The emperor's remarks were not without their effect upon Clement: he was thoughtful and uneasy. The French ambassadors had been lavish of words, but there was nothing written: _verba volant_. The pope caught at the idea suggested by Charles. If the full powers do not arrive, the king's treachery is unveiled; if they arrive, the game is won. Clement asked for them. 'Nothing is more easy,' said Tournon and Gramont, who wrote to their master without delay.[374] [Sidenote: THE KING'S HESITATION.] Francis I. was startled when he received their despatch. His proposal was sincere, for he thought it necessary to his policy; but the remarks of Charles V. and Henry VIII. about the daughter of the Florentine merchant, and the astonishment of Europe, which unanimously protested against 'such great disparity of degree and condition,'[375] had sunk into his mind. He, so proud of his blood and of his crown ... countenance a misalliance! He hesitated; he would only proceed slowly ... step by step ... and with a long interval after each.[376] If Charles, who was impatient to return to Spain, should leave Italy without banding it against France ... then ... new facts, new counsel ... he would consider. But now he was driven to the wall: the question must be answered. Shall Catherine de Medici come and sit on the steps of the throne of St. Louis, or shall she remain in Italy? Shall she continue to receive abominable lessons from her relative Alexander de Medici, a detestable prince who exiled and imprisoned even the members of his own family, and confiscated their property, and was addicted to the most scandalous debauchery? ... or shall she come to France to put in practice those lessons among the people of her adoption? The king must make up his mind: the courier was waiting. One thing decided him. His old gaoler, the emperor, said that this marriage proposal was a trick. If Francis refused what the pope asked, Charles would triumph, and turn against him both pope and Italy. The king's ambition was stronger than his vanity, and coming to a desperate resolution, he had the full powers drawn up, signed, and sent off.[377]