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.

[Illustration: Battle of Fornovo----303]

It was very hotly contested, but did not last long, with alternations of
success and reverse on both sides.  The two 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.

[Illustration: CASTLE OF AMBOISE----308]

Charles VIII. reigned for nearly three years longer after his return to
his kingdom; and for the first two of them he 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."




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

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

Outside of France, Milaness [the Milanese district] was Louis XII.'s
first thought, at his accession, and the first object of his desire.  He
looked upon it as his patrimony.  His grandmother, Valentine Visconti,
widow of that Duke of Orleans who had been assassinated at Paris in 1407
by order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had been the last to
inherit the duchy of Milan, which the Sforzas, in 1450, had seized.
When Charles VIII. invaded Italy in 1494, "Now is the time," said Louis,
"to enforce the rights of Valentine Visconti, my grandmother, to
Milaness."  And he, in fact, asserted them openly, and proclaimed his
intention of vindicating them so soon as he found the moment propitious.
When he became king, his chance of success was great.  The Duke of
Milan, Ludovic, the Moor, had by his sagacity and fertile mind, by his
taste for arts and sciences and the intelligent patronage he bestowed
upon them, by his ability in speaking, and by his facile character,
obtained in Italy a position far beyond his real power. Leonardo da
Vinci, one of the most eminent amongst the noble geniuses of the age,
lived on intimate terms with him; but Ludovic was, nevertheless, a
turbulent rascal and a greedy tyrant, of whom those who did not profit
by his vices or the enjoyments of his court were desirous of being
relieved.  He had, moreover, embroiled himself with his neighbors the
Venetians, who were watching for an opportunity of aggrandizing
themselves at his expense.  As early as the 20th of April, 1498, a
fortnight after his accession, Louis XII. addressed to the Venetians a
letter "most gracious," says the contemporary chronicler Marino Sanuto,
"and testifying great good-will;" and the special courier who brought it
declared that the king had written to nobody in Italy except the pope,
the Venetians, and the Florentines.  The Venetians did not care to
neglect such an opening; and they at once sent three ambassadors to
Louis XII.  Louis heard the news thereof with marked satisfaction.  "I
have never seen Zorzi," said he, "but I know him well; as for Loredano,
I like him much; he has been at this court before, some time ago."  He
gave them a reception on the 12th of August, at Etampes, "not in a
palace," says one of the senate's private correspondents, "but at the
Fountain inn. You will tell me that so great a king ought not to put up
at an inn; but I shall answer you that in this district of Etampes the
best houses are as yet the inns.  There is certainly a royal castle, in
the which lives the queen, the wife of the deceased king; nevertheless
his Majesty was pleased to give audience in this hostelry, all covered
expressly with cloth of Alexandrine velvet, with lilies of gold at the
spot where the king was placed.  As soon as the speech was ended, his
Majesty rose up and gave quite a brotherly welcome to the brilliant
ambassadors.  The king has a very good countenance, a smiling
countenance; he is forty years of age, and appears very active in make.
To-day, Monday, August 13, the ambassadors were received at a private
audience."

[Illustration: Louis XII----310]

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

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

"Unless necessity constrain him thereto," says Machiavelli [treatise Du
Prince, ch.  xxi.], "a prince ought never to form alliance with one
stronger than himself in order to attack others, for, the most powerful
being victor, thou remainest, thyself, at his discretion, and princes
ought to avoid, as much as ever they can, being at another's discretion.
The Venetians allied themselves with France against the Duke of Milan;
and yet they might have avoided this alliance, which entailed their
ruin."  For all his great and profound intellect, Machiavelli was wrong
about this event and the actors in it.  The Venetians did not deserve his
censure.  By allying themselves, in 1499, with Louis XII. against the
Duke of Milan, they did not fall into Louis's hands, for, between 1499
and 1515, and many times over, they sided alternately with and against
him, always preserving their independence and displaying it as suited
them at the moment.  And these vicissitudes in their policy did not bring
about their ruin, for at the death of Louis XII. their power and
importance in Southern Europe had not declined.  It was Louis XII. who
deserved Machiavelli's strictures for having engaged, by means of
diplomatic alliances of the most contradictory kind, at one time with the
Venetians' support, and at another against them, in a policy of distant
and incoherent conquests, without any connection with the national
interests of France, and, in the long run, without any success.

