A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume III Part 10

During the months of April and May, thus wasted by Charles VIII., the Italian league, and especially the Venetians and the Duke of Milan, Ludovic the Moor, had vigorously pushed forward their preparations for war, and had already collected an army more numerous than that with which the King of France, in order to return home, would have to traverse the whole of Italy. He took more than six weeks to traverse it, pa.s.sing three days at Rome, four at Siena, the same number at Pisa, and three at Lucca, though he had declared that he would not halt anywhere. He evaded entering Florence, where he had made promises which he could neither retract nor fulfil. The Dominican Savonarola, "who had always preached greatly in the king's favor," says Commynes, "and by his words had kept the Florentines from turning against us," came to see him on his way at Poggibonsi. "I asked him," said Commynes, "whether the king would be able to cross without danger to his person, seeing the great muster that was being made by the Venetians. He answered me that the king would have trouble on the road, but that the honor would remain his, though he had but a hundred men at his back; but, seeing that he had not done well for the reformation of the Church, as he ought, and had suffered his men to plunder and rob the people, G.o.d had given sentence against him, and in short he would have a touch of the scourge."

Several contemporary historians affirm that if the Italian army, formed by the Venetians and the Duke of Milan, had opposed the march of the French army, they might have put it in great peril; but nothing of the kind was attempted. It was at the pa.s.sage of the Appennines, so as to cross them and descend into the duchy of Parma, that Charles VIII. had for the first time to overcome resistance, not from men, but from nature.

He had in his train a numerous and powerful artillery, from which he promised himself a great deal when the day of battle came; and he had to get it up and down by steep paths, "Here never," says the chronicle of La Tremoille, "had car or carriage gone. . . ." The king, knowing that the lord of La Tremoille, such was his boldness and his strong will, thought nothing impossible, gave to him this duty, which he willingly undertook; and, to the end that the footmen, Swiss, German, and others, might labor thereat without fearing the heat, he addressed them as follows: 'The proper nature of us Gauls is strength, boldness, and ferocity. We triumphed at our coming; better would it be for us to die, than to lose by cowardice the delight of such praise; we are all in the flower of our age and the vigor of our years; let each lend a hand to the work of dragging the gun-carriages and carrying the cannon-b.a.l.l.s; ten crowns to the first man that reaches the top of the mountain before me!'

Throwing off his armor, La Tremoille, in hose and s.h.i.+rt, himself lent a hand to the work; by dint of pulling and pus.h.i.+ng, the artillery was got to the brow of the mountain; it was then harder still to get it down the other side, along a very narrow and rugged incline; and five whole days were spent on this rough work, which luckily the generals of the enemy did not attempt to molest. La Tremoille, "black as a Moor," says the chronicle, "by reason of the murderous heat he had endured, made his report to the king, who said, 'By the light of this day, cousin, you have done more than ever could Annibal of Carthage or Caesar have done, to the peril of your person, whereof you have not been sparing to serve me, me and mine. I vow to G.o.d, that if I may only see you back in France, the recompense I hope to make you shall be so great, that others shall conceive fresh desire to serve me.'"

Charles VIII. was wise to treat his brave men well; for the day was at hand when he would need them and all their bravery. It was in the duchy of Parma, near the town of Fornovo, on the right bank of the Taro, an affluent of the Po, that the French and Italian armies met, on the 5th of July, 1495. The French army was nine or ten thousand strong, with five or six thousand camp followers, servants or drivers; the Italian army numbered at least thirty thousand men, well supplied and well rested, whereas the French were fatigued with their long march, and very badly off for supplies. During the night between the 5th and 6th of July, a violent storm burst over the country, "rain, lightnings, and thunder so mighty," says Commynes, "that none could say more; seemed that heaven and earth would dissolve, or that it portended some great disaster to come."

Next day, at six in the morning, Charles VIII. heard ma.s.s, received the communion, mounted on horseback, and set out to join his own division.

"I went to him," says Commynes, "and found him armed at all points, and mounted upon the finest horse I had ever seen in my life, called Savoy; Duke Charles of Savoy (the d.u.c.h.ess of Savoy,? v. p. 288) had given it him; it was black, and had but one eye; it was a middle-sized horse, of good height for him who was upon it. Seemed that this young man was quite other than either his nature, his stature, or his complexion bespoke him, for he was very timid in speaking, and is so to this day.

That horse made him look tall; and he had a good countenance, and of good color, and speech bold and sensible." On perceiving Commynes, the king said to him, "Go and see if yonder folks would fain parley." "Sir,"

answered Commynes, "I will do so willingly; but I never saw two so great hosts so near to one another, and yet go their ways without fighting."

He went, nevertheless, to the Venetian advanced posts, and his trumpeter was admitted to the presence of the Marquis of Mantua, who commanded the Italian army; but skirmis.h.i.+ng had already commenced in all quarters, and the first boom of the cannon was heard just as the marquis was reading Commynes' letter. "It is too late to speak of peace," said he; and the trumpeter was sent back. The king had joined the division which he was to lead to battle. "Gentlemen," said he to the men-at-arms who pressed around him, "you will live or die here with me, will you not?" And then raising his voice that he might be heard by the troops, "They are ten times as many as we," he said; "but you are ten times better than they; G.o.d loves the French; He is with us, and will do battle for us. As far as Naples I have had the victory over my enemies; I have brought you hither without shame or blame; with G.o.d's help I will lead you back into France, to our honor and that of our kingdom." The men-at-arms made the sign of the cross; the foot-soldiers kissed the ground; and the king made several knights, according to custom, before going into action. The Marquis of Mantua's squadrons were approaching. "Sir," said the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Bourbon, "there is no longer time for the amus.e.m.e.nt of making knights; the enemy is coming on in force; go we at him." The king gave orders to charge, and the battle began at all points.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Battle of Fornovo----303]

It was very hotly contested, but did not last long, with alternations of success and reverse on both sides. The two princ.i.p.al commanders in the king's army, Louis de la Tremoille and John James Trivulzio, sustained without recoiling the shock of troops far more numerous than their own.

