When I had my audience of leave, I told the Doge and Signory I would report all faithfully to the king. I returned by Milan, and found the Duke of Milan at Vigevano, and the king’s ambassador with him, who was one Rigault d’Oreilles[459], steward to his household. The duke pretended to go a hunting, and came out to meet me (for they are very civil to ambassadors) and ordered me a very noble apartment in his castle. I begged that I might have the honour of a private conference with him, which at last he promised me, but with some signs of reluctancy. As the castle of Naples still held out for us, I was resolved to press for the ships with which he was bound to furnish us by the treaty at Vercelli. The ships were ready, and he was willing in appearance to send them out, but Peron de Basche and Stephen de Neves being at that time at Genoa on behalf of our king, and understanding I was at Vigevano, wrote to me immediately, complaining of the Duke of Milan’s treacherous way of dealing, who pretended to furnish us with ships and had sent two against us; that the governor of Genoa had told them one day that he could not suffer the ships to be manned with French sailors, and another, that there could not be above five and twenty of them permitted to be in any one vessel, with many such trifling excuses to protract and gain time, till they had heard the news of the capture of the castle of Naples, in which the Duke of Milan knew there was not provision enough for above a month, and that the king’s forces in Provence would be unable to raise the siege without the assistance of those two ships, for the enemy had blocked up the castle by sea with a great fleet furnished by the Venetians and the King of Spain as well as by themselves.