[Illustration: Bayard----315]

Louis was at Lyons when he heard of his army's victory in Milaness and of
Ludovic Sforza's flight.  He was eager to go and take possession of his
conquest, and, on the 6th of October, 1499, he made his triumphal entry
into Milan amidst cries of "Hurrah! for France."  He reduced the heavy
imposts established by the Sforzas, revoked the vexatious game-laws,
instituted at Milan a court of justice analogous to the French
parliaments, loaded with favors the scholars and artists who were the
honor of Lombardy, and recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks,
leaving as governor of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant
Condottiere, who, four years before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand
II., King of Naples, for that of Charles VIII.  Unfortunately Trivulzio
was himself a Milanese and of the faction of the Guelphs.  He had the
passions of a partisan and the habits of a man of war; and he soon became
as tyrannical and as much detested in Milaness as Ludovic the Moor had
but lately been.  A plot was formed in favor of the fallen tyrant, who
was in Germany expecting it, and was recruiting, during expectancy,
amongst the Germans and Swiss in order to take advantage of it.  On the
25th of January, 1500, the insurrection broke out; and two months later
Ludovic Sforza had once more become master of Milaness, where the French
possessed nothing but the castle of Milan.  In one of the fights brought
about by this sudden revolution the young Chevalier Bayard, carried away
by the impetuosity of his age and courage, pursued right into Milan the
foes he was driving before him, without noticing that his French comrades
had left him; and he was taken prisoner in front of the very palace in
which were the quarters of Ludovic Sforza.  The incident created some
noise around the palace; Ludovic asked what it meant, and was informed
that a brave and bold gentleman, younger than any of the others, had
entered Milan pell-mell with the combatants he was pursuing, and had been
taken prisoner by John Bernardino Casaccio, one of the leaders of the
insurrection.  Ludovic ordered him to be brought up, which was done,
though not without some disquietude on the part of Bayard's captor,
"a courteous gentleman, who feared that Lord Ludovico might do him some
displeasure."  He resolved himself to be his conductor, after having
dressed him in one of his own robes and made him look like a gentleman.
"Marvelling to see Bayard so young, 'Come hither, my gentleman,' said
Ludovico: 'who brought you into the city?'  'By my faith, my lord,'
answered Bayard, who was not a whit abashed, 'I never imagined I was
entering all alone, and thought surely I was being followed of my
comrades, who knew more about war than I, for if they had done as I did
they would, like me, be prisoners.  Howbeit, after my mishap, I laud the
fortune which caused me to fall into the hands of so valiant and discreet
a knight as he who has me in holding.'  'By your faith,' asked Ludovico,
'of how many is the army of the King of France?'  'On my soul, my lord,'
answered Bayard, 'so far as I can hear, there are fourteen or fifteen
hundred men-at-arms and sixteen or eighteen thousand foot; but they are
all picked men, who are resolved to busy themselves so well this bout
that they will assure the state of Milan to the king our master; and
meseems, my lord, that you would surely be in as great safety in Germany
as you are here, for your folks are not the sort to fight us.'  With such
assurance spoke the good knight that Lord Ludovico took pleasure
there-in, though his say was enough to astound him.  'On my faith, my
gentleman,' said he, as it were in raillery, 'I have a good mind that the
King of France's army and mine should come together, in order that by
battle it may be known to whom of right belongs this heritage, for I see
no other way to it.'  'By my sacred oath, my lord,' said the good knight,
'I would that it might be to-morrow, provided that I were out of
captivity.'  'Verily, that shall not stand in your way,' said Ludovico,
'for I will let you go forth, and that presently.  Moreover, ask of me
what you will, and I will give it you.'  The good knight, who, on bended
knee, thanked Lord Ludovico for the offers he made him, as there was good
reason he should, then said to him, 'My lord, I ask of you nothing save
only that you may be pleased to extend your courtesy so far as to get me
back my horse and my arms that I brought into this city, and so send me
away to my garrison, which is twenty miles hence; you would do me a very
great kindness, for which I shall all my life feel bounden to you; and,
barring my duty to the king my master and saving my honor, I would show
my gratitude for it in whatsoever it might please you to command me.'
'In good faith,' said Lord Ludovico, 'you shall have presently that which
you do ask for.'  And then he said to the Lord John Bernardino, 'At once,
Sir Captain, let his horse be found, his arms and all that is his.'
'My lord,' answered the captain, 'it is right easy to find, it is all at
my quarters.'  He sent forthwith two or three servants, who brought the
arms and led up the horse of the good young knight; and Lord Ludovico had
him armed before his eyes.  When he was accoutred, the young knight
leaped upon his horse without putting foot to stirrup; then he asked for
a lance, which was handed to him, and, raising his eyes, he said to Lord
Ludovico, 'My lord, I thank you for the courtesy you have done me; please
God to pay it back to you.'  He was in a fine large court-yard; then he
began to set spurs to his horse, the which gave four or five jumps, so
gayly that it could not be better done; then the young knight gave him a
little run, in the which he broke the lance against the ground into five
or six pieces; whereat Lord Ludovico was not over pleased, and said out
loud, 'If all the men-at-arms of France were like him yonder, I should
have a bad chance.'  Nevertheless he had a trumpeter told off to conduct
him to his garrison."  [Histoire du bon Chevalier sans Peur et sans
Reproche, t. i. pp.  212-216.]

