising the constable restitution of his possessions if the decree of
Parliament was unfavorable to him; he demanded of him a written
engagement to remain always faithful to him and to join him in Italy as
soon as his illness would allow him; and, on taking leave of him, left
with him one of his own gentlemen, Peter de Brentonniere, Lord of Warthy,
with orders to report to the king as to his health. In this officer
Bourbon saw nothing more or less than a spy, and in the king's promises
nothing but vain words dependent as they were upon the issue of a lawsuit
which still remained an incubus upon him. He had no answer for words but
words; he undertook the engagements demanded of him by the king without
considering them binding; and he remained ill at Moulins, waiting till
events should summon him to take action with his foreign allies.

This state of things lasted far nearly three weeks. The king remained
stationary at Lyons waiting for the constable to join him; and the
constable, saying he was ready to set out and going so far as to actually
begin his march, was doing his three leagues a day by litter, being
always worse one day than he was the day before. Peter de Warthy, the
officer whom the king had left with him, kept going and coming from Lyons
to Moulins and from Moulins to Lyons, conveying to the constable the