Chapter XI: Charles VIII and Louis Xii--The Invasion of Italy (1)

There never was a period of history in which the efforts of
individual minds were more important in their effects than the
present. The inventions of one or two artisans on the banks
of the Rhine presented mankind with the art of printing; an
idea, a theory, springing up in the manly mind of Columbus, led
to the discovery of another hemisphere; a whim conceived by
Charles VIII, who, from hearing tales of Cæsar and Charlemagne,
suddenly became desirous of turning conqueror, had more effect
on the destinies of Europe than all those occult causes of
human progress which the philosopher of history loves to
fathom.--CROWE.[c]

CHARLES VIII (1483-1497 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1483-1515 A.D.]]

We now enter the epoch when, according to the usual computations of modern writers, the Middle Ages are passing away and modern times are being ushered in. Just at the time when Charles VIII is preparing to establish a new order of things in Europe by invading Italy, Columbus is sailing out into the western seas to discover the New World. This is the age when the new forces of the Renaissance are making themselves felt in Italy, and, to a less extent, all over Christendom. It is the age of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence, and of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; of Alexander VI, the Borgia, and of Savonarola; of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; and of Edward V and Henry VII in England. It is an age of new ideas, an age of discovery. The seat of the new culture is Italy; the centres from which the explorers start out in quest of new worlds are Spain and Portugal. France has little share in either of these movements; but she shares with the other peoples a spirit of unrest; and this spirit is to manifest itself in the attempt of Charles VIII--Charles the Little as Brantôme[b] calls him--and his immediate successors to make the conquest of Italy. A fatal ambition that! It will cost France the lives of two millions of her best men; it will gain her little else than bitter experiences. But the vain ambition of a selfish prince never yet learned to count the cost; and in this case it must be admitted that the dominant spirit of the people is in full accord with the reckless ambition of the kings.

This idea of extending the domain of France was the one thought that dominated the life of Charles VIII, after he came to maturity. Yet the first years of his reign were devoted to a very different purpose. During these earlier years, as we shall see, the weakly youth was under the control of his sister Anne de Beaujeu, who had inherited many of the traits of Louis XI, and who carried forward the policy of that crafty monarch to its logical conclusion when she succeeded in bringing the last of the great feudal fiefs under full control of the crown, through the marriage of her brother Charles with Anne of Brittany. Thus the earlier years of Charles VIII must be regarded, thanks to the influence of his sister, as continuing and perfecting that policy of the unification of France which Louis XI had carried forward so efficiently. The events of the reign, therefore, divide themselves into two sharply defined periods. The first of these, during which Charles though nominally king is really subordinate to the influence of his sister, will now claim our attention.[a]

_The Rule of Anne de Beaujeu_

Charles VIII, born June 30th, 1470, had entered his fourteenth year when his father died, and he was consequently of age by the terms of the famous ordinance of Charles V: it was therefore not necessary to establish a regency. But the government of the realm and the direction of council had been given to the first occupant, as the struggle which was to begin between the ambitions of the rivals could not be foreseen. The king, feeble of body, gave no hint of precocious talents; his minority in fact if not in law seemed as if it should be prolonged beyond the usual term.

[Sidenote: [1483-1484 A.D.]]

The true danger to the state lay less in public unrest, so easily appeased by the reforms partially foreseen and indicated by Louis XI himself, than in the pretensions of the princes of the blood to take again their baleful power which had been crushed under Louis XI. The late king, in dying, had confided his son and his authority to his daughter Anne and his son-in-law Peter de Bourbon, sire de Beaujeu. His widow, Charlotte of Savoy, trembling still at the memory of her tyrannical spouse, made no objection to this exclusion. She survived Louis only a few months. Anne of France had laboured in advance to gain the confidence of the young king, whom she inspired with a timid deference, and had attached to herself the greater part of the councillors as well as the leaders and servitors of Louis XI. Anne, who was then twenty-two years old, was the only one of the children of Louis XI who resembled him. She had the tenacity, the dissimulation, and the iron will of the late king, who had once said of her with his usual caustic manner that she was “the least foolish of women, since there were no wise women.” She proved that there was at least one, since she continued with admirable sagacity and energy all that was national in the plans of Louis XI. “She would have been worthy of the throne by her prudence and courage, if nature had not denied to her the sex upon which empire devolves.” This opinion of a contemporary is also that of posterity. Anne’s husband, a man of ripe age, of upright judgment, and a certain practical capacity, was but the first and most useful instrument of his wife. Through him she hoped to conciliate the other princes of the house of Bourbon, the duke de Bourbon and the archbishop of Lyons, brothers of the sire de Beaujeu; the old count de Montpensier, their uncle; the count de Vendôme and his son, their cousins; and the admiral de Bourbon, their bastard brother. The natural rival of Anne and her husband was the other son-in-law of Louis XI, the first prince of the blood, the duke Louis of Orleans, whose birth gave him the place of honour in the council. The name of Orleans awakened sad memories. But Duke Louis was hardly twenty-one years of age; repressed during the whole of his first years under the iron hand of his terrible father-in-law, bound from his infancy to a woman worthy of esteem for her gentleness and kindness, but whose exterior repulsed every other sentiment, it was not ambition to which he devoted the first days of his liberty. He emancipated himself more like a schoolboy than a prince, and broke rein only to throw himself body and soul into a whirl of pleasure. Women, gambling, tournaments, horses, the pleasures of the table, left him little inclination for the cares of politics. He preferred courting women, breaking lances, jumping ditches “fifteen feet wide,” to discussing royal edicts. Meanwhile he shared with the Bourbons the semblance of power, and his cousin, Dunois, son and heritor of the great count de Dunois, a most able man, and accustomed to diplomatic intrigues, spared nothing to draw him in the direction of duty. All who remained of the members and allies of the royal house had hastened to sit in council, and the first letters and edicts of Charles VIII are signed by several among them.

