We have already mentioned the demand which the King of France made upon the Duke of Savoy, Charles III., that he would permit him to march an army through his territories. The reply was a refusal; but Francis I. must needs have a road into Italy. Accordingly he seized upon Piedmont, and held possession of it, together with the Waldensian valleys, for twenty-three years. The Waldenses had found the sway of Francis I. more tolerant than that of their own princes; for though Francis hated Lutheranism, the necessities of his policy often compelled him to court the Lutherans, and so it came to pass that while he was burning heretics in Paris he spared them in the Valleys. But the general peace of Château Cambrésis, April 3rd, 1559, restored Piedmont, with the exception of Turin, to its former rulers of the House of Savoy.[48] Charles III. had been succeeded in 1553 by Emmanuel Philibert. Philibert was a prince of superior talents and humane disposition, and the Vaudois cherished the hope that under him they would be permitted to live in peace, and to worship as their fathers had done. What strengthened these just expectations was the fact that Philibert had married a sister of the King of France, Henry II., who had been carefully instructed in the Protestant faith by her illustrious relations, Margaret, Queen of Navarre, and Rénée of France, daughter of Louis XII. But, alas! the treaty that restored Emmanuel Philibert to the throne of his ancestors, contained a clause binding the contracting parties to extinguish heresy. This was to send him back to his subjects with a dagger in his hand.