He had just lost, a few months previously, the intimate and faithful adviser and friend of his whole life: Cardinal George d’Amboise, seized at Milan with a fit of the gout, during which Louis tended him with the assiduity and care of an affectionate brother, died at Lyons on the 25th of May, 1510, at fifty years of age. He was one not of the greatest, but of the most honest ministers who ever enjoyed a powerful monarch’s constant favor, and employed it we will not say with complete disinterestedness, but with a predominant anxiety for the public weal. In the matter of external policy the influence of Cardinal d’Amboise, was neither skilfully nor salutarily exercised: he, like his master, indulged in those views of distant, incoherent, and improvident conquests which caused the reign of Louis XII. to be wasted in ceaseless wars, with which the cardinal’s desire of becoming pope was not altogether unconnected, and which, after having resulted in nothing but reverses, were a heavy heritage for the succeeding reign. But at home, in his relations with his king and in his civil and religious administration, Cardinal d’Amboise was an earnest and effective friend of justice, of sound social order, and of regard for morality in the practice of power. It is said that, in his latter days, he, virtuously weary of the dignities of this world, said to the infirmary-brother who was attending him, “Ah! Brother John, why did I not always remain Brother John!” A pious regret the sincerity and modesty whereof are rare amongst men of high estate. [Illustration: Cardinal d’Amboise----347]