Some acts of indispensable reparation and amends signalised the beginning of the new régime. All who had suffered, all who had been offended, oppressed, justly or unjustly, under the late king--that is to say, nearly everyone in the kingdom--urgently demanded justice. The people clamoured loudly for the abolition of duties, and the punishment of the “wicked councillors” of Louis XI. A host of great noblemen, the count du Perche, the children of the duke de Nemours, the count de Bresse, the brother of the last count d’Armagnac, the prince of Orange, and very many others asked, some of them liberty, others restitution of property which had been confiscated. The duke, René de Lorraine, came in his turn to reclaim the duchy of Bar, and the county of Provence as the heritage of his mother. Claims threatened to go very far.

From the 22nd of September, all alienations of the royal domain, made for the benefit of either the church or private individuals, were revoked. The necessity for that measure could not be contested. The count du Perche was liberated from the cruel prison where he languished, and recovered the duchy of Alençon, confiscated but lately in spite of the just title of his father. The duke John de Bourbon, who had endured many affronts and vexations from Louis XI during the last years, was created lieutenant-general of the realm, and invested with the office of constable, vacant since the death of the count of Saint-Pol. This was the most powerful of the princes of the blood, by reason of the extent of his domains, but his infirmities and love of repose made him hardly equal to active participation in the government; his sister-in-law asked of him only the support of his name. The count de Dunois acquired a large pension with the governorship of Dauphiné, while the duke of Orleans became lieutenant-general of the Île-de-France, Picardy, and Champagne. The prince of Orange and the count de Bresse were again put in possession of their lands. This was only justice--at least to the prince of Orange, since the Treaty of Arras had stipulated reciprocal amnesty for all events relating to the war of the Burgundian Succession. The duke René of Lorraine, thanks to the support of the duke de Bourbon and Madame de Beaujeu, who expected to make use of the hero of Nancy against the princes of Orleans, obtained the restitution of Barrois, without re-embursement of the sums for which the king held Bar in pledge, a company of one hundred lancers, and 3,600 francs annually for four years, “during which time the claims of the count of Provence should be investigated.” Madame Anne did not intend to go further than the concession of Barrois and wished only to gain time in regard to Provence. According to feudal law, the pretensions of René were justified: female succession was so thoroughly admitted in Provence that two women had successively brought this county into the two houses of Anjou; but another law, more conformable to reason and the nature of things, tending to be substituted in place of feudal law, was that of French nationality recognised and accepted by Provence.

These favours accorded to the princes were accompanied by harsh measures against the most odious of the ministers of the former reign. Oliver le Dain, count de Meulan, was sacrificed to popular vindictiveness, and Doyat to the resentment of the duke de Bourbon, whose follower he had been, and whom he had gravely offended. Oliver was condemned to death for various crimes, among others for having secretly killed a prisoner whose wife had sacrificed her honour to him as the price of her husband’s life; the barber count de Meulan was hanged on the gibbet of Montfaucon, and his properties were given to the duke of Orleans. Doyat was beaten with rods at the pillory of the market-place, and lost both his ears, after having had his tongue pierced by a hot iron--punishment reserved for blasphemers and calumniators. One of his ears was cut off at Paris, the other at Montferrand, where he had filled the office of royal bailiff. The physician Coitier was relieved from the loss of his lands and castles by a ransom of 50,000 crowns.

Public sentiment demanded more than the punishment of a few wretches. The princes, divided among themselves, little known to the people, who had for them hardly any affection or fear, felt the impossibility of maintaining the despotic rule of Louis XI, and the necessity of having recourse to a national authority to obtain the obedience of the masses. The people would not have failed to resist universally the continuation of arbitrary taxation. This law reacted with irresistible force against the existing tyranny: a thousand voices repeated that “no king nor lord had the power to levy one denier on his subjects and on the revenues of his domain without the concession and consent of the people.” Comines, the admirer of Louis XI, devotes a whole chapter to the discussion of this principle, which he declares not only equitable but essential to the prosperity of states, and regrets profoundly that the late king had not respected it. “In England,” said he, “the kings can undertake no great enterprise, nor levy any subsidies without assembling parliament, which equals the three estates, and which is a just and holy thing.” And he declares that “men who enjoy credit and authority without in the least meriting them” are the only ones who fear the great assemblies, since they will through them be known for the little they are worth. The king’s council, on the proposition of the duke of Orleans, decided the convocation of the states-general at Tours, for the 5th of January, 1484, in spite of the outcries of some persons “of small importance, and little virtue, who said it was a crime of _lèse majesté_ to talk of assembling the estates, and would tend to diminish the authority of the king.” The friends of “Madame” as Anne of France was called, and those of the duke of Orleans, were agreed upon that important question. Each of the two parties which began to outline itself in the council hoped for the assistance of the estates against the other.

