The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume III Part 8

The most authentic account of the siege of Salsas is to be found in the correspondence of Gonzalo Ayora, dated in the Spanish camp. This individual, equally eminent in letters and arms, filled the dissimilar posts of captain of the royal guard and historiographer of the crown. He served in the army at this time, and was present at all its operations.

Pref. ad Cartas, de Ayora; and Nic. Antonio, Biliotheca Nova, tom. i. p.

551.

[22] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist, epist. 263.

The loyal captain, Ayora, shows little of this Christian vein. He concludes one of his letters with praying, no doubt most sincerely, "that the Almighty would be pleased to infuse less benevolence into the hearts of the sovereigns, and incite them to chastise and humble the proud French, and strip them of their ill-gotten possessions, which, however repugnant to their own G.o.dly inclinations, would tend greatly to replenish their coffers, as well as those of their, faithful and loving subjects."

See this graceless pet.i.tion in his Cartas, carta 9, p. 66.

[23] "Exaudivit igitur sancte reginee religiosorumque ac virginum preces summus Alt.i.tonans." (Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 263.) The learned Theban borrows an epithet more familiar to Greek and Roman than to Christian ears.

[24] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 5, cap. 54.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 13, sec. 11.-Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 264.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1503.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 198.--Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. pp. 408, 409.--Gonzalo Ayora, Cartas, carta 11.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial.

de Deza.

Peter Martyr seems to have shared none of Isabella's scruples in regard to bringing the enemy to battle. On the contrary, he indulges in a most querulous strain of sarcasm against the Catholic king for his remissness in this particular. "Quar elucescente die moniti nostri de Gallorum discessu ad eos, at sero, concurrerunt. Rex Perpiniani agebat, ad millia pa.s.suum s.e.x non brevia, uti nosti. Propterea sero id actum, venit concitato cursu, at sero. Ad hostes itur, at sero. Cernunt hostium acies, at sero, at a longe. Distabant jam milliaria circiter duo. Ergo sero Phryges sapuerunt. Cujus haec culpa, tu scrutator aliunde; mea est, si nescis. Maximam dedit ea dies, quae est, si nescis, calendarum Novembrium s.e.xta, Hispanis ignominiam, et aliquando jacturam illis pariet collachrymandam." Letter to the cardinal of Santa Cruz, epist. 262.

[25] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. p. 113.

Oviedo, who was present in this campaign, seems to have been of the same opinion. At least he says, "If the king had pursued vigorously, not a Frenchman would have lived to carry back the tidings of defeat to his own land." If we are to believe him, Ferdinand desisted from the pursuit at the earnest entreaty of Bishop Deza, his confessor. Quincuagenas, MS.

[26] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. v. lib. 5, cap. 55.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 13, sec. 11.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist.

264.--Lanuza, Historias, tom. i. cap. 17.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii.

lib. 19, cap. 16.--Machiavelli, Legazione Prima a Roma, let. 27.

Mons. Varillas notices as the weak side of Louis XII., "une demangeaison de faire la paix a contre temps, dont il fut travaille durant toute sa vie." (Politique de Ferdinand, liv. 1, p. 148.) A statesman shrewder than Varillas, De Retz, furnishes, perhaps, the best key to this policy, in the remark, "Les gens foibles ne plient jamais quand ils le doivent."

CHAPTER XIV.

ITALIAN WARS.--CONDITION OF ITALY.--FRENCH AND SPANISH ARMIES ON THE GARIGLIANO.

1503.

Melancholy State of Italy.--Great Preparations of Louis.--Gonsalvo Repulsed before Gaeta.--Armies on the Garigliano.--b.l.o.o.d.y Pa.s.sage of the Bridge.--Anxious Expectation of Italy.--Critical Situation of the Spaniards.--Gonsalvo's Resolution.--Heroism of Paredes and Bayard.

We must now turn our eyes towards Italy, where the sounds of war, which had lately died away, were again heard in wilder dissonance than ever. Our attention, hitherto, has been too exclusively directed to mere military manoeuvres to allow us to dwell much on the condition of this unhappy land. The dreary progress of our story, over fields of blood and battle, might naturally dispose the imagination to lay the scene of action in some rude and savage age; an age, at best, of feudal heroism, when the energies of the soul could be roused only by the fierce din of war.