"At the throat! at the throat!!" shouted La Tremoille, after the first onset, and his three hundred men-at-arms burst upon the enemy and broke their line. In the midst of the melley, the French baggage was attacked by the Stradiots, a sort of light infantry composed of Greeks recruited and paid by the Venetians. "Let them be," said Trivulzio to his men; "their zeal for plunder will make them forget all, and we shall give the better account of them." At one moment, the king had advanced before the main body of his guard, without looking to see if they were close behind him, and was not more than a hundred paces from the Marquis of Mantua, who, seeing him scantily attended, bore down at the head of his cavalry.

"Not possible is it," says Commynes, "to do more doughtily than was done on both sides." The king, being very hard pressed, defended himself fiercely against those who would have taken him; the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Matthew of Bourbon, his brother-in-arms and one of the bravest knights in the army, had thrown himself twenty paces in front of him to cover him, and had just been taken prisoner by the Marquis of Mantua in person, when a ma.s.s of the royal troops came to their aid, and released them from all peril.

Here it was that Peter du Terrail, the Chevalier de Bayard, who was barely twenty years of age, and destined to so glorious a renown, made his first essay in arms; he had two horses killed under him, and took a standard, which he presented to the king, who after the battle made him a present of five hundred crowns.

Charles VIII. remained master of the battle-field. "There were still to be seen," says Commynes, "outside their camp, a great number of men-at-arms, whose lances and heads only were visible, and likewise foot-soldiers. The king put it to the council whether he ought to give chase to them or not; some were for marching against them; but the French were not of this opinion; they said that enough had been done, that it was late, and that it was time to get lodged. Night was coming on; the host which had been in front of us withdrew into their camp, and we went to get lodged a quarter of a league from where the battle had been. The king put up at a poorly-built farm-house, but he found there an infinite quant.i.ty of corn in sheaves, whereby the whole army profited. Some other bits of houses there were hard by, which did for a few; and every one lodged as he could, without making any cantonment, I know well enough that I lay in a vineyard, at full length on the bare ground, without anything else and without cloak, for the king had borrowed mine in the morning. Whoever had the wherewith made a meal, but few had, save a hunch of bread from a varlet's knapsack. I went to see the king in his chamber, where there were some wounded whom he was having dressed; he wore a good mien, and every one kept a good face; and we were not so boastful as a little before the battle, because we saw the enemy near us." Six days after the battle, on the 12th of July, the king wrote to his sister, the d.u.c.h.ess Anne of Bourbon, "Sister, my dear, I commend myself to you right heartily. I wrote to my brother how that I found in my way a big army that Lord Ludovic, the Venetians, and their allies, had got ready against me, thinking to keep me from pa.s.sing. Against which, with G.o.d's help, such resistance was made, that I am come hither without any loss. Furthermore, I am using the greatest diligence that can be to get right away, and I hope shortly to see you, which is my desire, in order to tell you at good length all about my trip. And so G.o.d bless you, sister, my dear, and may He have you in His keeping!"

Both armies might and did claim the victory, for they had, each of them, partly succeeded in their design. The Italians wished to unmistakably drive out of Italy Charles VIII., who was withdrawing voluntarily; but to make it an unmistakable retreat, he ought to have been defeated, his army beaten, and himself perhaps a prisoner. With that view they attempted to bar his pa.s.sage and beat him on Italian ground: in that they failed; Charles, remaining master of the battle-field, went on his way in freedom, and covered with glory, he and his army. He certainly left Italy, but he left it with the feeling of superiority in arms, and with the intention of returning thither better informed and better supplied.

The Italian allies were triumphant, but without any ground of security or any l.u.s.tre; the expedition of Charles VIII. was plainly only the beginning of the foreigner's ambitious projects, invasions and wars against their own beautiful land. The King of France and his men of war had not succeeded in conquering it, but they had been charmed with such an abode; they had displayed in their campaign knightly qualities more brilliant and more masterful than the studied duplicity and elegant effeminacy of the Italians of the fifteenth century, and, after the battle of Fornovo, they returned to France justly proud and foolishly confident, notwithstanding the incompleteness of their success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTLE OF AMBOISE----308]

Charles VIII. reigned for nearly three years longer after his return to his kingdom; and for the first two of them he pa.s.sed his time in indolently dreaming of his plans for a fresh invasion of Italy, and in frivolous abandonment to his pleasures and the entertainments at his court, which he moved about from Lyons to Moulins, to Paris, to Tours, and to Amboise. The news which came to him from Italy was worse and worse every day. The Count de Montpensier, whom he had left at Naples, could not hold his own there, and died a prisoner there on the 11th of November, 1496, after having found himself driven from place to place by Ferdinand II., who by degrees recovered possession of nearly all his kingdom, merely, himself also, to die there on the 6th of October, leaving for his uncle and successor, Frederick III., the honor of recovering the last four places held by the French. Charles ordered a fresh army of invasion to be formed, and the Duke of Orleans was singled out to command it; but he evaded this commission. The young _dauphin_, Charles Orlando, three years old, had just died, "a fine child and bold of speech," says Commynes, "and one that feared not the things that other children are wont to fear." Duke Louis of Orleans, having thus become heir to the throne, did not care to go and run risks at a distance. He, nevertheless, declared his readiness to obey an express command from the king if the t.i.tle of lieutenant-general were given him; but "I will never send him to war on compulsion," said Charles, and nothing more was said about it. Whilst still constantly talking of the war he had in view, Charles attended more often and more earnestly than he hitherto had to the internal affairs of his kingdom. "He had gotten it into his head,"

