Queen Regent their positive refusal to grant the subsidy, he had, on the
contrary, given an answer, in their name, in the affirmative. For these
delinquencies, the imaginary and the real, he was inhumanly tortured and
afterwards beheaded. "I know, my children," said he upon the scaffold,
"that you will be grieved when you have seen my blood flow, and that you
will regret me when it is too late." It does not appear, however, that
there was any especial reason to regret him, however sanguinary the
punishment which had requited his broken faith.

The mischief being thus afoot, the tongue of Roland, and the easily-
excited spirits of the citizens, soon did the rest. Ghent broke forth
into open insurrection. They had been willing to enlist and pay troops
under their own banners, but they had felt outraged at the enormous
contribution demanded of them for a foreign war, undertaken in the family
interests of their distant master. They could not find the "Bargain of
Flanders," but they got possession of the odious "calf skin," which was
solemnly cut in two by the dean of the weavers. It was then torn in
shreds by the angry citizens, many of whom paraded the streets with
pieces of the hated document stuck in their caps, like plumes. From
these demonstrations they proceeded to intrigues with Francis the First.
He rejected them, and gave notice of their overtures to Charles, who now
resolved to quell the insurrection, at once. Francis wrote, begging that
the Emperor would honor him by coming through France; "wishing to assure
you," said he, "my lord and good brother, by this letter, written and
signed by my hand, upon my honor, and on the faith of a prince, and of
the best brother you have, that in passing through my kingdom every
possible honor and hospitality will be offered you, even as they could be
to myself." Certainly, the French king, after such profuse and voluntary
pledges, to confirm which he, moreover, offered his two sons and other
great individuals as hostages, could not, without utterly disgracing