V.

their situation, had laid hold on the opportunity which BOOK Barbarossa dreaded. As soon as his army was at some 1535. distance from the town they gained two of their keepers, by whose assistance knocking off their fetters, and bursting open their prisons, they overpowered the Turkish garrison, and turned the artillery of the fort against their former masters. Barbarossa, disappointed and enraged, exclaiming sometimes against the false compassion of his officers, and sometimes condemning his own imprudent compliance with their opinion, fled precipitately to Bona.

Meanwhile Charles, satisfied with the easy and almost Tunis surbloodless victory which he had gained, and, advancing renders. slowly, with the precaution necessary in an enemy's country, did not yet know the whole extent of his own good fortune. But at last a messenger, dispatched by the slaves, acquainted him with the success of their noble effort for the recovery of their liberty; and, at the same time, deputies arrived from the town, in order to present him the keys of their gates, and to implore his protection from military violence. While he was deliberating concerning the proper measures for this purpose, the soldiers, fearing that they should be deprived of the booty which they had expected, rushed suddenly and without orders into the town, and began to kill and plunder without distinction. It was then too late to restrain their cruelty, their avarice, or licentiousness. All the outrages of which soldiers are capable in the fury of a storm, all the excesses of which men can be guilty when their passions are heightened by the contempt and hatred which difference in manners and religion inspires, were committed. Above thirty thousand of the innocent inhabitants perished on that unhappy day, and ten thousand were carried away as slaves. Muley-Hascen took possession of a throne surrounded with carnage, abhorred by his subjects, on whom he had brought such calamities, and pitied even by those whose rashness had been the occasion of them. The emperor lamented the fatal accident

V.

1535.

BOOK which had stained the lustre of his victory; and, amidst such a scene of horror, there was but one spectacle that afforded him any satisfaction. Ten thousand Christian slaves, among whom were several persons of distinction, met him as he entered the town, and, falling on their knees, thanked and blessed him as their deliverer.

Restores

the exiled

throne.

At the same time that Charles accomplished his proking to his mise to the Moorish king, of re-establishing him in his dominions, he did not neglect what was necessary for bridling the power of the African corsairs, for the security of his own subjects, and for the interest of the Spanish crown. In order to gain these ends, he concluded a treaty with Muley-Hascen on the following conditions; that he should hold the kingdom of Tunis in fee of the crown of Spain, and do homage to the emperor as his liege lord; that all the Christian slaves now within his dominions, of whatever nation, should be set at liberty without ransom; that no subject of the emperor's should, for the future, be detained in servitude; that no Turkish corsair should be admitted into the ports of his dominions; that free trade, together with the public exercise of the Christian religion, should be allowed to all the emperor's subjects; that the emperor should not only retain the Goletta, but that all the other sea-ports in the kingdom, which were fortified, should be put into his hands; that Muley-Hascen should pay annually twelve thousand crowns for the subsistence of the Spanish garrison in the Goletta; that he should enter into no alliance with any of the emperor's enemies, and should present to him every year, as an acknowledgement of his vassalage, six Moorish horses and as many hawks'. Having thus settled the affairs of Africa, chastised the insolence of the corsairs, secured a safe retreat for the ships of his subjects, and a proper station to his own fleets, on that coast from which he was most infested by piratical depredaAug. 17, tions, Charles embarked again for Europe, the tempestuous Du Mont Corps Diplomat. ii, 128. Summonte Hist. di Napoli, iva

V.

weather and sickness among his troops not permitting BOOK him to pursue Barbarossa m:

1535

By this expedition, the merit of which seems to have The glory

been estimated in that age rather by the apparent gene-which the rosity of the undertaking, the magnificence wherewith it emperor acquired. was conducted, and the success which crowned it, than by the importance of the consequences that attended it, the emperor attained a greater height of glory than at any other period of his reign. Twenty thousand slaves whom he freed from bondage, either by his arms or by his treaty with Muley-Hascen ", each of whom he clothed and furnished with the means of returning to their respective countries, spread all over Europe the fame of their benefactor's munificence, extolling his power and abilities with the exaggeration flowing from gratitude and admiration. In comparison with him the other monarchs of Europe made an inconsiderable figure. They seemed to be solicitous about nothing but their private and particular interests; while Charles, with an elevation of sentiment which became the chief prince in Christendom, appeared to be concerned for the honour of the Christian name, and attentive to the public security and welfare.

