It is true Louis XI. might, strictly speaking, lay claim to this latter title, but in our opinion Louis XI. was not so much the scheming diplomatist as the grasping miser. On the day of the Emperor's arrival there was a hunting party in the forest of Fontainebleau. Hunting was a favorite pastime of François I. It was not much better than a terrible bore to Charles V. Nevertheless he seized with avidity this further opportunity to see if he was not a prisoner; he let the hunt pass, took a by-road, and rode about at random until he was lost. But when he found that he was entirely alone in the middle of the forest, as free as the air that blew through the branches, or as the birds that flew through the air, he was almost wholly reassured, and began to recover his good humor in some measure. And yet the anxious expression returned to his faee when, upon his making his appearance at the rendezvous, François came to him, flushed with the excitement of the chase, and still holding in his hand the bleeding boar-spear. The warrior of Marignano and Pavia was much in evidence in the king's pleasures. "Come, my dear brother, let us enjoy ourselves!" said François, passing his arm through Charles's in a friendly way, when they had both alighted at the palace gate, and, leading him to the Galerie de Diane, resplendent with the paintings of Rosso and Primaticcio. "Vrai Dieu! you are as thoughtful as I was at Madrid. But you will agree, my dear brother, that I had some reason for being so, for I was your prisoner, while you are my guest; you are free, you are on the eve of a triumph. Rejoice therefore with us, if not because of the fêtes, which are doubtless beneath the notice of a great politician like yourself, at least in the thought that you are on your way to humble all those beer-drinking Flemings, who presume to talk of renewing the Communes. Or, better still, forget the rebels, and think only of enjoying yourself with friends. Does not my court impress you pleasantly?" "It is superb, my brother," said Charles, "and I envy you. I too have a court--you have seen it--but a stern, joyless court, a gloomy assemblage of statesmen and generals like Lannoy, Peschiara, and Antonio de Leyra. But you have, beside your warriors and statesmen, beside your Montmorencys and Dubellays, beside your scholars, beside Budée, Duchâtel, and Lascaris,--beside all these you have your poets and your artists, Marot, Jean Goujon, Primaticcio, Benvenuto; and, above all, your adorable women,--Marguerite de Navarre, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis, and so many others; and verily I begin to believe, my dear brother, that I would willingly exchange my gold mines for your flower-strewn fields." "Ah! but you have not yet seen the fairest of all these lovely flowers," said François naïvely to Eleanora's brother.