At the same moment, a messenger from the pope appeared at the king's levée with a paper, and requested, on behalf of the pontiff, who had a great fear of the terrible Charles V., that the said oration should be delivered as it was written on the paper he brought with him, so as to give the emperor no offence. Francis despatched Clement's draft to the president. What a disappointment! The new address was precisely the contrary of what he had been learning by heart. The famous orator became confused: he did not know what to do.... Alas! he had but a few minutes to spare, and the sonorous words which would have offended the great emperor, and which he had counted on reciting in his loudest voice, kept recurring to his mind. He fancied himself in the presence of that magnificent assembly of proud Roman prelates who knew Latin so well.... There could be no doubt about it ... he would become embarrassed, he would stammer, he would not remember what he had to say, and would break down. He was quite in a fever. The president, no longer master of himself, hurried off to the king, and begged him to give the office to some one else. 'Very well, then,' said Francis to Bishop du Bellay, 'you must undertake it.' At that moment the procession started. It reached its destination; the Bishop of Paris, although taken unawares, put a bold face upon the matter; and being a good Latin scholar and able orator, he executed his commission wonderfully well.[475] The official conferences began shortly after, and neither king nor pope spared protestations, stratagems, or falsehoods: the pope particularly excelled in the latter article. 'He used so much artifice in the business,' says Guicciardini,[476] 'that the king confided marvellously in him.' What Francis required to compensate him for the misalliance was not much: he asked for the duchies of Urbino and Milan, Pisa, Leghorn, Reggio, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, and Genoa. But if the king was inexhaustible in his demands, the pope was equally so in his promises, being the more liberal as he intended to give nothing. Clement, touched by the good-nature of Francis, who appeared to believe all that was told him, sent at last to Nice for the youthful Catherine. [Sidenote: BULL AGAINST HERETICS.]