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Celebrated Crimes (Complete)

by Alexandre Dumas · English · Gutenberg #2760 · 3,543,305 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Celebrated Crimes (Complete)

Author: Alexandre Dumas


        
Release date: September 22, 2004 [eBook #2760]
                Most recently updated: September 15, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2760

Credits: David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CELEBRATED CRIMES (COMPLETE) ***




                     *CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE*

                                  _By_

                        *Alexandre Dumas, Père*

                           _In Eight Volumes_


                                  1910




CONTENTS

    NOTE:
    INTRODUCTION
    *THE BORGIAS*
    PROLOGUE
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    CHAPTER X
    CHAPTER XI
    CHAPTER XII
    CHAPTER XIII
    CHAPTER XIV
    CHAPTER XV
    CHAPTER XVI
    EPILOGUE
    *THE CENCI—1598*
    *MASSACRES OF THE SOUTH—1551-1815*
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    *MARY STUART—1587*
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    CHAPTER X
    *KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819*
    *URBAIN GRANDIER—1634*
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    CHAPTER X
    CHAPTER XI
    CHAPTER XII
    *NISIDA—1825*
    *DERUES*
    *LA CONSTANTIN—1660*
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    *JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382*
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    *THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK [An Essay]*
    *MARTIN GUERRE*
    *ALI PACHA*
    CHAPTER I
    CHAPTER II
    CHAPTER III
    CHAPTER IV
    CHAPTER V
    CHAPTER VI
    CHAPTER VII
    CHAPTER VIII
    CHAPTER IX
    CHAPTER X
    CHAPTER XI
    *THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639*
    *MURAT—1815*
    I—TOULON
    II—CORSICA
    III—PIZZO
    *THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS*
    *VANINKA*
    *THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657*




NOTE:


Dumas’s ’Celebrated Crimes’ was not written for children. The novelist
has spared no language—has minced no words—to describe the violent
scenes of a violent time.

"In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective,
and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. It is not within our
province to edit the historical side of Dumas, any more than it would be
to correct the obvious errors in Dickens’s Child’s History of England.
The careful, mature reader, for whom the books are intended, will
recognize, and allow for, this fact.




INTRODUCTION


The contents of these volumes of ’Celebrated Crimes’, as well as the
motives which led to their inception, are unique. They are a series of
stories based upon historical records, from the pen of Alexandre Dumas,
pere, when he was not "the elder," nor yet the author of D’Artagnan or
Monte Cristo, but was a rising young dramatist and a lion in the
literary set and world of fashion.

Dumas, in fact, wrote his ’Crimes Celebres’ just prior to launching upon
his wonderful series of historical novels, and they may therefore be
considered as source books, whence he was to draw so much of that
far-reaching and intimate knowledge of inner history which has
perennially astonished his readers. The Crimes were published in Paris,
in 1839-40, in eight volumes, comprising eighteen titles—all of which
now appear in the present carefully translated text. The success of the
original work was instantaneous. Dumas laughingly said that he thought
he had exhausted the subject of famous crimes, until the work was off
the press, when he immediately became deluged with letters from every
province in France, supplying him with material upon other deeds of
violence! The subjects which he has chosen, however, are of both
historic and dramatic importance, and they have the added value of
giving the modern reader a clear picture of the state of
semi-lawlessness which existed in Europe, during the middle ages. "The
Borgias, the Cenci, Urbain Grandier, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,
the Marchioness of Ganges, and the rest—what subjects for the pen of
Dumas!" exclaims Garnett.

Space does not permit us to consider in detail the material here
collected, although each title will be found to present points of
special interest. The first volume comprises the annals of the Borgias
and the Cenci. The name of the noted and notorious Florentine family has
become a synonym for intrigue and violence, and yet the Borgias have not
been without stanch defenders in history.

Another famous Italian story is that of the Cenci. The beautiful
Beatrice Cenci—celebrated in the painting of Guido, the sixteenth
century romance of Guerrazi, and the poetic tragedy of Shelley, not to
mention numerous succeeding works inspired by her hapless fate—will
always remain a shadowy figure and one of infinite pathos.

The second volume chronicles the sanguinary deeds in the south of
France, carried on in the name of religion, but drenching in blood the
fair country round about Avignon, for a long period of years.

The third volume is devoted to the story of Mary Queen of Scots, another
woman who suffered a violent death, and around whose name an endless
controversy has waged. Dumas goes carefully into the dubious episodes of
her stormy career, but does not allow these to blind his sympathy for
her fate. Mary, it should be remembered, was closely allied to France by
education and marriage, and the French never forgave Elizabeth the part
she played in the tragedy.

The fourth volume comprises three widely dissimilar tales. One of the
strangest stories is that of Urbain Grandier, the innocent victim of a
cunning and relentless religious plot. His story was dramatised by
Dumas, in 1850. A famous German crime is that of Karl-Ludwig Sand, whose
murder of Kotzebue, Councillor of the Russian Legation, caused an
international upheaval which was not to subside for many years.

An especially interesting volume is number six, containing, among other
material, the famous "Man in the Iron Mask." This unsolved puzzle of
history was later incorporated by Dumas in one of the D’Artagnan
Romances a section of the Vicomte de Bragelonne, to which it gave its
name. But in this later form, the true story of this singular man doomed
to wear an iron vizor over his features during his entire lifetime could
only be treated episodically. While as a special subject in the Crimes,
Dumas indulges his curiosity, and that of his reader, to the full.
Hugo’s unfinished tragedy,’Les Jumeaux’, is on the same subject; as also
are others by Fournier, in French, and Zschokke, in German.

Other stories can be given only passing mention. The beautiful poisoner,
Marquise de Brinvilliers, must have suggested to Dumas his later
portrait of Miladi, in the Three Musketeers, the mast celebrated of his
woman characters. The incredible cruelties of Ali Pacha, the Turkish
despot, should not be charged entirely to Dumas, as he is said to have
been largely aided in this by one of his "ghosts," Mallefille.

"Not a mere artist"—writes M. de Villemessant, founder of the
Figaro,—"he has nevertheless been able to seize on those dramatic
effects which have so much distinguished his theatrical career, and to
give those sharp and distinct reproductions of character which alone can
present to the reader the mind and spirit of an age. Not a mere
historian, he has nevertheless carefully consulted the original sources
of information, has weighed testimonies, elicited theories, and . . .
has interpolated the poetry of history with its most thorough prose."




*THE BORGIAS*




PROLOGUE


On the 8th of April, 1492, in a bedroom of the Carneggi Palace, about
three miles from Florence, were three men grouped about a bed whereon a
fourth lay dying.

The first of these three men, sitting at the foot of the bed, and half
hidden, that he might conceal his tears, in the gold-brocaded curtains,
was Ermolao Barbaro, author of the treatise ’On Celibacy’, and of
’Studies in Pliny’: the year before, when he was at Rome in the capacity
of ambassador of the Florentine Republic, he had been appointed
Patriarch of Aquileia by Innocent VIII.

The second, who was kneeling and holding one hand of the dying man
between his own, was Angelo Poliziano, the Catullus of the fifteenth
century, a classic of the lighter sort, who in his Latin verses might
have been mistaken for a poet of the Augustan age.

The third, who was standing up and leaning against one of the twisted
columns of the bed-head, following with profound sadness the progress of
the malady which he read in the face of his departing friend, was the
famous Pico della Mirandola, who at the age of twenty could speak
twenty-two languages, and who had offered to reply in each of these
languages to any seven hundred questions that might be put to him by the
twenty most learned men in the whole world, if they could be assembled
at Florence.

The man on the bed was Lorenzo the Magnificent, who at the beginning of
the year had been attacked by a severe and deep-seated fever, to which
was added the gout, a hereditary ailment in his family. He had found at
last that the draughts containing dissolved pearls which the quack
doctor, Leoni di Spoleto, prescribed for him (as if he desired to adapt
his remedies rather to the riches of his patient than to his
necessities) were useless and unavailing, and so he had come to
understand that he must part from those gentle-tongued women of his,
those sweet-voiced poets, his palaces and their rich hangings; therefore
he had summoned to give him absolution for his sins—in a man of less
high place they might perhaps have been called crimes—the Dominican,
Giralamo Francesco Savonarola.

It was not, however, without an inward fear, against which the praises
of his friends availed nothing, that the pleasure-seeker and usurper
awaited that severe and gloomy preacher by whose word’s all Florence was
stirred, and on whose pardon henceforth depended all his hope far
another world.

Indeed, Savonarola was one of those men of stone, coming, like the
statue of the Commandante, to knock at the door of a Don Giovanni, and
in the midst of feast and orgy to announce that it is even now the
moment to begin to think of Heaven. He had been born at Ferrara, whither
his family, one of the most illustrious of Padua, had been called by
Niccolo, Marchese d’Este, and at the age of twenty-three, summoned by an
irresistible vocation, had fled from his father’s house, and had taken
the vows in the cloister of Dominican monks at Florence. There, where he
was appointed by his superiors to give lessons in philosophy, the young
novice had from the first to battle against the defects of a voice that
was both harsh and weak, a defective pronunciation, and above all, the
depression of his physical powers, exhausted as they were by too severe
abstinence.

Savonarala from that time condemned himself to the most absolute
seclusion, and disappeared in the depths of his convent, as if the slab
of his tomb had already fallen over him. There, kneeling on the flags,
praying unceasingly before a wooden crucifix, fevered by vigils and
penances, he soon passed out of contemplation into ecstasy, and began to
feel in himself that inward prophetic impulse which summoned him to
preach the reformation of the Church.

Nevertheless, the reformation of Savonarola, more reverential than
Luther’s, which followed about five-and-twenty years later, respected
the thing while attacking the man, and had as its aim the altering of
teaching that was human, not faith that was of God. He did not work,
like the German monk, by reasoning, but by enthusiasm. With him logic
always gave way before inspiration: he was not a theologian, but a
prophet. Yet, although hitherto he had bowed his head before the
authority of the Church, he had already raised it against the temporal
power. To him religion and liberty appeared as two virgins equally
sacred; so that, in his view, Lorenzo in subjugating the one was as
culpable as Pope Innocent VIII in dishonouring the other. The result of
this was that, so long as Lorenzo lived in riches, happiness, and
magnificence, Savonarola had never been willing, whatever entreaties
were made, to sanction by his presence a power which he considered
illegitimate. But Lorenzo on his deathbed sent for him, and that was
another matter. The austere preacher set forth at once, bareheaded and
barefoot, hoping to save not only the soul of the dying man but also the
liberty of the republic.

Lorenzo, as we have said, was awaiting the arrival of Savonarola with an
impatience mixed with uneasiness; so that, when he heard the sound of
his steps, his pale face took a yet more deathlike tinge, while at the
same time he raised himself on his elbow and ordered his three friends
to go away. They obeyed at once, and scarcely had they left by one door
than the curtain of the other was raised, and the monk, pale, immovable,
solemn, appeared on the threshold. When he perceived him, Lorenzo dei
Medici, reading in his marble brow the inflexibility of a statue, fell
back on his bed, breathing a sigh so profound that one might have
supposed it was his last.

The monk glanced round the room as though to assure himself that he was
really alone with the dying man; then he advanced with a slow and solemn
step towards the bed. Lorenzo watched his approach with terror; then,
when he was close beside him, he cried:

"O my father, I have been a very great sinner!"

"The mercy of God is infinite," replied the monk; "and I come into your
presence laden with the divine mercy."

"You believe, then, that God will forgive my sins?" cried the dying man,
renewing his hope as he heard from the lips of the monk such unexpected
words.

"Your sins and also your crimes, God will forgive them all," replied
Savonarola. "God will forgive your vanities, your adulterous pleasures,
your obscene festivals; so much for your sins. God will forgive you for
promising two thousand florins reward to the man who should bring you
the head of Dietisalvi, Nerone Nigi, Angelo Antinori, Niccalo Soderini,
and twice the money if they were handed over alive; God will forgive you
for dooming to the scaffold or the gibbet the son of Papi Orlandi,
Francesco di Brisighella, Bernardo Nardi, Jacopo Frescobaldi, Amoretto
Baldovinetti, Pietro Balducci, Bernardo di Banding, Francesco
Frescobaldi, and more than three hundred others whose names were none
the less dear to Florence because they were less renowned; so much for
your crimes." And at each of these names which Savonarala pronounced
slowly, his eyes fixed on the dying man, he replied with a groan which
proved the monk’s memory to be only too true. Then at last, when he had
finished, Lorenzo asked in a doubtful tone:

"Then do you believe, my father, that God will forgive me everything,
both my sins and my crimes?"

"Everything," said Savonarola, "but on three conditions."

"What are they?" asked the dying man.

"The first," said Savonarola, "is that you feel a complete faith in the
power and the mercy of God."

"My father," replied Lorenzo eagerly, "I feel this faith in the very
depths of my heart."

"The second," said Savonarola, "is that you give back the property of
others which you have unjustly confiscated and kept."

"My father, shall I have time?" asked the dying man.

"God will give it to you," replied the monk.

Lorenzo shut his eyes, as though to reflect more at his ease; then,
after a moment’s silence, he replied:

"Yes, my father, I will do it."

"The third," resumed Savonarola, "is that you restore to the republic
her ancient independence and her farmer liberty."

Lorenzo sat up on his bed, shaken by a convulsive movement, and
questioned with his eyes the eyes of the Dominican, as though he would
find out if he had deceived himself and not heard aright. Savonarola
repeated the same words.

"Never! never!" exclaimed Lorenzo, falling back on his bed and shaking
his head,—"never!"

The monk, without replying a single word, made a step to withdraw.

"My father, my father," said the dying man, "do not leave me thus: have
pity on me!"

"Have pity on Florence," said the monk.

"But, my father," cried Lorenzo, "Florence is free, Florence is happy."

"Florence is a slave, Florence is poor," cried Savonarola, "poor in
genius, poor in money, and poor in courage; poor in genius, because
after you, Lorenzo, will come your son Piero; poor in money, because
from the funds of the republic you have kept up the magnificence of your
family and the credit of your business houses; poor in courage, because
you have robbed the rightful magistrates of the authority which was
constitutionally theirs, and diverted the citizens from the double path
of military and civil life, wherein, before they were enervated by your
luxuries, they had displayed the virtues of the ancients; and therefore,
when the day shall dawn which is not far distant," continued the mark,
his eyes fixed and glowing as if he were reading in the future, "whereon
the barbarians shall descend from the mountains, the walls of our towns,
like those of Jericho, shall fall at the blast of their trumpets."

"And do you desire that I should yield up on my deathbed the power that
has made the glory of my whole life?" cried Lorenzo dei Medici.

"It is not I who desire it; it is the Lord," replied Savonarola coldly.

"Impossible, impossible!" murmured Lorenzo.

"Very well; then die as you have lived!" cried the monk, "in the midst
of your courtiers and flatterers; let them ruin your soul as they have
ruined your body!" And at these words, the austere Dominican, without
listening to the cries of the dying man, left the room as he had entered
it, with face and step unaltered; far above human things he seemed to
soar, a spirit already detached from the earth.

At the cry which broke from Lorenzo dei Medici when he saw him
disappear, Ermolao, Poliziano, and Pico delta Mirandola, who had heard
all, returned into the room, and found their friend convulsively
clutching in his arms a magnificent crucifix which he had just taken
down from the bed-head. In vain did they try to reassure him with
friendly words. Lorenzo the Magnificent only replied with sobs; and one
hour after the scene which we have just related, his lips clinging to
the feet of the Christ, he breathed his last in the arms of these three
men, of whom the most fortunate—though all three were young—was not
destined to survive him more than two years. "Since his death was to
bring about many calamities," says Niccolo Macchiavelli, "it was the
will of Heaven to show this by omens only too certain: the dome of the
church of Santa Regarata was struck by lightning, and Roderigo Borgia
was elected pope."




CHAPTER I


Towards the end of the fifteenth century—that is to say, at the epoch
when our history opens the Piazza of St. Peter’s at Rome was far from
presenting so noble an aspect as that which is offered in our own day to
anyone who approaches it by the Piazza dei Rusticucci.

In fact, the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of
Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the labour
of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty millions,
existed not yet. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for eleven
hundred and forty-five years, had been threatening to fall in about
1440, and Nicholas V, artistic forerunner of Julius II and Leo X, had
had it pulled down, together with the temple of Probus Anicius which
adjoined it. In their place he had had the foundations of a new temple
laid by the architects Rossellini and Battista Alberti; but some years
later, after the death of Nicholas V, Paul II, the Venetian, had not
been able to give more than five thousand crowns to continue the project
of his predecessor, and thus the building was arrested when it had
scarcely risen above the ground, and presented the appearance of a
still-born edifice, even sadder than that of a ruin.

As to the piazza itself, it had not yet, as the reader will understand
from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade of Bernini, or
the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which, according to
Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and transferred to Rome
by Caligula, who set it up in Nero’s Circus, where it remained till
1586. Now, as Nero’s Circus was situate on the very ground where St.
Peter’s now stands, and the base of this obelisk covered the actual site
where the vestry now is, it looked like a gigantic needle shooting up
from the middle of truncated columns, walls of unequal height, and
half-carved stones.

On the right of this building, a ruin from its cradle, arose the
Vatican, a splendid Tower of Babel, to which all the celebrated
architects of the Roman school contributed their work for a thousand
years: at this epoch the two magnificent chapels did not exist, nor the
twelve great halls, the two-and-twenty courts, the thirty staircases,
and the two thousand bedchambers; for Pope Sixtus V, the sublime
swineherd, who did so many things in a five years’ reign, had not yet
been able to add the immense building which on the eastern side towers
above the court of St. Damasius; still, it was truly the old sacred
edifice, with its venerable associations, in which Charlemagne received
hospitality when he was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III.

All the same, on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the
People’s Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the
castle of Sant’ Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this
piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into all
the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the rays
of a star. The crowds of people, looking like a motley moving carpet,
were climbing up into the basilica, grouping themselves upon the stones,
hanging on the columns, standing up against the walls; they entered by
the doors of houses and reappeared at the windows, so numerous and so
densely packed that one might have said each window was walled up with
heads. Now all this multitude had its eyes fixed on one single point in
the Vatican; for in the Vatican was the Conclave, and as Innocent VIII
had been dead for sixteen days, the Conclave was in the act of electing
a pope.

Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own
day—that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries—she has
constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors, and popes:
thus Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be attacked by a
strange fever which drives everyone to the Vatican or to Monte Cavallo,
according as the scarlet-robed assembly is held in one or the other of
these two palaces: it is, in fact, because the raising up of a new
pontiff is a great event for everybody; for, according to the average
established in the period between St. Peter and Gregory XVI, every pope
lasts about eight years, and these eight years, according to the
character of the man who is elected, are a period either of tranquillity
or of disorder, of justice or of venality, of peace or of war.

Never perhaps since the day when the first successor of St. Peter took
his seat on the, pontifical throne until the interregnum which now
occurred, had so great an agitation been shown as there was at this
moment, when, as we have shown, all these people were thronging on the
Piazza of St. Peter and in the streets which led to it. It is true that
this was not without reason; for Innocent VIII—who was called the father
of his people because he had added to his subjects eight sons and the
same number of daughters—had, as we have said, after living a life of
self-indulgence, just died, after a death-struggle during which, if the
journal of Stefano Infessura may be believed, two hundred and twenty
murders were committed in the streets of Rome. The authority had then
devolved in the customary way upon the Cardinal Camerlengo, who during
the interregnum had sovereign powers; but as he had been obliged to
fulfil all the duties of his office—that is, to get money coined in his
name and bearing his arms, to take the fisherman’s ring from the finger
of the dead pope, to dress, shave and paint him, to have the corpse
embalmed, to lower the coffin after nine days’ obsequies into the
provisional niche where the last deceased pope has to remain until his
successor comes to take his place and consign him to his final tomb;
lastly, as he had been obliged to wall up the door of the Conclave and
the window of the balcony from which the pontifical election is
proclaimed, he had not had a single moment for busying himself with the
police; so that the assassinations had continued in goodly fashion, and
there were loud cries for an energetic hand which should make all these
swords and all these daggers retire into their sheaths.

Now the eyes of this multitude were fixed, as we have said, upon the
Vatican, and particularly upon one chimney, from which would come the
first signal, when suddenly, at the moment of the ’Ave Maria’—that is to
say, at the hour when the day begins to decline—great cries went up from
all the crowd mixed with bursts of laughter, a discordant murmur of
threats and raillery, the cause being that they had just perceived at
the top of the chimney a thin smoke, which seemed like a light cloud to
go up perpendicularly into the sky. This smoke announced that Rome was
still without a master, and that the world still had no pope; for this
was the smoke of the voting tickets which were being burned, a proof
that the cardinals had not yet come to an agreement.

Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when all
the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else to wait
for, and that all was said and done until ten o’clock the next morning,
the time when the cardinals had their first voting, went off in a tumult
of noisy joking, just as they would after the last rocket of a firework
display; so that at the end of one minute nobody was there where a
quarter of an hour before there had been an excited crowd, except a few
curious laggards, who, living in the neighbourhood or on the very piazza
itself; were less in a hurry than the rest to get back to their homes;
again, little by little, these last groups insensibly diminished; for
half-past nine had just struck, and at this hour the streets of Rome
began already to be far from safe; then after these groups followed some
solitary passer-by, hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were
closed, one after another the windows were darkened; at last, when ten
o’clock struck, with the single exception of one window in the Vatican
where a lamp might be seen keeping obstinate vigil, all the houses,
piazzas, and streets were plunged in the deepest obscurity.

At this moment a man wrapped in a cloak stood up like a ghost against
one of the columns of the uncompleted basilica, and gliding slowly and
carefully among the stones which were lying about round the foundations
of the new church, advanced as far as the fountain which, formed the
centre of the piazza, erected in the very place where the obelisk is now
set up of which we have spoken already; when he reached this spot he
stopped, doubly concealed by the darkness of the night and by the shade
of the monument, and after looking around him to see if he were really
alone, drew his sword, and with its point rapping three times on the
pavement of the piazza, each time made the sparks fly. This signal, for
signal it was, was not lost: the last lamp which still kept vigil in the
Vatican went out, and at the same instant an object thrown out of the
window fell a few paces off from the young man in the cloak: he, guided
by the silvery sound it had made in touching the flags, lost no time in
laying his hands upon it in spite of the darkness, and when he had it in
his possession hurried quickly away.

Thus the unknown walked without turning round half-way along the Borgo
Vecchio; but there he turned to the right and took a street at the other
end of which was set up a Madonna with a lamp: he approached the light,
and drew from his pocket the object he had picked up, which was nothing
else than a Roman crown piece; but this crown unscrewed, and in a cavity
hollowed in its thickness enclosed a letter, which the man to whom it
was addressed began to read at the risk of being recognised, so great
was his haste to know what it contained.

We say at the risk of being recognised, for in his eagerness the
recipient of this nocturnal missive had thrown back the hood of his
cloak; and as his head was wholly within the luminous circle cast by the
lamp, it was easy to distinguish in the light the head of a handsome
young man of about five or six and twenty, dressed in a purple doublet
slashed at the shoulder and elbow to let the shirt come through, and
wearing on his head a cap of the same colour with a long black feather
falling to his shoulder. It is true that he did not stand there long;
for scarcely had he finished the letter, or rather the note, which he
had just received in so strange and mysterious a manner, when he
replaced it in its silver receptacle, and readjusting his cloak so as to
hide all the lower part of his face, resumed his walk with a rapid step,
crossed Borgo San Spirito, and took the street of the Longara, which he
followed as far as the church of Regina Coeli. When he arrived at this
place, he gave three rapid knocks on the door of a house of good
appearance, which immediately opened; then slowly mounting the stairs he
entered a room where two women were awaiting him with an impatience so
unconcealed that both as they saw him exclaimed together:

"Well, Francesco, what news?"

"Good news, my mother; good, my sister," replied the young man, kissing
the one and giving his hand to the other. "Our father has gained three
votes to-day, but he still needs six to have the majority."

"Then is there no means of buying them?" cried the elder of the two
women, while the younger, instead of speaking, asked him with a look.

"Certainly, my mother, certainly," replied the young man; "and it is
just about that that my father has been thinking. He is giving Cardinal
Orsini his palace at Rome and his two castles of Monticello and Soriano;
to Cardinal Colanna his abbey of Subiaca; he gives Cardinal Sant’ Angelo
the bishopric of Porto, with the furniture and cellar; to the Cardinal
of Parma the town of Nepi; to the Cardinal of Genoa the church of Santa
Maria-in-Via-Lata; and lastly, to Cardinal Savelli the church of Santa
Maria Maggiore and the town of Civita Castellana; as to Cardinal
Ascanio-Sforza, he knows already that the day before yesterday we sent
to his house four mules laden with silver and plate, and out of this
treasure he has engaged to give five thousand ducats to the Cardinal
Patriarch of Venice."

"But how shall we get the others to know the intentions of Roderigo?"
asked the elder of the two women.

"My father has provided for everything, and proposes an easy method; you
know, my mother, with what sort of ceremonial the cardinals’ dinner is
carried in."

"Yes, on a litter, in a large basket with the arms of the cardinal for
whom the meal is prepared."

"My father has bribed the bishop who examines it: to-morrow is a
feast-day; to the Cardinals Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, Sant’ Angelo, and
the Cardinals of Parma and of Genoa, chickens will be sent for hot meat,
and each chicken will contain a deed of gift duly drawn up, made by me
in my father’s name, of the houses, palaces, or churches which are
destined for each."

"Capital!" said the elder of the two women; "now, I am certain, all will
go well."

"And by the grace of God," added the younger, with a strangely mocking
smile, "our father will be pope."

"Oh, it will be a fine day for us!" cried Francesco.

"And for Christendom," replied his sister, with a still more ironical
expression.

"Lucrezia, Lucrezia," said the mother, "you do not deserve the happiness
which is coming to us."

"What does that matter, if it comes all the same? Besides, you know the
proverb; mother: ’Large families are blessed of the Lord’; and still
more so our family, which is so patriarchal."

At the same time she cast on her brother a look so wanton that the young
man blushed under it: but as at the moment he had to think of other
things than his illicit loves, he ordered that four servants should be
awakened; and while they were getting armed to accompany him, he drew up
and signed the six deeds of gift which were to be carried the next day
to the cardinals; for, not wishing to be seen at their houses, he
thought he would profit by the night-time to carry them himself to
certain persons in his confidence who would have them passed in, as had
been arranged, at the dinner-hour. Then, when the deeds were quite ready
and the servants also, Francesco went out with them, leaving the two
women to dream golden dreams of their future greatness.

From the first dawn of day the people hurried anew, as ardent and
interested as on the evening before, to the Piazza of the Vatican,
where; at the ordinary time, that is, at ten o’clock in the morning,—the
smoke rose again as usual, evoking laughter and murmuring, as it
announced that none of the cardinals had secured the majority. A report,
however, began to be spread about that the chances were divided between
three candidates, who were Roderigo Borgia, Giuliano delta Rovera, and
Ascanio Sforza; for the people as yet knew nothing of the four mules
laden with plate and silver which had been led to Sforza’s house, by
reason of which he had given up his own votes to his rival. In the midst
of the agitation excited in the crowd by this new report a solemn
chanting was heard; it proceeded from a procession, led by the Cardinal
Camerlengo, with the object of obtaining from Heaven the speedy election
of a pope: this procession, starting from the church of Ara Coeli at the
Capitol, was to make stations before the principal Madannas and the most
frequented churches. As soon as the silver crucifix was perceived which
went in front, the most profound silence prevailed, and everyone fell on
his knees; thus a supreme calm followed the tumult and uproar which had
been heard a few minutes before, and which at each appearance of the
smoke had assumed a more threatening character: there was a shrewd
suspicion that the procession, as well as having a religious end in
view, had a political object also, and that its influence was intended
to be as great on earth as in heaven. In any case, if such had been the
design of the Cardinal Camerlengo, he had not deceived himself, and the
effect was what he desired: when the procession had gone past, the
laughing and joking continued, but the cries and threats had completely
ceased.

The whole day passed thus; for in Rome nobody works. You are either a
cardinal or a lacquey, and you live, nobody knows how. The crowd was
still extremely numerous, when, towards two o’clock in the afternoon,
another procession, which had quite as much power of provoking noise as
the first of imposing silence, traversed in its turn the Piazza of St.
Peter’s: this was the dinner procession. The people received it with the
usual bursts of laughter, without suspecting, for all their irreverence,
that this procession, more efficacious than the former, had just settled
the election of the new pope.

The hour of the Ave Maria came as on the evening before; but, as on the
evening before, the waiting of the whole day was lost; for, as half-past
eight struck, the daily smoke reappeared at the top of the chimney. But
when at the same moment rumours which came from the inside of the
Vatican were spread abroad, announcing that, in all probability, the
election would take place the next day, the good people preserved their
patience. Besides, it had been very hot that day, and they were so
broken with fatigue and roasted by the sun, these dwellers in shade and
idleness, that they had no strength left to complain.

The morning of the next day, which was the 11th of August, 1492, arose
stormy and dark; this did not hinder the multitude from thronging the
piazzas, streets, doors, houses, churches. Moreover, this disposition of
the weather was a real blessing from Heaven; for if there were heat, at
least there would be no sun. Towards nine o’clock threatening
storm-clouds were heaped up over all the Trastevere; but to this crowd
what mattered rain, lightning, or thunder? They were preoccupied with a
concern of a very different nature; they were waiting for their pope: a
promise had been made them for to-day, and it could be seen by the
manner of all, that if the day should pass without any election taking
place, the end of it might very well be a riot; therefore, in proportion
as the time advanced, the agitation grew greater. Nine o’clock,
half-past nine, a quarter to ten struck, without anything happening to
confirm or destroy their hopes. At last the first stroke of ten was
heard; all eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o’clock struck slowly,
each stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude. At last the tenth
stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great cry
breaking simultaneously frog a hundred thousand breasts followed the
silence "Non v’e fumo! There is no smoke!" In other words, "We have a
pope."

At this moment the rain began to fall; but no one paid any attention to
it, so great were the transports of joy and impatience among all the
people. At last a little stone was detached from the walled window which
gave on the balcony and upon which all eyes were fixed: a general shout
saluted its fall; little by little the aperture grew larger, and in a
few minutes it was large enough to allow a man to come out on the
balcony.

The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza appeared; but at the moment when he was on
the point of coming out, frightened by the rain and the lightning, he
hesitated an instant, and finally drew back: immediately the multitude
in their turn broke out like a tempest into cries, curses, howls,
threatening to tear down the Vatican and to go and seek their pope
themselves. At this noise Cardinal Sforza, more terrified by the popular
storm than by the storm in the heavens, advanced on the balcony, and
between two thunderclaps, in a moment of silence astonishing to anyone
who had just heard the clamour that went before, made the following
proclamation:

"I announce to you a great joy: the most Eminent and most Reverend
Signor Roderigo Lenzuolo Borgia, Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal-Deacon
of San Nicolao-in-Carcere, Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has now been
elected Pope, and has assumed the name of Alexander VI."

The news of this nomination was received with strange joy. Roderigo
Borgia had the reputation of a dissolute man, it is true, but
libertinism had mounted the throne with Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, so
that for the Romans there was nothing new in the singular situation of a
pope with a mistress and five children. The great thing for the moment
was that the power fell into strong hands; and it was more important for
the tranquillity of Rome that the new pope inherited the sword of St.
Paul than that he inherited the keys of St. Peter.

And so, in the feasts that were given on this occasion, the dominant
character was much more warlike than religious, and would have appeared
rather to suit with the election of some young conqueror than the
exaltation of an old pontiff: there was no limit to the pleasantries and
prophetic epigrams on the name of Alexander, which for the second time
seemed to promise the Romans the empire of the world; and the same
evening, in the midst of brilliant illuminations and bonfires, which
seemed to turn the town into a lake of flame, the following epigram was
read, amid the acclamation of the people:

    "Rome under Caesar's rule in ancient story
     At home and o'er the world victorious trod;
     But Alexander still extends his glory:
     Caesar was man, but Alexander God."

As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of
etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man
the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast his
eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he cherished the
hope of directing at the will of his own genius.




CHAPTER II


The world had now arrived at one of those supreme moments of history
when every thing is transformed between the end of one period and the
beginning of another: in the East Turkey, in the South Spain, in the
West France, and in the North German, all were going to assume, together
with the title of great Powers, that influence which they were destined
to exert in the future over the secondary States. Accordingly we too,
with Alexander VI, will cast a rapid glance over them, and see what were
their respective situations in regard to Italy, which they all coveted
as a prize.

Constantine, Palaeologos Dragozes, besieged by three hundred thousand
Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of
Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire, and
had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana Gate; and
on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet II had made his entry into
Constantinople, where, after a reign which had earned for him the
surname of ’Fatile’, or the Conqueror, he had died leaving two sons, the
elder of whom had ascended the throne under the name of Bajazet II.

The accession of the new sultan, however, had not taken place with the
tranquillity which his right as elder brother and his father’s choice of
him should have promised. His younger brother, D’jem, better known under
the name of Zizimeh, had argued that whereas he was born in the
purple—that is, born during the reign of Mahomet—Bajazet was born prior
to his epoch, and was therefore the son of a private individual. This
was rather a poor trick; but where force is all and right is naught, it
was good enough to stir up a war. The two brothers, each at the head of
an army, met accordingly in Asia in 1482. D’jem was defeated after a
seven hours’ fight, and pursued by his brother, who gave him no time to
rally his army: he was obliged to embark from Cilicia, and took refuge
in Rhodes, where he implored the protection of the Knights of St. John.
They, not daring to give him an asylum in their island so near to Asia,
sent him to France, where they had him carefully guarded in one of their
commanderies, in spite of the urgency of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who,
having revolted against Bajazet, desired to have the young prince in his
army to give his rebellion the appearance of legitimate warfare. The
same demand, moreover, with the same political object, had been made
successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by Ferdinand, King of
Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of Naples.

On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if he
once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was at war,
had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would consent to
keep D’jem with him, to give him a considerable pension, and to give to
France the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as Jerusalem should be
conquered by the Sultan of Egypt. The King of France had accepted these
terms.

But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed
D’jem, ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a
crusade which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to
appropriate the pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to any
one of the Christian princes who would undertake to be his brother’s
gaoler. Charles VIII had not dared to refuse to the spiritual head of
Christendom a request supported by such holy reasons; and therefore
D’jem had quitted France, accompanied by the Grand Master d’Aubusson,
under whose direct charge he was; but his guardian had consented, for
the sake of a cardinal’s hat, to yield up his prisoner. Thus, on the
13th of March, 1489, the unhappy young man, cynosure of so many
interested eyes, made his solemn entry into Rome, mounted on a superb
horse, clothed in a magnificent oriental costume, between the Prior of
Auvergne, nephew of the Grand Master d’Aubusson, and Francesco Cibo, the
son of the pope.

After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises
which it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to the
sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.

So much for Turkey.

Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty years
later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his
dominions. In fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has bestowed
the name of Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly all Spain,
and driven the Moors out of Granada, their last entrenchment; while two
men of genius, Bartolome Diaz and Christopher Columbus, had succeeded,
much to the profit of Spain, the one in recovering a lost world, the
other in conquering a world yet unknown. They had accordingly, thanks to
their victories in the ancient world and their discoveries in the new,
acquired an influence at the court of Rome which had never been enjoyed
by any of their predecessors.

So much for Spain.