says Commynes, "that he would fain live according to G.o.d's commandments, and set justice and the Church in good order. He would also revise his finances, in such sort as to levy on the people but twelve hundred thousand francs, and that in form of talliage, besides his own property on which he would live, as did the kings of old." His two immediate predecessors, Charles VII. and Louis IX., had decreed the collation and revision of local customs, so often the rule of civil jurisdiction; but the work made no progress: Charles VIII., by a decree dated March 15, 1497, abridged the formalities, and urged on the execution of it, though it was not completed until the reign of Charles IX. By another decree, dated August 2, 1497, he organized and regulated, as to its powers as well as its composition, the king's grand council, the supreme administrative body, which was a fixture at Paris. He began even to contemplate a reformation of his own life; he had inquiries made as to how St. Louis used to proceed in giving audience to the lower orders; his intention, he said, was to henceforth follow the footsteps of the most justice-loving of French kings. "He set up," says Commynes, "a public audience, whereat he gave ear to everybody, and especially to the poor; I saw him thereat, a week before his death, for two good hours, and I never saw him again. He did not much business at this audience; but at least it was enough to keep folks in awe, and especially his own officers, of whom he had suspended some for extortion." It is but too often a man's fate to have his life slip from him just as he was beginning to make a better use of it. On the 7th of April, 1498, Charles VIII. was pleased, after dinner, to go down with the queen into the fosses of the castle of Amboise, to see a game of tennis. Their way lay through a gallery the opening of which was very low; and the king, short as he was, hit his forehead. Though he was a little dizzy with the blow, he did not stop, watched the players for some time, and even conversed with several persons; but about two in the afternoon, whilst he was a second time traversing this pa.s.sage on his way back to the castle, he fell backwards and lost consciousness. He was laid upon a paltry pailla.s.se in that gallery where everybody went in and out at pleasure; and in that wretched place, after a lapse of nine hours, expired "he,"

says Commynes, "who had so many fine houses, and who was making so fine an one at Amboise; so small a matter is our miserable life, which giveth us so much trouble for the things of the world, and kings cannot help themselves any more than peasants. I arrived at Amboise two days after his decease; I went to say mine orison at the spot where was the corpse; and there I was for five or six hours. And, of a verity, there was never seen the like mourning, nor that lasted so long; he was so good that better creature cannot be seen; the most humane and gentle address that ever was was his; I trow that to never a man spake he aught that could displease; and at a better hour could he never have died for to remain of great renown in histories and regretted by those that served him. I trow I was the man to whom he showed most roughness; but knowing that it was in his youth, and that it did not proceed from him, I never bore him ill-will for it."

Probably no king was ever thus praised for his goodness, and his goodness alone, by a man whom he had so maltreated, and who, as judicious and independent as he was just, said of this same king, "He was not better off for sense than for money, and he thought of nothing but pastime and his pleasures."

CHAPTER XXVII.----THE WARS IN ITALY.--LOUIS XII. 1498-1515.

On ascending the throne Louis XII. reduced the public taxes and confirmed in their posts his predecessor's chief advisers, using to Louis de la Tremoille, who had been one of his most energetic foes, that celebrated expression, "The King of France avenges not the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans." At the same time, on the day of his coronation at Rheims [May 27, 1492], he a.s.sumed, besides his t.i.tle of King of France, the t.i.tles of King of Naples and of Jerusalem and Duke of Milan. This was as much as to say that he would pursue a pacific and conservative policy at home and a warlike and adventurous policy abroad. And, indeed, his government did present these two phases, so different and inharmonious. By his policy at home Louis XII. deserved and obtained the name of Father of the People; by his enterprises and wars abroad he involved France still more deeply than Charles VIII. had in that mad course of distant, reckless, and incoherent conquests for which his successor, Francis I., was destined to pay by capture at Pavia and by the lamentable treaty of Madrid, in 1526, as the price of his release. Let us follow these two portions of Louis XII.'s reign, each separately, without mixing up one with the other by reason of ident.i.ty of dates. We shall thus get at a better understanding and better appreciation of their character and their results.

Outside of France, Milaness [the Milanese district] was Louis XII.'s first thought, at his accession, and the first object of his desire. He looked upon it as his patrimony. His grandmother, Valentine Visconti, widow of that Duke of Orleans who had been a.s.sa.s.sinated at Paris in 1407 by order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had been the last to inherit the duchy of Milan, which the Sforzas, in 1450, had seized.

When Charles VIII. invaded Italy in 1494, "Now is the time," said Louis, "to enforce the rights of Valentine Visconti, my grandmother, to Milaness." And he, in fact, a.s.serted them openly, and proclaimed his intention of vindicating them so soon as he found the moment propitious.

When he became king, his chance of success was great. The Duke of Milan, Ludovic, the Moor, had by his sagacity and fertile mind, by his taste for arts and sciences and the intelligent patronage he bestowed upon them, by his ability in speaking, and by his facile character, obtained in Italy a position far beyond his real power. Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most eminent amongst the n.o.ble geniuses of the age, lived on intimate terms with him; but Ludovic was, nevertheless, a turbulent rascal and a greedy tyrant, of whom those who did not profit by his vices or the enjoyments of his court were desirous of being relieved. He had, moreover, embroiled himself with his neighbors the Venetians, who were watching for an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves at his expense. As early as the 20th of April, 1498, a fortnight after his accession, Louis XII. addressed to the Venetians a letter "most gracious," says the contemporary chronicler Marino Sanuto, "and testifying great good-will;" and the special courier who brought it declared that the king had written to n.o.body in Italy except the pope, the Venetians, and the Florentines. The Venetians did not care to neglect such an opening; and they at once sent three amba.s.sadors to Louis XII. Louis heard the news thereof with marked satisfaction. "I have never seen Zorzi," said he, "but I know him well; as for Loredano, I like him much; he has been at this court before, some time ago." He gave them a reception on the 12th of August, at Etampes, "not in a palace," says one of the senate's private correspondents, "but at the Fountain inn. You will tell me that so great a king ought not to put up at an inn; but I shall answer you that in this district of Etampes the best houses are as yet the inns. There is certainly a royal castle, in the which lives the queen, the wife of the deceased king; nevertheless his Majesty was pleased to give audience in this hostelry, all covered expressly with cloth of Alexandrine velvet, with lilies of gold at the spot where the king was placed. As soon as the speech was ended, his Majesty rose up and gave quite a brotherly welcome to the brilliant amba.s.sadors. The king has a very good countenance, a smiling countenance; he is forty years of age, and appears very active in make.

