Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/82

Rh off their hinges and lay the same flat on the ground; and so long as he did tarry there, the gates were thus left open and unguarded to all that came and went, then after, on his departure, set up again as before.

I leave you to imagine if the King, and all his Court and army, had not ample and sufficient cause to love and honour this city (as indeed he did always), and to say all possible good thereof. In fact their stay there was exceeding agreeable to him and to all, and 'twas forbid under penalty of death to offer any sort of insult, as truly not the very smallest did ever occur. Ah! gallant folk of Sienna, may ye live for ever! Would to heaven ye were still ours in all else, as it may well be, ye are yet in heart and soul! For the overrule of a King of France is far gentler than that of a Duke of Florence; and besides this, the kinship of blood can never go for naught. If only we were as near neighbours as we be actually remote from each other, we might very like be found at one in will and deed.

In like wise the chiefest ladies of Pavia, at the siege of that town by King Francis I. of France, following the lead and example of the noble Countess Hippolita de Malespina, their generalissima, did set them to carrying of the earth-baskets, shifting soil and repairing the breaches in their walls, vying with the soldiery in their activity.

Conduct like that of the Siennese dames I have just told of, myself did behold on the part of certain ladies of La Rochelle, at the siege of their town. And I remember me how on the first Sunday of Lent during the siege, the King's brother, our General, did summon M. de la Noue to come before him on his parole, and speak with