Chapter XXVI: The Wars of Italy.-- Charles Viii.-- 1483-1498 (2)

The reception he met with at the outset of his enterprise could not but confirm him in his illusory hopes. Whilst he was at Lyons, engaged in preparations for his departure, Duke Charles of Savoy, whose territories were the first he would have to cross, came to see him on a personal matter. "Cousin, my good friend," said the king to him, "I am delighted to see you at Lyons, for, if you had delayed your coming, I had intended to go myself to see you, with a very numerous company, in your own dominions, where it is likely such a visit could not but have caused you loss." "My lord," answered the duke, "my only regret at your arrival in my dominions would be, that I should be unable to give you such welcome there as is due to so great a prince. . . . However, whether here or elsewhere, I shall be always ready to beg that you will dispose of me and all that pertains to me just as of all that might belong to your own subjects." Duke Charles of Savoy had scarcely exaggerated; he was no longer living in September, 1494, when Charles VIII, demanded of his widow Blanche, regent in the name of her infant son, a free passage for the French army over her territory, and she not only granted his request, but, when he entered Turin, she had him received exactly as he might have been in the greatest cities of France. He admired the magnificent jewels she wore; and she offered to lend them to him. He accepted them, and soon afterwards borrowed on the strength of them twelve thousand golden ducats; so ill provided was he with money. The fair regent, besides, made him a present of a fine black horse, which Commynes calls the best in the world, and which, ten months later, Charles rode at the battle of Fornovo, the only victory he was to gain on retiring from this sorry campaign. On entering the country of the Milanese he did not experience the same feeling of confidence that Piedmont had inspired him with. Not that Ludovic the Moor hesitated to lavish upon him assurances of devotion. "Sir," said he, "have no fear for this enterprise; there are in Italy three powers which we consider great, and of which you have one, which is Milan; another, which is the Venetians, does not stir; so you have to do only with that of Naples, and many of your predecessors have beaten us when we were all united. If you will trust me, I will help to make you greater than ever was Charlemagne; and when you have in your hands this kingdom of Naples, we shall easily drive yon Turk out of that empire of Constantinople." These words pleased Charles VIII. mightily, and he would have readily pinned his faith to them; but he had at his side some persons more clear-sighted, and Ludovic had enemies who did not deny themselves the pleasure of enlightening the king concerning him. He invited Charles to visit Milan; he desired to parade before the eyes of the people his alliance and intimate friendship with the powerful King of France; but Charles, who had at first treated him as a friend, all at once changed his demeanor, and refused to go to Milan, "so as not to lose time." Ludovic was too good a judge to make any mistake in the matter; but he did not press the point. Charles resumed his road to Piacenza, where his army awaited him. At Pavia, vows, harangues, felicitations, protestations of devotion, were lavished upon him without restoring his confidence; quarters had been assigned to him within the city; he determined to occupy the castle, which was in a state of defence; his own guard took possession of the guard-posts; and the watch was doubled during the night. Ludovic appeared to take no notice, and continued to accompany the king as far as Piacenza, the last town in the state of Milan. Into it Charles entered with seventy-eight hundred horse, many Swiss foot, and many artillerymen and bombardiers. The Italian population regarded this army with an admiration tinged with timidity and anxiety. News was heard there to the effect that young John Galeas, nephew of Ludovic the Moor and lawful Duke of Milan, was dead. He left a son, five years old, for whom he had at Pavia implored the king's protection; and "I will look upon him as my own," King Charles had answered as he fondled the child. Ludovic set out in haste for Milan; and it was not long before it was known that he had been proclaimed duke and put in possession of the duchy. Distrust became general throughout the army. "Those who ought to have known best told me," says Commynes, "that several, who had at first commended the trip, now found fault with it, and that there was a great inclination to turn back." However, the march was continued forward; and on the 29th of October, 1494, the French army encamped before Sarzana, a Florentine town. Ludovic the Moor suddenly arrived in the camp with new proposals of alliance, on new conditions: Charles accepted some of them, and rejected the principal ones. Ludovic went away again on the 3d of November, never to return.

