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It shall suffice for the present that I commemorate unto you the learned and valiant knight and cavalier William of Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the Hill of Tarara, the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age, and of our supputation 1543, according to the Roman account.

No dependence could be placed on the cardinals, Du Bellay said, for they spoke one way, and voted another. Thus all was over. In a scene of general helplessness the long drama closed, and, what we call accident, for want of some better word, cut the knot at last over which human incapacity had so vainly laboured. The Bishop of Paris retired from Rome in despair.

And again, accompanying the Dauphin in his expedition beyond the Alps, and taking the Castle of Villano by assault, and all within it being put to the sword by the fury of the soldiers, the governor and his ensign only excepted, he caused them both to be trussed up for the same reason; as also did the Captain Martin du Bellay, then governor of Turin, with the governor of San Buono, in the same country, all his people having been cut to pieces at the taking of the place.

Upon the Memoires and historic of Monsieur du Bellay: It is ever a well-pleasing thing to see matters written by those that have as said how and in what manner they ought to be directed and managed: yet can it not be denied but that in both these Lords there will manifestly appeare a great declination from a free libertie of writing, which clearely shineth in ancient writers of their kind: as in the Lord of louinille, familiar unto Saint Lewis; Eginard, Chancellor unto Charlemaine; and of more fresh memorie in Philip de Comines.

When he had resided for a time in Rome, Rabelais went to Lyons, then returned to the holy city, and after a second visit went to Paris, where he entered the family of Cardinal du Bellay, who had also returned from Rome. He confided to Rabelais the government of his household, and persuaded the pope to secularize the abbey of St. Maurdes-Fosses, and conferred it upon the wit.

Margaret, as I have said, imitated Sannazzaro in her Histoire des satyres et nymphes de Diane. The Arcadia was translated in 1544. Du Bellay was familiar with the original and honoured its author with imitation, translation, and even a respectful mention of it in his famous Défense. Elsewhere he asks: Qui fera taire la musette Du pasteur néapolitain?

"Those who speak thus," says Du Bellay, "make me think of those relics which one may only see through a little pane of glass, and must not touch with one's hands.

He was through life protected by the Cardinal Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, who employed him in various important negotiations; and it is recorded of him that he refused a scholar admittance to his table because he had not read his works.

Orders had been sent everywhere to receive him "as kings of France are received on their joyous accession." "The king gave his guest," says Du Bellay, "all the pleasures that can be invented, as royal hunts, tourneys, skirmishes, fights a-foot and a-horseback, and in all other sorts of pastimes." Some petty incidents, of a less reassuring kind, were intermingled with these entertainments.

When the famous meeting took place at "The Field of the Cloth of Gold," between Ardres and Guines in Picardy, all the nobles made an effort to rival the splendour of their kings, Henry VIII. and Francis I., and they came to the meeting, as Martin du Bellay has said, "bearing thither their mills, their forests, and their meadows on their backs."