Parma has transferred his camp from Lillo to Dendermonde, after great losses, if we may believe the report. He retains, however, the fort of Calloo, which enables him to cause much trouble to the ships as they sail by. They hope to take Dendermonde[212] without much difficulty, as the larger part of the garrison has been cut off from the town. Marshal de Retz is at St. Quentin, and trying hard to induce Balagny,[213] the governor of Cambrai, to surrender the town to the King and the King’s nominee. Balagny’s tyrannical conduct has rendered him most unpopular at Cambrai, and there are hopes that some arrangement may be made. Marshal de Retz has proved himself a skilful and sagacious diplomatist in affairs of this kind. Paris, August 18, 1584. LETTER XLII. I have hardly any news, and yet I feel I ought not to allow a longer time to elapse before writing. The King has returned from Lyons without achieving anything worth notice, as far as I know. He stayed for some time at the castle of _le Bois de Vincennes_, in the neighbourhood of Paris, where he is building a church, to be held by the order of St. Jerome, for the benefit of himself and his society of Penitents.[214] At the same time he is carrying on his campaign against vice by punishing heinous offences, especially those which are connected with malversation of public moneys, whether they belong to the privy purse or the exchequer, France being full of offenders of this kind. In dealing with these matters he does not spare even men of high rank; consequently there is a panic, and people are leaving the country. He will next attack the Parliaments, it is supposed, and require them to give an account of the way they have administered justice, and the sentences they have pronounced, for these courts of justice are, it is considered, full of corruption and in great need of reform. In France the Parliaments have powers almost equal to the King’s; in them justice is sold, or given as a matter of favour. Though well stricken in years,[215] the Cardinal de Bourbon is apparently unwilling to surrender the right of succession to the throne to his nephew Navarre, and therefore inclines to the Guises, whom a numerous party regard as their leaders; nay, a little while ago it was stated that he intended to resign his orders, surrender his Cardinal’s hat, and marry the widow of Montpensier, sister to the Duke of Guise. The report is still current.