Far otherwise, however; the tents of the hostile armies were now pitched in the bosom of the most lovely and cultivated regions on the globe; inhabited by a people who had carried the various arts of policy and social life to a degree of excellence elsewhere unknown; whose natural resources had been augmented by all the appliances of ingenuity and industry; whose cities were crowded with magnificent and costly works of public utility; into whose ports every wind that blew wafted the rich freights of distant climes; whose thousand hills were covered to their very tops with the golden labors of the husbandman; and whose intellectual development showed itself, not only in a liberal scholars.h.i.+p far outstripping that of their contemporaries, but in works of imagination, and of elegant art more particularly, which rivalled the best days of antiquity. The period before us, indeed, the commencement of the sixteenth century, was that of their meridian splendor, when Italian genius, breaking through the cloud which had temporarily obscured its early dawn, shone out in full effulgence; for we are now touching on the age of Machiavelli, Ariosto, and Michael Angelo,--the golden age of Leo the Tenth.

It is impossible, even at this distance of time, to contemplate without feelings of sadness the fate of such a country, thus suddenly converted into an arena for the b.l.o.o.d.y exhibitions of the gladiators of Europe; to behold her trodden under foot by the very nations on whom she had freely poured the light of civilization; to see the fierce soldiery of Europe, from the Danube to the Tagus, sweeping like an army of locusts over her fields, defiling her pleasant places, and raising the shout of battle, or of brutal triumph under the shadow of those monuments of genius, which have been the delight and despair of succeeding ages. It was the old story of the Goths and Vandals acted over again. Those more refined arts of the cabinet, on which the Italians were accustomed to rely, much more than on the sword, in their disputes with one another, were of no avail against these rude invaders, whose strong arm easily broke through the subtile webs of policy which entangled the movements of less formidable adversaries. It was the triumph of brute force over civilization,--one of the most humiliating lessons by which Providence has seen fit to rebuke the pride of human intellect. [1]

The fate of Italy inculcates a most important lesson. With all this outward show of prosperity, her political inst.i.tutions had gradually lost the vital principle, which could alone give them stability or real value.

The forms of freedom, indeed, in most instances, had sunk under the usurpation of some aspiring chief. Everywhere patriotism was lost in the most intense selfishness. Moral principle was at as low an ebb in private, as in public life. The hands, which shed their liberal patronage over genius and learning, were too often red with blood. The courtly precincts, which seemed the favorite haunt of the Muses, were too often the Epicurean sty of brutish sensuality; while the head of the church itself, whose station, exalted over that of every worldly potentate, should have raised him at least above their grosser vices, was sunk in the foulest corruptions that debase poor human nature. Was it surprising, then, that the tree, thus cankered at heart, with all the goodly show of blossoms on its branches, should have fallen before the blast, which now descended in such pitiless fury from the mountains?

Had there been an invigorating national feeling, any common principle of coalition among the Italian states; had they, in short, been true to themselves, they possessed abundant resources in their wealth, talent, and superior science, to have s.h.i.+elded their soil from violation.

Unfortunately, while the other European states had been augmenting their strength incalculably by the consolidation of their scattered fragments into one whole, those of Italy, in the absence of some great central point round which to rally, had grown more and more confirmed in their original disunion. Thus, without concert in action, and dest.i.tute of the vivifying impulse of patriotic sentiment, they were delivered up to be the spoil and mockery of nations, whom in their proud language they still despised as barbarians; an impressive example of the impotence of human genius, and of the instability of human inst.i.tutions, however excellent in themselves, when unsustained by public and private virtue. [2]

The great powers, who had now entered the lists, created entirely new interests in Italy, which broke up the old political combinations. The conquest of Milan enabled France to a.s.sume a decided control over the affairs of the country. Her recent reverses in Naples, however, had greatly loosened this authority; although Florence and other neighboring states, which lay under her colossal shadow, still remained true to her.