The record of state of 1484, drawn up by one of the most trustworthy members of the order of the clergy, Jean Masselin, official of the archbishopric of Rouen, has been preserved to us. It is the most explicit account we possess of the national assemblies of France, before the sixteenth century. It is of great interest, and it preserves for us the memory of most important incidents. Nevertheless the states of 1484 became less remarkable for their actions than for their mode of action, that is, innovations practised in the system of election. Louis XI, in 1468, had already overturned the old form of the estates, but without substituting definitely a new form in the place of the old. The daughter of Louis XI, and the members of the council who nursed the project of the late king in the midst of a feudal reaction, effaced from the elections all trace of feudality, completing and regulating the work of Louis. Before Louis XI, the estates were composed only of the immediate feudatories of the king--prelates, barons, representatives of the _bonnes villes_, and the ecclesiastical or lay committees held by the crown.

In the estates of 1484 the elections were made after a uniform regulation, by bailiwicks and _sénéchaussées_, by purely administrative divisions; the electors were convoked not as feudatories of the king, but as subjects of the realm; and for the first time the peasants, at least the free peasants, were called upon to take part in operations of first degree; they sent delegates from the villages to the lesser bailiwicks or provostships, where the electors of the third degree were chosen, who in the head-quarters of the bailiwick elected the deputies of the third estate. The social importance of such a change needs no commentary. There is now a real third estate, embracing the whole body of the people. The peasant is no longer the chattel of the lord of the manor, the appendix of the fief; he is the equal of the citizen, he is a member of the third estate.

This is not all; the same spirit of unity and equality, at least relative, is manifested in the regulation applied to the two privileged orders. There, all vote directly and not by triple degree; and not only do the lower clergy elect representatives, but the bishops are admitted to the estates only when they have the votes of the ecclesiastical order, and not by virtue of their episcopal title. In the nobility as well, no great baron is member of the estates unless elected by the noblemen. The three orders, under this régime, appear like three superimposed nations, in which equality reigns. It is here the great difference appears between the democratic spirit of France and the aristocratic spirit of England.

The only exceptions to the new rules were those provinces which were administered by annual provincial estates, and which continued to choose their deputies in their provincial estates, without resorting to popular assemblies of three degrees. This is true at least of Languedoc, and resulted, as a rule, in a veritable political inferiority of those countries formerly so much in advance of the others, their provincial estates retaining an oligarchical character in presence of a transformation wholly democratic.[g]

The king’s minority and the factions at court seemed no unfavourable omens for liberty. But a scheme was artfully contrived which had the most direct tendency to break the force of a popular assembly. The deputies were classed in six nations, who debated in separate chambers, and consulted each other only upon the result of their respective deliberations. It was easy for the court to foment the jealousies natural to such a partition. Two nations, the Norman and the Burgundian, asserted that the right of providing for the regency devolved, in the king’s minority, upon the states-general; a claim of great boldness, and certainly not much founded upon precedent. In virtue of this, they proposed to form a council, not only of the princes, but of certain deputies to be elected by the six nations who composed the states. But the other four, those of Paris, Aquitaine, Languedoc, and Languedoïl (which last comprised the central provinces), rejected this plan, from which the two former ultimately desisted, and the choice of councillors was left to the princes.

A firmer and more unanimous spirit was displayed upon the subject of public reformation. The tyranny of Louis XI had been so unbounded that all ranks agreed in calling for redress, and the new governors were desirous at least, by punishing his favourites, to show their inclination towards a change of system. They were very far, however, from approving the propositions of the states-general. These went to points which no court can bear to feel touched, though there is seldom any other mode of redressing public abuses--the profuse expense of the royal household, the number of pensions and improvident grants, the excessive establishment of troops. The states explicitly demanded that the taille and all other arbitrary imposts should be abolished; and that from thenceforward, “according to the natural liberty of France,” no tax should be levied in the kingdom without the consent of the states. It was with great difficulty, and through the skilful management of the court, that they consented to the collection of the taxes payable in the time of Charles VII, with the addition of one-fourth, as a gift to the king upon his accession. This subsidy they declare to be granted “by way of gift and concession, and not otherwise, and so as no one should from thenceforward call it a tax, but a gift and concession.” And this was only to be in force for two years, after which they stipulated that another meeting should be convoked. But it was little likely that the government would encounter such a risk; and the princes, whose factious views the states had by no means seconded, felt no temptation to urge again their convocation. No assembly in the annals of France seems, notwithstanding some party selfishness arising out of the division into nations, to have conducted itself with so much public spirit and moderation; nor had that country perhaps ever so fair a prospect of establishing a legitimate constitution.[j]

The most serious question which the estates had to determine was that of regulating the composition of the council and deciding to whom the care and education of the king should be confided. The deputies would have liked to conciliate the princes without clashing with them. However, in the course of examining the various projects submitted to them, they were led to inquire if the states-general were invested with the constituent power. The opinion that this was so was shared by the most eminent members of the assembly, especially by those belonging to the order of the clergy, and had for interpreter an eloquent deputy of the Burgundian nobility, the sire de la Roche. He demonstrated that no absolute, fundamental rule for the administration of the kingdom during the minority or childhood of the king existed in France; that neither was the right of the princes in such circumstances in any way definite or precise. In consequence he maintained that it was for the nation, that is for the estates, to constitute the government in moments of crisis. He presented a theoretical and philosophic analysis of the principle of the sovereignty such as might be laid down in the schools; then he passed in review the history of preceding assemblies and showed that several of them, called together under exceptional circumstances, had exercised a genuine constituent power.