Joh. Etropii Diarium Expedition. Tunetanæ, ap, Scard. v. ii, p. 820, &c. Jovii Histor. lib. xxxiv, 153, &c. Sandov. ii, 154, &c. Virtot. Hist de Cheval. de Malthe. Epistres des Princes, par Ruscelli, traduites par Belleforest, p. 119, 120, &c. Anton. Pontii Consentini Hist. Belli

adv. Barbar. ap. Matthæi Analecta.

■ Summonte Hist. de Nap. vol. iv, p. 103.

BOOK VI.

BOOK

VI.

of a new

war be

tween the

emperor

and Fran

UNFORTUNATELY for the reputation of Francis I. among his contemporaries, his conduct, at this juncture, 1535. appeared a perfect contrast to that of his rival, as he laid The causes hold on the opportunity afforded him, by the emperor's having turned his whole force against the common enemy of Christendom, to revive his pretensions in Italy, and to plunge Europe into a new war. The treaty of Cambray, as has been observed, did not remove the causes of enmity between the two contending princes; it covered up but did not extinguish the flames of discord. Francis, in particular, who waited with impatience for a proper occasion of recovering the reputation as well as the territories which he had lost, continued to carry on his negociations in different courts against the emperor, taking the utmost pains to heighten the jealousy which many princes entertained of his power or designs, and to inspire the rest with the same suspicion and fear. Among others he applied to Francis Sforza, who, though indebted to Charles for the possession of the duchy of Milan, had received it on such hard conditions, as rendered him not only a vassal of the emperor, but a tributary dependant upon the emperor. The honour of having married the emperor's niece did not reconcile him to this ignominious state of subjection, which became so intolerable even to Sforza, though a weak and poorspirited prince, that he listened with eagerness to the first

VI.

1520.

proposals Francis made of rescuing him from the yoke. BOOK These proposals were conveyed to him by Maraviglia, or Merveille, as he is called by the French historians, a Milanese gentleman residing at Paris; and soon after, in order to carry on the negociation with greater advantage, Merveille was sent to Milan, on pretence of visiting his relations, but with secret credentials from Francis as his envoy. In this character he was received by Sforza; but, notwithstanding his care to keep that circumstance concealed, Charles suspecting, or having received information of it, remonstrated and threatened in such an high tone, that the duke and his ministers, equally intimidated, gave the world immediately a most infamous proof of their servile fear of offending the emperor. As Merveille had neither the prudence nor the temper which the function wherein he was employed required, they artfully decoyed him into a quarrel, in which he happened to kill his antagonist, one of the duke's domestics, and D.cember. having instantly seized him, they ordered bim to be tried for that crime, and to be beheaded. Francis, no less astonished at this violation of a character held sacred among the most uncivilized nations than enraged at the insult offered to the dignity of his crown, threatened Sforza with the effects of his indignation, and complained to the emperor, whom he considered as the real author of that unexampled outrage. But receiving no satisfaction from either, he appealed to all the princes of Europe, and thought himself now entitled to take vengeance for an injury, which it would have been indecent and pusillanimous to let pass with impunity.

alties.

Being thus furnished with a pretext for beginning a Francis war on which he had already resolved, he multiplied his desatute of efforts in order to draw in other princes to take part in the quarrel. But all his measures for this purpose were disconcerted by unforeseen events. After having sacrificed the honour of the royal family of France by the marriage of his son with Catharine of Medici, in order to gain Clement, the death of that pontiff had deprived