Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/65

50 about little things; beseeching him not to fast, it is bad for the health; thanking God that his honour and life are safe; and hiding from him the dreadful task they have, poor women, to keep order in the panic-stricken realm when the full extent of defeat is known. Bayard was killed in the autumn, and now Bonnivet is slain. Lescun de Foix, Ls Palice, the great marshal—they are all dead, with many others who were as a tower of strength. And Montmorency, the wise and cold, he and the young King of Navarre, and Brion, the brilliant Admiral Chabot, are prisoners with the King of France.

But Alençon, the disgraced, the hated, the shameful, he is neither dead nor in prison. Sick at heart, leading the miserable remainder of his troops, he makes his way to Lyons where his wife awaits him. As he marched along he must have heard the bitter words, and angry songs of the resentful populace. The length and breadth of the land was sore against les fuyards de Pavie. "I hate more than poison," cries Rabelais, "a man who flies when sword-play comes into fashion. Why am I not King of France for eighty or a hundred years? My God! I would crop the tails of the curs who fled from Pavia." And in every village the labourers sang the first Chanson de Pavie with its melancholy close:—

Another ballad was sung to the air Que dites-vous ensemble. Through the streets, and along the lanes where the voices of the ploughers echoed gravely, the miserable Duke must have heard the same monotonous chant:—