The treaty was signed April 3, 1559. Although concluded in the full tide of victory, it was hardly advantageous to France.
She retained the three bishoprics Metz, Toul, and Verdun, with their dependencies; she was to keep Calais for eight years only, and to pay eight hundred thousand crowns to Great Britain if the place was not restored within that period (but it never was restored, and the eight hundred thousand crowns were never paid). France regained possession of St. Quentin and Ham, and retained Turin and Pignerol in Piedmont.
But Philip II. obtained unconditional cession of the strong posts of Thionville, Marienbourg, and Hesdin. The walls of Thérouanne and Yvoy were razed. He caused the restitution of Bouillon to the bishopric of Liège, the Isle of Corsica to Genoa, and to Philibert of Savoy the greater part of Savoy and Piedmont, which had been conquered under François I.; finally, he insisted upon his own marriage with the king's daughter Élisabeth, and that the Duke of Savoy should be united to the Princess Marguerite. These terms were very advantageous for him, and he could have demanded none more favorable even after the battle of St. Laurent.
The Duc de Guise, coming back in hot haste and furious with rage from the army, warmly and not unjustly accused Montmorency of treason, and the king of fatal weakness in having thus surrendered by a stroke of the pen what the Spanish forces had failed to wrest from France after thirty years of successful fighting.
But the harm was done, and the ominous discontent of Le Balafré was of no avail to repair it.
Gabriel found no satisfaction in this state of things. His vengeance pursued the man in the person of the king, not the king to the detriment of the nation. He would have been glad to avenge himself with his country behind him, but not against her.
However, he made a note in his mind of the natural resentment of the Duc de Guise at seeing the sublime efforts of his genius paralyzed and rendered of no account by underhand intriguing.
The wrath of a Coriolanus might well, if occasion offered, serve to aid Gabriel's projects. Besides, François de Lorraine was not the only malcontent in the kingdom,—far from it.
One day Gabriel encountered near the Pré-aux-Clercs Baron de la Renaudie, whom he had not seen since the morning conference in the Rue St. Jacques.
Instead of avoiding a familiar face whenever he saw it approaching, as he had been in the habit of doing, Gabriel accosted the baron.