"Nay, nay," rejoined the constable, "I know that the grand master and
Marshal de Chabannes set out from Lyons with the archers of the guard and
four or five thousand lanzknechts to seize me; and that is what made me
come to this house whilst biding my time until the king shall be pleased
to hear me." He demanded that the troops sent against him should be
ordered to halt till the morrow, promising not to stir from Chantelle
without a vindication of himself. "Whither would you go, my lord?" said
Warthy: "if you wished to leave the kingdom, you could not; the king has
provided against that everywhere."

"Nay," said Bourbon, "I have no wish to leave the kingdom; I have
friends and servants there." Warthy went away from Chantelle in company
with the Bishop of Autun, Chiverny, who was one of the constable's most
trusted friends, and who was bearer to the king of a letter which ran
thus: "Provided it please the king to restore to him his possessions, my
lord of Bourbon promises to serve him well and heartily, in all places
and at all times at which it shall seem good to him. In witness whereof,
he has signed these presents, and begs the king to be pleased to pardon
those towards whom he is ill disposed on account of this business.
CHARLES." In writing this letter the constable had no other object than
to gain a little time, for, on bidding good by to the Bishop of Autun,
he said to him, "Farewell, my dear bishop; I am off to Carlat, and from
Carlat I shall slip away with five or six horses on my road to Spain."
On the next day but one, indeed, the 8th of September, 1523, whilst the
Bishop of Autun was kept prisoner by the troops sent forward to
Chantelle, the constable sallied from it about one in the morning, taking
with him five-and-twenty or thirty thousand crowns of gold sewn up in
from twelve to fifteen jackets, each of which was intrusted to a man in
his train. For a month he wandered about Bourbonness, Auvergne,
Burgundy, Beaujolais, Vienness, Languedoc, and Dauphiny, incessantly