Venice, with her usual crafty policy, kept aloof, maintaining a position of neutrality between the belligerents, each of whom made the most pressing efforts to secure so formidable an 'ally. She had, however, long since entertained a deep distrust of her French neighbor; and, although she would enter into no public engagements, she gave the Spanish minister every a.s.surance of her friendly disposition towards his government. [3]

She intimated this still more unequivocally, by the supplies she had allowed her citizens to carry into Barleta during the late campaign, and by other indirect aid of a similar nature during the present; for all which she was one day to be called to a heavy reckoning by her enemies.

The disposition of the papal court towards the French monarch was still less favorable; and it took no pains to conceal this after his reverses in Naples. Soon after the defeat of Cerignola, it entered into correspondence with Gonsalvo de Cordova; and, although Alexander the Sixth refused to break openly with France, and sign a treaty with the Spanish sovereigns, he pledged himself to do so, on the reduction of Gaeta. In the mean time, he freely allowed the Great Captain to raise such levies as he could in Rome, before the very eyes of the French amba.s.sador. So little had the immense concessions of Louis, including those of principle and honor, availed to secure the fidelity of this treacherous ally. [4]

With the emperor Maximilian, notwithstanding repeated treaties, he was on scarcely better terms. That prince was connected with Spain by the matrimonial alliances of his family, and no less averse to France from personal feeling, which, with the majority of minds, operates more powerfully than motives of state policy. He had, moreover, always regarded the occupation of Milan by the latter as an infringement, in some measure, of his imperial rights. The Spanish government, availing itself of these feelings, endeavored through its minister, Don Juan Manuel, to stimulate Maximilian to the invasion of Lombardy. As the emperor, however, demanded, as usual, a liberal subsidy for carrying on the war, King Ferdinand, who was seldom incommoded by a superfluity of funds, preferred reserving them for his own enterprises, to hazarding them on the Quixotic schemes of his ally. But, although the negotiations were attended with no result, the amicable dispositions of the Austrian government were evinced by the permission given to its subjects to serve under the banners of Gonsalvo, where indeed, as we have already seen, they formed some of his best troops. [5]

But while Louis the Twelfth drew so little a.s.sistance from abroad, the heartiness with which the whole French people entered into his feelings at this crisis, made him nearly independent of it, and, in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, placed him in a condition for resuming operations on a far more formidable scale than before. The preceding failures in Italy he attributed in a great degree to an overweening confidence in the superiority of his own troops, and his neglect to support them with the necessary reinforcements and supplies. He now provided against this by remitting large sums to Rome, and establis.h.i.+ng ample magazines of grain and military stores there, under the direction of commissaries for the maintenance of the army. He equipped without loss of time a large armament at Genoa, under the marquis of Saluzzo, for the relief of Gaeta, still blockaded by the Spaniards. He obtained a small supply of men from his Italian allies, and subsidized a corps of eight thousand Swiss, the strength of his infantry; while the remainder of his army, comprehending a fine body of cavalry, and the most complete train of artillery, probably, in Europe, was drawn from his own dominions. Volunteers of the highest rank pressed forward to serve in an expedition, to which they confidently looked for the vindication of the national honor. The command was intrusted to the marechal de la Tremouille, esteemed the best general in France; and the whole amount of force, exclusive of that employed permanently in the fleet, is variously computed from twenty to thirty thousand men. [6]

In the month of July, the army was on its march across the broad plains of Lombardy, but, on reaching Parma, the appointed place of rendezvous for the Swiss and Italian mercenaries, was brought to a halt by tidings of an unlooked-for event, the death of Pope Alexander the Sixth. He expired on the 18th of August, 1503, at the age of seventy-two, the victim, there is very little doubt, of poison he had prepared for others; thus closing an infamous life by a death equally infamous. He was a man of undoubted talent, and uncommon energy of character. But his powers were perverted to the worst purposes, and his gross vices were unredeemed, if we are to credit the report of his most respectable contemporaries, by a single virtue. In him the papacy reached its lowest degradation. His pontificate, however, was not without its use; since that Providence, which still educes good from evil, made the scandal, which it occasioned to the Christian world, a princ.i.p.al spring of the glorious Reformation. [7]

The death of this pontiff occasioned no particular disquietude at the Spanish court, where his immoral life had been viewed with undisguised reprobation, and made the subject of more than one pressing remonstrance, as we have already seen. His public course had been as little to its satisfaction; since, although a Spaniard by birth, being a native of Valencia, he had placed himself almost wholly at the disposal of Louis the Twelfth, in return for the countenance afforded by that monarch to the iniquitous schemes of his son, Caesar Borgia.