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

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

The outset of the campaign was attended with easy success.  The French
army, under the command of Stuart d'Aubigny, a valiant Scot, arrived on
the 25th of June, 1501, before Rome, and there received a communication
in the form of a bull of the pope which removed the crown of Naples from
the head of Frederick III., and partitioned that fief of the Holy See
between the Kings of France and Spain.  Fortified with this authority,
the army continued its march, and arrived before Capua on the 6th of
July.  Gonzalvo of Cordova was already upon Neapolitan territory with a
Spanish army, which Ferdinand the Catholic had hastily sent thither at
the request of Frederick III. himself, who had counted upon the
assistance of his cousin the King of Arragon against the French invasion.
Great was his consternation when he heard that the ambassadors of France
and Spain had proclaimed at Rome the alliance between their masters.  At
the first rumor of this news, Gonzalvo of Cordova, whether sincerely or
not, treated it as a calumny; but, so soon as its certainty was made
public, he accepted it without hesitation, and took, equally with the
French, the offensive against the king, already dethroned by the pope,
and very near being so by the two sovereigns who had made alliance for
the purpose of sharing between them the spoil they should get from him.
Capua capitulated, and was nevertheless plundered and laid waste.  A
French fleet, commanded by Philip de Ravenstein, arrived off Naples when
D'Aubigny was already master of it.  The unhappy King Frederick took
refuge in the island of Ischia; and, unable to bear the idea of seeking
an asylum in Spain with his cousin who had betrayed him so shamefully,
he begged the French admiral himself to advise him in his adversity.  "As
enemies that have the advantage should show humanity to the afflicted,"
Ravenstein sent word to him, "he would willingly advise him as to his
affairs; according to his advice, the best thing would be to surrender
and place himself in the hands of the King of France, and submit to his
good pleasure; he would find him so wise, and so debonnair, and so
accommodating, that he would be bound to be content.  Better or safer
counsel for him he had not to give."  After taking some precautions on
the score of his eldest son, Prince Ferdinand, whom he left at Tarento,
in the kingdom he was about to quit, Frederick III. followed Ravenstein's
counsel, sent to ask for "a young gentleman to be his guide to France,"
put to sea with five hundred men remaining to him, and arrived at
Marseilles, whither Louis XII. sent some lords of his court to receive
him.  Two months afterwards, and not before, he was conducted to the king
himself, who was then at Blois.  Louis welcomed him with his natural
kindness, and secured to him fifty thousand livres a year on the duchy of
Anjou, on condition that he never left France.  It does not appear that
Frederick ever had an idea of doing so, for his name is completely lost
to history up to the day of his death, which took place at Tours on the
9th of November, 1504, after three years' oblivion and exile.