To-day, Monday, August 13, the amba.s.sadors were received at a private audience."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis XII----310]

A treaty concluded on the 9th of February, 1499, and published as signed at Blois no earlier than the 15th of April following, was the result of this negotiation. It provided for an alliance between the King of France and the Venetian government, for the purpose of making war in common upon the Duke of Milan, Ludovic Sforza, on and against every one, save the lord pope of Rome, and for the purpose of insuring to the Most Christian king restoration to the possession of the said duchy of Milan as his rightful and olden patrimony. And on account of the charges and expenses which would be incurred by the Venetian government whilst rendering a.s.sistance to the Most Christian king in the aforesaid war, the Most Christian king bound himself to approve and consent that the city of Cremona and certain forts or territories adjacent, specially indicated, should belong in freehold and perpetuity to the Venetian government. The treaty, at the same time, regulated the number of troops and the military details of the war on behalf of the two contracting powers, and it provided for divers political incidents which might be entailed, and to which the alliance thus concluded should or should not be applicable according to the special stipulations which were drawn up with a view to those very incidents.

In the month of August, 1499, the French army, with a strength of from twenty to five and twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand were Swiss, invaded Milaness. Duke Ludovic Sforza opposed to it a force pretty nearly equal in number, but far less full of confidence and of far less valor. In less than three weeks the duchy was conquered; in only two cases was any a.s.sault necessary; all the other places were given up by traitors or surrendered without a show of resistance. The Venetians had the same success on the eastern frontier of the duchy. Milan and Cremona alone remained to be occupied. Ludovic Sforza "appeared before his troops and his people like the very spirit of lethargy," says a contemporary unpublished chronicle, "with his head bent down to the earth, and for a long while he remained thus pensive and without a single word to say. Howbeit he was not so discomfited but that on that very same day he could get his luggage packed, his transport-train under orders, his horses shod, his ducats, with which he had more than thirty mules laden, put by, and, in short, everything in readiness to decamp next morning as early as possible." Just as he left Milan, he said to the Venetian amba.s.sadors, "You have brought the King of France to dinner with me; I warn you that he will come to supper with you."

"Unless necessity constrain him thereto," says Machiavelli [treatise Du Prince, ch. xxi.], "a prince ought never to form alliance with one stronger than himself in order to attack others, for, the most powerful being victor, thou remainest, thyself, at his discretion, and princes ought to avoid, as much as ever they can, being at another's discretion.

The Venetians allied themselves with France against the Duke of Milan; and yet they might have avoided this alliance, which entailed their ruin." For all his great and profound intellect, Machiavelli was wrong about this event and the actors in it. The Venetians did not deserve his censure. By allying themselves, in 1499, with Louis XII. against the Duke of Milan, they did not fall into Louis's hands, for, between 1499 and 1515, and many times over, they sided alternately with and against him, always preserving their independence and displaying it as suited them at the moment. And these vicissitudes in their policy did not bring about their ruin, for at the death of Louis XII. their power and importance in Southern Europe had not declined. It was Louis XII. who deserved Machiavelli's strictures for having engaged, by means of diplomatic alliances of the most contradictory kind, at one time with the Venetians' support, and at another against them, in a policy of distant and incoherent conquests, without any connection with the national interests of France, and, in the long run, without any success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bayard----315]

Louis was at Lyons when he heard of his army's victory in Milaness and of Ludovic Sforza's flight. He was eager to go and take possession of his conquest, and, on the 6th of October, 1499, he made his triumphal entry into Milan amidst cries of "Hurrah! for France." He reduced the heavy imposts established by the Sforzas, revoked the vexatious game-laws, inst.i.tuted at Milan a court of justice a.n.a.logous to the French parliaments, loaded with favors the scholars and artists who were the honor of Lombardy, and recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks, leaving as governor of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant Condottiere, who, four years before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand II., King of Naples, for that of Charles VIII. Unfortunately Trivulzio was himself a Milanese and of the faction of the Guelphs. He had the pa.s.sions of a partisan and the habits of a man of war; and he soon became as tyrannical and as much detested in Milaness as Ludovic the Moor had but lately been. A plot was formed in favor of the fallen tyrant, who was in Germany expecting it, and was recruiting, during expectancy, amongst the Germans and Swiss in order to take advantage of it. On the 25th of January, 1500, the insurrection broke out; and two months later Ludovic Sforza had once more become master of Milaness, where the French possessed nothing but the castle of Milan. In one of the fights brought about by this sudden revolution the young Chevalier Bayard, carried away by the impetuosity of his age and courage, pursued right into Milan the foes he was driving before him, without noticing that his French comrades had left him; and he was taken prisoner in front of the very palace in which were the quarters of Ludovic Sforza. The incident created some noise around the palace; Ludovic asked what it meant, and was informed that a brave and bold gentleman, younger than any of the others, had entered Milan pell-mell with the combatants he was pursuing, and had been taken prisoner by John Bernardino Casaccio, one of the leaders of the insurrection. Ludovic ordered him to be brought up, which was done, though not without some disquietude on the part of Bayard's captor, "a courteous gentleman, who feared that Lord Ludovico might do him some displeasure." He resolved himself to be his conductor, after having dressed him in one of his own robes and made him look like a gentleman.

"Marvelling to see Bayard so young, 'Come hither, my gentleman,' said Ludovico: 'who brought you into the city?' 'By my faith, my lord,'

answered Bayard, who was not a whit abashed, 'I never imagined I was entering all alone, and thought surely I was being followed of my comrades, who knew more about war than I, for if they had done as I did they would, like me, be prisoners. Howbeit, after my mishap, I laud the fortune which caused me to fall into the hands of so valiant and discreet a knight as he who has me in holding.' 'By your faith,' asked Ludovico, 'of how many is the army of the King of France?' 'On my soul, my lord,'