The pope's death was attended with important consequences on the movements of the French. Louis's favorite minister, Cardinal D'Amboise, had long looked to this event as opening to him the succession to the tiara. He now hastened to Italy, therefore, with his master's approbation, proposing to enforce his pretensions by the presence of the French army, placed, as it would seem, with this view at his disposal.

The army, accordingly, was ordered to advance towards Rome, and halt within a few miles of its gates. The conclave of cardinals, then convened to supply the vacancy in the pontificate, were filled with indignation at this attempt to overawe their election; and the citizens beheld with anxiety the encampment of this formidable force under their walls, antic.i.p.ating some counteracting movement on the part of the Great Captain, which might involve their capital, already in a state of anarchy, in all the horrors of war. Gonsalvo, indeed, had sent forward a detachment of between two and three thousand men, under Mendoza and Fabrizio Colonna, who posted themselves in the neighborhood of the city, where they could observe the movements of the enemy. [8]

At length Cardinal D'Amboise, yielding to public feeling, and the representations of pretended friends, consented to the removal of the French forces from the neighborhood, and trusted for success to his personal influence. He over-estimated its weight. It is foreign to our purpose to detail the proceedings of the reverend body, thus convened to supply the chair of St. Peter. They are displayed at full length by the Italian writers, and must be allowed to form a most edifying chapter in ecclesiastical history. [9] It is enough to state, that, on the departure of the French, the suffrages of the conclave fell on an Italian, who a.s.sumed the name of Pius the Third, and who justified the policy of the choice by dying in less time than his best friends had antic.i.p.ated;-- within a month after his elevation. [10]

The new vacancy was at once supplied by the election of Julius the Second, the belligerent pontiff who made his tiara a helmet, and his crosier a sword. It is remarkable, that, while his fierce, inexorable temper left him with scarcely a personal friend, he came to the throne by the united suffrages of each of the rival factions of France, Spain, and, above all, Venice, whose ruin in return he made the great business of his restless pontificate. [11]

No sooner had the game, into which Cardinal D'Amboise had entered with such prospects of success, been s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp by the superior address of his Italian rivals, and the election of Pius the Third been publicly announced, than the French army was permitted to resume its march on Naples, after the loss,--an irreparable loss,--of more than a month. A still greater misfortune had befallen it, in the mean time, in the illness of Tremouille, its chief; which compelled him to resign the command into the hands of the marquis of Mantua, an Italian n.o.bleman, who held the second station in the army. He was a man of some military experience, having fought in the Venetian service, and led the allied forces, with doubtful credit indeed, against Charles the Eighth at the battle of Fornovo. His elevation was more acceptable to his own countrymen than to the French; and in truth, however competent to ordinary exigencies, he was altogether unequal to the present, in, which he was compelled to measure his genius with that of the greatest captain of the age. [12]

The Spanish commander, in the mean while, was detained before the strong post of Gaeta, into which Ives d'Allegre had thrown himself, as already noticed, with the fugitives from the field of Cerignola, where he had been subsequently reinforced by four thousand additional troops under the marquis of Saluzzo. From these circ.u.mstances, as well as the great strength of the place, Gonsalvo experienced an opposition, to which, of late, he had been wholly unaccustomed. His exposed situation in the plains, under the guns of the city, occasioned the loss of many of his best men, and, among others, that of his friend Don Hugo de Cardona, one of the late victors at Seminara, who was shot down at his side, while conversing with him. At length, after a desperate but ineffectual attempt to extricate himself from his perilous position by forcing the neighboring eminence of Mount Orlando, he was compelled to retire to a greater distance, and draw off his army to the adjacent village of Castellone, which may call up more agreeable a.s.sociations in the reader's mind, as the site of the Villa Formiana of Cicero. [13] At this place he was still occupied with the blockade of Gaeta, when he received intelligence that the French had crossed the Tiber, and were in full march against him. [14]

