Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/59

44 crowns; or for information where he could be taken, 20,000 ordinary crowns."

But soon it became known that no one would easily earn those 10,000 golden crowns; for M. de Bourbon was in the camp of the Emperor, preparing to invade Provence. The tide of opinion suddenly turned. Bourbon was no longer a popular hero; men saw in him, and justly, a traitor leagued against his country with her bitterest enemies. Nothing could have been better for Francis, whose carelessness and frivolity had begun to disgust the more serious of his subjects. He was again the Knight of France, the champion of the French, the Ogier of his time; the true Amadis defending his kingdom from a traitor; while Bourbon, mistrusted even by his allies, obtained but the third place in the Emperor's army. The Marseillais fought so well against the Constable that a panic seized the invading army, thrust back pell-mell into Italy, defeated without a blow. Meanwhile the nobles of Bourbon's party refused to rise. The rebellion came to nothing.