From this day the King of France might reckon him amongst his enemies. With the republic of Florence was henceforth to be Charles's business. Its head, Peter de' Medici, went to the camp at Sarzana, and Philip de Commynes started on an embassy to go and negotiate with the doge and senate of Venice, which was the chiefest of the Italian powers and the territory of which lay far out of the line of march of the King of France and his army. In the presence of the King of France and in the midst of his troops Peter de' Medici grew embarrassed and confused. He had gone to meet the king without the knowledge of the Florentines and was already alarmed at the gravity of his situation; and he offered more concession and submission than was demanded of him. "Those who treated with him," says Commynes, "told me, turning him to scorn and ridicule, that they were dumbfounded at his so readily granting so great a matter and what they were not prepared for." Feelings were raised to the highest pitch at Florence when his weaknesses were known. There was a numerous and powerful party, consisting of the republicans and the envious, hostile to the Medicis; and they eagerly seized the opportunity of attacking them. A deputation, comprising the most considerable men of the city, was sent, on the 5th of November, to the King of France with a commission to obtain from him more favorable conditions. The Dominican, Jerome Savonarola, at that time the popular oracle of Florence, was one of them. With a pious hauteur that was natural and habitual to him, he adopted the same tone towards Charles as towards the people of Florence. "Hearken thou to my words," said he, "and grave them upon thy heart. I warn thee, in God's name, that thou must show thyself merciful and forbearing to the people of Florence, if thou wouldest that He should aid thee in thy enterprise." Charles, who scarcely knew Savonarola by name, answered simply that he did not wish to do the Florentines any harm, but that he demanded a free passage, and all that had been promised him: "I wish to be received at Florence," he added, "to sign there a definitive treaty which shall settle everything." At these cold expressions the ambassadors withdrew in some disquietude. Peter de' Medici, who was lightly confident, returned to Florence on the 8th of November, and attempted again to seize the supreme power. A violent outbreak took place; Peter was as weak before the Florentine populace as he had been before the King of France; and, having been harried in his very palace, which was given up to pillage, it was only in the disguise of a monk that he was able, on the 9th of November, to get out of the city in company with his two brothers, Julian and Cardinal John de' Medici, of whom the latter was to be, ten years later, Pope Leo X. Peter and his brothers having been driven out, the Florentines were anxious to be reconciled with Charles VIII. Both by political tradition and popular bias the Florentine republic was favorable to France. Charles, annoyed at what had just taken place, showed but slight inclination to enter into negotiation with them; but his wisest advisers represented to him that, in order to accomplish his enterprise and march securely on Naples, he needed the good will of Florence; and the new Florentine authorities promised him the best of receptions in their city. Into it Charles entered on the 17th of November, 1494, at the head of all his army. His reception on the part of officials and populace was really magnificent. Negotiation was resumed. Charles was at first very exacting; the Florentine negotiators protested; one of them, Peter Capponi, "a man of great wits and great courage," says Guiceiardini, "highly esteemed for those qualities in Florence, and issue of a family which had been very powerful in the republic," when he heard read the exorbitant conditions proposed to them on the king's behalf, started up suddenly, took the paper from the secretary's hands, and tore it up before the king's eyes, saying, "Since you impose upon us things so dishonorable, have your trumpets sounded, and we will have our bells rung;" and he went forth from the chamber together with his comrades. Charles and his advisers thought better of it; mutual concessions were made; a treaty, concluded on the 25th of November, secured to the King of France a free passage through the whole extent of the republic, and a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand golden florins "to help towards the success of the expedition against Naples;" the commune of Florence engaged to revoke the order putting a price upon the head of Peter de' Medici as well as confiscating his goods, and not to enforce against him any penalty beyond proscription from the territory; and, the honor as well as the security of both the contracting parties having thus been provided for, Charles VIII. left Florence, and took, with his army, the road towards the Roman States.