While Gonsalvo lay before Gaeta, he had been intent on collecting such reinforcements as he could from every quarter. The Neapolitan division under Navarro had already joined him, as well as the victorious legions of Andrada from Calabria. His strength was further augmented by the arrival of between two and three thousand troops, Spanish, German, and Italian, which the Castilian minister, Francisco de Roxas, had levied in Rome; and he was in daily hopes of a more important accession from the same quarter, through the good offices of the Venetian amba.s.sador. Lastly, he had obtained some additional recruits, and a remittance of a considerable sum of money, in a fleet of Catalan s.h.i.+ps lately arrived from Spain. With all this, however, a heavy amount of arrears remained due to his troops. In point of numbers he was still far inferior to the enemy; no computation swelling them higher than three thousand horse, two of them light cavalry, and nine thousand foot. The strength of his army lay in his Spanish infantry, on whose thorough discipline, steady nerve, and strong attachment to his person he felt he might confidently rely. In cavalry, and still more in artillery, he was far below the French, which, together with his great numerical inferiority, made it impossible for him to keep the open country. His only resource was to get possession of some pa.s.s or strong position, which lay in their route, where he might detain them, till the arrival of further reinforcements should enable him to face them on more equal terms. The deep stream of the Garigliano presented such a line of defence as he wanted. [15]

On the 6th of October, therefore, the Great Captain broke up his camp at Castellone, and, abandoning the whole region north of the Garigliano to the enemy, struck into the interior of the country, and took post at San Germano, a strong place on the other side of the river, covered by the two fortresses of Monte Casino [16] and Rocca Secca. Into this last he threw a body of determined men under Villalba, and waited calmly the approach of the enemy.

It was not long before the columns of the latter were descried in full march on Ponte Corvo, at a few miles' distance only on the opposite side of the Garigliano. After a brief halt there, they traversed the bridge before that place and advanced confidently forward in the expectation of encountering little resistance from a foe so much their inferior. In this they were mistaken; the garrison of Rocca Secca, against which they directed their arms, handled them so roughly, that, after in vain endeavoring to carry the place in two desperate a.s.saults, the marquis of Mantua resolved to abandon the attempt altogether, and, recrossing the river, to seek a more practicable point for his purpose lower down. [17]

Keeping along the right bank, therefore, to the southeast of the mountains of Fondi, he descended nearly to the mouth of the Garigliano, the site, as commonly supposed, of the ancient Minturnae. [18] The place was covered by a fortress called the Tower of the Garigliano, occupied by a small Spanish garrison, who made some resistance, but surrendered on being permitted to march out with the honors of war. On rejoining their countrymen under Gonsalvo, the latter were so much incensed that the garrison should have yielded on any terms, instead of dying on their posts, that, falling on them with their pikes, they ma.s.sacred them all to a man. Gonsalvo did not think proper to punish this outrage, which, however shocking to his own feelings, indicated a desperate tone of resolution, which he felt he should have occasion to tax to the utmost in the present exigency. [19]

The ground now occupied by the armies was low and swampy, a character which it possessed in ancient times; the marshes on the southern side being supposed to be the same in which Marius concealed himself from his enemies during his proscription. [20] Its natural humidity was greatly increased, at this time, by the excessive rains, which began earlier and with much more violence than usual. The French position was neither so low nor so wet as that of the Spaniards. It had the advantage, moreover, of being supported by a well-peopled and friendly country in the rear, where lay the large towns of Fondi, Itri, and Gaeta; while their fleet, under the admiral Prejan, which rode at anchor in the mouth of the Garigliano, might be of essential service in the pa.s.sage of the river.

In order to effect this, the marquis of Mantua prepared to throw a bridge across, at a point not far from Trajetto. He succeeded in it, notwithstanding the swollen and troubled condition of the waters, [20] in a few days, under cover of the artillery, which he had planted on the bank of the river, and which from its greater elevation entirely commanded the opposite sh.o.r.e.