In France, Charles VIII had succeeded his father, Louis XI, on the 30th
of August, 1483. Louis by dint of executions, had tranquillised his
kingdom and smoothed the way for a child who ascended the throne under
the regency of a woman. And the regency had been a glorious one, and had
put down the pretensions of princes of the blood, put an end to civil
wars, and united to the crown all that yet remained of the great
independent fiefs. The result was that at the epoch where we now are,
here was Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a prince (if we
are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great of heart; a child
(if we are to believe Commines) only now making his first flight from
the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble in person, full of
self-will, and consorting rather with fools than with the wise; lastly,
if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an Italian, might well have
brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear upon the subject, a young
man of little wit concerning the actions of men, but carried away by an
ardent desire for rule and the acquisition of glory, a desire based far
more on his shallow character and impetuosity than on any consciousness
of genius: he was an enemy to all fatigue and all business, and when he
tried to give his attention to it he showed himself always totally
wanting in prudence and judgment. If anything in him appeared at first
sight to be worthy of praise, on a closer inspection it was found to be
something nearer akin to vice than to virtue. He was liberal, it is
true, but without thought, with no measure and no discrimination. He was
sometimes inflexible in will; but this was through obstinacy rather than
a constant mind; and what his flatterers called goodness deserved far
more the name of insensibility to injuries or poverty of spirit.

As to his physical appearance, if we are to believe the same author, it
was still less admirable, and answered marvellously to his weakness of
mind and character. He was small, with a large head, a short thick neck,
broad chest, and high shoulders; his thighs and legs were long and thin;
and as his face also was ugly—and was only redeemed by the dignity and
force of his glance—and all his limbs were disproportionate with one
another, he had rather the appearance of a monster than a man. Such was
he whom Fortune was destined to make a conqueror, for whom Heaven was
reserving more glory than he had power to carry.

So much for France.

The Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been rightly
named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always maintained
peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had always been
forced to make it. The first proof he had given of this very
philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome, whither he
betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the Apennines he was
attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made no pursuit. And so,
encouraged by example and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater
ones soon took part in the robberies. Amurath seized part of Hungary.
Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria, and Frederic consoled himself for
these usurpations by repeating the maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure
for the losses we suffer. At the time we have now reached, he had just,
after a reign of fifty-three years, affianced his son Maximilian to
Marie of Burgundy and had put under the ban of the Empire his
son-in-law, Albert of Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the
Tyrol. He was therefore too full of his family affairs to be troubled
about Italy. Besides, he was busy looking for a motto for the house of
Austria, an occupation of the highest importance for a man of the
character of Frederic III. This motto, which Charles V was destined
almost to render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the
old emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do on earth after
he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of August,
1493; leaving the empire to his son Maximilian.

This motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the
initial letters of these five words

    "AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."

This means

"It is the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."

So much for Germany.

Now that we have cast a glance over the four nations which were on the
way, as we said before, to become European Powers, let us turn our
attention to those secondary States which formed a circle more
contiguous to Rome, and whose business it was to serve as armour, so to
speak, to the spiritual queen of the world, should it please any of
these political giants whom we have described to make encroachments with
a view to an attack, on the seas or the mountains, the Adriatic Gulf or
the Alps, the Mediterranean or the Apennines.

These were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the magnificent
republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice.

The kingdom of Naples was in the hands of the old Ferdinand, whose birth
was not only illegitimate, but probably also well within the prohibited
degrees. His father, Alfonso of Aragon, received his crown from Giovanna
of Naples, who had adopted him as her successor. But since, in the fear
of having no heir, the queen on her deathbed had named two instead of
one, Alfonso had to sustain his rights against Rene. The two aspirants
for some time disputed the crown. At last the house of Aragon carried
the day over the house of Anjou, and in the course of the year 1442,
Alfonso definitely secured his seat on the throne. Of this sort were the
claims of the defeated rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining
later on. Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his
father, and yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had
two rivals, both far superior in merit to him self. The one was his
nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle’s
shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party; the other was Duke
John of Calabria, who commanded the whole Angevin party. Still he
managed to hold the two apart, and to keep himself on the throne by dint
of his prudence, which often verged upon duplicity. He had a cultivated
mind, and had studied the sciences—above all, law. He was of middle
height, with a large handsome head, his brow open and admirably framed
in beautiful white hair, which fell nearly down to his shoulders.
Moreover, though he had rarely exercised his physical strength in arms,
this strength was so great that one day, when he happened to be on the
square of the Mercato Nuovo at Naples, he seized by the horns a bull
that had escaped and stopped him short, in spite of all the efforts the
animal made to escape from his hands. Now the election of Alexander had
caused him great uneasiness, and in spite of his usual prudence he had
not been able to restrain himself from saying before the bearer of the
news that not only did he fail to rejoice in this election, but also
that he did not think that any Christian could rejoice in it, seeing
that Borgia, having always been a bad man, would certainly make a bad
pope. To this he added that, even were the choice an excellent one and
such as would please everybody else, it would be none the less fatal to
the house of Aragon, although Roderigo was born her subject and owed to
her the origin and progress of his fortunes; for wherever reasons of
state come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon forgotten, and,
’a fortiori’, relations arising from the obligations of nationality.

Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon
perceive, from being the first to contract an alliance with him.

The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson of
Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of February,
1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father of the young
prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real master of the
Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who was supposed to
possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed ’il Moro’, because of the
mulberry tree which he bore in his arms. After being exiled with his two
brothers, Philip who died of poison in 1479, and Ascanio who became the
cardinal, he returned to Milan some days after the assassination of
Galeazzo Maria, which took place on the 26th of December 1476, in St.
Stephen’s Church, and assumed the regency for the young duke, who at
that time was only eight years old. From now onward, even after his
nephew had reached the age of two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to
rule, and according to all probabilities was destined to rule a long
time yet; for, some days after the poor young man had shown a desire to
take the reins himself, he had fallen sick, and it was said, and not in
a whisper, that he had taken one of those slow but mortal poisons of
which princes made so frequent a use at this period, that, even when a
malady was natural, a cause was always sought connected with some great
man’s interests. However it may have been, Ludovico had relegated his
nephew, now too weak to busy himself henceforward with the affairs of
his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he lay and languished under the
eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples.

As to Ludovico, he was an ambitious man, full of courage and astuteness,
familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used alternately,
according to the occasion, without feeling any repugnance or any
predilection for either of them; but quite decided to be his nephew’s
heir whether he died or lived.

Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had little
by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not by right,
to Piero dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a paternal
legacy by Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his soul’s salvation.

The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father: he
was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was
remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo had
always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and Greek,
his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised verses almost
as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both ignorant of
political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour to those who
had made them their study. Added to this, he was an ardent lover of
pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly occupied with
bodily exercises that should make him shine in their eyes, above all
with tennis, a game at which he very highly excelled: he promised
himself that, when the period of mourning was fast, he would occupy the
attention not only of Florence but of the whole of Italy, by the
splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes. Piero dei Medici
had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed otherwise.

As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her highest
degree of power and splendour. From Cadiz to the Palus Maeotis, there
was no port that was not open to her thousand ships; she possessed in
Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the ancient duchy of
Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Verona, Vicenza, and
Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which comprehend the districts
of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of Rovigo, and the principality of
Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli, except Aquileia; Istria, except
Trieste; she owned, on the east side of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and
the shore of Albania; in the Ionian Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu;
in Greece, Lepanto and Patras; in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis,
and Argos; lastly, in the Archipelago, besides several little towns and
stations on the coast, she owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.

Thus from the mouth of the Po to the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, the most serene republic was mistress of the whole
coastline, and Italy and Greece seemed to be mere suburbs of Venice.

In the intervals of space left free between Naples, Milan, Florence, and
Venice, petty tyrants had arisen who exercised an absolute sovereignty
over their territories: thus the Colonnas were at Ostia and at Nettuna,
the Montefeltri at Urbino, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Bentivogli at
Bologna, the Malatesta family at Rimini, the Vitelli at Citta di
Castello, the Baglioni at Perugia, the Orsini at Vicovaro, and the
princes of Este at Ferrara.

Finally, in the centre of this immense circle, composed of great Powers,
of secondary States, and of little tyrannies, Rome was set on high, the
most exalted, yet the weakest of all, without influence, without lands,
without an army, without gold. It was the concern of the new pope to
secure all this: let us see, therefore, what manner of man was this
Alexander VI, for undertaking and accomplishing such a project.




CHAPTER III


RODERIGO LENZUOLO was born at Valencia, in Spain, in 1430 or 1431, and
on his mother’s side was descended, as some writers declare, of a family
of royal blood, which had cast its eyes on the tiara only after
cherishing hopes of the crowns of Aragon and Valencia. Roderigo from his
infancy had shown signs of a marvellous quickness of mind, and as he
grew older he exhibited an intelligence extremely apt for the study of
sciences, especially law and jurisprudence: the result was that his
first distinctions were gained in the law, a profession wherein he soon
made a great reputation by his ability in the discussion of the most
thorny cases. All the same, he was not slow to leave this career, and
abandoned it quite suddenly for the military profession, which his
father had followed; but after various actions which served to display
his presence of mind and courage, he was as much disgusted with this
profession as with the other; and since it happened that at the very
time he began to feel this disgust his father died, leaving a
considerable fortune, he resolved to do no more work, but to live
according to his own fancies and caprices. About this time he became the
lover of a widow who had two daughters. The widow dying, Roderigo took
the girls under his protection, put one into a convent, and as the other
was one of the loveliest women imaginable, made her his mistress. This
was the notorious Rosa Vanozza, by whom he had five children—Francesco,
Caesar, Lucrezia, and Goffredo; the name of the fifth is unknown.

Roderigo, retired from public affairs, was given up entirely to the
affections of a lover and a father, when he heard that his uncle, who
loved him like a son, had been elected pope under the name of Calixtus
III. But the young man was at this time so much a lover that love
imposed silence on ambition; and indeed he was almost terrified at the
exaltation of his uncle, which was no doubt destined to force him once
more into public life. Consequently, instead of hurrying to Rome, as
anyone else in his place would have done, he was content to indite to
His Holiness a letter in which he begged for the continuation of his
favours, and wished him a long and happy reign.

This reserve on the part of one of his relatives, contrasted with the
ambitious schemes which beset the new pope at every step, struck
Calixtus III in a singular way: he knew the stuff that was in young
Roderigo, and at a time when he was besieged on all sides by
mediocrities, this powerful nature holding modestly aside gained new
grandeur in his eyes so he replied instantly to Roderigo that on the
receipt of his letter he must quit Spain for Italy, Valencia for Rome.

This letter uprooted Roderigo from the centre of happiness he had
created for himself, and where he might perhaps have slumbered on like
an ordinary man, if fortune had not thus interposed to drag him forcibly
away. Roderigo was happy, Roderigo was rich; the evil passions which
were natural to him had been, if not extinguished,—at least lulled; he
was frightened himself at the idea of changing the quiet life he was
leading for the ambitious, agitated career that was promised him; and
instead of obeying his uncle, he delayed the preparations for departure,
hoping that Calixtus would forget him. It was not so: two months after
he received the letter from the pope, there arrived at Valencia a
prelate from Rome, the bearer of Roderigo’s nomination to a benefice
worth 20,000 ducats a year, and also a positive order to the holder of
the post to come and take possession of his charge as soon as possible.

Holding back was no longer feasible: so Roderigo obeyed; but as he did
not wish to be separated from the source whence had sprung eight years
of happiness, Rosa Vanozza also left Spain, and while he was going to
Rome, she betook herself to Venice, accompanied by two confidential
servants, and under the protection of a Spanish gentleman named Manuel
Melchior.

Fortune kept the promises she had made to Roderigo: the pope received
him as a son, and made him successively Archbishop of Valencia,
Cardinal-Deacon, and Vice-Chancellor. To all these favours Calixtus
added a revenue of 20,000 ducats, so that at the age of scarcely
thirty-five Roderigo found himself the equal of a prince in riches and
power.

Roderigo had had some reluctance about accepting the cardinalship, which
kept him fast at Rome, and would have preferred to be General of the
Church, a position which would have allowed him more liberty for seeing
his mistress and his family; but his uncle Calixtus made him reckon with
the possibility of being his successor some day, and from that moment
the idea of being the supreme head of kings and nations took such hold
of Roderigo, that he no longer had any end in view but that which his
uncle had made him entertain.

From that day forward, there began to grow up in the young cardinal that
talent for hypocrisy which made of him the most perfect incarnation of
the devil that has perhaps ever existed; and Roderigo was no longer the
same man: with words of repentance and humility on his lips, his head
bowed as though he were bearing the weight of his past sins, disparaging
the riches which he had acquired and which, according to him, were the
wealth of the poor and ought to return to the poor, he passed his life
in churches, monasteries, and hospitals, acquiring, his historian tells
us, even in the eyes of his enemies, the reputation of a Solomon for
wisdom, of a Job for patience, and of a very Moses for his promulgation
of the word of God: Rosa Vanozza was the only person in the world who
could appreciate the value of this pious cardinal’s conversion.

It proved a lucky thing for Roderiga that he had assumed this pious
attitude, for his protector died after a reign of three years three
months and nineteen days, and he was now sustained by his own merit
alone against the numerous enemies he had made by his rapid rise to
fortune: so during the whole of the reign of Pius II he lived always
apart from public affairs, and only reappeared in the days of Sixtus IV,
who made him the gift of the abbacy of Subiaco, and sent him in the
capacity of ambassador to the kings of Aragon and Portugal. On his
return, which took place during the pontificate of Innocent VIII, he
decided to fetch his family at last to Rome: thither they came, escorted
by Don Manuel Melchior, who from that moment passed as the husband of
Rosa Vanozza, and took the name of Count Ferdinand of Castile. The
Cardinal Roderigo received the noble Spaniard as a countryman and a
friend; and he, who expected to lead a most retired life, engaged a
house in the street of the Lungara, near the church of Regina Coeli, on
the banks of the Tiber. There it was that, after passing the day in
prayers and pious works, Cardinal Roderigo used to repair each evening
and lay aside his mask. And it was said, though nobody could prove it,
that in this house infamous scenes passed: Report said the dissipations
were of so dissolute a character that their equals had never been seen
in Rome. With a view to checking the rumours that began to spread
abroad, Roderigo sent Caesar to study at Pisa, and married Lucrezia to a
young gentleman of Aragon; thus there only remained at home Rosa Vanozza
and her two sons: such was the state of things when Innocent VIII died
and Roderigo Borgia was proclaimed pope.

We have seen by what means the nomination was effected; and so the five
cardinals who had taken no part in this simony—namely, the Cardinals of
Naples, Sierra, Portugal, Santa Maria-in-Porticu, and St.
Peter-in-Vinculis—protested loudly against this election, which they
treated as a piece of jobbery; but Roderigo had none the less, however
it was done, secured his majority; Roderigo was none the less the two
hundred and sixtieth successor of St. Peter.

Alexander VI, however, though he had arrived at his object, did not dare
throw off at first the mask which the Cardinal Borgia had worn so long,
although when he was apprised of his election he could not dissimulate
his joy; indeed, on hearing the favourable result of the scrutiny, he
lifted his hands to heaven and cried, in the accents of satisfied
ambition, "Am I then pope? Am I then Christ’s vicar? Am I then the
keystone of the Christian world?"

"Yes, holy father," replied Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the same who had
sold to Roderigo the nine votes that were at his disposal at the
Conclave for four mules laden with silver; "and we hope by your election
to give glory to God, repose to the Church, and joy to Christendom,
seeing that you have been chosen by the Almighty Himself as the most
worthy among all your brethren."

But in the short interval occupied by this reply, the new pope had
already assumed the papal authority, and in a humble voice and with
hands crossed upon his breast, he spoke:

"We hope that God will grant us His powerful aid, in spite of our
weakness, and that He will do for us that which He did for the apostle
when aforetime He put into his hands the keys of heaven and entrusted to
him the government of the Church, a government which without the aid of
God would prove too heavy a burden for mortal man; but God promised that
His Spirit should direct him; God will do the same, I trust, for us; and
for your part we fear not lest any of you fail in that holy obedience
which is due unto the head of the Church, even as the flock of Christ
was bidden to follow the prince of the apostles."

Having spoken these words, Alexander donned the pontifical robes, and
through the windows of the Vatican had strips of paper thrown out on
which his name was written in Latin. These, blown by the wind, seemed to
convey to the whole world the news of the great event which was about to
change the face of Italy. The same day couriers started for all the
courts of Europe.

Caesar Borgia learned the news of his father’s election at the
University of Pisa, where he was a student. His ambition had sometimes
dreamed of such good fortune, yet his joy was little short of madness.
He was then a young man, about twenty-two or twenty-four years of age,
skilful in all bodily exercises, and especially in fencing; he could
ride barebacked the most fiery steeds, could cut off the head of a bull
at a single sword-stroke; moreover, he was arrogant, jealous, and
insincere. According to Tammasi, he was great among the godless, as his
brother Francesco was good among the great. As to his face, even
contemporary authors have left utterly different descriptions; for some
have painted him as a monster of ugliness, while others, on the
contrary, extol his beauty. This contradiction is due to the fact that
at certain times of the year, and especially in the spring, his face was
covered with an eruption which, so long as it lasted, made him an object
of horror and disgust, while all the rest of the year he was the sombre,
black-haired cavalier with pale skin and tawny beard whom Raphael shows
us in the fine portrait he made of him. And historians, both chroniclers
and painters, agree as to his fixed and powerful gaze, behind which
burned a ceaseless flame, giving to his face something infernal and
superhuman. Such was the man whose fortune was to fulfil all his
desires. He had taken for his motto, ’Aut Caesar, aut nihil’: Caesar or
nothing.

