We shall have something to say of Francis I. in connection with syphilis, of which he was a conspicuous and an early victim. At the age of eighteen his mother stated that he had been punished where he sinned. The misfortune did not operate as a warning. His life was notoriously dissolute at a time when profligacy was so much the rule that it was hardly likely to be noticed. Brantome asserts positively[188] that his expedition to Italy was prompted by the desire to make acquaintance with a courtesan of Milan whose charms Admiral Bonnivet had extolled. Previous to his time, it seems, there had always been attached to the court a body of prostitutes for the use of the courtiers. Francis suppressed this body, and actually invited the ladies of the court to take their place. Brantome reviews this policy, and while he praises it in view of the "joyous pastimes" to which it led, he is bound to acknowledge that it produced the greatest immorality ever known in France. The ladies of the town followed the example of those of the court, and but little was wanting but that every woman in France became a prostitute. It was the custom during this reign for the king to invite all his courtiers and their wives and daughters to lodge at the royal palaces from time to time. The ladies had apartments by themselves, and to each room the king had a key. We are assured that the husbands, fathers, and brothers of ladies who refused to submit to the royal demands had but little chance of retaining their offices. If they had been guilty of maladministration or peculation, as was the case with most of them, they could hope for pardon only through the complaisance of their female relatives. The story of M. de St. Vallier, who was reprieved on the scaffold in payment for the favors which his daughter, the beautiful Diana of Poictiers, had granted to the king, is too well known to need repetition here. It was the boast of Francis that he had always respected the honor of the ladies of the court, and the boast was just, from his point of view. His visits to his mistresses were always made in a mysterious manner, and at night. Even to the Duchess of Etampes, who was his acknowledged mistress and procuress for a period of nearly twenty years, he never behaved in public in a manner to compromise her reputation. In private he was not so scrupulous. When this lady's husband disturbed the king one evening, Francis drew his sword on him, and threatened to kill him instantly if he dared to reveal what every one knew, or to punish the wife at whose adultery he had connived for years. His idea seems to have been that words alone constituted the sin of debauchery. On one occasion he took all the ladies of the court to see the royal deer in the rutting season; but when a gentleman ventured a very obvious pleasantry on the scene, he exiled him from court for life.