answered Bayard, 'so far as I can hear, there are fourteen or fifteen hundred men-at-arms and sixteen or eighteen thousand foot; but they are all picked men, who are resolved to busy themselves so well this bout that they will a.s.sure the state of Milan to the king our master; and meseems, my lord, that you would surely be in as great safety in Germany as you are here, for your folks are not the sort to fight us.' With such a.s.surance spoke the good knight that Lord Ludovico took pleasure there-in, though his say was enough to astound him. 'On my faith, my gentleman,' said he, as it were in raillery, 'I have a good mind that the King of France's army and mine should come together, in order that by battle it may be known to whom of right belongs this heritage, for I see no other way to it.' 'By my sacred oath, my lord,' said the good knight, 'I would that it might be to-morrow, provided that I were out of captivity.' 'Verily, that shall not stand in your way,' said Ludovico, 'for I will let you go forth, and that presently. Moreover, ask of me what you will, and I will give it you.' The good knight, who, on bended knee, thanked Lord Ludovico for the offers he made him, as there was good reason he should, then said to him, 'My lord, I ask of you nothing save only that you may be pleased to extend your courtesy so far as to get me back my horse and my arms that I brought into this city, and so send me away to my garrison, which is twenty miles hence; you would do me a very great kindness, for which I shall all my life feel bounden to you; and, barring my duty to the king my master and saving my honor, I would show my grat.i.tude for it in whatsoever it might please you to command me.'

'In good faith,' said Lord Ludovico, 'you shall have presently that which you do ask for.' And then he said to the Lord John Bernardino, 'At once, Sir Captain, let his horse be found, his arms and all that is his.'

'My lord,' answered the captain, 'it is right easy to find, it is all at my quarters.' He sent forthwith two or three servants, who brought the arms and led up the horse of the good young knight; and Lord Ludovico had him armed before his eyes. When he was accoutred, the young knight leaped upon his horse without putting foot to stirrup; then he asked for a lance, which was handed to him, and, raising his eyes, he said to Lord Ludovico, 'My lord, I thank you for the courtesy you have done me; please G.o.d to pay it back to you.' He was in a fine large court-yard; then he began to set spurs to his horse, the which gave four or five jumps, so gayly that it could not be better done; then the young knight gave him a little run, in the which he broke the lance against the ground into five or six pieces; whereat Lord Ludovico was not over pleased, and said out loud, 'If all the men-at-arms of France were like him yonder, I should have a bad chance.' Nevertheless he had a trumpeter told off to conduct him to his garrison." [Histoire du bon Chevalier sans Peur et sans Reproche, t. i. pp. 212-216.]

For Ludovic the Moor's chance to be bad it was not necessary that the men-at-arms of France should all be like Chevalier Bayard. Louis XII., so soon as he heard of the Milanese insurrection, sent into Italy Louis de la Tremoille, the best of his captains, and the Cardinal d'Amboise, his privy councillor and his friend, the former to command the royal troops, French and Swiss, and the latter "for to treat about the reconciliation of the rebel towns, and to deal with everything as if it were the king in his own person." The campaign did not last long. The Swiss who had been recruited by Ludovic and those who were in Louis XII.'s service had no mind to fight one another; and the former capitulated, surrendered the strong place of Novara, and promised to evacuate the country on condition of a safe-conduct for themselves and their booty. Ludovic, in extreme anxiety for his own safety, was on the point of giving himself up to the French; but, whether by his own free will or by the advice of the Swiss who were but lately in his pay, and who were now withdrawing; he concealed himself amongst them, putting on a disguise, "with his hair turned up under a coif, a collaret round his neck, a doublet of crimson satin, scarlet hose, and a halberd in his fist;" but, whether it were that he was betrayed or that he was recognized, he, on the 10th of April, 1500, fell into the hands of the French, and was conducted to the quarters of La Tremoille, who said no more than, "Welcome, lord." Next day, April 11, Louis XII. received near Lyons the news of this capture, "whereat he was right joyous, and had bonfires lighted, together with devotional processions, giving thanks to the Prince of princes for the happy victory he had, by the divine aid, obtained over his enemies." Ludovic was taken to Lyons. "At the entrance into the city a great number of gentlemen from the king's household were present to meet him; and the provost of the household conducted him all along the high street to the castle of Pierre-Encise, where he was lodged and placed in security." There he pa.s.sed a fortnight. Louis refused to see him, but had him "questioned as to several matters by the lords of his grand council; and, granted that he had committed nought but follies, still he spoke right wisely." He was conducted from Pierre-Encise to the castle of Loches in Touraine, where he was at first kept in very strict captivity, "without books, paper, or ink," but it was afterwards less severe. "He plays at tennis and at cards," says a despatch of the Venetian amba.s.sador, Dominic of Treviso, "and he is fatter than ever." [_La Diplomatic Venitienne,_ by M. Armand Baschet (1862), p. 363.] He died in his prison at the end of eight years, having to the very last great confidence in the future of his name, for he wrote, they say, on the wall of his prison these words: "Services rendered me will count for an heritage." And "thus was the duchy of Milan, within seven months and a half, twice conquered by the French,"

says John d'Auton in his Claronique, "and for the nonce was ended the war in Lombardy, and the authors thereof were captives and exiles."