The bridge was constructed of boats belonging to the fleet, strongly secured together and covered with planks. The work being completed, on the 6th of November the army advanced upon the bridge, supported by such a lively cannonade from the batteries along the sh.o.r.e, as made all resistance on the part of the Spaniards ineffectual. The impetuosity with which the French rushed forward was such as to drive back the advanced guard of their enemy, which, giving way in disorder, retreated on the main body. Before the confusion could extend further, Gonsalvo, mounted _a la gineta_, in the manner of the light cavalry, rode through the broken ranks, and, rallying the fugitives, quickly brought them to order. Navarro and Andrada, at the same time, led up the Spanish infantry, and the whole column charging furiously against the French, compelled them to falter and at length to fall back on the bridge.

The struggle now became desperate, officers and soldiers, horse and foot, mingling together, and fighting hand to hand, with all the ferocity kindled by close personal combat. Some were trodden under the feet of the cavalry, many more were forced from the bridge, and the waters of the Garigliano were covered with men and horses, borne down by the current, and struggling in vain to gain the sh.o.r.e. It was a contest of mere bodily strength and courage, in which skill and superior tactics were of little avail. Among those who most distinguished themselves, the name of the n.o.ble Italian, Fabrizio Colonna, is particularly mentioned. An heroic action is recorded also of a person of inferior rank, a Spanish _alferez_, or standard-bearer, named Illescas. The right hand of this man was shot away by a cannon-ball. As a comrade was raising up the fallen colors, the gallant ensign resolutely grasped them, exclaiming that "he had one hand still left." At the same time, m.u.f.fling a scarf round the bleeding stump, he took his place in the ranks as before. This brave deed did not go unrewarded, and a liberal pension was settled on him, at Gonsalvo's instance.

During the heat of the _melee_, the guns on the French sh.o.r.e had been entirely silent, since they could not be worked without doing as much mischief to their own men as to the Spaniards, with whom they were closely mingled. But, as the French gradually recoiled before their impetuous adversaries, fresh bodies of the latter rus.h.i.+ng forward to support their advance necessarily exposed a considerable length of column to the range of the French guns, which opened a galling fire on the further extremity of the bridge. The Spaniards, notwithstanding "they threw themselves into the face of the cannon," as the marquis of Mantua exclaimed, "with as much unconcern as if their bodies had been made of air instead of flesh and blood," found themselves so much distressed by this terrible fire, that they were compelled to fall back; and the van, thus left without support, at length retreated in turn, abandoning the bridge to the enemy. [21]

This action was one of the severest which occurred in these wars. Don Hugo de Moncada, the veteran of many a fight by land and sea, told Paolo Giovio that "he had never felt himself in such imminent peril in any of his battles, as in this." [22] The French, notwithstanding they remained masters of the contested bridge, had met with a resistance which greatly discouraged them; and, instead of attempting to push their success further, retired that same evening to their quarters on the other side of the river. The tempestuous weather, which continued with unabated fury, had now broken up the roads, and converted the soil into a mora.s.s, nearly impracticable for the movements, of horse, and quite so for those of artillery, on which the French chiefly relied; while it interposed comparatively slight obstacles to the manoeuvres of infantry, which const.i.tuted the strength of the Spaniards. From a consideration of these circ.u.mstances, the French commander resolved not to resume active operations till a change of weather, by restoring the roads, should enable him to do so with advantage. Meanwhile he constructed a redoubt on the Spanish extremity of the bridge, and threw a body of troops into it, in order to command the pa.s.s whenever he should be disposed to use it. [23]

While the hostile armies thus lay facing each other, the eyes of all Italy were turned to them, in anxious expectation of a battle which should finally decide the fate of Naples. Expresses were daily despatched from the French camp to Rome, whence the ministers of the different European powers transmitted the tidings to their respective governments.

Machiavelli represented at that time the Florentine republic at the papal court, and his correspondence teems with as many floating rumors and speculations as a modern gazette. There were many French residents in the city, with whom the minister was personally acquainted. He frequently notices their opinions on the progress of the war, which they regarded with the most sanguine confidence, as sure to result in the triumph of their own arms, when once fairly brought into collision with the enemy.

The calmer and more penetrating eye of the Florentine discerns symptoms in the condition of the two armies of quite a different tendency. [24]