Having on the 7th of December, 1494, entered Acquapendente, and, on the 10th, Viterbo, he there received, on the following day, a message from Pope Alexander VI., who in his own name and that of Alphonso II., King of Naples, made him an offer of a million ducats to defray the expenses of the war, and a hundred thousand livres annually, on condition that he would abandon his enterprise against the kingdom of Naples. "I have no mind to make terms with the Arragonese usurper," answered Charles: "I will treat directly with the pope when I am in Rome, which I reckon upon entering about Christmas. I have already made known to him my intentions; I will forthwith send him ambassadors commissioned to repeat them to him." And he did send to him the most valiant of his warriors, Louis de la Tremoille, "the which was there," says the contemporary chronicler, John Bouchet, "with certain speakers, who, after having pompously reminded the pope of the whole history of the French kingship in its relations with the papacy, ended up in the following strain: 'prayeth you, then, our sovereign lord the king not to give him occasion to be, to his great sorrow, the first of his lineage who ever had war and discord with the Roman Church, whereof he and the Christian Kings of France, his predecessors, have been protectors and augmenters.' More briefly and with an affectation of sorrowful graciousness, the pope made answer to the ambassador: 'If it please King Charles, my eldest spiritual son, to enter into my city without arms in all humility, he will be most welcome; but much would it annoy me if the army of thy king should enter, because that, under shadow of it, which is said to be great and riotous, the factions and bands of Rome might rise up and cause uproar and scandal, wherefrom great discomforts might happen to the citizens.'" For three weeks the king and the pope offered the spectacle, only too common in history, of the hypocrisy of might pitted against the hypocrisy of religion. At last the pope saw the necessity of yielding; he sent for Prince Ferdinand, son of the King of Naples, and told him that he must no longer remain at Rome with the Neapolitan troops, for that the King of France was absolute about entering; and he at the same time handed him a safe-conduct under Charles's own hand. Ferdinand refused the safe-conduct, and threw himself upon his knees before the pope, asking him for his blessing: "Rise, my dear son," said the pope; "go, and have good hope; God will come to our aid." The Neapolitans departed, and on the 1st of January, 1495, Charles VIII. entered Rome with his army, "saying gentlewise," according to Brantome, "that a while agone he had made a vow to my lord St. Peter of Rome, and that of necessity he must accomplish it at the peril of his life. Behold him, then, entered into Rome," continues Brantome, "in bravery and triumph, himself armed at all points, with lance on thigh, as if he would fain pick forward to the charge. Marching in this fine and furious order of battle, with trumpets a-sounding and drums a-beating, he enters in and takes his lodging, by the means of his harbingers, wheresoever it seems to him good, has his bodies of guards set, posts his sentinels about the places and districts of the noble city, with no end of rounds and patrols, has his tribunals and his gallows planted in five or six different spots, his edicts and ordinances being published and proclaimed by sound of trumpet, as if he had been in Paris. Go find me ever a King of France who did such things, save Charlemagne; yet trow I he did not bear himself with authority so superb and imperious. What remained, then, more for this great king, if not to make himself full master of this glorious city which had subdued all the world in days of yore, as it was in his power to do, and as he, perchance, would fain have done, in accordance with his ambition and with some of his council, who urged him mightily thereto, if it were only for to keep himself secure. But far from this: violation of holy religion gave him pause, and the reproach that might have been brought against him of having done offence to his Holiness, though reason enough had been given him: on the contrary, he rendered him all honor and obedience, even to kissing in all humility his slipper!" [_Oeuvres de Brantome_ (Paris, 1822), t. ii. p. 3.] No excuse is required for quoting this fragment of Brantome; for it gives the truest and most striking picture of the conditions of facts and sentiments during this transitory encounter between a madly adventurous king and a brazen-facedly dishonest pope. Thus they passed four weeks at Rome, the pope having retired at first to the Vatican and afterwards to the castle of St. Angelo, and Charles remaining master of the city, which, in a fit of mutual ill-humor and mistrust, was for one day given over to pillage and the violence of the soldiery. At last, on the 15th of January, a treaty was concluded which regulated pacific relations between the two sovereigns, and secured to the French army a free passage through the States of the Church, both going to Naples and also returning, and provisional possession of the town of Civita Vecchia, on condition that it should be restored to the pope when the king returned to France. On the 16th and 19th of January the pope and the king had two interviews, one private and the other public, at which they renewed their engagements, and paid one another the stipulated honors. It was announced that, on the 23d of January, the Arragonese King of Naples, Alphonso II., had abdicated in favor of his son, Ferdinand II.; and, on the 28th of January, Charles VIII. took solemn leave of the pope, received his blessing, and left Rome, as he had entered it, at the head of his army, and more confident than ever in the success of the expedition he was going to carry out.

