Many persons blamed him for pretending to receive divine revelations, but others believed him; for my part I think him a good man. I asked him whether our king would return safe into France, considering the great preparations of the Venetians against him, of which he gave a better account than I could, though I had lately come from Venice. He told me he would meet with some difficulties by the way, but he would overcome them all with honour, though he had but a hundred men in his company; for God, who had conducted him thither, would guard him back again. But because he had not applied himself as he ought to the reformation of the Church, and because he had permitted his soldiers to rob and plunder the poor people (as well those who had freely opened their gates to him as the enemy who had opposed him), therefore God had pronounced judgment against him, and in a short time he would receive chastisement. However, he bade me tell him that if he would have compassion upon the people, and command his army to do them no wrong, and punish them when they did, as it was his office to do, God would then mitigate, if not revoke, his sentence; but that it would not be sufficient for him to plead that he did them no wrong himself, and that he would meet the king when he came, and tell him so from his own mouth; and so he did, and pressed hard for the restitution of the Florentine towns. When he mentioned the sentence of God against him, the death of the dauphin[403] came very fresh into my mind; for I knew nothing else that could touch the king so sensibly. This I have thought fit to record, to make it the more manifest that this whole expedition was a mystery conducted by God Himself. CH. IV.—How the King retained Pisa and several other Florentine Towns in his Hands, while the Duke of Orleans on the other Side entered Novara, in the Duchy of Milan.—1495.