In spite of the weight of this justly celebrated speech, the estates shrank from the danger of entering into a struggle with the council and the princes. They preferred to attempt an amiable conciliation of the different claims. It was not easy to come to an understanding even on this basis; for each day brought new difficulties. “It was,” says Masselin, “the seven-headed hydra. Cut one and two grow in its place.” Finally it was agreed that the duke of Orleans should have the first place at the council and the presidency in the young king’s absence; the duke de Bourbon and the sire de Beaujeu the second and third places; that the other princes of the blood should have the right to take their seats there after them; that all the existing councillors should be retained and that twelve new councillors, taken from the six bureaux of the estates, should be added to them.[k]

_The Struggle with the Duke of Orleans_

[Sidenote: [1484-1488 A.D.]]

The discontent of the duke of Orleans was not appeased by the decision of the states. He was a handsome, frank, amiable man, not naturally inclined to be turbulent; but as first prince of the blood, and heir presumptive to the throne, it was derogatory to his pride and spirit to remain tranquil, while deprived of all influence by a woman. Dunois, son of the famous bastard of Orleans, was his chief friend and councillor--a man as fond of intrigue, apparently, as his stout sire had been of battle. The dukes of Lorraine and Bourbon seemed at first inclined to join him, but both were won over by the lady Anne; Bourbon, the elder brother of the lord of Beaujeu, being made constable. Orleans tried every expedient to shake the authority of the king’s sister. He sought to make himself popular in the capital, and to bring its citizens to declare in his favour. He tried the parliament also; but its president, La Vaquerie, replied that it was not their interest or duty to interfere in a private struggle for power. Orleans was soon after closely pressed by La Trémouille at the head of a superior army, and obliged to make submission; Dunois being banished to Asti, a town in Italy which the duke of Orleans inherited from his grandmother, Valentine of Milan.

Such a forced submission could not conduce to a lasting peace. Dunois soon afterwards returned from exile. There was a plot for carrying off the king, which failed, and the duke of Orleans was obliged to take refuge in Brittany. The gay and fascinating manners of the French prince entirely won the good will of Francis, the reigning duke. He was without male heirs; and his daughter, as inheritor of the duchy, was a rich prize for an ambitious prince. It is said that the duke of Orleans became a suitor for the hand of Anne, and that Duke Francis favoured his pretensions.[61] But the native nobles of the province were jealous of the duke of Orleans and of his influence with their prince. They leagued with the lady of Beaujeu against both; and a French army, supported by a great body of Bretons, soon after besieged the dukes of Brittany and Orleans in Nantes. There were two other pretenders to the hand of the heiress of Brittany: the sire d’Albret, a rich lord of Gascony, into whose family the crown of Navarre had passed from that of Fox. The duke of Orleans, in prosecuting his own suit, affected to support this competitor. The other was Maximilian, king of the Romans. A timely succour sent by this prince obliged the French to raise the siege of Nantes; and the lady of Beaujeu betraying a disposition to conquer the duchy, and to garrison and appropriate its towns, the Bretons became suspicious, abandoned her, and resumed their allegiance to the duke. The war nevertheless continued. The troops on both sides met at St. Aubin, and a battle ensued. The French were commanded by La Trémouille; the prince of Orange and duke of Orleans led on the Bretons. The French gendarmerie, having routed the cavalry opposed to them, took the Bretons in flank and rear, and routed them. The duke of Orleans and the prince of Orange were both taken prisoners. They were startled to perceive a confessor enter their tent in the evening. La Trémouille, who saw and enjoyed their consternation, reassured them by observing that it was only for the inferior rebels to clear their consciences and prepare for death.

[Sidenote: [1488-1491 A.D.]]