Caesar posted to Rome with certain of his friends, and scarcely was he
recognised at the gates of the city when the deference shown to him gave
instant proof of the change in his fortunes: at the Vatican the respect
was twice as great; mighty men bowed down before him as before one
mightier than themselves. And so, in his impatience, he stayed not to
visit his mother or any other member of his family, but went straight to
the pope to kiss his feet; and as the pope had been forewarned of his
coming, he awaited him in the midst of a brilliant and numerous
assemblage of cardinals, with the three other brothers standing behind
him. His Holiness received Caesar with a gracious countenance; still, he
did not allow himself any demonstration of his paternal love, but,
bending towards him, kissed him on the forehead, and inquired how he was
and how he had fared on his journey. Caesar replied that he was
wonderfully well, and altogether at the service of His Holiness: that,
as to the journey, the trifling inconveniences and short fatigue had
been compensated, and far more than compensated, by the joy which he
felt in being able to adore upon the papal throne a pope who was so
worthy. At these words, leaving Caesar still on his knees, and reseating
himself—for he had risen from his seat to embrace him—the pope assumed a
grave and composed expression of face, and spoke as follows, loud enough
to be heard by all, and slowly enough for everyone present to be able to
ponder and retain in his memory even the least of his words:

"We are convinced, Caesar, that you are peculiarly rejoiced in beholding
us on this sublime height, so far above our deserts, whereto it has
pleased the Divine goodness to exalt us. This joy of yours is first of
all our due because of the love we have always borne you and which we
bear you still, and in the second place is prompted by your own personal
interest, since henceforth you may feel sure of receiving from our
pontifical hand those benefits which your own good works shall deserve.
But if your joy—and this we say to you as we have even now said to your
brothers—if your joy is founded on ought else than this, you are very
greatly mistaken, Caesar, and you will find yourself sadly deceived.
Perhaps we have been ambitious—we confess this humbly before the face of
all men—passionately and immoderately ambitious to attain to the dignity
of sovereign pontiff, and to reach this end we have followed every path
that is open to human industry; but we have acted thus, vowing an inward
vow that when once we had reached our goal, we would follow no other
path but that which conduces best to the service of God and to the
advancement of the Holy See, so that the glorious memory of the deeds
that we shall do may efface the shameful recollection of the deeds we
have already done. Thus shall we, let us hope, leave to those who follow
us a track where upon if they find not the footsteps of a saint, they
may at least tread in the path of a true pontiff. God, who has furthered
the means, claims at our hands the fruits, and we desire to discharge to
the full this mighty debt that we have incurred to Him; and accordingly
we refuse to arouse by any deceit the stern rigour of His judgments. One
sole hindrance could have power to shake our good intentions, and that
might happen should we feel too keen an interest in your fortunes.
Therefore are we armed beforehand against our love, and therefore have
we prayed to God beforehand that we stumble not because of you; for in
the path of favouritism a pope cannot slip without a fall, and cannot
fall without injury and dishonour to the Holy See. Even to the end of
our life we shall deplore the faults which have brought this experience
home to us; and may it please God that our uncle Calixtus of blessed
memory bear not this day in purgatory the burden of our sins, more
heavy, alas, than his own! Ah, he was rich in every virtue, he was full
of good intentions; but he loved too much his own people, and among them
he loved me chief. And so he suffered this love to lead him blindly
astray, all this love that he bore to his kindred, who to him were too
truly flesh of his flesh, so that he heaped upon the heads of a few
persons only, and those perhaps the least worthy, benefits which would
more fittingly have rewarded the deserts of many. In truth, he bestowed
upon our house treasures that should never have been amassed at the
expense of the poor, or else should have been turned to a better
purpose. He severed from the ecclesiastical State, already weak and
poor, the duchy of Spoleto and other wealthy properties, that he might
make them fiefs to us; he confided to our weak hands the
vice-chancellorship, the vice-prefecture of Rome, the generalship of the
Church, and all the other most important offices, which, instead of
being monopolised by us, should have been conferred on those who were
most meritorious. Moreover, there were persons who were raised on our
recommendation to posts of great dignity, although they had no claims
but such as our undue partiality accorded them; others were left out
with no reason for their failure except the jealousy excited in us by
their virtues. To rob Ferdinand of Aragon of the kingdom of Naples,
Calixtus kindled a terrible war, which by a happy issue only served to
increase our fortune, and by an unfortunate issue must have brought
shame and disaster upon the Holy See. Lastly, by allowing himself to be
governed by men who sacrificed public good to their private interests,
he inflicted an injury, not only upon the pontifical throne and his own
reputation, but what is far worse, far more deadly, upon his own
conscience. And yet, O wise judgments of God! hard and incessantly
though he toiled to establish our fortunes, scarcely had he left empty
that supreme seat which we occupy to-day, when we were cast down from
the pinnacle whereon we had climbed, abandoned to the fury of the rabble
and the vindictive hatred of the Roman barons, who chose to feel
offended by our goodness to their enemies. Thus, not only, we tell you,
Caesar, not only did we plunge headlong from the summit of our grandeur,
losing the worldly goods and dignities which our uncle had heaped at our
feet, but for very peril of our life we were condemned to a voluntary
exile, we and our friends, and in this way only did we contrive to
escape the storm which our too good fortune had stirred up against us.
Now this is a plain proof that God mocks at men’s designs when they are
bad ones. How great an error is it for any pope to devote more care to
the welfare of a house, which cannot last more than a few years, than to
the glory of the Church, which will last for ever! What utter folly for
any public man whose position is not inherited and cannot be bequeathed
to his posterity, to support the edifice of his grandeur on any other
basis than the noblest virtue practised for the general good, and to
suppose that he can ensure the continuance of his own fortune otherwise
than by taking all precautions against sudden whirlwinds which are want
to arise in the midst of a calm, and to blow up the storm-clouds I mean
the host of enemies. Now any one of these enemies who does his worst can
cause injuries far more powerful than any help that is at all likely to
come from a hundred friends and their lying promises. If you and your
brothers walk in the path of virtue which we shall now open for you,
every wish of your heart shall be instantly accomplished; but if you
take the other path, if you have ever hoped that our affection will wink
at disorderly life, then you will very soon find out that we are truly
pope, Father of the Church, not father of the family; that, vicar of
Christ as we are, we shall act as we deem best for Christendom, and not
as you deem best for your own private good. And now that we have come to
a thorough understanding, Caesar, receive our pontifical blessing." And
with these words, Alexander VI rose up, laid his hands upon his son’s
head, for Caesar was still kneeling, and then retired into his
apartments, without inviting him to follow.

The young man remained awhile stupefied at this discourse, so utterly
unexpected, so utterly destructive at one fell blow to his most
cherished hopes. He rose giddy and staggering like a drunken man, and at
once leaving the Vatican, hurried to his mother, whom he had forgotten
before, but sought now in his despair. Rosa Vanozza possessed all the
vices and all the virtues of a Spanish courtesan; her devotion to the
Virgin amounted to superstition, her fondness for her children to
weakness, and her love for Roderigo to sensuality. In the depth of her
heart she relied on the influence she had been able to exercise over him
for nearly thirty years; and like a snake, she knew how to envelop him
in her coils when the fascination of her glance had lost its power. Rosa
knew of old the profound hypocrisy of her lover, and thus she was in no
difficulty about reassuring Caesar.

Lucrezia was with her mother when Caesar arrived; the two young people
exchanged a lover-like kiss beneath her very eyes: and before he left
Caesar had made an appointment for the same evening with Lucrezia, who
was now living apart from her husband, to whom Roderigo paid a pension
in her palace of the Via del Pelegrino, opposite the Campo dei Fiori,
and there enjoying perfect liberty.

In the evening, at the hour fixed, Caesar appeared at Lucrezia’s; but he
found there his brother Francesco. The two young men had never been
friends. Still, as their tastes were very different, hatred with
Francesco was only the fear of the deer for the hunter; but with Caesar
it was the desire for vengeance and that lust for blood which lurks
perpetually in the heart of a tiger. The two brothers none the less
embraced, one from general kindly feeling, the other from hypocrisy; but
at first sight of one another the sentiment of a double rivalry, first
in their father’s and then in their sister’s good graces, had sent the
blood mantling to the cheek of Francesco, and called a deadly pallor
into Caesar’s. So the two young men sat on, each resolved not to be the
first to leave, when all at once there was a knock at the door, and a
rival was announced before whom both of them were bound to give way: it
was their father.

Rosa Vanozza was quite right in comforting Caesar. Indeed, although
Alexander VI had repudiated the abuses of nepotism, he understood very
well the part that was to be played for his benefit by his sons and his
daughter; for he knew he could always count on Lucrezia and Caesar, if
not on Francesco and Goffredo. In these matters the sister was quite
worthy of her brother. Lucrezia was wanton in imagination, godless by
nature, ambitious and designing: she had a craving for pleasure,
admiration, honours, money, jewels, gorgeous stuffs, and magnificent
mansions. A true Spaniard beneath her golden tresses, a courtesan
beneath her frank looks, she carried the head of a Raphael Madonna, and
concealed the heart of a Messalina. She was dear to Roderigo both as
daughter and as mistress, and he saw himself reflected in her as in a
magic mirror, every passion and every vice. Lucrezia and Caesar were
accordingly the best beloved of his heart, and the three composed that
diabolical trio which for eleven years occupied the pontifical throne,
like a mocking parody of the heavenly Trinity.

Nothing occurred at first to give the lie to Alexander’s professions of
principle in the discourse he addressed to Caesar, and the first year of
his pontificate exceeded all the hopes of Rome at the time of his
election. He arranged for the provision of stores in the public
granaries with such liberality, that within the memory of man there had
never been such astonishing abundance; and with a view to extending the
general prosperity to the lowest class, he organised numerous doles to
be paid out of his private fortune, which made it possible for the very
poor to participate in the general banquet from which they had been
excluded for long enough. The safety of the city was secured, from the
very first days of his accession, by the establishment of a strong and
vigilant police force, and a tribunal consisting of four magistrates of
irreproachable character, empowered to prosecute all nocturnal crimes,
which during the last pontificate had been so common that their very
numbers made impunity certain: these judges from the first showed a
severity which neither the rank nor the purse of the culprit could
modify. This presented such a great contrast to the corruption of the
last reign,—in the course of which the vice-chamberlain one day remarked
in public, when certain people were complaining of the venality of
justice, "God wills not that a sinner die, but that he live and
pay,"—that the capital of the Christian world felt for one brief moment
restored to the happy days of the papacy. So, at the end of a year,
Alexander VI had reconquered that spiritual credit, so to speak, which
his predecessors lost. His political credit was still to be established,
if he was to carry out the first part of his gigantic scheme. To arrive
at this, he must employ two agencies—alliances and conquests. His plan
was to begin with alliances. The gentleman of Aragon who had married
Lucrezia when she was only the daughter of Cardinal Roderigo Borgia was
not a man powerful enough, either by birth and fortune or by intellect,
to enter with any sort of effect into the plots and plans of Alexander
VI; the separation was therefore changed into a divorce, and Lucrezia
Borgia was now free to remarry. Alexander opened up two negotiations at
the same time: he needed an ally to keep a watch on the policy of the
neighbouring States. John Sforza, grandson of Alexander Sforza, brother
of the great Francis I, Duke of Milan, was lord of Pesaro; the
geographical situation of this place, on the coast, on the way between
Florence and Venice, was wonderfully convenient for his purpose; so
Alexander first cast an eye upon him, and as the interest of both
parties was evidently the same, it came about that John Sforza was very
soon Lucrezia’s second husband.

At the same time overtures had been made to Alfonso of Aragon, heir
presumptive to the crown of Naples, to arrange a marriage between Dana
Sancia, his illegitimate daughter, and Goffreda, the pope’s third son;
but as the old Ferdinand wanted to make the best bargain he could out of
it; he dragged on the negotiations as long as possible, urging that the
two children were not of marriageable age, and so, highly honoured as he
felt in such a prospective alliance, there was no hurry about the
engagement. Matters stopped at this point, to the great annoyance of
Alexander VI, who saw through this excuse, and understood that the
postponement was nothing more or less than a refusal. Accordingly
Alexander and Ferdinand remained in statu quo, equals in the political
game, both on the watch till events should declare for one or other. The
turn of fortune was for Alexander.

Italy, though tranquil, was instinctively conscious that her calm was
nothing but the lull which goes before a storm. She was too rich and too
happy to escape the envy of other nations. As yet the plains of Pisa had
not been reduced to marsh-lands by the combined negligence and jealousy
of the Florentine Republic, neither had the rich country that lay around
Rome been converted into a barren desert by the wars of the Colonna and
Orsini families; not yet had the Marquis of Marignan razed to the ground
a hundred and twenty villages in the republic of Siena alone; and though
the Maremma was unhealthy, it was not yet a poisonous marsh: it is a
fact that Flavio Blando, writing in 1450, describes Ostia as being
merely less flourishing than in the days of the Romans, when she had
numbered 50,000 inhabitants, whereas now in our own day there are barely
30 in all.

The Italian peasants were perhaps the most blest on the face of the
earth: instead of living scattered about the country in solitary
fashion, they lived in villages that were enclosed by walls as a
protection for their harvests, animals, and farm implements; their
houses—at any rate those that yet stand—prove that they lived in much
more comfortable and beautiful surroundings than the ordinary townsman
of our day. Further, there was a community of interests, and many people
collected together in the fortified villages, with the result that
little by little they attained to an importance never acquired by the
boorish French peasants or the German serfs; they bore arms, they had a
common treasury, they elected their own magistrates, and whenever they
went out to fight, it was to save their common country.

Also commerce was no less flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this
period was rich in industries—silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur,
bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth
were imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from France,
and often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by labour and
fine workmanship. The rich man brought his merchandise, the poor his
industry: the one was sure of finding workmen, the other was sure of
finding work.

Art also was by no means behindhand: Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi, and
Donatello were dead, but Ariosto, Raphael, Bramante, and Michael Angelo
were now living. Rome, Florence, and Naples had inherited the
masterpieces of antiquity; and the manuscripts of AEschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides had come (thanks to the conquest of Mahomet II) to rejoin
the statue of Xanthippus and the works of Phidias and Praxiteles. The
principal sovereigns of Italy had come to understand, when they let
their eyes dwell upon the fat harvests, the wealthy villages, the
flourishing manufactories, and the marvellous churches, and then
compared with them the poor and rude nations of fighting men who
surrounded them on all sides, that some day or other they were destined
to become for other countries what America was for Spain, a vast
gold-mine for them to work. In consequence of this, a league offensive
and defensive had been signed, about 1480, by Naples, Milan, Florence,
and Ferrara, prepared to take a stand against enemies within or without,
in Italy or outside. Ludovico Sforza, who was more than anyone else
interested in maintaining this league, because he was nearest to France,
whence the storm seemed to threaten, saw in the new pope’s election
means not only of strengthening the league, but of making its power and
unity conspicuous in the sight of Europe.




CHAPTER IV


On the occasion of each new election to the papacy, it is the custom for
all the Christian States to send a solemn embassy to Rome, to renew
their oath of allegiance to the Holy Father. Ludovico Sforza conceived
the idea that the ambassadors of the four Powers should unite and make
their entry into Rome on the same day, appointing one of their envoy,
viz. the representative of the King of Naples, to be spokesman for all
four. Unluckily, this plan did not agree with the magnificent projects
of Piero dei Medici. That proud youth, who had been appointed ambassador
of the Florentine Republic, had seen in the mission entrusted to him by
his fellow-citizens the means of making a brilliant display of his own
wealth. From the day of his nomination onwards, his palace was
constantly filled with tailors, jewellers, and merchants of priceless
stuffs; magnificent clothes had been made for him, embroidered with
precious stones which he had selected from the family treasures. All his
jewels, perhaps the richest in Italy, were distributed about the
liveries of his pages, and one of them, his favourite, was to wear a
collar of pearls valued by itself at 100,000 ducats, or almost, a
million of our francs. In his party the Bishop of Arezzo, Gentile, who
had once been Lorenzo dei Medici’s tutor, was elected as second
ambassador, and it was his duty to speak. Now Gentile, who had prepared
his speech, counted on his eloquence to charm the ear quite as much as
Piero counted on his riches to dazzle the eye. But the eloquence of
Gentile would be lost completely if nobody was to speak but the
ambassador of the King of Naples; and the magnificence of Piero dei
Medici would never be noticed at all if he went to Rome mixed up with
all the other ambassadors. These two important interests, compromised by
the Duke of Milan’s proposition, changed the whole face of Italy.

Ludovico Sforza had already made sure of Ferdinand’s promise to conform
to the plan he had invented, when the old king, at the solicitation of
Piero, suddenly drew back. Sforza found out how this change had come
about, and learned that it was Piero’s influence that had overmastered
his own. He could not disentangle the real motives that had promised the
change, and imagined there was some secret league against himself: he
attributed the changed political programme to the death of Lorenzo dei
Medici. But whatever its cause might be, it was evidently prejudicial to
his own interests: Florence, Milan’s old ally, was abandoning her for
Naples. He resolved to throw a counter weight into the scales; so,
betraying to Alexander the policy of Piero and Ferdinand, he proposed to
form a defensive and offensive alliance with him and admit the republic
of Venice; Duke Hercules III of Ferrara was also to be summoned to
pronounce for one or other of the two leagues. Alexander VI, wounded by
Ferdinand’s treatment of himself, accepted Ludovico Sforza’s
proposition, and an Act of Confederation was signed on the 22nd of
April, 1493, by which the new allies pledged themselves to set on foot
for the maintenance of the public peace an army of 20,000 horse and
6,000 infantry.

Ferdinand was frightened when he beheld the formation of this league;
but he thought he could neutralise its effects by depriving Ludovico
Sforza of his regency, which he had already kept beyond the proper time,
though as yet he was not strictly an usurper. Although the young
Galeazzo, his nephew, had reached the age of two-and-twenty, Ludovico
Sforza none the less continued regent. Now Ferdinand definitely proposed
to the Duke of Milan that he should resign the sovereign power into the
hands of his nephew, on pain of being declared an usurper.

This was a bold stroke; but there was a risk of inciting Ludovico Sforza
to start one of those political plots that he was so familiar with,
never recoiling from any situation, however dangerous it might be. This
was exactly what happened: Sforza, uneasy about his duchy, resolved to
threaten Ferdinand’s kingdom.

Nothing could be easier: he knew the warlike nations of Charles VIII,
and the pretensions of the house of France to the kingdom of Naples. He
sent two ambassadors to invite the young king to claim the rights of
Anjou usurped by Aragon; and with a view to reconciling Charles to so
distant and hazardous an expedition, offered him a free and friendly
passage through his own States.

