In 1535 he took Tunis, set at liberty twenty thousand Christian slaves, and remained master of the regency. At the news of this expedition, Francis I., who, in concert with Henry VIII., was but lately levying an army to “offer resistance,” he said, “to the Turk,” entered into negotiations with Soliman II., and concluded a friendly treaty with him against what was called the common enemy. Francis had been for some time preparing to resume his projects of conquest in Italy; he had effected an interview at Marseilles, in October, 1533, with Pope Clement VII., who was almost at the point of death, and it was there that the marriage of Prince Henry of France with Catherine de’ Medici was settled. Astonishment was expressed that the pope’s niece had but a very moderate dowry. “You don’t see, then,” said Clement VII.’s ambassador, “that she brings France three jewels of great price, Genoa, Milan, and Naples?” When this language was reported at the court of Charles V., it caused great irritation there. In 1536 all these combustibles of war exploded; in the month of February, a French army entered Piedmont, and occupied Turin; and, in the month of July, Charles V. in person entered Provence at the head of fifty thousand men. Anne de Montmorency having received orders to defend southern France, began by laying it waste in order that the enemy might not be able to live in it; officers had orders to go everywhere and “break up the bake-houses and mills, burn the wheat and forage, pierce the wine-casks, and ruin the wells by throwing the wheat into them to spoil the water.” In certain places the inhabitants resisted the soldiers charged with this duty; elsewhere, from patriotism, they themselves set fire to their corn-ricks and pierced their casks. Montmorency made up his mind to defend, on the whole coast of Provence, only Marseilles and Arles; he pulled down the ramparts of the other towns, which were left exposed to the enemy. For two months Charles V. prosecuted this campaign without a fight, marching through the whole of Provence an army which fatigue, shortness of provisions, sickness, and ambuscades were decimating ingloriously. At last he decided upon retreating. “From Aix to Frejus, where the emperor at his arrival had pitched his camp, all the roads were strewn with the sick and the dead pell-mell, with harness, lances, pikes, arquebuses, and other armor of men and horses gathered in a heap. I say what I saw,” adds Martin du Bellay, “considering the toil I had with my company in this pursuit.” At the village of Mery, near Frejus, some peasants had shut themselves up in a tower situated on the line of march; Charles V. ordered one of his captains to carry it by assault; from his splendid uniform the peasants, it is said, took this officer for the emperor himself, and directed their fire upon him; the officer, mortally wounded, was removed to Nice, where he died at the end of a few days. It