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

But, before long, disputes arose between the two generals as to the
meaning of certain clauses in the treaty of November 11, 1500, and as to
the demarcation of the French and the Spanish territories.  D'Aubigny
fell ill; and Louis XII. sent to Naples, with the title of viceroy, Louis
d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, a brave warrior, but a negotiator inclined
to take umbrage and to give offence.  The disputes soon took the form of
hostilities.  The French essayed to drive the Spaniards from the points
they had occupied in the disputed territories; and at first they had the
advantage.  Gonzalvo of Cordova, from necessity or in prudence,
concentrated his forces within Barletta, a little fortress with a little
port on the Adriatic; but he there endured, from July, 1502, to April,
1503, a siege which did great honor to the patient firmness of the
Spanish troops and the persistent vigor of their captain.  Gonzalvo was
getting ready to sally from Barletta and take the offensive against the
French when he heard that a treaty signed at Lyons on the 5th of April,
1503, between the Kings of Spain and France, made a change in the
position, reciprocally, of the two sovereigns, and must suspend the
military operations of their generals within the kingdom of Naples.
"The French general declared his readiness to obey his king," says
Guicciardini; "but the Spanish, whether it were that he felt sure of
victory or that he had received private instructions on that point, said
that he could not stop the war without express orders from his king."
And sallying forthwith from Barletta, he gained, on the 28th of April,
1503, at Cerignola, a small town of Puglia, a signal victory over the
French commanded by the Duke of Nemours, who, together with three
thousand men of his army, was killed in action.  The very day after his
success Gonzalvo heard that a Spanish corps, lately disembarked in
Calabria, had also beaten, on the 21st of April, at Seminara, a French
corps commanded by D'Aubigny.  The great captain was as eager to profit
by victory as he had been patient in waiting for a chance of it.  He
marched rapidly on Naples, and entered it on the 14th of May, almost
without resistance; and the two forts defending the city, the Castel
Nuovo and the Castel dell' Uovo surrendered, one on the 11th of June and
the other on the 1st of July.  The capital of the kingdom having thus
fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, Capua and Aversa followed its
example.  Gaeta was the only important place which still held out for the
French, and contained a garrison capable of defending it; and thither the
remnant of the troops beaten at Seminara and at Cerignola had retired.
Louis XII. hastened to levy and send to Italy, under the command of Louis
de la Tremoille, a fresh army for the purpose of relieving Gaeta and
recovering Naples; but at Parma La Tremoille fell ill, "so crushed by his
malady and so despairing of life," says his chronicler, John Bouchet,
"that the physicians sent word to the king that it was impossible in the
way of nature to recover him, and that without the divine assistance he
could not get well."  The command devolved upon the Marquis of Mantua,
who marched on Gaeta.  He found Gonzalvo of Cordova posted with his army
on the left bank of the Garigliano, either to invest the place or to
repulse re-enforcements that might arrive for it.  The two armies passed
fifty days face to face almost, with the river and its marshes between
them, and vainly attempting over and over again to join battle.  Some of
Gonzalvo's officers advised him to fall back on Capua, so as to withdraw
his troops from an unhealthy and difficult position; but "I would
rather," said he, "have here, for my grave, six feet of earth by pushing
forward, than prolong my life a hundred years by falling back, though it
were but a few arms' lengths."  The French army was dispersing about in
search of shelter and provisions; and the Marquis of Mantua, disgusted
with the command, resigned it to the Marquis of Saluzzo, and returned
home to his marquisate.  Gonzalvo, who was kept well informed of his
enemies' condition, threw, on the 27th of December, a bridge over the
Garigliano, attacked the French suddenly, and forced them to fall back
upon Gaeta, which they did not succeed in entering until they had lost
artillery, baggage, and a number of prisoners.  "The Spaniards," says
John d'Auton, "halted before the place, made as if they would lay siege
to it, and so remained for two or three days.  The French, who were there
in great numbers, had scarcely any provisions, and could not hold out for
long; however, they put a good face upon it.  The captain, Gonzalvo, sent
word to them that if they would surrender their town he would, on his
part, restore to them without ransom all prisoners and others of their
party; and he had many of them, James de la Palisse, Stuart d'Aubigny,
Gaspard de Coligny, Anthony de la Fayette, &c., all captains.  The French
captains, seeing that fortune was not kind to them, and that they had
provisions for a week only, were all for taking this offer.  All the
prisoners, captains, men-at-arms, and common soldiers were accordingly
given up, put to sea, and sailed for Genoa, where they were well received
and kindly treated by the Genoese, which did them great good, for they
were much in need of it.  Nearly all the captains died on their return,
some of mourning over their losses, others of melancholy at their
misfortune, others for fear of the king's displeasure, and others of
sickness and weariness."  [_Chroniques of John d'Auton,_ t. iii.
pp. 68-70.]

Gaeta fell into the hands of the Spaniards on the 1st of January, 1504.
The war was not ended, but the kingdom of Naples was lost to the King of
France.

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

The Venetian, Dominic of Treviso, was quite right; Louis XII. was "of
unstable mind, saying yes and no."  On such characters discouragement
tells rapidly.  In order to put off the struggle which had succeeded so
ill for him in the kingdom of Naples, Louis concluded, on the 31st of
March, 1504, a truce for three years with the King of Spain; and on the
22d of September, in the same year, in order to satisfy his grudge on
account of the Venetians' demeanor towards him, he made an alliance
against them with Emperor Maximilian I. and Pope Julius II., with the
design, all three of them, of wresting certain provinces from them.  With
those political miscalculations was connected a more personal and more
disinterested feeling.  Louis repented of having in 1501 affianced his
daughter Claude to Prince Charles of Austria, and of the enormous
concessions he had made by two treaties, one of April 5, 1503, and the
other of September 22, 1504, for the sake of this marriage.  He had
assigned as dowry to his daughter, first the duchy of Milan, then the
kingdom of Naples, then Brittany, and then the duchy of Burgundy and the
countship of Blois.  The latter of these treaties contained even the
following strange clause: "If, by default of the Most Christian king or
of the queen his wife, or of the Princess Claude, the aforesaid marriage
should not take place, the Most Christian king doth will and consent,
from now, that the said duchies of Burgundy and Milan and the countship
of Asti, do remain settled upon the said Prince Charles, Duke of