Such a proposition was welcome to Charles VIII, as we might suppose from
our knowledge of his character; a magnificent prospect was opened to him
as by an enchanter: what Ludovica Sforza was offering him was virtually
the command of the Mediterranean, the protectorship of the whole of
Italy; it was an open road, through Naples and Venice, that well might
lead to the conquest of Turkey or the Holy Land, if he ever had the
fancy to avenge the disasters of Nicapolis and Mansourah. So the
proposition was accepted, and a secret alliance was signed, with Count
Charles di Belgiojasa and the Count of Cajazza acting for Ludovica
Sforza, and the Bishop of St. Malo and Seneschal de Beaucaire for
Charles VIII. By this treaty it was agreed:—

That the King of France should attempt the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples;

That the Duke of Milan should grant a passage to the King of France
through his territories, and accompany him with five hundred lances;

That the Duke of Milan should permit the King of France to send out as
many ships of war as he pleased from Genoa;

Lastly, that the Duke of Milan should lend the King of France 200,000
ducats, payable when he started.

On his side, Charles VIII agreed:—

To defend the personal authority of Ludowico Sforza over the duchy of
Milan against anyone who might attempt to turn him out;

To keep two hundred French lances always in readiness to help the house
of Sforza, at Asti, a town belonging to the Duke of Orleans by the
inheritance of his mother, Valentina Visconti;

Lastly, to hand over to his ally the principality of Tarentum
immediately after the conquest of Naples was effected.

This treaty was scarcely concluded when Charles VIII, who exaggerated
its advantages, began to dream of freeing himself from every let or
hindrance to the expedition. Precautions were necessary; for his
relations with the great Powers were far from being what he could have
wished.

Indeed, Henry VII had disembarked at Calais with a formidable army, and
was threatening France with another invasion.

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, if they had not assisted at the fall of
the house of Anjou, had at any rate helped the Aragon party with men and
money.

Lastly, the war with the emperor acquired a fresh impetus when Charles
VIII sent back Margaret of Burgundy to her father Maximilian, and
contracted a marriage with Anne of Brittany.

By the treaty of Etaples, on the 3rd of November, 1492, Henry VII
cancelled the alliance with the King of the Romans, and pledged himself
not to follow his conquests.

This cost Charles VIII 745,000 gold crowns and the expenses of the war
with England.

By the treaty of Barcelona, dated the 19th of January, 1493, Ferdinand
the Catholic and Isabella agreed never to grant aid to their cousin,
Ferdinand of Naples, and never to put obstacles in the way of the French
king in Italy.

This cost Charles VIII Perpignan, Roussillon, and the Cerdagne, which
had all been given to Louis XI as a hostage for the sum of 300,000
ducats by John of Aragon; but at the time agreed upon, Louis XI would
not give them up for the money, for the old fox knew very well how
important were these doors to the Pyrenees, and proposed in case of war
to keep them shut.

Lastly, by the treaty of Senlis, dated the 23rd of May, 1493, Maximilian
granted a gracious pardon to France for the insult her king had offered
him.

It cost Charles VIII the counties of Burgundy, Artois, Charalais, and
the seigniory of Noyers, which had come to him as Margaret’s dowry, and
also the towns of Aire, Hesdin, and Bethune, which he promised to
deliver up to Philip of Austria on the day he came of age.

By dint of all these sacrifices the young king made peace with his
neighbours, and could set on foot the enterprise that Ludavico Sforza
had proposed. We have already explained that the project came into
Sforza’s mind when his plan about the deputation was refused, and that
the refusal was due to Piero dei Medici’s desire to make an exhibition
of his magnificent jewels, and Gentile’s desire to make his speech.

Thus the vanity of a tutor and the pride of his scholar together
combined to agitate the civilized world from the Gulf of Tarentum to the
Pyrenees.

Alexander VI was in the very centre of the impending earthquake, and
before Italy had any idea that the earliest shocks were at hand he had
profited by the perturbed preoccupation of other people to give the lie
to that famous speech we have reported. He created cardinal John Borgia,
a nephew, who during the last pontificate had been elected Archbishop of
Montreal and Governor of Rome. This promotion caused no discontent,
because of John’s antecedents; and Alexander, encouraged by the success
of this, promised to Caesar Borgia the archbishopric of Valencia, a
benefice he had himself enjoyed before his elevation to the papacy. But
here the difficulty arose on the side of the recipient. The young man,
full-blooded, with all the vices and natural instincts of a captain of
condottieri, had very great trouble in assuming even the appearance of a
Churchman’s virtue; but as he knew from his own father’s mouth that the
highest secular dignities were reserved for his elder brother, he
decided to take what he could get, for fear of getting nothing; but his
hatred for Francesco grew stronger, for from henceforth he was doubly
his rival, both in love and ambition.

Suddenly Alexander beheld the old King Ferdinand returning to his side,
and at the very moment when he least expected it. The pope was too
clever a politician to accept a reconciliation without finding out the
cause of it; he soon learned what plots were hatching at the French
court against the kingdom of Naples, and the whole situation was
explained.

Now it was his turn to impose conditions.

He demanded the completion of a marriage between Goffreda, his third
son, and Dada Sancia, Alfonso’s illegitimate daughter.

He demanded that she should bring her husband as dowry the principality
of Squillace and the county of Cariati, with an income of 10,000 ducats
and the office of protonotary, one of the seven great crown offices
which are independent of royal control.

He demanded for his eldest son, whom Ferdinand the Catholic had just
made Duke of Gandia, the principality of Tricarico, the counties of
Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Carinola, an income of 12,000 ducats, and the
first of the seven great offices which should fall vacant.

He demanded that Virginio Orsini, his ambassador at the Neapolitan
court, should be given a third great office, viz. that of Constable, the
most important of them all.

Lastly, he demanded that Giuliano delta Rovere, one of the five
cardinals who had opposed his election and was now taking refuge at
Ostia, where the oak whence he took his name and bearings is still to be
seen carved on all the walls, should be driven out of that town, and the
town itself given over to him.

In exchange, he merely pledged himself never to withdraw from the house
of Aragon the investiture of the kingdom of Naples accorded by his
predecessors. Ferdinand was paying somewhat dearly for a simple promise;
but on the keeping of this promise the legitimacy of his power wholly
depended. For the kingdom of Naples was a fief of the Holy See; and to
the pope alone belonged the right of pronouncing on the justice of each
competitor’s pretensions; the continuance of this investiture was
therefore of the highest conceivable importance to Aragon just at the
time when Anjou was rising up with an army at her back to dispossess
her.

For a year after he mounted the papal throne, Alexander VI had made
great strides, as we see, in the extension of his temporal power. In his
own hands he held, to be sure, only the least in size of the Italian
territories; but by the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia with the lord
of Pesaro he was stretching out one hand as far as Venice, while by the
marriage of the Prince of Squillace with Dona Sancia, and the
territories conceded to the Duke of Sandia, he was touching with the
other hand the boundary of Calabria.

When this treaty, so advantageous for himself, was duly signed, he made
Caesar Cardinal of Santa Maria Novella, for Caesar was always
complaining of being left out in the distribution of his father’s
favours.

Only, as there was as yet no precedent in Church history for a bastard’s
donning the scarlet, the pope hunted up four false witnesses who
declared that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of Castile; who was,
as we know, that valuable person Don Manuel Melchior, and who played the
father’s part with just as much solemnity as he had played the
husband’s.

The wedding of the two bastards was most splendid, rich with the double
pomp of Church and King. As the pope had settled that the young bridal
pair should live near him, Caesar Borgia, the new cardinal, undertook to
manage the ceremony of their entry into Rome and the reception, and
Lucrezia, who enjoyed at her father’s side an amount of favour hitherto
unheard of at the papal court, desired on her part to contribute all the
splendour she had it in her power to add. He therefore went to receive
the young people with a stately and magnificent escort of lords and
cardinals, while she awaited them attended by the loveliest and noblest
ladies of Rome, in one of the halls of the Vatican. A throne was there
prepared for the pope, and at his feet were cushions for Lucrezia and
Dona Sancia. "Thus," writes Tommaso Tommasi, "by the look of the
assembly and the sort of conversation that went on for hours, you would
suppose you were present at some magnificent and voluptuous royal
audience of ancient Assyria, rather than at the severe consistory of a
Roman pontiff, whose solemn duty it is to exhibit in every act the
sanctity of the name he bears. But," continues the same historian, "if
the Eve of Pentecost was spent in such worthy functions, the
celebrations of the coming of the Holy Ghost on the following day were
no less decorous and becoming to the spirit of the Church; for thus
writes the master of the ceremonies in his journal:

"’The pope made his entry into the Church of the Holy Apostles, and
beside him on the marble steps of the pulpit where the canons of St.
Peter are wont to chant the Epistle and Gospel, sat Lucrezia his
daughter and Sancia his son’s wife: round about them, a disgrace to the
Church and a public scandal, were grouped a number of other Roman ladies
far more fit to dwell in Messalina’s city than in St. Peter’s.’"

So at Rome and Naples did men slumber while ruin was at hand; so did
they waste their time and squander their money in a vain display of
pride; and this was going on while the French, thoroughly alive, were
busy laying hands upon the torches with which they would presently set
Italy on fire.

Indeed, the designs of Charles VIII for conquest were no longer for
anybody a matter of doubt. The young king had sent an embassy to the
various Italian States, composed of Perrone dei Baschi, Brigonnet,
d’Aubigny, and the president of the Provencal Parliament. The mission of
this embassy was to demand from the Italian princes their co-operation
in recovering the rights of the crown of Naples for the house of Anjou.

The embassy first approached the Venetians, demanding aid and counsel
for the king their master. But the Venetians, faithful to their
political tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the
Jews of Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to give
any aid to the young king, so long as they had to keep ceaselessly on
guard against the Turks; that, as to advice, it would be too great a
presumption in them to give advice to a prince who was surrounded by
such experienced generals and such able ministers.

Perrone dei Baschi, when he found he could get no other answer, next
made for Florence. Piero dei Medici received him at a grand council, for
he summoned on this occasion not only the seventy, but also the
gonfalonieri who had sat for the last thirty-four years in the Signoria.
The French ambassador put forward his proposal, that the republic should
permit their army to pass through her States, and pledge herself in that
case to supply for ready money all the necessary victual and fodder. The
magnificent republic replied that if Charles VIII had been marching
against the Turks instead of against Ferdinand, she would be only too
ready to grant everything he wished; but being bound to the house of
Aragon by a treaty, she could not betray her ally by yielding to the
demands of the King of France.

The ambassadors next turned their steps to Siena. The poor little
republic, terrified by the honour of being considered at all, replied
that it was her desire to preserve a strict neutrality, that she was too
weak to declare beforehand either for or against such mighty rivals, for
she would naturally be obliged to join the stronger party. Furnished
with this reply, which had at least the merit of frankness, the French
envoys proceeded to Rome, and were conducted into the pope’s presence,
where they demanded the investiture of the kingdom of Naples for their
king.

Alexander VI replied that, as his predecessors had granted this
investiture to the house of Aragon, he could not take it away, unless it
were first established that the house of Anjou had a better claim than
the house that was to be dispossessed. Then he represented to Perrone
dei Baschi that, as Naples was a fief of the Holy See, to the pope alone
the choice of her sovereign properly belonged, and that in consequence
to attack the reigning sovereign was to attack the Church itself.

The result of the embassy, we see, was not very promising for Charles
VIII; so he resolved to rely on his ally Ludovico Sforza alone, and to
relegate all other questions to the fortunes of war.

A piece of news that reached him about this time strengthened him in
this resolution: this was the death of Ferdinand. The old king had
caught a severe cold and cough on his return from the hunting field, and
in two days he was at his last gasp. On the 25th of January, 1494, he
passed away, at the age of seventy, after a thirty-six years’ reign,
leaving the throne to his elder son, Alfonso, who was immediately chosen
as his successor.

Ferdinand never belied his title of "the happy ruler." His death
occurred at the very moment when the fortune of his family was changing.

The new king, Alfonso, was not a novice in arms: he had already fought
successfully against Florence and Venice, and had driven the Turks out
of Otranto; besides, he had the name of being as cunning as his father
in the tortuous game of politics so much in vogue at the Italian courts.
He did not despair of counting among his allies the very enemy he was at
war with when Charles VIII first put forward his pretensions, we mean
Bajazet II. So he despatched to Bajazet one of his confidential
ministers, Camillo Pandone, to give the Turkish emperor to understand
that the expedition to Italy was to the King of France nothing but a
blind for approaching the scene of Mahomedan conquests, and that if
Charles VIII were once at the Adriatic it would only take him a day or
two to get across and attack Macedonia; from there he could easily go by
land to Constantinople. Consequently he suggested that Bajazet for the
maintenance of their common interests should supply six thousand horse
and six thousand infantry; he himself would furnish their pay so long as
they were in Italy. It was settled that Pandone should be joined at
Tarentum by Giorgia Bucciarda, Alexander VI’s envoy, who was
commissioned by the pope to engage the Turks to help him against the
Christians. But while he was waiting for Bajazet’s reply, which might
involve a delay of several months, Alfonso requested that a meeting
might take place between Piero dei Medici, the pope, and himself, to
take counsel together about important affairs. This meeting was arranged
at Vicovaro, near Tivoli, and the three interested parties duly met on
the appointed day.

The intention of Alfonso, who before leaving Naples had settled the
disposition of his naval forces, and given his brother Frederic the
command of a fleet that consisted of thirty-six galleys, eighteen large
and twelve small vessels, with injunctions to wait at Livorno and keep a
watch on the fleet Charles VIII was getting ready at the port of Genoa,
was above all things to check with the aid of his allies the progress of
operations on land. Without counting the contingent he expected his
allies to furnish, he had at his immediate disposal a hundred squadrons
of heavy cavalry, twenty men in each, and three thousand bowmen and
light horse. He proposed, therefore, to advance at once into Lombardy,
to get up a revolution in favour of his nephew Galeazzo, and to drive
Ludovico Sforza out of Milan before he could get help from France; so
that Charles VIII, at the very time of crossing the Alps, would find an
enemy to fight instead of a friend who had promised him a safe passage,
men, and money.

This was the scheme of a great politician and a bold commander; but as
everybody had come in pursuit of his own interests, regardless of the
common this plan was very coldly received by Piero dei Medici, who was
afraid lest in the war he should play only the same poor part he had
been threatened with in the affair of the embassy; by Alexander VI it
was rejected, because he reckoned on employing the troops of Alfonso on
his own account. He reminded the King of Naples of one of the conditions
of the investiture he had promised him, viz. that he should drive out
the Cardinal Giuliano delta Rovere from the town of Ostia, and give up
the town to him, according to the stipulation already agreed upon.
Besides, the advantages that had accrued to Virginio Orsini, Alexander’s
favourite, from his embassy to Naples had brought upon him the ill-will
of Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna, who owned nearly all the villages
round about Rome. Now the pope could not endure to live in the midst of
such powerful enemies, and the most important matter was to deliver him
from all of them, seeing that it was really of moment that he should be
at peace who was the head and soul of the league whereof the others were
only the body and limbs.

Although Alfonso had clearly seen through the motives of Piero’s
coldness, and Alexander had not even given him the trouble of seeking
his, he was none the less obliged to bow to the will of his allies,
leaving the one to defend the Apennines against the French, and helping
the other to shake himself free of his neighbours in the Romagna.
Consequently he, pressed on the siege of Ostia, and added to Virginio’s
forces, which already amounted to two hundred men of the papal army, a
body of his own light horse; this little army was to be stationed round
about Rome, and was to enforce obedience from the Colonnas. The rest of
his troops Alfonso divided into two parties: one he left in the hands of
his son Ferdinand, with orders to scour the Romagna and worry, the petty
princes into levying and supporting the contingent they had promised,
while with the other he himself defended the defiles of the Abruzzi.

On the 23rd of April, at three o’clock in the morning, Alexander VI was
freed from the first and fiercest of his foes; Giuliano delta Rovere,
seeing the impossibility of holding out any longer against Alfonso’s
troops, embarked on a brigantine which was to carry him to Savona.

From that day forward Virginio Orsini began that famous partisan warfare
which reduced the country about Rome to the most pathetic desolation the
world has ever seen. During all this time Charles VIII was at Lyons, not
only uncertain as to the route he ought to take for getting into Italy,
but even beginning to reflect a little on the chances and risks of such
an expedition. He had found no sympathy anywhere except with Ludovico
Sforza; so it appeared not unlikely that he would have to fight not the
kingdom of Naples alone, but the whole of Italy to boot. In his
preparations for war he had spent almost all the money at his disposal;
the Lady of Beaujeu and the Duke of Bourbon both condemned his
enterprise; Briconnet, who had advised it, did not venture to support it
now; at last Charles, more irresolute than ever, had recalled several
regiments that had actually started, when Cardinal Giuliano delta
Rovere, driven out of Italy by the pope, arrived at Lyons, and presented
himself before the king.

The cardinal, full of hatred, full of hope, hastened to Charles, and
found him on the point of abandoning that enterprise on which, as
Alexander’s enemy, delta Rovere rested his whole expectation of
vengeance. He informed Charles of the quarrelling among his enemies; he
showed him that each of them was seeking his own ends—Piero dei Medici
the gratification of his pride, the pope the aggrandisement of his
house. He pointed out that armed fleets were in the ports of
Villefranche, Marseilles, and Genoa, and that these armaments would be
lost; he reminded him that he had sent Pierre d’Urfe, his grand equerry,
on in advance, to have splendid accommodation prepared in the Spinola
and Doria palaces. Lastly, he urged that ridicule and disgrace would
fall on him from every side if he renounced an enterprise so loudly
vaunted beforehand, for whose successful execution, moreover, he had
been obliged to sign three treaties of peace that were all vexatious
enough, viz. with Henry VII, with Maximilian, and with Ferdinand the
Catholic. Giuliano della Rovere had exercised true insight in probing
the vanity of the young king, and Charles did not hesitate for a single
moment. He ordered his cousin, the Duke of Orleans (who later on became
Louis XII) to take command of the French fleet and bring it to Genoa; he
despatched a courier to Antoine de Bessay, Baron de Tricastel, bidding
him take to Asti the 2000 Swiss foot-soldiers he had levied in the
cantons; lastly, he started himself from Vienne, in Dauphine, on the
23rd of August, 1494, crossed the Alps by Mont Genevre, without
encountering a single body of troops to dispute his passage, descended
into Piedmont and Monferrato, both just then governed by women regents,
the sovereigns of both principalities being children, Charles John Aime
and William John, aged respectively six and eight.