An accommodation followed this defeat. The duke of Brittany made submissions, and survived but a short time. He was the last duke of the province, which now descended to his daughter Anne. There was another sister, who, as she died soon after, need not be more than mentioned. Affairs were now as unsettled as ever. The count d’Albret, seconded by a strong party of Bretons, who above all things aimed at the independence of their duchy, pushed his suit with the young heiress. The addresses of this aged noble could not be agreeable to a princess of fourteen. The duke of Orleans, the object of her predilection, was in prison. The armies of France were invading the duchy, and it behoved her to espouse a prince capable of defending her dominions. The resolution was taken that she should be married to Maximilian, king of the Romans, and the ceremony was accordingly performed by proxy; the archduke’s ambassador, to conclude it, putting a naked leg into the couch of the young duchess. Hitherto the aim of king Charles and his regent sister had been to conquer the duchy by force of arms, laying claim to it as a male fief. Charles had been long betrothed to Margaret of Austria, Maximilian’s daughter, who was then receiving her education in the French court, and awaiting the age of nubility. The stubbornness of the Bretons, however, made the lady of Beaujeu despair of her project. The ever-ready Dunois, in order to make his own peace and procure the liberty of the duke of Orleans, proposed that Charles should espouse the young duchess himself, and thus unite Brittany to the kingdom. Charles and his sister instantly entered into this scheme. The king, with a kingly generosity, began by setting the duke of Orleans, his secret rival, at liberty. This the monarch did without consulting his sister; nor was his generosity abused, for the duke remained ever after faithful to him, and even seconded his purpose of espousing Anne. Dunois, on his side, laboured to render the duchess less hostile to France. Anne still held with all the faithfulness of a wife to Maximilian, to whom she was nominally betrothed. An ostensible act of compulsion was deemed requisite to overcome her reluctance. A royal army besieged her in Rennes. One of the conditions of the capitulation was that she should espouse the king of France.[c]

(From an old French engraving)]

The marriage festivities which united Brittany to France took place at Langeais-Touraine. The pope declared the former marriage of Anne and Maximilian null and void, and the new queen was conducted to Paris to be crowned. All these negotiations took place in the greatest secrecy, as it was desired to conceal them from the envoy of Maximilian. The king of the Romans was doubly insulted. Charles VIII took from him a princess whom he had already married by proxy, and sent back to him his daughter Margaret, educated in Paris, since the Treaty of Arras, and destined to the throne of France. When the time came to declare the marriage, it was shown that Maximilian had been the first to violate the Treaty of Arras, that he had never ceased to make war against France for fourteen years, and that he had not respected the conventions of Frankfort or Plessis-les-Tours.

[Sidenote: [1491-1492 A.D.]]

The contract was made with much artfulness. Charles VIII and Anne gave up all their rights, their reciprocal pretensions which it was useless to pronounce upon. It was stipulated that these rights should be combined in the persons of the children born of this marriage; that if there were none, and the king should die, the duchess could not contract a second marriage except with his successor or the heir presumptive to the crown, on pain of losing the duchy.

The province demanded the maintenance of its privileges, which were confirmed (declaration of July 7th, 1492). It preserved its particular estates, its supreme court of justice, which sixty years later became the parliament of Rennes, and its independent administration. It was assimilated in every respect with Dauphiné, Languedoc, Provence, and Burgundy, but it ceased to be a sovereign state, to become like those countries one of the members of the body of the monarchy. It is annoying that we cannot to-day follow, step by step, the artful conduct of the duchess of Bourbon. However that may be, she had at that time achieved her ends, and scored a complete triumph. Brittany was joined permanently to France; the princes were reconciled, in a definite manner this time. Finally Charles VIII arrived at man’s estate, and having nothing to fear of internal conspiracies, could defy those of foreign countries.

Meanwhile the coalition, which had shown too little activity to hinder the reunion with Brittany, was too strongly opposed to it to accept it without protest. A war might be expected, or at least great diplomatic difficulties. Henry VII, Maximilian, and Ferdinand the Catholic protested in common against an act which the latter called an unheard-of and execrable fraud. They agreed to attack France on her different frontiers. But the king of England was in a measure the only one to act. Ferdinand, for the last twelve years, was directing all his forces against Granada, and in spite of the triumph of his officers, who raised the Christian flag there in February, 1492, he could undertake nothing against France, unless it was to continue the hostilities on the frontier of Roussillon, which had never been interrupted. Maximilian, obliged to submit to Hungary, and to make war against the Turks, could the less wage war on the frontier of Artois, as he continued to be hampered by the ill will of the Flemish towns. Henry VII, on the contrary, had full liberty of action, and, what made him more dangerous, he never acted on calculation or on personal resentment. It was the national sentiment of England which protested against the aggrandisement of France. The English rightly regarded the union of Brittany with the rest of the monarchy as a fatal blow to their hopes of some day regaining Normandy and Guienne. Henry VII therefore declared war against Charles VIII; however, in yielding to the enthusiasm of his subjects, he took very little part in it; for, if the historian of his reign, the chancellor Bacon, is to be believed, he proposed alone to obtain the subsidies from parliament by flattering national vanity, and to sell to France as dearly as possible his recognition of the acquisition of Brittany.

[Sidenote: [1492-1493 A.D.]]

Charles VIII had to oppose the English regular army, already increased, whose augmentation had brought taxes up to the figure of 2,300,000 livres. He collected all his supporters and obliged the principal towns of the realm to furnish him with men-at-arms. He called to his court also Perkin Warbeck, whom the Yorkists of England represented as a pretended son of Edward IV and a rival of Henry VII.

The latter passed the Channel, but not before October, after long delays, and besieged Boulogne, which would have strengthened the position on the continent which Calais already assured him. Arriving under the walls of the fortress, he found there much stronger resistance than he had expected; he received no aid from the Netherlands, and he heard that the Spaniards had begun separate negotiations with Charles VIII. These reasons decided him to sign a treaty at Étaples in the month of November. He contented himself with the payment of large sums by France as indemnity for the English troops which had served in Brittany, or as amends for the rupture of the Treaty of Picquigny and interruption of the payment of subsidies promised to Edward IV by Louis XI.

