It is difficult to understand how Francis I. and Charles V. could rely upon personal interviews and negotiations for putting an end to their contentions and establishing a general peace. Each knew the other’s pretensions, and they knew how little disposed they were, either of them, to abandon them. On the 28th of March, 1525, a month after the battle of Pavia, Charles V. had given his ambassadors instructions as to treating for the ransom and liberation of the King of France. His chief requirements were, that Francis I. should renounce all attempts at conquest in Italy, that he should give up the suzerainty of the countships of Flanders and Artois, that he should surrender to Charles V. the duchy of Burgundy with all its dependencies, as derived from Mary of Burgundy, daughter of the last duke, Charles the Rash; that the Duke of Bourbon should be reinstated in possession of all his domains, with the addition thereto of Provence and Dauphiny, which should form an independent state; and, lastly, that France should pay England all the sums of money which Austria owed her. Francis I., on hearing, at Pizzighittone, these proposals read out, suddenly drew his sword as if to stab himself, saying, “It were better for a king to end thus.” His custodian, Alancon, seized his arm, whilst recalling him to his senses. Francis recovered calmness, but without changing his resolution; he would rather, he said, bury himself in a prison forever than subscribe to conditions destructive of his kingdom, and such as the States General of France would never accept. When Francis I. was removed to Spain he had made only secondary concessions as to these requirements of Charles V., and Charles V. had not abandoned any one of his original requirements. Marshal de Montmorency, when sent by the king to the emperor on the 2d of July, 1525, did not enter at all into the actual kernel of the negotiation; after some conventional protestations of a pacific kind, he confined himself to demanding “a safe conduct for Madame Marguerite of France, the king’s only sister, Duchess of Alencon and Berry, who would bring with her such and so full powers of treating for peace, the liberation of the king, and friendly alliance to secure the said peace, that the emperor would clearly see that the king’s intentions were pure and genuine, and that he would be glad to conclude and decide in a month what might otherwise drag on for a long while to the great detriment of their subjects.” The marshal was at the same time to propose the conclusion of a truce during the course of the negotiations. Amongst the letters at that time addressed to Francis I., a prisoner of war, is the following, dated March, 1525, when he was still in Italy:--