The two regents appeared before Charles VIII, one at Turin, one at
Casale, each at the head of a numerous and brilliant court, and both
glittering with jewels and precious stones. Charles, although he quite
well knew that for all these friendly demonstrations they were both
bound by treaty to his enemy, Alfonso of Naples, treated them all the
same with the greatest politeness, and when they made protestations of
friendship, asked them to let him have a proof of it, suggesting that
they should lend him the diamonds they were covered with. The two
regents could do no less than obey the invitation which was really a
command. They took off necklaces, rings, and earrings. Charles VIII gave
them a receipt accurately drawn up, and pledged the jewels for 20,000
ducats. Then, enriched by this money, he resumed his journey and made
his way towards Asti. The Duke of Orleans held the sovereignty of Asti,
as we said before, and hither came to meet Charles both Ludovico Sforza
and his father-in-law, Hercules d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. They brought
with them not only the promised troops and money, but also a court
composed of the loveliest women in Italy.

The balls, fetes, and tourneys began with a magnificence surpassing
anything that Italy had ever seen before. But suddenly they were
interrupted by the king’s illness. This was the first example in Italy
of the disease brought by Christopher Columbus from the New World, and
was called by Italians the French, by Frenchmen the Italian disease. The
probability is that some of Columbus’s crew who were at Genoa or
thereabouts had already brought over this strange and cruel complaint
that counter balanced the gains of the American gold-mines.

The king’s indisposition, however, did not prove so grave as was at
first supposed. He was cured by the end of a few weeks, and proceeded on
his way towards Pavia, where the young Duke John Galeazzo lay dying. He
and the King of France were first cousins, sons of two sisters of the
house of Savoy. So Charles VIII was obliged to see him, and went to
visit him in the castle where he lived more like prisoner than lord. He
found him half reclining on a couch, pale and emaciated, some said in
consequence of luxurious living, others from the effects of a slow but
deadly poison. But whether or not the poor young man was desirous of
pouring out a complaint to Charles, he did not dare say a word; for his
uncle, Ludovico Sforza, never left the King of France for an instant.
But at the very moment when Charles VIII was getting up to go, the door
opened, and a young woman appeared and threw herself at the king’s feet;
she was the wife of the unlucky John Galeazzo, and came to entreat his
cousin to do nothing against her father Alfonso, nor against her brother
Ferdinand. At sight of her; Sforza scowled with an anxious and
threatening aspect, for he knew not what impression might be produced on
his ally by this scene. But he was soon reassured; for Charles replied
that he had advanced too far to draw back now, and that the glory of his
name was at stake as well as the interests of his kingdom, and that
these two motives were far too important to be sacrificed to any
sentiment of pity he might feel, however real and deep it might be and
was. The poor young woman, who had based her last hope an this appeal,
then rose from her knees and threw herself sobbing into her husband’s
arms. Charles VIII and Ludavico Sforza, took their leave: John Galeazzo
was doomed.

Two days after, Charles VIII left for Florence, accompanied by his ally;
but scarcely had they reached Parma when a messenger caught them up, and
announced to Ludovico that his nephew was just dead: Ludovico at once
begged Charles to excuse his leaving him to finish the journey alone;
the interests which called him back to Milan were so important, he said,
that he could not under the circumstances stay away a single day longer.
As a fact he had to make sure of succeeding the man he had assassinated.

But Charles VIII continued his road not without some uneasiness. The
sight of the young prince on his deathbed had moved him deeply, for at
the bottom of his heart he was convinced that Ludovico Sforza was his
murderer; and a murderer might very well be a traitor. He was going
forward into an unfamiliar country, with a declared enemy in front of
him and a doubtful friend behind: he was now at the entrance to the
mountains, and as his army had no store of provisions and only lived
from hand to mouth, a forced delay, however short, would mean famine. In
front of him was Fivizzano, nothing, it is true, but a village
surrounded by walls, but beyond Fivizzano lay Sarzano and Pietra Santa,
both of them considered impregnable fortresses; worse than this, they
were coming into a part of the country that was especially unhealthy in
October, had no natural product except oil, and even procured its own
corn from neighbouring provinces; it was plain that a whole army might
perish there in a few days either from scarcity of food or from the
unwholesome air, both of which were more disastrous than the impediments
offered at every step by the nature of the ground. The situation was
grave; but the pride of Piero dei Medici came once more to the rescue of
the fortunes of Charles VIII.




CHAPTER V


PIERO DEI MEDICI had, as we may remember, undertaken to hold the
entrance to Tuscany against the French; when, however, he saw his enemy
coming down from the Alps, he felt less confident about his own
strength, and demanded help from the pope; but scarcely had the rumour
of foreign invasion began to spread in the Romagna, than the Colonna
family declared themselves the French king’s men, and collecting all
their forces seized Ostia, and there awaited the coming of the French
fleet to offer a passage through Rome. The pope, therefore, instead of
sending troops to Florence, was obliged to recall all his soldiers to be
near the capital; the only promise he made to Piero was that if Bajazet
should send him the troops that he had been asking for, he would
despatch that army for him to make use of. Piero dei Medici had not yet
taken any resolution or formed any plan, when he suddenly heard two
startling pieces of news. A jealous neighbour of his, the Marquis of
Torderiovo, had betrayed to the French the weak side of Fivizzano, so
that they had taken it by storm, and had put its soldiers and
inhabitants to the edge of the sword; on another side, Gilbert of
Montpensier, who had been lighting up the sea-coast so as to keep open
the communications between the French army and their fleet, had met with
a detachment sent by Paolo Orsini to Sarzano, to reinforce the garrison
there, and after an hour’s fighting had cut it to pieces. No quarter had
been granted to any of the prisoners; every man the French could get
hold of they had massacred.

This was the first occasion on which the Italians, accustomed as they
were to the chivalrous contests of the fifteenth century, found
themselves in contact with savage foreigners who, less advanced in
civilisation, had not yet come to consider war as a clever game, but
looked upon it as simply a mortal conflict. So the news of these two
butcheries produced a tremendous sensation at Florence, the richest city
in Italy, and the most prosperous in commerce and in art. Every
Florentine imagined the French to be like an army of those ancient
barbarians who were wont to extinguish fire with blood. The prophecies
of Savonarola, who had predicted the foreign invasion and the
destruction that should follow it, were recalled to the minds of all;
and so much perturbation was evinced that Piero dei Medici, bent on
getting peace at any price, forced a decree upon the republic whereby
she was to send an embassy to the conqueror; and obtained leave,
resolved as he was to deliver himself in person into the hands of the
French monarch, to act as one of the ambassadors. He accordingly quitted
Florence, accompanied by four other messengers, and on his arrival at
Pietra Santa, sent to ask from Charles VIII a safe-conduct for himself
alone. The day after he made this request, Brigonnet and de Piennes came
to fetch him, and led him into the presence of Charles VIII.

Piero dei Medici, in spite of his name and influence, was in the eyes of
the French nobility, who considered it a dishonourable thing to concern
oneself with art or industry, nothing more than a rich merchant, with
whom it would be absurd to stand upon any very strict ceremony. So
Charles VIII received him on horseback, and addressing him with a
haughty air, as a master might address a servant, demanded whence came
this pride of his that made him dispute his entrance into Tuscany. Piero
dei Medici replied, that, with the actual consent of Louis XI, his
father Lorenzo had concluded a treaty of alliance with Ferdinand of
Naples; that accordingly he had acted in obedience to prior obligations,
but as he did, not wish to push too far his devotion to the house of
Aragon or his opposition to France, he was ready to do whatever Charles
VIII might demand of him. The king, who had never looked for such
humility in his enemy, demanded that Sarzano should be given up to him:
to this Piero dei Medici at once consented. Then the conqueror, wishing
to see how far the ambassador of the magnificent republic would extend
his politeness, replied that this concession was far from satisfying
him, and that he still must have the keys of Pietra Santa, Pisa,
Librafatta, and Livorno. Piero saw no more difficulty about these than
about Sarzano, and consented on Charles’s mere promise by word of mouth
to restore the town when he had achieved the conquest of Naples. At last
Charles VIII, seeing that this man who had been sent out to negotiate
with him was very easy to manage, exacted as a final condition, a ’sine
qua non’, however, of his royal protection, that the magnificent
republic should lend him the sum of 200,000 florins. Piero found it no
harder to dispose of money than of fortresses, and replied that his
fellow-citizens would be happy to render this service to their new ally.
Then Charles VIII set him on horseback, and ordered him to go on in
front, so as to begin to carry out his promises by yielding up the four
fortresses he had insisted on having. Piero obeyed, and the French army,
led by the grandson of Cosimo the Great and the son of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, continued its triumphal march through Tuscany.

On his arrival at Lucca, Piero dei Medici learnt that his concessions to
the King of France were making a terrible commotion at Florence. The
magnificent republic had supposed that what Charles VIII wanted was
simply a passage through her territory, so when the news came there was
a general feeling of discontent, which was augmented by the return of
the other ambassadors, whom Piero had not even consulted when he took
action as he did. Piero considered it necessary that he should return,
so he asked Charles’s permission to precede him to the capital. As he
had fulfilled all his promises, except the matter of the loan, which
could not be settled anywhere but at Florence, the king saw no
objection, and the very evening after he quitted the French army Piero
returned incognito to his palace in the Via Largo.

The next day he proposed to present himself before the Signoria, but
when he arrived at the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, he perceived the
gonfaloniere Jacopo de Nerli coming towards him, signalling to him that
it was useless to attempt to go farther, and pointing out to him the
figure of Luca Corsini standing at the gate, sword in hand: behind him
stood guards, ordered, if need-were, to dispute his passage. Piero dei
Medici, amazed by an opposition that he was experiencing for the first
time in his life, did not attempt resistance. He went home, and wrote to
his brother-in-law, Paolo Orsini, to come and help him with his
gendarmes. Unluckily for him, his letter was intercepted. The Signoria
considered that it was an attempt at rebellion. They summoned the
citizens to their aid; they armed hastily, sallied forth in crowds, and
thronged about the piazza of the palace. Meanwhile Cardinal Gian dei
Medici had mounted on horseback, and under the impression that the
Orsini were coming to the rescue, was riding about the streets of
Florence, accompanied by his servants and uttering his battle cry,
"Palle, Palle." But times had changed: there was no echo to the cry, and
when the cardinal reached the Via dei Calizaioli, a threatening murmur
was the only response, and he understood that instead of trying to
arouse Florence he had much better get away before the excitement ran
too high. He promptly retired to his own palace, expecting to find there
his two brothers, Piero and Giuliano. But they, under the protection of
Orsini and his gendarmes, had made their escape by the Porto San Gallo.
The peril was imminent, and Gian dei Medici wished to follow their
example; but wherever he went he was met by a clamour that grew more and
more threatening. At last, as he saw that the danger was constantly
increasing, he dismounted from his horse and ran into a house that he
found standing open. This house by a lucky chance communicated with a
convent of Franciscans; one of the friars lent the fugitive his dress,
and the cardinal, under the protection of this humble incognito,
contrived at last to get outside Florence, and joined his two brothers
in the Apennines.

The same day the Medici were declared traitors and rebels, and
ambassadors were sent to the King of France. They found him at Pisa,
where he was granting independence to the town which eighty-seven years
ago had fallen under the rule of the Florentines. Charles VIII made no
reply to the envoys, but merely announced that he was going to march on
Florence.

Such a reply, one may easily understand, terrified the republic.
Florence, had no time to prepare a defence, and no strength in her
present state to make one. But all the powerful houses assembled and
armed their own servants and retainers, and awaited the issue, intending
not to begin hostilities, but to defend themselves should the French
make an attack. It was agreed that if any necessity should arise for
taking up arms, the bells of the various churches in the town should
ring a peal and so serve as a general signal. Such a resolution was
perhaps of more significant moment in Florence than it could have been
in any other town. For the palaces that still remain from that period
are virtually fortresses and the eternal fights between Guelphs and
Ghibellines had familiarised the Tuscan people with street warfare.

The king appeared, on the 17th of November, in the evening, at the gate
of San Friano. He found there the nobles of Florence clad in their most
magnificent apparel, accompanied by priests chanting hymns, and by a mob
who were full of joy at any prospect of change, and hoped for a return
of liberty after the fall of the Medici. Charles VIII stopped for a
moment under a sort of gilded canopy that had been prepared for him, and
replied in a few evasive words to the welcoming speeches which were
addressed to him by the Signoria; then he asked for his lance, he set it
in rest, and gave the order to enter the town, the whole of which he
paraded with his army following him with arms erect, and then went down
to the palace of the Medici, which had been prepared for him.

The next day negotiations commenced; but everyone was out of his
reckoning. The Florentines had received Charles VIII as a guest, but he
had entered the city as a conqueror. So when the deputies of the
Signoria spoke of ratifying the treaty of Piero dei Medici, the king
replied that such a treaty no longer existed, as they had banished the
man who made it; that he had conquered Florence, as he proved the night
before, when he entered lance in hand; that he should retain the
sovereignty, and would make any further decision whenever it pleased him
to do so; further, he would let them know later on whether he would
reinstate the Medici or whether he would delegate his authority to the
Signoria: all they had to do was to come back the next day, and he would
give them his ultimatum in writing.

This reply threw Florence into a great state of consternation; but the
Florentines were confirmed in their resolution of making a stand.
Charles, for his part, had been astonished by the great number of the
inhabitants; not only was every street he had passed through thickly
lined with people, but every house from garret to basement seemed
overflowing with human beings. Florence indeed, thanks to her rapid
increase in population, could muster nearly 150,000 souls.

The next day, at the appointed hour, the deputies made their appearance
to meet the king. They were again introduced into his presence, and the
discussion was reopened. At last, as they were coming to no sort of
understanding, the royal secretary, standing at the foot of the throne
upon which Charles VIII sat with covered head, unfolded a paper and
began to read, article by article, the conditions imposed by the King of
France. But scarcely had he read a third of the document when the
discussion began more hotly than ever before. Then Charles VIII said
that thus it should be, or he would order his trumpets to be sounded.
Hereupon Piero Capponi, secretary to the republic, commonly called the
Scipio of Florence, snatched from the royal secretary’s hand the
shameful proposal of capitulation, and tearing it to pieces, exclaimed:—

"Very good, sire; blow your trumpets, and we will ring our bells."

He threw the pieces in the face of the amazed reader, and dashed out of
the room to give the terrible order that would convert the street of
Florence into a battlefield.

Still, against all probabilities, this bold answer saved the town. The
French supposed, from such audacious words, addressed as they were to
men who so far had encountered no single obstacle, that the Florentines
were possessed of sure resources, to them unknown: the few prudent men
who retained any influence over the king advised him accordingly to
abate his pretensions; the result was that Charles VIII offered new and
more reasonable conditions, which were accepted, signed by both parties,
and proclaimed on the 26th of November during mass in the cathedral of
Santa Maria Del Fiore.

These were the conditions:

The Signoria were to pay to Charles VIII, as subsidy, the sum of 120,000
florins, in three instalments;

The Signoria were to remove the sequestration imposed upon the property
of the Medici, and to recall the decree that set a price on their heads;

The Signoria were to engage to pardon the Pisans, on condition of their
again submitting to the rule of Florence;

Lastly, the Signoria were to recognise the claims of the Duke of Milan
over Sarzano and Pietra Santa, and these claims thus recognised, were to
be settled by arbitration.

In exchange for this, the King of France pledged himself to restore the
fortresses that had been given up to him, either after he had made
himself master of the town of Naples, or when this war should be ended
by a peace or a two years’ truce, or else when, for any reason
whatsoever, he should have quitted Italy.

Two days after this proclamation, Charles VIII, much to the joy of the
Signoria, left Florence, and advanced towards Rome by the route of
Poggibondi and Siena.

The pope began to be affected by the general terror: he had heard of the
massacres of Fivizzano, of Lunigiane, and of Imola; he knew that Piero
dei Medici had handed over the Tuscan fortresses, that Florence had
succumbed, and that Catherine Sforza had made terms with the conqueror;
he saw the broken remnants of the Neapolitan troops pass disheartened
through Rome, to rally their strength in the Abruzzi, and thus he found
himself exposed to an enemy who was advancing upon him with the whole of
the Romagna under his control from one sea to the other, in a line of
march extending from Piombina to Ancona.

It was at this juncture that Alexander VI received his answer from
Bajazet II: the reason of so long a delay was that the pope’s envoy and
the Neapolitan ambassador had been stopped by Gian della Rovere, the
Cardinal Giuliano’s brother, just as they were disembarking at
Sinigaglia. They were charged with a verbal answer, which was that the
sultan at this moment was busied with a triple war, first with the
Sultan of Egypt, secondly with the King of Hungary, and thirdly with the
Greeks of Macedonia and Epirus; and therefore he could not, with all the
will in the world, help His Holiness with armed men. But the envoys were
accompanied by a favourite of the sultan’s bearing a private letter to
Alexander VI, in which Bajazet offered on certain conditions to help him
with money. Although, as we see, the messengers had been stopped on the
way, the Turkish envoy had all the same found a means of getting his
despatch sent to the pope: we give it here in all its naivete.

