Everything changed at Madrid. Charles, alarmed at the abdication of Francis, softened by the approaching marriage of this monarch with his sister, obtaining in fine the main part of his demands, consented to restore the King of France to liberty. It was Burgundy that had delayed the arrangement. The king was not more inclined than the duchess to detach this important province from France; the only difference between the brother and the sister was, that the religion of the one looked upon oaths as sacred, while the religion of the other made no account of breaking them; and this Francis soon showed. On the 14th of January, 1526, some of his courtiers, officers, and domestics gathered round their master for an act which in their simplicity they called sacred. The king swore in their presence that he would not keep one of the articles which Charles wished to force upon him. When that was done Francis bound himself an hour after by an oath, with his hand upon the Scriptures, to do what Charles demanded. According to the tenor of the treaty, he renounced all claim to Italy; surrendered Burgundy to the emperor, to whom it was stated to belong; restored Provence, which Charles ceded to the Constable of Bourbon; and thus France was laid prostrate.[455] The treaty was communicated to the pope: ‘Excellent,’ he said, after reading it; ‘provided the king does not observe it.’ That was a point on which Clement and Francis were in perfect accord.[456] Margaret had had no hand in this disgraceful trick; her only thought had been to save the king and the evangelicals. CHAPTER III. WILL THE REFORMATION CROSS THE RHINE? (1525-1526.) Margaret, who returned from Spain full of hope in her brother’s deliverance, was determined to do all in her power for the triumph of the Gospel. While the men of the ultramontane party, calling to mind the defeat of Pavia, demanded that heaven should be appeased by persecutions, Margaret thought, on the contrary, that humiliated France ought to turn towards Jesus Christ, in order to obtain from him a glorious deliverance.