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"I cannot vouch for the truth of the story; I give it to you as it came to me. There is no doubt, however, that certain satirical verses were written about the Duchesse de Valentinois, in which she and the King also are spoken of with a freedom not to be expected under the old régime.

The Podesta of Cervia reported to the Venetian Senate that the abductors were Spaniards of the army of the Duke of Valentinois, and it was feared in Venice according to Sanuto that the deed might be the work of Cesare.

Issuing to meet them, he not only put them to flight and drove them for shelter into the fortress of Montebello, but laid siege to them there and broke them utterly, with a loss, as was reputed, of some three hundred men in slain alone. The news of this came to cheer Valentinois, who, moreover, had now the Pope and France to depend upon.

He foresaw that they would employ arguments to induce Valentinois into an enterprise of which all the cost would be his, and all the possible profit their own. The duke would certainly have obeyed and avoided Tuscany, but that precisely as the shrewd Pope had feared Vitelli and Orsini implored him to march through Florentine territory.

Madame de Montmorenci de Valentinois travelled after the adventure: and Bungay bought her poems, and published them, with the Countess's coronet emblazoned on the Countess's work. Major Pendennis became very serious in his last days, and was never so happy as when Laura was reading to him with her sweet voice, or listening to his stories.

Justolo gives us a picture of the Duke of Valentinois on the banks of the River Montone, which again throws into relief the discipline which his very presence such was the force of his personality was able to enforce. A disturbance arose among his soldiers at the crossing of this river, which was swollen with rains and the bridge of which had been destroyed.

That caused Queen Catherine's hatred to the poor Duchesse de Valentinois, from whom she took the beautiful chateau of Chenonceaux. If it hadn't been for the Connetable, the duchess might have been strangled. Back, back, my son; don't put yourself in the hands of that Italian, who has no passion except in her brain; and that's a bad kind of woman!

The Council of Ten sends an envoy to wait upon the Pope; and the Pope expresses his profound regret and his esteem for Alviano, and informs the envoy that he is writing to Valentinois to demand her instant release in fact, shows the envoy the letter.

The French army, which the Duke of Valentinois had just joined, consisted of 1000 lances, 4000 Swiss, and 6000 Gascons and adventurers; further, Philip of Rabenstein was bringing by sea six Breton and Provencal vessels, and three Genoese caracks, carrying 6500 invaders.

Charles the Ninth, Henry the Third, Francis of Alencon, last of the Valois race how large a portion of the fearful debt which has not yet been discharged by half a century of revolution and massacre was of their accumulation. The Duchess of Valentinois had quarrelled latterly with the house of Guise, and was disposed to favor Montmorency.