"Bajazet the Sultan, son of the Sultan Mahomet II, by the grace of God
Emperor of Asia and Europe, to the Father and Lord of all the
Christians, Alexander VI, Roman pontiff and pope by the will of heavenly
Providence, first, greetings that we owe him and bestow with all our
heart. We make known to your Highness, by the envoy of your Mightiness,
Giorgio Bucciarda, that we have been apprised of your convalescence, and
received the news thereof with great joy and comfort. Among other
matters, the said Bucciarda has brought us word that the King of France,
now marching against your Highness, has shown a desire to take under his
protection our brother D’jem, who is now under yours—a thing which is
not only against our will, but which would also be the cause of great
injury to your Highness and to all Christendom. In turning the matter
over with your envoy Giorgio we have devised a scheme most conducive to
peace and most advantageous and honourable for your Highness; at the
same time satisfactory to ourselves personally; it would be well if our
aforesaid brother D’jem, who being a man is liable to death, and who is
now in the hands of your Highness, should quit this world as soon as
possible, seeing that his departure, a real good to him in his position,
would be of great use to your Highness, and very conducive to your
peace, while at the same time it would be very agreeable to us, your
friend. If this proposition is favourably received, as we hope, by your
Highness, in your desire to be friendly towards us, it would be
advisable both in the interests of your Highness and for our own
satisfaction that it should occur rather sooner than later, and by the
surest means you might be pleased to employ; so that our said brother
D’jem might pass from the pains of this world into a better and more
peaceful life, where at last he may find repose. If your Highness should
adapt this plan and send us the body of our brother, We, the above-named
Sultan Bajazet, pledge ourselves to send to your Highness, wheresoever
and by whatsoever hands you please, the sum of 300,000 ducats, With
which sum you could purchase some fair domain for your children. In
order to facilitate this purchase, we would be willing, while awaiting
the issue, to place the 300,000 ducats in the hands of a third party, so
that your Highness might be quite certain of receiving the money on an
appointed day, in return for the despatch of our brother’s body.
Moreover, we promise your Highness herewith, for your greater
satisfaction, that never, so long as you shall remain on the pontifical
throne, shall there be any hurt done to the Christians, neither by us,
nor by our servants, nor by any of our compatriots, of whatsoever kind
or condition they may be, neither on sea nor on land. And for the still
further satisfaction of your Highness, and in order that no doubt
whatever may remain concerning the fulfilment of our promises, we have
sworn and affirmed in the presence of Bucciarda, your envoy, by the true
God whom we adore and by our holy Gospels, that they shall be faithfully
kept from the first point unto the last. And now for the final and
complete assurance of your Highness, in order that no doubt may still
remain in your heart, and that you may be once again and profoundly
convinced of our good faith, we the aforesaid Sultan Bajazet do swear by
the true God, who has created the heavens and the earth and all that
therein is, that we will religiously observe all that has been above
said and declared, and in the future will do nothing and undertake
nothing that may be contrary to the interests of your Highness.

"Given at Constantinople, in our palace, on the 12th of September A.D.
1494."

This letter was the cause of great joy to the Holy Father: the aid of
four or five thousand Turks would be insufficient under the present
circumstances, and would only serve to compromise the head of
Christendom, while the sum of 300,000 ducats—that is, nearly a million
francs—was good to get in any sort of circumstances. It is true that, so
long as D’jem lived, Alexander was drawing an income of 180,000 livres,
which as a life annuity represented a capital of nearly two millions;
but when one needs ready maney, one ought to be able to make a sacrifice
in the way of discount. All the same, Alexander formed no definite plan,
resolved on acting as circumstances should indicate.

But it was a more pressing business to decide how he should behave to
the King of France: he had never anticipated the success of the French
in Italy, and we have seen that he laid all the foundations of his
family’s future grandeur upon his alliance with the house of Aragon. But
here was this house tottering, and a volcano more terrible than her own
Vesuvius was threatening to swallow up Naples. He must therefore change
his policy, and attach himself to the victor,—no easy matter, for
Charles VIII was bitterly annoyed with the pope for having refused him
the investiture and given it to Aragon.

In consequence, he sent Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini as an envoy to
the king. This choice looked like a mistake at first, seeing that the
ambassador was a nephew of Pius II, who had vigorously opposed the house
of Anjou; but Alexander in acting thus had a second design, which could
not be discerned by those around him. In fact, he had divined that
Charles would not be quick to receive his envoy, and that, in the
parleyings to which his unwillingness must give rise, Piccolomini would
necessarily be brought into contact with the young king’s advisers. Now,
besides his ostensible mission to the king, Piccalamini had also secret
instructions for the more influential among his counsellors. These were
Briconnet and Philippe de Luxembourg; and Piccolomini was authorised to
promise a cardinal’s hat to each of them. The result was just what
Alexander had foreseen: his envoy could not gain admission to Charles,
and was obliged to confer with the people about him. This was what the
pope wished. Piccolomini returned to Rome with the king’s refusal, but
with a promise from Briconnet and Philippe de Luxembourg that they would
use all their influence with Charles in favour of the Holy Father, and
prepare him to receive a fresh embassy.

But the French all this time were advancing, and never stopped more than
forty-eight hours in any town, so that it became more and more urgent to
get something settled with Charles. The king had entered Siena and
Viterbo without striking a blow; Yves d’ Alegre and Louis de Ligny had
taken over Ostia from the hands of the Colonnas; Civita Vecchia and
Corneto had opened their gates; the Orsini had submitted; even Gian
Sforza, the pope’s son-in-law, had retired from the alliance with
Aragon. Alexander accordingly judged that the moment had came to abandon
his ally, and sent to Charles the Bishops of Concordia and Terni, and
his confessor, Mansignore Graziano. They were charged to renew to
Briconnet and Philippe de Luxembourg the promise of the cardinalship,
and had full powers of negotiation in the name of their master, both in
case Charles should wish to include Alfonso II in the treaty, and in
case he should refuse to sign an agreement with any other but the pope
alone. They found the mind of Charles influenced now by the insinuation
of Giuliano della Ravere, who, himself a witness of the pope’s simony,
pressed the king to summon a council and depose the head of the Church,
and now by the secret support given him by the Bishops of Mans and St.
Malo. The end of it was that the king decided to form his own opinion
about the matter and settle nothing beforehand, and continued this
route, sending the ambassadors back to the pope, with the addition of
the Marechal de Gie, the Seneschal de Beaucaire, and Jean de Gannay,
first president of the Paris Parliament. They were ordered to say to the
pope—

  (1) That the king wished above all things to be admitted into Rome
      without resistance; that, an condition of a voluntary, frank, and
      loyal admission, he would respect the authority of the Holy Father
      and the privileges of the Church;
  (2) That the king desired that D’jem should be given up to him, in
      order that he might make use of him against the sultan when he
      should carry the war into Macedonia or Turkey or the Holy Land;
  (3) That the remaining conditions were so unimportant that they could
      be brought forward at the first conference.

The ambassadors added that the French army was now only two days distant
from Rome, and that in the evening of the day after next Charles would
probably arrive in person to demand an answer from His Holiness.

It was useless to think of parleying with a prince who acted in such
expeditious fashion as this. Alexander accordingly warned Ferdinand to
quit Rome as soon as possible, in the interests of his own personal
safety. But Ferdinand refused to listen to a word, and declared that he
would not go out at one gate while Charles VIII came in at another. His
sojourn was not long. Two days later, about eleven o’clock in the
morning, a sentinel placed on a watch-tower at the top of the Castle S.
Angelo, whither the pope had retired, cried out that the vanguard of the
enemy was visible on the horizon. At once Alexander and the Duke of
Calabria went up an the terrace which tops the fortress, and assured
themselves with their own eyes that what the soldier said was true.
Then, and not till then, did the duke of Calabria mount on horseback,
and, to use his own words, went out at the gate of San Sebastiana, at
the same moment that the French vanguard halted five hundred feet from
the Gate of the People. This was on the 31st of December 1494.

At three in the afternoon the whole army had arrived, and the vanguard
began their march, drums beating, ensigns unfurled. It was composed,
says Paolo Giove, an eye-witness (book ii, p. 41 of his History), of
Swiss and German soldiers, with short tight coats of various colours:
they were armed with short swords, with steel edges like those of the
ancient Romans, and carried ashen lances ten feet long, with straight
and sharp iron spikes: only one-fourth of their number bore halberts
instead of lances, the spikes cut into the form of an axe and surmounted
by a four-cornered spike, to be used both for cutting like an axe and
piercing like a bayonet: the first row of each battalion wore helmets
and cuirasses which protected the head and chest, and when the men were
drawn up for battle they presented to the enemy a triple array of iron
spikes, which they could raise or lower like the spines of a porcupine.
To each thousand of the soldiery were attached a hundred fusiliers:
their officers, to distinguish them from the men, wore lofty plumes on
their helmets.

After the Swiss infantry came the archers of Gascony: there were five
thousand of them, wearing a very simple dress, that contrasted with the
rich costume of the Swiss soldiers, the shortest of whom would have been
a head higher than the tallest of the Gascons. But they were excellent
soldiers, full of courage, very light, and with a special reputation for
quickness in stringing and drawing their iron bows.

Behind them rode the cavalry, the flower of the French nobility, with
their gilded helmets and neck bands, their velvet and silk surcoats,
their swords each of which had its own name, their shields each telling
of territorial estates, and their colours each telling of a lady-love.
Besides defensive arms, each man bore a lance in his hand, like an
Italian gendarme, with a solid grooved end, and on his saddle bow a
quantity of weapons, some for cutting and some for thrusting. Their
horses were large and strong, but they had their tails and ears cropped
according to the French custom. These horses, unlike those of the
Italian gendarmes, wore no caparisons of dressed leather, which made
them more exposed to attack. Every knight was followed by three
horses—the first ridden by a page in armour like his own, the two others
by equerries who were called lateral auxiliaries, because in a fray they
fought to right and left of their chief. This troop was not only the
most magnificent, but the most considerable in the whole army; for as
there were 2500 knights, they formed each with their three followers a
total of 10,000 men. Five thousand light horse rode next, who carried
huge wooden bows, and shot long arrows from a distance like English
archers. They were a great help in battle, for moving rapidly wherever
aid was required, they could fly in a moment from one wing to another,
from the rear to the van, then when their quivers were empty could go
off at so swift a gallop that neither infantry or heavy cavalry could
pursue them. Their defensive armour consisted of a helmet and
half-cuirass; some of them carried a short lance as well, with which to
pin their stricken foe to the ground; they all wore long cloaks adorned
with shoulder-knots, and plates of silver whereon the arms of their
chief were emblazoned.

At last came the young king’s escort; there were four hundred archers,
among whom a hundred Scots formed a line on each side, while two hundred
of the most illustrious knights marched on foot beside the prince,
carrying heavy arms on their shoulders. In the midst of this magnificent
escort advanced Charles VIII, both he and his horse covered with
splendid armour; on his right and left marched Cardinal Ascanio Sforza,
the Duke of Milan’s brother, and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, of whom
we have spoken so often, who was afterwards Pope Julius II. The
Cardinals Colonna and Savelli followed immediately after, and behind
them came Prospero and Fabrizia Colonna, and all the Italian princes and
generals who had thrown in their lot with the conqueror, and were
marching intermingled with the great French lords.

For a long time the crowd that had collected to see all these foreign
soldiers go by, a sight so new and strange, listened uneasily to a dull
sound which got nearer and nearer. The earth visibly trembled, the glass
shook in the windows, and behind the king’s escort thirty-six bronze
cannons were seen to advance, bumping along as they lay on their
gun-carriages. These cannons were eight feet in length; and as their
mouths were large enough to hold a man’s head, it was supposed that each
of these terrible machines, scarcely known as yet to the Italians,
weighed nearly six thousand pounds. After the cannons came culverins
sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the smallest of which shot balls
the size of a grenade. This formidable artillery brought up the rear of
the procession, and formed the hindmost guard of the French army.

It was six hours since the front guard entered the town; and as it was
now night and for every six artillery-men there was a torch-bearer, this
illumination gave to the objects around a more gloomy character than
they would have shown in the sunlight. The young king was to take up his
quarters in the Palazzo di Venezia, and all the artillery was directed
towards the plaza and the neighbouring streets. The remainder of the
army was dispersed about the town. The same evening, they brought to the
king, less to do honour to him than to assure him of his safety, the
keys of Rome and the keys of the Belvedere Garden just the same thing
had been done for the Duke of Calabria.

The pope, as we said, had retired to the Castle S. Angelo with only six
cardinals, so from the day after his arrival the young king had around
him a court of very different brilliance from that of the head of the
Church. Then arose anew the question of a convocation to prove
Alexander’s simony and proceed to depose him; but the king’s chief
counsellors, gained over, as we know, pointed out that this was a bad
moment to excite a new schism in the Church, just when preparations were
being made for war against the infidels. As this was also the king’s
private opinion, there was not much trouble in persuading him, and he
made up his mind to treat with His Holiness.

But the negotiations had scarcely begun when they had to be broken off;
for the first thing Charles VIII demanded was the surrender of the
Castle S. Angelo, and as the pope saw in this castle his only refuge, it
was the last thing he chose to give up. Twice, in his youthful
impatience, Charles wanted to take by force what he could not get by
goodwill, and had his cannons directed towards the Holy Father’s
dwelling-place; but the pope was unmoved by these demonstrations; and
obstinate as he was, this time it was the French king who gave way.

This article, therefore, was set aside, and the following conditions
were agreed upon:

That there should be from this day forward between His Majesty the King
of France and the Holy Father a sincere friendship and a firm alliance;

Before the completion of the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, the King
of France should occupy, for the advantage and accommodation of his
army, the fortresses of Civita Vecchia, Terracina, and Spoleto;

Lastly, the Cardinal Valentino (this was now the name of Caesar Borgia,
after his archbishopric of Valencia) should accompany the king in the
capacity of apostolic ambassador, really as a hostage.

These conditions fixed, the ceremonial of an interview was arranged. The
king left the Palazzo di Venezia and went to live in the Vatican. At the
appointed time he entered by the door of a garden that adjoined the
palace, while the pope, who had not had to quit the Castle S. Angelo,
thanks to a corridor communicating between the two palaces, came down
into the same garden by another gate. The result of this arrangement was
that the king the next moment perceived the pope, and knelt down, but
the pope pretended not to see him, and the king advancing a few paces,
knelt a second time; as His Holiness was at that moment screened by some
masonry, this supplied him with another excuse, and the king went on
with the performance, got up again, once more advanced several steps,
and was on the point of kneeling down the third time face to face, when
the Holy Father at last perceived him, and, walking towards him as
though he would prevent him from kneeling, took off his own hat, and
pressing him to his heart, raised him up and tenderly kissed his
forehead, refusing to cover until the king had put his cap upon his
head, with the aid of the pope’s own hands. Then, after they had stood
for a moment, exchanging polite and friendly speeches, the king lost no
time in praying His Holiness to be so good as to receive into the Sacred
College William Bricannet, the Bishop of St. Malo. As this matter had
been agreed upon beforehand by that prelate and His Holiness, though the
king was not aware of it, Alexander was pleased to get credit by
promptly granting the request; and he instantly ordered one of his
attendants to go to the house of his son, Cardinal Valentino, and fetch
a cape and hat. Then taking the king by the hand, he conducted him into
the hall of Papagalli, where the ceremony was to take place of the
admission of the new cardinal. The solemn oath of obedience which was to
be taken by Charles to His Holiness as supreme head of the Christian
Church was postponed till the following day.

When that solemn day arrived, every person important in Rome, noble,
cleric, or soldier, assembled around His Holiness. Charles, on his side,
made his approach to the Vatican with a splendid following of princes,
prelates, and captains. At the threshold of the palace he found four
cardinals who had arrived before him: two of them placed themselves one
on each side of him, the two others behind him, and all his retinue
following, they traversed a long line of apartments full of guards and
servants, and at last arrived in the reception-room, where the pope was
seated on his throne, with his son, Caesar Borgia; behind him. On his
arrival at the door, the King of France began the usual ceremonial, and
when he had gone on from genuflexions to kissing the feet, the hand, and
the forehead, he stood up, while the first president of the Parliament
of Paris, in his turn stepping forward, said in a loud voice:

"Very Holy Father, behold my king ready to offer to your Holiness that
oath of obedience that he owes to you; but in France it is customary
that he who offers himself as vassal to his lord shall receive in
exchange therefor such boons as he may demand. His Majesty, therefore,
while he pledges himself for his own part to behave unto your Holiness
with a munificence even greater than that wherewith your Holiness shall
behave unto him, is here to beg urgently that you accord him three
favours. These favours are: first, the confirmation of priveleges
already granted to the king, to the queen his wife, and to the dauphin
his son; secondly, the investiture, for himself and his successors, of
the kingdom of Naples; lastly, the surrender to him of the person of the
sultan D’jem, brother of the Turkish emperor."

At this address the pope was for a moment stupefied, for he did not
expect these three demands, which were moreover made so publicly by
Charles that no manner of refusal was possible. But quickly recovering
his presence of mind, he replied to the king that he would willingly
confirm the privileges that had been accorded to the house of France by
his predecessors; that he might therefore consider his first demand
granted; that the investiture of the kingdom was an affair that required
deliberation in a council of cardinals, but he would do all he possibly
could to induce them to accede to the king’s desire; lastly, he must
defer the affair of the sultan’s brother till a time more opportune for
discussing it with the Sacred College, but would venture to say that, as
this surrender could not fail to be for the good of Christendom, as it
was demanded for the purpose of assuring further the success of a
crusade, it would not be his fault if on this point also the king should
not be satisfied.

At this reply, Charles bowed his head in sign of satisfaction, and the
first president stood up, uncovered, and resumed his discourse as
follows.

"Very Holy Father, it is an ancient custom among Christian kings,
especially the Most Christian kings of France, to signify, through their
ambassadors, the respect they feel for the Holy See and the sovereign
pontiffs whom Divine Providence places thereon; but the Most Christian
king, having felt a desire to visit the tombs of the holy apostles, has
been pleased to pay this religious debt, which he regards as a sacred
duty, not by ambassadors or by delegates, but in his own person. This is
why, Very Holy Father, His Majesty the King of France is here to
acknowledge you as the true vicar of Christ, the legitimate successor of
the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and with promise and vow renders
you that filial and respectful devotion which the kings his predecessors
have been accustomed to promise and vow, devoting himself and all his
strength to the service of your Holiness and the interests of the Holy
See."