Whilst matters were thus going on in the north of Italy, Louis XII. was preparing for his second great Italian venture, the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, in which his predecessor Charles VIII. had failed. He thought to render the enterprise easier by not bearing the whole burden by himself alone. On the 11th of November, 1500, he concluded at Grenada "with Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Castile and Arragon," a treaty, by which the Kings of France and Spain divided, by antic.i.p.ation, between them the kingdom of Naples, which they were making an engagement to conquer together. Terra di Lavoro and the province of the Abruzzi, with the cities of Naples and Gaeta, were to be the share of Louis XII., who would a.s.sume the t.i.tle of King of Naples and of Jerusalem; Calabria and Puglia (Apulia), with the t.i.tle of duchies, would belong to the King of Spain, to whom Louis XII., in order to obtain this chance of an accessary and precarious kings.h.i.+p, gave up entirely Roussillon and Cerdagne, that French frontier of the Pyrenees which Louis XI. had purchased, a golden bargain, from John II., King of Arragon. In this arrangement there was a blemish and a danger of which the superficial and reckless policy of Louis XII. made no account: he did not here, as he had done for the conquest of Milaness, join himself to an ally of far inferior power to his own, and of ambition confined within far narrower boundaries, as was the case when the Venetians supported him against Ludovie Sforza: he was choosing for his comrade, in a far greater enterprise, his nearest and most powerful rival, and the most dexterous rascal amongst the kings of his day. "The King of France," said Ferdinand one day, "complains that I have deceived him twice; he lies, the drunkard; I have deceived him more than ten times." Whether this barefaced language were or were not really used, it expressed nothing but the truth: mediocre men, who desire to remain pretty nearly honest, have always the worst of it, and are always dupes when they ally themselves with men who are corrupt and at the same time able, indifferent to good and evil, to justice and iniquity. Louis XII., even with the Cardinal d'Amboise to advise him, was neither sufficiently judicious to abstain from madly conceived enterprises, nor sufficiently scrupulous and clear-sighted to unmask and play off every act of perfidy and wickedness: by uniting himself, for the conquest and part.i.tion of the kingdom of Naples, with Ferdinand the Catholic, he was bringing upon himself first of all hidden opposition in the very midst of joint action, and afterwards open treason and defection. He forgot, moreover, that Ferdinand had at the head of his armies a tried chieftain, Gonzalvo of Cordova, already known throughout Europe as the great captain, who had won that name in campaigns against the Moors, the Turks, and the Portuguese, and who had the character of being as free from scruple as from fear. Lastly the supporters who, at the very commencement of his enterprises in Italy, had been sought and gained by Louis XII., Pope Alexander VI. and his son Caesar Borgia, were as little to be depended upon in the future as they were compromising at the present by reason of their reputation for unbridled ambition, perfidy, and crime. The King of France, whatever sacrifices he might already have made and might still make in order to insure their co-operation, could no more count upon it than upon the loyalty of the King of Spain in the conquest they were entering upon together.

The outset of the campaign was attended with easy success. The French army, under the command of Stuart d'Aubigny, a valiant Scot, arrived on the 25th of June, 1501, before Rome, and there received a communication in the form of a bull of the pope which removed the crown of Naples from the head of Frederick III., and part.i.tioned that fief of the Holy See between the Kings of France and Spain. Fortified with this authority, the army continued its march, and arrived before Capua on the 6th of July. Gonzalvo of Cordova was already upon Neapolitan territory with a Spanish army, which Ferdinand the Catholic had hastily sent thither at the request of Frederick III. himself, who had counted upon the a.s.sistance of his cousin the King of Arragon against the French invasion.

Great was his consternation when he heard that the amba.s.sadors of France and Spain had proclaimed at Rome the alliance between their masters. At the first rumor of this news, Gonzalvo of Cordova, whether sincerely or not, treated it as a calumny; but, so soon as its certainty was made public, he accepted it without hesitation, and took, equally with the French, the offensive against the king, already dethroned by the pope, and very near being so by the two sovereigns who had made alliance for the purpose of sharing between them the spoil they should get from him.

Capua capitulated, and was nevertheless plundered and laid waste. A French fleet, commanded by Philip de Ravenstein, arrived off Naples when D'Aubigny was already master of it. The unhappy King Frederick took refuge in the island of Ischia; and, unable to bear the idea of seeking an asylum in Spain with his cousin who had betrayed him so shamefully, he begged the French admiral himself to advise him in his adversity. "As enemies that have the advantage should show humanity to the afflicted,"

Ravenstein sent word to him, "he would willingly advise him as to his affairs; according to his advice, the best thing would be to surrender and place himself in the hands of the King of France, and submit to his good pleasure; he would find him so wise, and so debonnair, and so accommodating, that he would be bound to be content. Better or safer counsel for him he had not to give." After taking some precautions on the score of his eldest son, Prince Ferdinand, whom he left at Tarento, in the kingdom he was about to quit, Frederick III. followed Ravenstein's counsel, sent to ask for "a young gentleman to be his guide to France,"

put to sea with five hundred men remaining to him, and arrived at Ma.r.s.eilles, whither Louis XII. sent some lords of his court to receive him. Two months afterwards, and not before, he was conducted to the king himself, who was then at Blois. Louis welcomed him with his natural kindness, and secured to him fifty thousand livres a year on the duchy of Anjou, on condition that he never left France. It does not appear that Frederick ever had an idea of doing so, for his name is completely lost to history up to the day of his death, which took place at Tours on the 9th of November, 1504, after three years' oblivion and exile.

On hearing of so prompt a success, Louis XII.'s satisfaction was great.

He believed, and many others, no doubt, believed with him, that his conquest of Naples, of that portion at least which was a.s.signed to him by his treaty with the King of Spain, was accomplished. The senate of Venice sent to him, in December, 1501, a solemn emba.s.sy to congratulate him. In giving the senate an account of his mission, one of the amba.s.sadors, Dominic of Treviso, drew the following portrait of Louis XII.: "The king is in stature tall and thin, and temperate in eating, taking scarcely anything but boiled beef; he is by nature miserly and retentive; his great pleasure is hawking; from September to April he hawks. The Cardinal of Rouen [George d'Amboise] does everything; nothing, however, with-out the cognizance of the king, who has a far from stable mind, saying yes and no. . . . I am of opinion that their lords.h.i.+ps should remove every suspicion from his Majesty's mind, and aim at keeping themselves closely united with him." [Armand Baschet, _La Diplomatic, L'enitienne_, p. 362.] It was not without ground that the Venetian envoy gave his government this advice. So soon as the treaty of alliance between Louis XII. and the Venetians for the conquest of Milaness had attained its end, the king had more than once felt and testified some displeasure at the demeanor a.s.sumed towards him by his former allies. They had shown vexation and disquietude at the extension of French influence in Italy; and they had addressed to Louis certain representations touching the favor enjoyed at his hands by the pope's nephew, Caesar Borgia, to whom he had given the t.i.tle of Duke of Valentinois on investing him with the counts.h.i.+ps of Valence and of Die in Dauphiny. Louis, on his side, showed anxiety as to the conduct which would be exhibited towards him by the Venetians if he encountered any embarra.s.sment in his expedition to Naples. Nothing of the kind happened to him during the first month after King Frederick III.'s abandonment of the kingdom of Naples. The French and the Spaniards, D'Aubigny and Gonzalvo of Cordova, at first gave their attention to nothing but establis.h.i.+ng themselves firmly, each in the interests of the king his master, in those portions of the kingdom which were to belong to them.