Charles VIII had undertaken separate negotiations with Ferdinand the Catholic. Roussillon and Cerdagne were objects of litigation between the crowns of Aragon and France, which had already lasted more than thirty years. Charles VIII finished by purely and simply restoring those two provinces, without even exacting reimbursement of the sums lent by Louis XI. The treaty was signed at Barcelona in January, 1493. France felt a certain astonishment at this abandonment of pretensions, on the subject of which all former offers of compromise had been refused. But notwithstanding that the question of law was not a simple one, and that the different acts of Louis XI had greatly complicated it, Charles VIII considered that, in buying the friendship of Spain at such a price, he would attain the dissolution of the coalition, assure to himself the possession of Brittany, and finally open an unobstructed road into Italy. He then made preparations to force the realm of Naples to respect the rights inherited by Louis XI through the princes of the house of Anjou. The king of Spain promised at Barcelona not to hinder his march to Italy in any way, and to furnish no aid to Ferdinand of Naples, who was of a bastard branch of Aragon, and even to aid the pretensions of France at the court of Rome, sovereign of the Two Sicilies.

There remained still Maximilian and his son, the archduke Philip, then fourteen years of age. Although these princes were for the time not redoubtable, a treaty with them presented more difficulties, as they had been more personally offended, and in sending back the princess Margaret it was not possible to preserve her dowry, stipulated in the Treaty of Arras, that is to say of Artois and Franche-Comté. Already disturbances had broken out in the two provinces. Arras, which remembered the cruelties of Louis XI, had driven out her French garrison the day after the Treaty of Étaples. Franche-Comté became insurgent in its turn. Charles VIII by a last treaty signed May 23rd, 1493, at Senlis, restored the counties of Burgundy, Artois, Charolais, and Noyon. He contented himself by sequestrating the fortresses of Hesdin, Aire, and Béthune, until the day when Philip, having reached his majority, paid him homage; and to stipulate the restitution of Tournay, Mortagne, and St. Amand, towns of the ancient domain of the crown. Maximilian finished by accepting these conditions, which after all he was not in a position to refuse; for although his ambition was cosmopolitan, the extensiveness of his dominions and the multiplicity of interests which called him every year to a new point of Europe never permitted him to pursue to the end any enterprise of long duration. His thoughts were now turning towards the imperial throne, which the death of his father Frederick III allowed him to mount a few months later. The French government wished that, following usage, the Peace of Senlis should be guaranteed by the principal towns of Flanders, Hainault, and Artois, such as Ypres, Namur, Arras, and Valenciennes.

Historians have often reproached Charles VIII with having signed oppressive treaties at Étaples, Barcelona, and Senlis, and above all to have partly restored by the last the power of the house of Burgundy, which had been previously weakened by the Treaty of Arras. Here was in effect a sad offset to the acquisition of Brittany; but the choice had to be made between Anne and Margaret, between Brittany and Franche-Comté. If Charles VIII made a blunder it was at least more excusable than that of Louis XI, who had never been placed in the same position.

Charles VIII has also been reproached with having sacrificed the frontier and French-speaking provinces in seeking aggrandisement and conquests in a country so far removed as Italy. The conquests in Italy were bound to be ephemeral. It had been necessary in the peninsula to battle for half a century without retaining in the end a single inch of ground.

Much more would have been attained by extending the northern frontier, which was too near Paris, and by attaching again to France the provinces which gravitated around her. But it was forgotten that Charles VIII, in sending back Margaret, had no claim worth considering on Franche-Comté or the Netherlands; that he had consequently on this side no motive for war, and that he could not undertake such a war without running foul of the empire and of allied Europe.

Italy offered no such dangers. If prudence had, until now, hindered him from interfering in her revolutions, Charles VIII, having no longer any interior questions to regulate, was in a much better position than his father or grandfather had ever been. It is thus the treaties of 1492 and 1493 should be understood. In France they were judged rather unfavourably, which was natural, since they stipulated concessions and restitutions; but they were not as has been said the result of the heedless enthusiasm of a young king, sacrificing the manifest interests of his realm to the passion for foreign conquest.[k]

_Charles VIII in Italy_

As already suggested, the acquisition of Brittany marks the conclusion of the first period of the reign of Charles VIII. The king was now of an age to shake off the leading-strings of his sister. He was old enough to have a policy of his own, and he was soon to show that he had one. It was a policy dominated by a single thought--the conquest of Italy. In putting that sinister policy into effect, Charles VIII inaugurated a new era in French history; a new era, indeed, in the history of all Europe. France was now the most closely unified kingdom in all Europe; it aspired to become an empire.

