certainly what everybody said,” answered the Englishman, “that you might have the laugh against us. But call you the money the king gives us pension? Why, it is tribute; and, by St. George, you may perhaps talk so much about it as to bring us down upon you again!” “There was nothing in the world,” says Commynes, “of which the king was more fearful than lest any word should escape him to make the English think that they were being derided; at the same time that he was laboring to gain them over, he was careful to humor their susceptibilities;” and Commynes, under his schooling, had learned to understand them well: “They are rather slow goers,” says he, “but you must have a little patience with them, and not lose your temper. . . . I fancy that to many it might appear that the king abased himself too much; but the wise might well hold that the kingdom was in great danger, save for the intervention of God, who did dispose the king’s mind to choose so wise a course, and did greatly trouble that of the Duke of Burgundy. . . . Our king knew well the nature of the King of England, who was very fond of his ease and his pleasures: when he had concluded these treaties with him, he ordered that the money should be found with the greatest expedition, and every one had to lend somewhat to help to supply it on the spot. The king said that there was nothing in the world he would not do to thrust the King of England out of the realm, save only that he would never consent that the English should have a bit of territory there; and, rather than suffer that, he would put everything to jeopardy and risk.”