Meanwhile the Emperor was rapidly gathering force for the relief of his vassal State. From Naples came Lanoy with the garrison of that province; from Germany the ferocious giant Fründsberg, leading twelve thousand lanzknechts; while mercenaries from every part swarmed to the camps of Charles’ other commanders, the Constable de Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescara. This horde of hungry and rapacious villains, whom the Emperor left to gather supplies and pay out of the unfortunate country which it passed through, swooped down upon the gallant army of the King, which, falsely secure in its vainglory and sense of personal valour, allowed itself to be entrapped in the Park of Pavia, and on 24th February 1525, that vast and exquisite pleasaunce, created for the summer dalliance and the gay winter sports of the Dukes of Milan, became an awful red-mown field of all the chivalry of France. Never, perhaps, was such an oblation of knightly grace and virtue poured out to Death as on that day. One after another the gentlemen of France fell around their King. The famous veterans of the Italian wars died together with the youngest scions of their Houses, new come to this fatal Italy. Among many Milanese nobles who also fought in the King’s ranks and fell was Galeazzo di San Severino, who, after mourning for his friend and lord, the Moro, through several years of exile, had taken service with the conqueror and risen to the position of Grand Ecuyer of France. _Madame, tout est perdu sauf l’honneur_, wrote Francis to his mother. Among other things the Duchy of Milan, but just retaken, was lost again, and this time for ever. Monseigneur le Roy being a prisoner at Pizzighettone, his army destroyed and the survivors of his gentlemen confined in different fortresses, Duke Francesco returned again under the imperial protection to his capital. But though he was beloved by his people, his restoration meant a renewal of the intolerable Spanish tyranny, and fresh exactions for the benefit of the Emperor’s treasury, worse than any the city had ever suffered before. The Duke himself groaned under a slavery for which the empty title and insignia of sovereignty little compensated him.