But, before long, disputes arose between the two generals as to the meaning of certain clauses in the treaty of November 11, 1500, and as to the demarcation of the French and the Spanish territories. D'Aubigny fell ill; and Louis XII. sent to Naples, with the t.i.tle of viceroy, Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, a brave warrior, but a negotiator inclined to take umbrage and to give offence. The disputes soon took the form of hostilities. The French essayed to drive the Spaniards from the points they had occupied in the disputed territories; and at first they had the advantage. Gonzalvo of Cordova, from necessity or in prudence, concentrated his forces within Barletta, a little fortress with a little port on the Adriatic; but he there endured, from July, 1502, to April, 1503, a siege which did great honor to the patient firmness of the Spanish troops and the persistent vigor of their captain. Gonzalvo was getting ready to sally from Barletta and take the offensive against the French when he heard that a treaty signed at Lyons on the 5th of April, 1503, between the Kings of Spain and France, made a change in the position, reciprocally, of the two sovereigns, and must suspend the military operations of their generals within the kingdom of Naples.

"The French general declared his readiness to obey his king," says Guicciardini; "but the Spanish, whether it were that he felt sure of victory or that he had received private instructions on that point, said that he could not stop the war without express orders from his king."

And sallying forthwith from Barletta, he gained, on the 28th of April, 1503, at Cerignola, a small town of Puglia, a signal victory over the French commanded by the Duke of Nemours, who, together with three thousand men of his army, was killed in action. The very day after his success Gonzalvo heard that a Spanish corps, lately disembarked in Calabria, had also beaten, on the 21st of April, at Seminara, a French corps commanded by D'Aubigny. The great captain was as eager to profit by victory as he had been patient in waiting for a chance of it. He marched rapidly on Naples, and entered it on the 14th of May, almost without resistance; and the two forts defending the city, the Castel Nuovo and the Castel dell' Uovo surrendered, one on the 11th of June and the other on the 1st of July. The capital of the kingdom having thus fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, Capua and Aversa followed its example. Gaeta was the only important place which still held out for the French, and contained a garrison capable of defending it; and thither the remnant of the troops beaten at Seminara and at Cerignola had retired.

Louis XII. hastened to levy and send to Italy, under the command of Louis de la Tremoille, a fresh army for the purpose of relieving Gaeta and recovering Naples; but at Parma La Tremoille fell ill, "so crushed by his malady and so despairing of life," says his chronicler, John Bouchet, "that the physicians sent word to the king that it was impossible in the way of nature to recover him, and that without the divine a.s.sistance he could not get well." The command devolved upon the Marquis of Mantua, who marched on Gaeta. He found Gonzalvo of Cordova posted with his army on the left bank of the Garigliano, either to invest the place or to repulse re-enforcements that might arrive for it. The two armies pa.s.sed fifty days face to face almost, with the river and its marshes between them, and vainly attempting over and over again to join battle. Some of Gonzalvo's officers advised him to fall back on Capua, so as to withdraw his troops from an unhealthy and difficult position; but "I would rather," said he, "have here, for my grave, six feet of earth by pus.h.i.+ng forward, than prolong my life a hundred years by falling back, though it were but a few arms' lengths." The French army was dispersing about in search of shelter and provisions; and the Marquis of Mantua, disgusted with the command, resigned it to the Marquis of Saluzzo, and returned home to his marquisate. Gonzalvo, who was kept well informed of his enemies' condition, threw, on the 27th of December, a bridge over the Garigliano, attacked the French suddenly, and forced them to fall back upon Gaeta, which they did not succeed in entering until they had lost artillery, baggage, and a number of prisoners. "The Spaniards," says John d'Auton, "halted before the place, made as if they would lay siege to it, and so remained for two or three days. The French, who were there in great numbers, had scarcely any provisions, and could not hold out for long; however, they put a good face upon it. The captain, Gonzalvo, sent word to them that if they would surrender their town he would, on his part, restore to them without ransom all prisoners and others of their party; and he had many of them, James de la Palisse, Stuart d'Aubigny, Gaspard de Coligny, Anthony de la Fayette, &c., all captains. The French captains, seeing that fortune was not kind to them, and that they had provisions for a week only, were all for taking this offer. All the prisoners, captains, men-at-arms, and common soldiers were accordingly given up, put to sea, and sailed for Genoa, where they were well received and kindly treated by the Genoese, which did them great good, for they were much in need of it. Nearly all the captains died on their return, some of mourning over their losses, others of melancholy at their misfortune, others for fear of the king's displeasure, and others of sickness and weariness." [_Chroniques of John d'Auton,_ t. iii.

pp. 68-70.]

Gaeta fell into the hands of the Spaniards on the 1st of January, 1504.

The war was not ended, but the kingdom of Naples was lost to the King of France.

At the news of these reverses the grief and irritation of Louis XII.

were extreme. Not only was he losing his Neapolitan conquests, but even his Milaness was also threatened. The ill-will of the Venetians became manifest. They had re-victualled by sea the fortress of Barletta, in which Gonzalvo of Cordova had shut himself up with his troops; "and when the king presented complaints of this succor afforded to his enemies, the senate replied that the matter had taken place without their cognizance, that Venice was a republic of traders, and that private persons might very likely have sold provisions to the Spaniards, with whom Venice was at peace, without there being any ground for concluding from it that she had failed in her engagements towards France. Some time afterwards, four French galleys, chased by a Spanish squadron of superior force, presented themselves before the port of Otranto, which was in the occupation of the Venetians, who pleaded their neutrality as a reason for refusing asylum to the French squadron, which the commander was obliged to set on fire that it might not fall into he enemy's hands." [_Histoire de la Republique de L'enise,_ by Count Daru, t. iii. p. 245.] The determined prosecution of hostilities in the kingdom of Naples by Gonzalvo of Cordova, in spite of the treaty concluded at Lyons on the 5th of April, 1503, between the Kings of France and Spain, was so much the more offensive to Louis XII. in that this treaty was the consequence and the confirmation of an enormous concession which he had, two years previously, made to the King of Spain on consenting to affiance his daughter, Princess Claude of France, two years old, to Ferdinand's grandson, Charles of Austria, who was then only one year old, and who became Charles the Fifth (emperor)! Lastly, about the same time, Pope Alexander VI., who, w.i.l.l.y hilly, had rendered Louis XII. so many services, died at Rome on the 12th of August, 1503. Louis had hoped that his favorite minister, Cardinal George d'Amboise, would succeed him, and that hope had a great deal to do with the shocking favor he showed Caesar Borgia, that infamous son of a demoralized father. But the candidature of Cardinal d'Amboise failed; a four weeks' pope, Pius III., succeeded Alexander VI.; and, when the Holy See suddenly became once more vacant, Cardinal d'Amboise failed again; and the new choice was Cardinal Julian della Rovera, Pope Julius II., who soon became the most determined and most dangerous foe of Louis XII., already a.s.sailed by so many enemies.