Ferdinand II., the new King of Naples, who had no lack of energy or courage, was looking everywhere, at home and abroad, for forces and allies to oppose the imminent invasion. To the Duke of Milan he wrote, "Remember that we two are of the same blood. It is much to be desired that a league should at once be formed between the pope, the kings of the Romans and Spain, you, and Venice. If these powers are united, Italy would have nought to fear from any. Give me your support; I have the greatest need of it. If you back me, I shall owe to you the preservation of my throne, and I will honor you as my father." He ordered the Neapolitan envoy at Constantinople to remind Sultan Bajazet of the re-enforcements he had promised his father, King Alphonso: "Time presses; the King of France is advancing in person on Naples; be instant in solicitation; be importunate if necessary, so that the Turkish army cross the sea without delay. Be present yourself at the embarkation of the troops. Be active; run; fly." He himself ran through all his kingdom, striving to resuscitate some little spark of affection and hope. He had no success anywhere; the memory of the king his father was hateful; he was himself young and without influence; his ardor caused fear instead of sympathy. Charles kept advancing along the kingdom through the midst of people that remained impassive when they did not give him a warm reception. The garrison of Monte San Giovanni, the strongest place on the frontier, determined to resist. The place was carried by assault in a few hours, and "the assailants," says a French chronicler, "without pity or compassion, made short work of all those plunderers and malefactors, whose bodies they hurled down from the walls. The carnage lasted eight whole hours." A few days afterwards Charles with his guard arrived in front of San Germano: "The clergy awaited him at the gate with cross and banner; men of note carried a dais under the which he took his place; behind him followed men, women, and children, chanting this versicle from the Psalms: 'Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini! Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!'" The town of Capua was supposed to be very much attached to the house of Arragon; John James Trivulzio, a valiant Milanese captain, who had found asylum and fortune in Naples, had the command there; and thither King Ferdinand hurried. "I am going to Naples for troops," said he to the inhabitants; "wait for me confidently; and if by to-morrow evening you do not see me return, make your own terms with King Charles; you have my full authority." On arriving at Naples, he said to the Neapolitans, "Hold out for a fortnight; I will not expose the capital of my kingdom to be stormed by barbarians; if, within a fort-night hence, I have not prevented the enemy from crossing the Volturno, you may ask him for terms of capitulation;" and back he went to Capua. When he was within sight of the ramparts he heard that on the previous evening, before it was night, the French had been admitted into the town. Trivulzio had been to visit King Charles at Teano, and had offered, in the name of his troops and of the Capuans, to surrender Capua; he had even added, says Guicciardini, that he did not despair of bringing King Ferdinand himself to an arrangement, if a suitable provision were guaranteed to him. "I willingly accept the offer you make me in the name of your troops and of the Capuans," answered Charles: "as for the Arragonese prince, he shall be well received if he come to me; but let him understand that not an inch of ground shall be left to him in this kingdom; in France he shall have honors and beautiful domains." On the 18th of February Charles entered Capua amidst the cheers of the people; and on the same day Trivulzio went over to his service with a hundred lances. On returning to Naples, Ferdinand found the gates closed, and could not get into Castel Nuovo save by a postern. At that very moment the mob was pillaging his stables; he went down from the fortress, addressed the crowd collected beneath the ramparts in a few sad and bitter words, into which he tried to infuse some leaven of hope, took certain measures to enable the two forts of Naples, Castel Nuovo and Castel dell Uovo, to defend themselves for a few days longer, and, on the 23d of February, went for refuge to the island of Ischia, repeating out loud, as long as he had Naples in sight, this versicle from the Psalms: "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!" At Ischia itself "he had a fresh trial to make," says Guicciardini, "of his courage and of the ungrateful faithlessness displayed towards those whom Fortune deserts." The governor of the island refused to admit him accompanied by more than one man. The prince, so soon as he got in, flung himself upon him, poniard in hand, with such fury and such an outburst of kingly authority, that all the garrison, astounded, submitted to him and gave up to him the fort and its rock. On the very eve of the day on which King Ferdinand II. was thus seeking his last refuge in the island of Ischia, Charles VIII. was entering Naples in triumph at the head of his troops, on horseback, beneath a pall of cloth of gold borne by four great Neapolitan lords, and "received," says Guicciardini, "with cheers and a joy of which it would be vain to attempt a description; the incredible exultation of a crowd of both sexes, of every age, of every condition, of every quality, of every party, as if he had been the father and first founder of the city." And the great French historian bears similar witness to that of the great Italian historian: "Never," says Commynes, "did people show so much affection to king or nation as they showed to the king, and thought all of them to be free of tyranny."

