He refused to return to Spain, and made alliances wherever he could, with the Pope, with Venice, Milan, and England. The next year saw the ruin of this league in the discomfiture of Clement VII., and the sack of Rome by the German mercenaries under Bourbon, who was killed in the assault. The war went on till 1529, when Francois, having lost two armies in it, and gained nothing but loss and harm, was willing for peace; Charles V., alarmed at the progress of the Turks, was not less willing; and in August, 1529, the famous Treaty, of Cambrai, "the Ladies' Peace," was agreed to by Margaret of Austria and Louise of Savoy. Though Charles V. gave up all claim on the duchy of Burgundy, he had secured to himself Flanders and Artois, and had entirely cleared French influences out of Italy, which now became firmly fixed under the imperial hand, as a connecting link between his Spanish and German possessions. Francois lost ground and credit by these successive treaties, conceived in bad faith, and not honestly carried out.
No sooner had the Treaty of Cambrai been effectual in bringing his sons back to France, than Francois began to look out for new pretexts and means for war. Affairs were not unpromising. His mother's death in 1531 left him in possession of a huge fortune, which she had wrung from defenceless France; the powers which were jealous of Austria, the Turk, the English King, the members of the Smalkald league, all looked to Francois as their leader; Clement VII., though his misfortunes had thrown him into the Emperor's hands, was not unwilling to treat with France; and in 1533 by the compact of Marseilles the Pope broke up the friendship between Francois and Henry VIII., while he married his niece Catherine de' Medici to Henri, the second son of Francois. This compact was a real disaster to France; the promised dowry of Catherine--certain Italian cities--was never paid, and the death of Clement VII. in 1534 made the political alliance with the papacy a failure. The influence of Catherine affected and corrupted French history for half a century. Preparations for war went on; Francois made a new scheme for a national army, though in practice he preferred the tyrant's arm, the foreign mercenary. From his day till the Revolution the French army was largely composed of bodies of men tempted out of other countries, chiefly from Switzerland or Germany.
While the Emperor strove to appease the Protestant Princes of Germany by the Peace of Kadan (1534), Francois strengthened himself with a definite alliance with Soliman; and when, on the death of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, who left no heirs, Charles seized the duchy as its overlord, Francois, after some bootless negotiation, declared war on his great rival (1536). His usual fortunes prevailed so long as he was the attacking party: his forces were soon swept out of Piedmont, and the Emperor carried the war over the frontier into Provence. That also failed, and Charles was fain to withdraw after great losses into Italy.
The defence of Provence--a defence which took the form of a ruthless destruction of all its resources--had been entrusted to Anne de Montmorency, who henceforward became Constable of France, and exerted great influence over Francois I. Though these two campaigns, the French in Italy and the imperialist in Provence, had equally failed in 1536, peace did not follow till 1538, when, after the terrible defeat of Ferdinand of Austria by the Turks, Charles was anxious to have free hand in Germany. Under the mediation of Paul III. the agreement of Nice was come to, which included a ten years' truce and the abandonment by Francois of all his foreign allies and aims. He seemed a while to have fallen completely under the influence of the sagacious Emperor. He gave way entirely to the Church party of the time, a party headed by gloomy Henri, now Dauphin, who never lost the impress of his Spanish captivity, and by the Constable Anne de Montmorency; for a time the artistic or Renaissance party, represented by Anne, Duchesse d'Etampes, and Catherine de' Medici, fell into disfavour. The Emperor even ventured to pass through France, on his way from Spain to the Netherlands. All this friendship, however, fell to dust, when it was found that Charles refused to invest the Duc d'Orleans, the second son of Francois, with the duchy of Milan, and when the Emperor's second expedition against the sea-power of the Turks had proved a complete failure, and Charles had returned to Spain with loss of all his fleet and army. Then Francois hesitated no longer, and declared war against him (1541). The shock the Emperor had suffered inspirited all his foes; the Sultan and the Protestant German Princes were all eager for war; the influence of Anne de Montmorency had to give way before that of the House of Guise, that frontier family, half French, half German, which was destined to play a large part in the troubled history of the coming half-century. Claude, Duc de Guise, a veteran of the earliest days of Francois, was vehemently opposed to Charles and the Austro-Spanish power, and ruled in the King's councils.
This last war was as mischievous as its predecessors no great battles were fought; in the frontier affairs the combatants were about equally fortunate; the battle of Cerisolles, won by the French under Enghien (1544), was the only considerable success they had, and even that was almost barren of results, for the danger to Northern France was imminent; there a combined invasion had been planned and partly executed by Charles and Henry VIII., and the country, almost undefended, was at their mercy.