The Venetian, Dominic of Treviso, was quite right; Louis XII. was "of unstable mind, saying yes and no." On such characters discouragement tells rapidly. In order to put off the struggle which had succeeded so ill for him in the kingdom of Naples, Louis concluded, on the 31st of March, 1504, a truce for three years with the King of Spain; and on the 22d of September, in the same year, in order to satisfy his grudge on account of the Venetians' demeanor towards him, he made an alliance against them with Emperor Maximilian I. and Pope Julius II., with the design, all three of them, of wresting certain provinces from them. With those political miscalculations was connected a more personal and more disinterested feeling. Louis repented of having in 1501 affianced his daughter Claude to Prince Charles of Austria, and of the enormous concessions he had made by two treaties, one of April 5, 1503, and the other of September 22, 1504, for the sake of this marriage. He had a.s.signed as dowry to his daughter, first the duchy of Milan, then the kingdom of Naples, then Brittany, and then the duchy of Burgundy and the counts.h.i.+p of Blois. The latter of these treaties contained even the following strange clause: "If, by default of the Most Christian king or of the queen his wife, or of the Princess Claude, the aforesaid marriage should not take place, the Most Christian king doth will and consent, from now, that the said duchies of Burgundy and Milan and the counts.h.i.+p of Asti, do remain settled upon the said Prince Charles, Duke of Luxembourg, with all the rights therein possessed, or possibly to be possessed, by the Most Christian king." [_Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens,_ by J. Dumont, t. iv. part i. p. 57.] It was dismembering France, and at the same time settling on all her frontiers, to east, west, and south-west, as well as to north and south, a power which the approaching union of two crowns, the imperial and the Spanish, on the head of Prince Charles of Austria, rendered so preponderating and so formidable.

It was not only from considerations of external policy, and in order to conciliate to himself Emperor Maximilian and King Ferdinand, that Louis XII. had allowed himself to proceed to concessions so plainly contrary to the greatest interests of France: he had yielded also to domestic influences. The queen his wife, Anne of Brittany, detested Louise of Savoy, widow of Charles d'Orleans, Count of Angouleme, and mother of Francis d'Angouleme, heir presumptive to the throne, since Louis XII.

had no son. Anne could not bear the idea that her daughter, Princess Claude, should marry the son of her personal enemy; and, being more Breton than French, say her contemporaries, she, in order to avoid this disagreeableness, had used with the king all her influence, which was great, in favor of the Austrian marriage, caring little, and, perhaps, even desiring, that Brittany should be again severed from France. Louis, in the midst of the reverses of his diplomacy, had thus to suffer from the hatreds of his wife, the observations of his advisers, and the reproaches of his conscience as a king. He fell so ill that he was supposed to be past recovery. "It were to do what would be incredible,"

says his contemporary, John de St. Gelais, "to write or tell of the lamentations made throughout the whole realm of France, by reason of the sorrow felt by all for the illness of their good king. There were to be seen night and day, at Blois, at Amboise, at Tours, and everywhere else, men and women going all bare throughout the churches and to the holy places, in order to obtain from divine mercy grace of health and convalescence for one whom there was as great fear of losing as if he had been the father of each." Louis was touched by this popular sympathy; and his wisest councillors, Cardinal d'Amboise the first of all, took advantage thereof to appeal to his conscience in respect of the engagements which "through weakness he had undertaken contrary to the interests of the realm and the coronation-promises." Queen Anne herself, not without a struggle, however, at last gave up her opposition to this patriotic recoil; and on the 10th of May, 1505, Louis XII. put in his will a clause to the effect that his daughter, Princess Claude, should be married, so soon as she was old enough, to the heir to the throne, Francis, Count of Angouleme. Only it was agreed, in order to avoid diplomatic embarra.s.sments, that this arrangement should be kept secret till further notice. [The will itself of Louis XII. has been inserted in the _Recueil des Ordonnances des Bois des France,_ t. xxi. p. 323, dated 30th of May, 1505.]

When Louis had recovered, discreet measures were taken for arousing the feeling of the country as well as the king's conscience as to this great question. In the course of the year 1505 there took place throughout the whole kingdom, amongst the n.o.bility and in the princ.i.p.al towns, a.s.semblies at which means were proposed for preventing this evil.

Unpleasant consequences might have been apprehended from these meetings, in the case of a prince less beloved by his subjects than the king was; but nothing further was decided thereby than that a representation should with submission be made to him of the dangers likely to result from this treaty, that he should be entreated to prevent them by breaking it, and that a proposal should be made to him to a.s.semble the estates to deliberate upon a subject so important. [_Histoire de France,_ by Le Pere Daniel, t. viii. p. 427, edit. of 1755.] The states-general were accordingly convoked and met at Tours on the 10th of May, 1506; and on the 14th of May Louis XII. opened them in person at Plessis-les-Tours, seated in a great hall, in the royal seat, between Cardinal d'Amboise and Duke Francis of Valois, and surrounded by many archbishops and all the princes of the blood and other lords and barons of the said realm in great number, and he gave the order for admitting the deputies of the estates of the realm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STATES GENERAL AT TOURS----329]