By these means it is undoubtedly possible to gain that advantage over your enemy which, according to every theory of war, it is the paramount object of hostilities to obtain; for it has been too often forgotten that a nation’s honour and character, which an enlightened patriotism should value higher than the mere earth on which it feeds and treads, are sacrificed and impaired whenever a treaty is taken by one of the parties to it to have been made in another sense from that which was clearly understood by both parties to have constituted its spirit at the time of making it. What a lasting stain rests, for instance, on the memory of Francis I., who before signing the Treaty of Madrid, by which he swore, in return for his liberty, to restore the Duchy of Burgundy, and to return a prisoner to Spain if he failed to do so, made a formal protest beforehand, in the presence of some friends, that the oath he was about to take was involuntary and therefore void, and broke it the moment he was free! And this was the man whose memory is associated with the famous saying after the battle of Pavia: ‘All is lost save honour.’ What he really said after that event, in a letter to his mother, was this: ‘All is lost save my honour and my life, which is safe,’ and the letter went on at length, much more in keeping with the character of that monarch.[191] His life indeed he saved; his honour he never recovered. It was agreed at the Brussels Conference that resort to every possible method of obtaining information about the forces or country of an enemy should count as a fair military stratagem; and, indeed, with the subject of the deceitful side of war the military theory and treatment of Spies occupies no inconsiderable place. Vattel is again as good an exponent as we can have of what international law teaches on this subject. His argument is as follows: It is not contrary to the law of nations to seduce one of the hostile side to turn spy, nor to bribe a governor to deliver a town, because such actions do not, like the use of poison or assassination, strike at the common welfare and safety of mankind. Such actions are the common episodes of every war. But that they are not in themselves honourable or compatible with a good conscience is proved by the fact that generals who resort to such means never boast of them; and, if they are at all excusable, it is only in the case of a very just war, when there is no other way of saving a country from ruin at the hands of lawless conquerors. A sovereign has no right to require the services of a spy from any of his subjects, but he may hold out the temptation of reward to mercenary souls; and if a governor is willing to sell himself and offer us a town for money, should we scruple to take advantage of his crime, and to get without danger what we have a right to get by force? At the same time a spy may rightly be put to death, because it is the only way we have of guarding against the mischief he may do us.[192]