The idea of the invasion of Italy was no doubt suggested by the fact that certain claims upon the kingdom of Naples had been bequeathed to Louis XI by Charles II of Anjou. Solicited by disaffected Neapolitans and by Lodovico Sforza, duke of Milan, Charles VIII now determined to go to Italy and make good his hereditary claims.[62][a]

The thought of an expedition to Italy was most seductive to a prince as young as Charles VIII, nourished on traditions of chivalry, in which the study of antiquity was mingled with souvenirs of Cæsar and Alexander. It was equally seductive to the nobility, the army, and the whole country, as flattering to the national vanity. Since the Crusades no great foreign enterprises had been undertaken by the kings in the name of the nation. The campaigns of Du Guesclin in Spain, of John the Fearless at Nicopolis, of the princes of Anjou at Naples, had been only private expeditions and had not involved France. The war in Italy reopened the era of great conquests.

In addition, this was an important epoch in French history as well as in that of all Europe. The old political system was upset. The empire was nothing more than a name at the head of what was still called Christianity. France seeking aggrandisement, the result was the prevalence of an idea of a necessary equilibrium among the great powers. This idea was not entirely new. The growth of France under Louis XI, the marriage of Maximilian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy, had already conduced to its formation. The powers observed how the rôle of diplomacy gradually grew, and conquests formed their necessary counterpoise in coalitions.

Without going back to reminiscences of the brother of St. Louis, and the protectorate assumed by France over the Guelfs of Italy two centuries before, it may be well to recall the expeditions, undertaken by the princes of the younger branch of Anjou, to seize the crown of Naples. Louis II, René, John of Calabria, had, one after the other, claimed a succession regarded in France as a legitimate inheritance. René of Lorraine would again have followed that example in 1486, if the news that the great Angevin barons were treating with the house of Aragon had not stopped him, almost at the moment of departure. Men’s minds were occupied with what Comines called “the smoke and glories of Italy.” Louis XI had exercised some sort of a protectorate over the different states of the peninsula, governing Savoy and Montferrat by French princes; all-powerful at Milan; refusing the sovereignty of Genoa, which was offered to him; intervening as mediator in the dispute between Rome and Tuscany. Pius II has already stated that the greater part of the princes and people of Italy were more French than the French themselves, _Gallis Galliores_.

The Orient was also thought of. The prediction of a crusade renewed by Pius II and Sixtus IV, after the entrance of Muhammed II into Constantinople, the terror with which the Turks inspired Europe, the growth of their conquests which had not slackened, the recent heroic defence of the walls of Rhodes by Pierre d’Aubusson, grand-master of the knights of St. John, carried back public thoughts to memories whose vividness time could not alter. Although times had changed, the brilliancy and glory of the Crusades had not been forgotten. It was indeed all that tradition had kept up after two centuries. Moreover the military strength was much greater, and inspired another confidence than that of former times. If the route of Charles of Anjou were followed, the Ottoman empire could not be attacked before being sure of a base of operations at Naples, and it was hoped that the Greek Christians would rise at sight of the banners of the new crusaders.

In reality the oriental question had been asked; Europe was interested in solving it. Preparations were being made for the expedition into Italy. Each time that great events take place, public opinion is excited and the dominant ideas of the times reveal themselves in one way or another. It was now the first period of the Renaissance, in which the savants caused a perpetual confusion of antiquity and modern society.

Ancient memories had therefore a peculiar influence. Guillaume de Villeneuve, officer and historian of Charles VIII, Jean Bouchet, author of _The Life of De la Trémouille_, Comines himself, in the latter part of his memoirs--all abused ancient history, from which they borrowed a long list of comparisons; they even took occasion to compare the crossing of the Alps by the king to the similar feats of Hannibal and Cæsar.

Italy has always exercised a great and natural fascination, due to the beauty of the land and its cities, the splendour of its civilisation. The presence of so many monuments of antiquity, the study and appreciation of which had begun, had so much attraction for the French nobility, whom the Italians haughtily regarded as “barbarians,” but who were far from meriting this title. The French had indeed an exaggerated idea of a country less known than we should be inclined to suppose, since nations were far from having the same intercourse that they have at the present day.

Charles VIII was, according to the Italians, who have portraits of him, small, of insignificant appearance, and expressed himself with difficulty. The desire for pleasure seemed to dominate him, and he is reproached with caring only for the chase, for dogs, falcons, and horses. The Tuscan and Venetian envoys at his court refused for a long time to believe that he could ever become a conqueror. They recognised, however, that he showed a certain natural ardour, when he assisted regularly at the reunions of his council, and reserved the decisions to himself. Nearly two years were consecrated to the necessary preparations. The enterprise, without being officially announced, was no secret to anyone. The Italian states were engrossed in it, and, with the exception of Milan, sent embassy after embassy to the court of France, to spy upon its actions, divine its intentions, and avert a project which menaced them all. The envoys, Florentines and others, whose correspondence has come down to us, showed infinite ability and genius in a series of delicate and difficult negotiations. But nothing proves more clearly the weakness of the government they were trying to serve than their tendency to intrigue, their perplexity, their suspicion, combined with self-deception and the duplicity of some of them.

[Sidenote: [1493-1494 A.D.]]