At the news hereof the disquietude and vexation of the principal Italian powers were displayed at Venice as well as at Milan and at Rome. The Venetian senate, as prudent as it was vigilant, had hitherto maintained a demeanor of expectancy and almost of good will towards France; they hoped that Charles VIII. would be stopped or would stop of himself in his mad enterprise, without their being obliged to interfere. The doge, Augustin Barbarigo, lived on very good terms with Commynes, who was as desirous as he was that the king should recover his senses. Commynes was destined to learn how difficult and sorry a thing it is to have to promote a policy of which you disapprove. When he perceived that a league was near to being formed in Italy against the King of France, he at once informed his master of it, and attempted to dissuade the Venetians from it. They denied that they had any such design, and showed a disposition to form, in concert with the Kings of France, Spain, and the Romans, and with the whole of Italy, a league against the Turks, provided that Charles VIII. would consent to leave the King of Naples in possession of his kingdom, at the same time keeping for himself three places therein, and accepting a sum in ready money which Venice would advance. "Would to God," says Commynes, "that the king had been pleased to listen then! Of all did I give him notice, and I got bare answer. . . . When the Venetians heard that the king was in Naples, and that the strong fort, which they had great hopes would hold out, was surrendered, they sent for me one morning, and I found them in great number, about fifty or sixty, in the apartment of the prince (the doge) who was ill. Some were sitting upon a staircase leading to the benches, and had their heads resting upon their hands, others otherwise, all showing that they had great sadness at heart. And I trow that, when news came to Rome of the battle lost at Cannae against Hannibal, the senators who had remained there were not more dumbfounded and dismayed than these were; for not a single one made sign of seeing me, or spoke to me one word, save the duke (the doge), who asked me if the king would keep to that of which he had constantly sent them word, and which I had said to them. I assured them stoutly that he would, and I opened up ways for to remain at sound peace, hoping to remove their suspicions, and then I did get me gone."

The league was concluded on the 31st of March, 1495, between Pope Alexander VI., Emperor Maximilian I., as King of the Romans, the King of Spain, the Venetians, and the Duke of Milan: "To three ends," says Commynes, "for to defend Christendom against the Turks, for the defence of Italy, and for the preservation of their Estates. There was nothing in it against the king, they told me, but it was to secure themselves from him; they did not like his so deluding the world with words by saying that all he wanted was the kingdom, and then to march against the Turk, and all the while he was showing quite the contrary. . . . I remained in the city about a month after that, being as well treated as before; and then I went my way, having been summoned by the king, and being conducted in perfect security, at their expense, to Ferrara, whence I went to Florence for to await the king."

