"You have no doubt heard of the voyage which the Lord Duke my father-in-law, my husband, and I, took to the French Court, where we made a very short stay, but one which turned out very badly for our house. For the King used violent threats to my father and husband, and sent my uncle the Cardinal to tell them that, if they did not satisfy his demands, he would prove their worst enemy, and make them the smallest people in the world. So they were compelled to give him the town of Stenay, which is a great loss to this house, and has vexed my husband and me sorely, showing us how much we are despised on that side, and to what risk of destruction we should be exposed if it were not for the good help of the Emperor, in whom I place my whole trust."[329] Unfortunately for the Duchess and her husband, Charles was at this moment engaged in his disastrous expedition to Algiers. The news of the tempest which wrecked his fleet on the coast of Africa had reached the French Court, and it was confidently asserted that the Emperor himself had perished, or was a prisoner in Barbarossa's camp. These disquieting rumours were set at rest early in December by his safe return to Cartagena with the remnants of his army. But his enemies had been active in his absence. On the 15th of November the Duke of Lorraine set his seal to the deed of cession, and a week later a French garrison took possession of Stenay. General indignation was excited throughout Europe by this arbitrary act. Mary of Hungary entered a vigorous protest in her brother's name against this surrender of an imperial fief, and no sooner did the news reach Charles than he told his Ambassador to require the French King to do homage for the town. The new English Ambassador, Paget, who arrived at Fontainebleau a few days after the Lorraine Princes left Court, noticed that the King "looked very black, as if the Imperial Envoy had spoken of matters not all the pleasantest"; while he informed his royal master that the entertainment of the Duke of Lorraine had been but cold, and that he had lost all credit with the French.[330] When Chapuys told King Henry at Christmas how King Francis had snatched Stenay from the Duke of Lorraine, the English monarch only shrugged his shoulders, saying he had always known no good would come out of that marriage.[331]