carrying the white cross of Savoy, came out from the gates to meet him. Presenting his suzerain with the donations of the Pays de Vaud at Lausanne, Count Jean was also present with the bishops of Tarentaise, Lausanne and de Bellay at the general assembly of the Savoy estates at Morges, and at the chateau of Oron received the duke and his suite at a splendid banquet. The Swiss, divided by religious wars, and since the battles of Grandson, Morat and Nancy the actual arbiters of Europe, were constantly solicited for their alliance, and yielding to their cupidity and a widespread spirit of adventure, continually divided their forces into mercenary bands, fighting for Italy and then France in the long series of disastrous Italian campaigns undertaken by Charles VIII and his successors, Louis XII and Francois I. "_Point d'argent, point de Suisse_," a saying only too well merited by the conduct of these mercenary armies, originated from these French-Italian campaigns. In 1499 the Swiss, fighting with France, betrayed the duke of Milan to Louis XII. At Novara, fifteen years later, they fought for the duke, and took for themselves a large part of Piemont. At Marignan, the young Francois I at the head of a brilliant army of the French noblesse, furnished with all the accoutrements and artillery of modern warfare, received his baptism of fire, and Bayard won his shining immortality. There also the Swiss in a second battle of giants, although defeated, won as they had at St. Jacques the admiration of their conqueror; and just as Louis XI had tempted them by unlimited pay to join his cause, again Francois I induced them by promises of permanent pensions to a perpetual alliance, and to the peace called "perpetual" which afterward was maintained between Switzerland and France.