When Ferdinand II. took refuge in the island of Ischia, and Castel Nuovo and Castel dell' Uovo had surrendered at Naples, Charles VIII., considering himself in possession of the kingdom, announced his intention, and, there is reason to believe, actually harbored the design, of returning to France, without asserting any further his pretensions as a conqueror. On the 20th of March, before the Italian league had been definitively concluded, Briconnet, Cardinal of St. Malo, who had attended the king throughout his expedition, wrote to the queen, Anne of Brittany, "His Majesty is using diligence as best he can to return over yonder, and has expressly charged me, for my part, to hasten his affairs. I hope he will be able to start hence about the 8th of April. He will leave over here, as lieutenant, my lord de Montpensier, with a thousand or twelve hundred lances, partly French and partly of this country, fifteen hundred Swiss, and a thousand French crossbow-men." Charles himself wrote, on the 28th of March, to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bourbon, that he would mount his horse immediately after Quasimodo [the first Sunday after Easter], to return to France without halting, or staying in any place. But Charles, whilst so speaking and projecting, was forgetful of his giddy indolence, his frivolous tastes, and his passion for theatrical display and licentious pleasure. The climate, the country, the customs of Naples charmed him. "You would never believe," he wrote to the Duke of Bourbon, "what beautiful gardens I have in this city; on my faith, they seem to me to lack only Adam and Eve to make of them an earthly paradise, so beautiful are they, and full of nice and curious things, as I hope to tell you soon. To add to that, I have found in this country the best of painters; and I will send you some of them to make the most beautiful ceilings possible. The ceilings at Beauce, Lyons, and other places in France do not approach those of this place in beauty and richness. . . . Wherefore I shall provide myself with them, and bring them with me for to have some done at Arnboise." Politics were forgotten in the presence of these royal fancies. Charles VIII. remained nearly two months at Naples after the Italian league had been concluded, and whilst it was making its preparations against him was solely concerned about enjoying, in his beautiful but precarious kingdom, "all sorts of mundane pleasaunces," as his councillor, the Cardinal of St. Malo, says, and giving entertainments to his new subjects, as much disposed as himself to forget everything in amusement. On the 12th of May, 1495, all the population of Naples and of the neighboring country was afoot early to see their new king make his entry in state as King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, with his Neapolitan court and his French army. Charles was on horseback beneath a rich dais borne by great Neapolitan lords; he had a close crown on his head, the sceptre in his right hand, and a golden globe in his left; in front of this brilliant train he took his way through the principal streets of the city, halting at the five knots of the noblesse, where the gentlemen and their wives who had assembled there detained him a long while, requesting him to be pleased to confer with his own hand the order of knighthood on their sons, which he willingly did. At last he reached the cathedral church of St. Januarius, which had recently been rebuilt by Alphonso I. of Arragon, after the earth-quake of 1456. The archbishop, at the head of his clergy, came out to meet him, and conducted him to the front of the high altar, where the head of St. Januarius was exhibited.

When all these solemnities had been accomplished to the great satisfaction of the populace, bonfires were lighted up for three days; the city was illuminated; and only a week afterwards, on the 20th of May, 1495, Charles VIII. started from Naples to return to France, with an army, at the most, from twelve to fifteen thousand strong, leaving for guardian of his new kingdom his cousin, Gilbert of Bourbon, Count de Montpensier, a brave but indolent knight (who never rose, it was said, until noon), with eight or ten thousand men, scattered for the most part throughout the provinces.

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, passing 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, God 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 passage 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-balls; ten crowns to the first man that reaches the top of the mountain before me!' Throwing off his armor, La Tremoille, in hose and shirt, himself lent a hand to the work; by dint of pulling and pushing, 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 God, 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 mass, 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 Duchess 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 skirmishing 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; God 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 God'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 bastard of Bourbon, "there is no longer time for the amusement 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.

It was very hotly contested, but did not last long, with alternations of success and reverse on both sides. The two principal 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 bastard 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 mass 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 quantity 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 Duchess 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 passing. Against which, with God'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 God 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 passage 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 lustre; 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.

Charles VIII. reigned for nearly three years longer after his return to his kingdom; and for the first two of them he passed 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 title 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 God'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 passage on his way back to the castle, he fell backwards and lost consciousness. He was laid upon a paltry paillasse 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."