Charles VIII, on his side also, sent envoys beyond the Alps. He wished to isolate the king of Naples, to entangle the different states in an offensive alliance against him, or at least obtain their neutrality, but a neutrality favourable to free passage over their lands. Above all he scrutinised closely the court of Rome. As he had had his rights to southern Italy examined by the parliament and the parliament had declared them valid, he demanded a similar declaration from the pope, sovereign of the crown of Naples. Alexander VI could not be relied upon very strongly--a Spaniard by birth whose election had been opposed by the French; but it was hoped to frighten him by threatening to uphold his personal enemies, who were many, and by demanding a general reform in the church, a reform equally desired by France and demanded by Maximilian and Ferdinand the Catholic.

Much as it was hoped also to find allies and resources in Italy, nothing was neglected for raising a large army, well equipped, and which should be sufficient in itself. Men-at-arms were not wanting. The difficulty was in organising them--the artillery, the wagons, and the ships necessary. Money was also needed, and to raise it every means in usage in such a case was employed. The pensions paid to the king were reduced for half a year; the treasurers were made to give advances; different loans were obtained, and an assessment was made on the banks of Milan and Genoa, and on Italian merchants; finally a particular tax was made on the clergy, under the form of a forced loan, as well as on the states of Languedoc, and several cities of the realm. All these negotiations required time, and were not concluded without difficulty. Paris and the other cities presented remonstrances, from which the Italian ambassadors concluded that the war was not popular and would not materialise.

The pecuniary difficulties, the inevitable length of the preparations, the boldness of the enterprise, the uncertainty of the political situation in Europe gave rise to a natural opposition. Several of the former councillors of Louis XI, such as M. d’Argenton (Comines), and the sire de Graville, grand admiral, expressed their doubts and fears. The duke de Bourbon saw with regret the abandonment of the prudent policy which he had followed until then, but neither he nor the duchess was any longer master of the government. Des Querdes maintained that, if it were desirable to make conquests, it would be better to look for them in the Netherlands rather than in Italy. Meanwhile the opponents generally held themselves in reserve, and sought rather to moderate the enthusiasm than to combat it.

The general rendezvous was to be at Lyons. Des Querdes, who was to have the command, died before the departure. The king resolved therefore to place himself in person at the head of his troops. He arrived at Lyons in the month of April, 1494; but preparations were not completed, and he had to wait several months before entering upon the campaign. Ships were wanting, and it became necessary to construct a certain number for transporting one division of artillery. At last the departure took place in the month of September, although no tents, pavilions, nor other necessaries were at hand.[k]

[Sidenote: [1494-1495 A.D.]]

The details of the incidents of this memorable tour[63] have already been given in our history of Italy, and need not be repeated here. We have there seen how Charles VIII was permitted to enter Florence as the friend of the people, yet came with all the presumption of a conqueror; how he went to Rome and was there received with the outward semblance of friendship by Alexander VI; and how he entered Naples and took the nominal kingship of that realm without striking a blow. It will be recalled that while the king lingered in Naples, antagonistic princes gathered in the north of Italy, and attempted to intercept the French army on its return. The French army, fatigued from its long march, and only about nineteen thousand strong, with five or six thousand servitors or guards of the transport in its train, met the Italian army of at least thirty thousand fresh and well-supplied men in the duchy of Parma near the castle of Fornovo on the right bank of the Taro, on the 5th of July, 1495.[a]

It was a brief but sharply fought battle with alternations of success and defeat for both armies. The two chief officers of the royal forces, Louis de la Trémouille and Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, sustained without wavering the shock of troops far more numerous than their own. “At their throats--at their throats!” cried La Trémouille after the first counter, and his three hundred men fell upon the enemy with sufficient force to break their ranks. During the heat of the battle the French baggage wagons were attacked by the _stradiots_, a Greek corps recruited and paid by the Venetians. “Let them alone!” shouted Trivulzio to his troops; “their ardour for pillage will make them forget everything else and we can the more easily overcome them.” At one time the king was in advance of the main body of his guard and had neglected to see if they were closely following. He approached to within a hundred feet of the marquis of Mantua, who, seeing him so slimly accompanied, charged at him with all his cavalry. “It is not possible,” says Comines,[d] “to strike harder blows than were given on both sides.” The king, closely pressed and surrounded, defended himself valiantly against those who sought to take him. The bastard Matthew de Bourbon, his brother-at-arms and one of the bravest knights of the army, rushed forward twenty steps in advance of the king to protect him, and had just been taken prisoner when a large body of the royal troops came to the rescue of both and delivered them from peril. It was in this engagement that Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard, at that time scarcely twenty years of age but destined later to achieve such fame, performed his first feats of arms.[64] He had two horses killed under him, and took one standard, which he presented to the king, being rewarded by the latter after the battle with a gift of 500 crowns.[e]

[Sidenote: [1495-1498 A.D.]]

As a result of the battle Charles VIII and his troops were allowed to continue their march unmolested; but their return to France partook somewhat of the nature of a retreat. It was not to be expected that a territory so distant as Naples could be held subordinate to the French crown without difficulty; and while Charles himself and his followers no doubt regarded the expedition as a great success, it was really in the sober view of posterity a most lamentable enterprise. It was fraught with all manner of deplorable sequels, as we shall see. But of course the French people could not be expected to anticipate future events, and for the moment they were able to welcome their king back to Paris as a conqueror and a hero.[a]

_Death of Charles VIII_