determined to go through with his enterprise, and that he proposed to
draw off towards Flanders by way of Lorraine with eighteen hundred horse
and ten thousand foot, and form a junction with the King of England."
[M. Mignet, _Etude sur le Connetable de Bourbon, in the Revue des Deux
Mondes_ of January 15, 1854, and March 15 and April 1, 1858.]

Under such grave and urgent circumstances, Francis I. behaved on the one
hand with more prudence and efficiency than he had yet displayed, and on
the other with his usual levity and indulgence towards his favorites.
Abandoning his expedition in person into Italy, he first concerned
himself for that internal security of his kingdom, which was threatened
on the east and north by the Imperialists and the English, and on the
south by the Spaniards, all united in considerable force and already in
motion. Francis opposed to them in the east and north the young Count
Claude of Guise, the first celebrity amongst his celebrated race, the
veteran Louis de La Tremoille, the most tried of all his warriors, and
the Duke of Vendome, head of the younger branch of the House of Bourbon.
Into the south he sent Marshal de Lautrec, who was more brave than
successful, but of proved fidelity. All these captains acquitted
themselves honorably. Claude of Guise defeated a body of twelve thousand
lanzknechts who had already penetrated into Champagne; he hurled them
back into Lorraine, and dispersed them beneath the walls of the little
town of Neufchateau, where the princesses and ladies of Lorraine, showing
themselves at the windows, looked on and applauded their discomfiture.
La Tremoille's only forces were very inferior to the thirty-five thousand
Imperialists or English who had entered Picardy; but he managed to make
of his small garrisons such prompt and skilful use that the invaders were
unable to get hold of a single place, and advanced somewhat heedlessly to
the very banks of the Oise, whence the alarm spread rapidly to Paris.
The Duke of Vendome, whom the king at once despatched thither with a