The pope arose with a joyful heart; for this oath, so publicly made,
removed all his fears about a council; so inclined from this moment to
yield to the King of France anything he might choose to ask, he took him
by his left hand and made him a short and friendly reply, dubbing him
the Church’s eldest son. The ceremony over, they left the hall, the pope
always holding the king’s hand in his, and in this way they walked as
far as the room where the sacred vestments are put off; the pope feigned
a wish to conduct the king to his own apartments, but the king would not
suffer this, and, embracing once more, they separated, each to retire to
his own domicile.

The king remained eight days longer at the Vatican, then returned to the
Palazzo San Marco. During these eight days all his demands were debated
and settled to his satisfaction. The Bishop of Mans was made cardinal;
the investiture of the kingdom of Naples was promised to the conqueror;
lastly, it was agreed that on his departure the King of France should
receive from the pope’s hand the brother of the Emperor of
Constantinople, for a sum of 120,000 livres. But—the pope, desiring to
extend to the utmost the hospitality he had been bestowing, invited
D’jem to dinner on the very day that he was to leave Rome with his new
protector.

When the moment of departure arrived, Charles mounted his horse in full
armour, and with a numerous and brilliant following made his way to the
Vatican; arrived at the door, he dismounted, and leaving his escort at
the Piazza of St. Peter, went up with a few gentlemen only. He found His
Holiness waiting for him, with Cardinal Valentino on his right, and on
his left D’jem, who, as we said before, was dining with him, and round
the table thirteen cardinals. The king at once, bending on his knee,
demanded the pope’s benediction, and stooped to kiss his feet. But this
Alexander would not suffer; he took him in his arms, and with the lips
of a father and heart of an enemy, kissed him tenderly on his forehead.
Then the pope introduced the son of Mahomet II, who was a fine young
man, with something noble and regal in his air, presenting in his
magnificent oriental costume a great contrast in its fashion and
amplitude to the narrow, severe cut of the Christian apparel. D’jem
advanced to Charles without humility and without pride, and, like an
emperor’s son treating with a king, kissed his hand and then his
shoulder; then, turning towards the Holy Father, he said in Italian,
which he spoke very well, that he entreated he would recommend him to
the young king, who was prepared to take him under his protection,
assuring the pontiff that he should never have to repent giving him his
liberty, and telling Charles that he hoped he might some day be proud of
him, if after taking Naples he carried out his intention of going on to
Greece. These words were spoken with so much dignity and at the same
time with such gentleness, that the King of France loyally and frankly
grasped the young sultan’s hand, as though he were his
companion-in-arms. Then Charles took a final farewell of the pope, and
went down to the piazza. There he was awaited by Cardinal Valentino, who
was about to accompany him, as we know, as a hostage, and who had
remained behind to exchange a few words with his father. In a moment
Caesar Borgia appeared, riding on a splendidly harnessed mule, and
behind him were led six magnificent horses, a present from the Holy
Father to the King of France. Charles at once mounted one of these, to
do honour to the gift. The pope had just conferred on him, and leaving
Rome with the rest of his troops, pursued his way towards Marino, where
he arrived the same evening.

He learned there that Alfonso, belying his reputation as a clever
politician and great general, had just embarked with all his treasures
in a flotilla of four galleys, leaving the care of the war and the
management of his kingdom to his son Ferdinand. Thus everything went
well for the triumphant march of Charles: the gates of towns opened of
themselves at his approach, his enemies fled without waiting for his
coming, and before he had fought a single battle he had won for himself
the surname of Conqueror.

The day after at dawn the army started once more, and after marching the
whole day, stopped in the evening at Velletri. There the king, who had
been on horseback since the morning, with Cardinal Valentine and D’jem,
left the former at his lodging, and taking D’jem with him, went on to
his own. Then Caesar Borgia, who among the army baggage had twenty very
heavy waggons of his own, had one of these opened, took out a splendid
cabinet with the silver necessary for his table, and gave orders for his
supper to be prepared, as he had done the night before. Meanwhile, night
had come on, and he shut himself up in a private chamber, where,
stripping off his cardinal’s costume, he put on a groom’s dress. Thanks
to this disguise, he issued from the house that had been assigned for
his accommodation without being recognised, traversed the streets,
passed through the gates, and gained the open country. Nearly half a
league outside the town, a servant awaited him with two swift horses.
Caesar, who was an excellent rider, sprang to the saddle, and he and his
companion at full gallop retraced the road to Rome, where they arrived
at break of day. Caesar got down at the house of one Flores, auditor of
the rota, where he procured a fresh horse and suitable clothes; then he
flew at once to his mother, who gave a cry of joy when she saw him; for
so silent and mysterious was the cardinal for all the world beside, and
even for her, that he had not said a word of his early return to Rome.
The cry of joy uttered by Rosa Vanozza when she beheld her son was far
more a cry of vengeance than of love. One evening, while everybody was
at the rejoicings in the Vatican, when Charles VIII and Alexander VI
were swearing a friendship which neither of them felt, and exchanging
oaths that were broken beforehand, a messenger from Rosa Vanozza had
arrived with a letter to Caesar, in which she begged him to come at once
to her house in the Via delta Longara. Caesar questioned the messenger,
but he only replied that he could tell him nothing, that he would learn
all he cared to know from his mother’s own lips. So, as soon as he was
at liberty, Caesar, in layman’s dress and wrapped in a large cloak,
quitted the Vatican and made his way towards the church of Regina Coeli,
in the neighbourhood of which, it will be remembered, was the house
where the pope’s mistress lived.

As he approached his mother’s house, Caesar began to observe the signs
of strange devastation. The street was scattered with the wreck of
furniture and strips of precious stuffs. As he arrived at the foot of
the little flight of steps that led to the entrance gate, he saw that
the windows were broken and the remains of torn curtains were fluttering
in front of them. Not understanding what this disorder could mean, he
rushed into the house and through several deserted and wrecked
apartments. At last, seeing light in one of the rooms, he went in, and
there found his mother sitting on the remains of a chest made of ebony
all inlaid with ivory and silver. When she saw Caesar, she rose, pale
and dishevelled, and pointing to the desolation around her, exclaimed:

"Look, Caesar; behold the work of your new friends."

"But what does it mean, mother?" asked the cardinal. "Whence comes all
this disorder?"

"From the serpent," replied Rosa Vanozza, gnashing her teeth,—"from the
serpent you have warmed in your bosom. He has bitten me, fearing no
doubt that his teeth would be broken on you."

"Who has done this?" cried Caesar. "Tell me, and, by Heaven, mother, he
shall pay, and pay indeed!"

"Who?" replied Rosa. "King Charles VIII has done it, by the hands of his
faithful allies, the Swiss. It was well known that Melchior was away,
and that I was living alone with a few wretched servants; so they came
and broke in the doors, as though they were taking Rome by storm, and
while Cardinal Valentino was making holiday with their master, they
pillaged his mother’s house, loading her with insults and outrages which
no Turks or Saracens could possibly have improved upon."

"Very good, very good, mother," said Caesar; "be calm; blood shall wash
out disgrace. Consider a moment; what we have lost is nothing compared
with what we might lose; and my father and I, you may be quite sure,
will give you back more than they have stolen from you."

"I ask for no promises," cried Rosa; "I ask for revenge."

"My mother," said the cardinal, "you shall be avenged, or I will lose
the name of son."

Having by these words reassured his mother, he took her to Lucrezia’s
palace, which in consequence of her marriage with Pesaro was unoccupied,
and himself returned to the Vatican, giving orders that his mother’s
house should be refurnished more magnificently than before the disaster.
These orders were punctually executed, and it was among her new
luxurious surroundings, but with the same hatred in her heart, that
Caesar on this occasion found his mother. This feeling prompted her cry
of joy when she saw him once more.

The mother and son exchanged a very few words; then Caesar, mounting on
horseback, went to the Vatican, whence as a hostage he had departed two
days before. Alexander, who knew of the flight beforehand, and not only
approved, but as sovereign pontiff had previously absolved his son of
the perjury he was about to commit, received him joyfully, but all the
same advised him to lie concealed, as Charles in all probability would
not be slow to reclaim his hostage:

Indeed, the next day, when the king got up, the absence of Cardinal
Valentino was observed, and as Charles was uneasy at not seeing him, he
sent to inquire what had prevented his appearance. When the messenger
arrived at the house that Caesar had left the evening before, he learned
that he had gone out at nine o’clock in the evening and not returned
since. He went back with this news to the king, who at once suspected
that he had fled, and in the first flush of his anger let the whole army
know of his perjury. The soldiers then remembered the twenty waggons, so
heavily laden, from one of which the cardinal, in the sight of all, had
produced such magnificent gold and silver plate; and never doubting that
the cargo of the others was equally precious, they fetched them down and
broke them to pieces; but inside they found nothing but stones and sand,
which proved to the king that the flight had been planned a long time
back, and incensed him doubly against the pope. So without loss of time
he despatched to Rome Philippe de Bresse, afterwards Duke of Savoy, with
orders to intimate to the Holy Father his displeasure at this conduct.
But the pope replied that he knew nothing whatever about his son’s
flight, and expressed the sincerest regret to His Majesty, declaring
that he knew nothing of his whereabouts, but was certain that he was not
in Rome. As a fact, the pope was speaking the truth this time, for
Caesar had gone with Cardinal Orsino to one of his estates, and was
temporarily in hiding there. This reply was conveyed to Charles by two
messengers from the pope, the Bishops of Nepi and of Sutri, and the
people also sent an ambassador in their own behalf. He was Monsignore
Porcari, dean of the rota, who was charged to communicate to the king
the displeasure of the Romans when they learned of the cardinal’s breach
of faith. Little as Charles was disposed to content himself with empty
words, he had to turn his attention to more serious affairs; so he
continued his march to Naples without stopping, arriving there on
Sunday, the 22nd of February, 1495.

Four days later, the unlucky D’jem, who had fallen sick at Capua died at
Castel Nuovo. When he was leaving, at the farewell banquet, Alexander
had tried on his guest the poison he intended to use so often later on
upon his cardinals, and whose effects he was destined to feel
himself,—such is poetical justice. In this way the pope had secured a
double haul; for, in his twofold speculation in this wretched young man,
he had sold him alive to Charles for 120,000 livres and sold him dead to
Bajazet for 300,00 ducats....

But there was a certain delay about the second payment; for the Turkish
emperor, as we remember, was not bound to pay the price of fratricide
till he received the corpse, and by Charles’s order the corpse had been
buried at Gaeta.

When Caesar Borgia learned the news, he rightly supposed that the king
would be so busy settling himself in his new capital that he would have
too much to think of to be worrying about him; so he went to Rome again,
and, anxious to keep his promise to his mother, he signalised his return
by a terrible vengeance.

Cardinal Valentino had in his service a certain Spaniard whom he had
made the chief of his bravoes; he was a man of five-and-thirty or forty,
whose whole life had been one long rebellion against society’s laws; he
recoiled from no action, provided only he could get his price. This Don
Michele Correglia, who earned his celebrity for bloody deeds under the
name of Michelotto, was just the man Caesar wanted; and whereas
Michelotto felt an unbounded admiration for Caesar, Caesar had unlimited
confidence in Michelotto. It was to him the cardinal entrusted the
execution of one part of his vengeance; the other he kept for himself.

Don Michele received orders to scour the Campagna and cut every French
throat he could find. He began his work at once; and very few days
elapsed before he had obtained most satisfactory results: more than a
hundred persons were robbed or assassinated, and among the last the son
of Cardinal de St. Malo, who was on his way back to France, and on whom
Michelotto found a sum of 3000 crowns.

For himself, Caesar reserved the Swiss; for it was the Swiss in
particular who had despoiled his mother’s house. The pope had in his
service about a hundred and fifty soldiers belonging to their nation,
who had settled their families in Rome, and had grown rich partly by
their pay and partly in the exercise of various industries. The cardinal
had every one of them dismissed, with orders to quit Rome within
twenty-four hours and the Roman territories within three days. The poor
wretches had all collected together to obey the order, with their wives
and children and baggage, on the Piazza of St. Peter, when suddenly, by
Cardinal Valentino’s orders, they were hemmed in on all sides by two
thousand Spaniards, who began to fire on them with their guns and charge
them with their sabres, while Caesar and his mother looked down upon the
carnage from a window. In this way they killed fifty or perhaps sixty;
but the rest coming up, made a charge at the assassins, and then,
without suffering any loss, managed to beat a retreat to a house, where
they stood a siege, and made so valiant a defense that they gave the
pope time—he knew nothing of the author of this butchery—to send the
captain of his guard to the rescue, who, with a strong detachment,
succeeded in getting nearly forty of them safely out of the town: the
rest had been massacred on the piazza or killed in the house.

But this was no real and adequate revenge; for it did not touch Charles
himself, the sole author of all the troubles that the pope and his
family had experienced during the last year. So Caesar soon abandoned
vulgar schemes of this kind and busied himself with loftier concerns,
bending all the force of his genius to restore the league of Italian
princes that had been broken by the defection of Sforza, the exile of
Piero dei Medici, and the defeat of Alfonso. The enterprise was more
easily accomplished than the pope could have anticipated. The Venetians
were very uneasy when Charles passed so near, and they trembled lest,
when he was once master of Naples, he might conceive the idea of
conquering the rest of Italy. Ludovico Sforza, on his side, was
beginning to tremble, seeing the rapidity with which the King of France
had dethroned the house of Aragon, lest he might not make much
difference between his allies and his enemies. Maximilian, for his part,
was only seeking an occasion to break the temporary peace which he had
granted for the sake of the concession made to him. Lastly, Ferdinand
and Isabella were allies of the dethroned house. And so it came about
that all of them, for different reasons, felt a common fear, and were
soon in agreement as to the necessity of driving out Charles VIII, not
only from Naples, but from Italy, and pledged themselves to work
together to this end, by every means in their power, by negotiations, by
trickery, or by actual force. The Florentines alone refused to take part
in this general levy of arms, and remained faithful to their promises.

According to the articles of the treaty agreed upon by the confederates,
the alliance was to last for five-and-twenty years, and had for
ostensible object the upholding of the majority of the pope, and the
interests of Christendom; and these preparations might well have been
taken for such as would precede a crusade against the Turks, if
Bajazet’s ambassador had not always been present at the deliberations,
although the Christian princes could not have dared for very shame to
admit the, sultan by name into their league. Now the confederates had to
set on foot an army of 30,000 horse and 20,000 infantry, and each of
them was taxed for a contingent; thus the pope was to furnish 4000
horse, Maximilian 6000, the King of Spain, the Duke of Milan, and the
republic of Venice, 8000 each. Every confederate was, in addition to
this, to levy and equip 4000 infantry in the six weeks following the
signature of the treaty. The fleets were to be equipped by the Maritime
States; but any expenses they should incur later on were to be defrayed
by all in equal shares.

The formation of this league was made public on the 12th of April, 1495,
Palm Sunday, and in all the Italian States, especially at Rome, was made
the occasion of fetes and immense rejoicings. Almost as soon as the
publicly known articles were announced the secret ones were put into
execution. These obliged Ferdinand and Isabella to send a fleet of sixty
galleys to Ischia, where Alfonso’s son had retired, with six hundred
horsemen on board and five thousand infantry, to help him to ascend the
throne once more. Those troops were to be put under the command of
Gonzalvo of Cordova, who had gained the reputation of the greatest
general in Europe after the taking of Granada. The Venetians with a
fleet of forty galleys under the command of Antonio Grimani, were to
attack all the French stations on the coast of Calabria and Naples. The
Duke of Milan promised for his part to check all reinforcements as they
should arrive from France, and to drive the Duke of Orleans out of Asti.

Lastly, there was Maximilian, who had promised to make invasions on the
frontiers, and Bajazet, who was to help with money, ships, and soldiers
either the Venetians or the Spaniards, according as he might be appealed
to by Barberigo or by Ferdinand the Catholic.

This league was all the more disconcerting for Charles, because of the
speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance.
What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who
has more good luck than talent; instead of making himself a party among
the great Neapolitan and Calabrian vassals, whose roots would be
embedded in the very soil, by confirming their privileges and augmenting
their power, he had wounded their feelings by bestowing all the titles,
offices, and fiefs on those alone who had followed him from France, so
that all the important positions in the kingdom were filled by
strangers.

The result was that just when the league was made known, Tropea and
Amantea, which had been presented by Charles to the Seigneur de Precy,
rose in revolt and hoisted the banner of Aragon; and the Spanish fleet
had only to present itself at Reggio, in Calabria, for the town to throw
open its gates, being more discontented with the new rule than the old;
and Don Federiga, Alfonso’s brother and Ferdinand’s uncle, who had
hitherto never quitted Brindisi, had only to appear at Tarentum to be
received there as a liberator.




CHAPTER VI


CHARLES learned all this news at Naples, and, tired of his late
conquests, which necessitated a labour in organisation for which he was
quite unfitted, turned his eyes towards France, where victorious fetes
and rejoicings were awaiting the victor’s return. So he yielded at the
first breath of his advisers, and retraced his road to his kingdom,
threatened, as was said, by the Germans on the north and the Spaniards
on the south. Consequently, he appointed Gilbert de Montpensier, of the
house of Bourbon, viceroy; d’Aubigny, of the Scotch Stuart family,
lieutenant in Calabria; Etienne de Vese, commander at Gaeta; and Don
Juliano, Gabriel de Montfaucon, Guillaume de Villeneuve, George de
Lilly, the bailiff of Vitry, and Graziano Guerra respectively governors
of Sant’ Angelo, Manfredonia, Trani, Catanzaro, Aquila, and Sulmone;
then leaving behind in evidence of his claims the half of his Swiss, a
party of his Gascons, eight hundred French lances, and about five
hundred Italian men-at-arms, the last under the command of the prefect
of Rome, Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna, and Antonio Savelli, he left
Naples on the 20th of May at two o’clock in the afternoon, to traverse
the whole of the Italian peninsula with the rest of his army, consisting
of eight hundred French lances, two hundred gentlemen of his guard, one
hundred Italian men-at-arms, three thousand Swiss infantry, one thousand
French and one thousand Gascon. He also expected to be joined by Camillo
Vitelli and his brothers in Tuscany, who were to contribute two hundred
and fifty men-at-arms.

A week before he left Naples, Charles had sent to Rome Monseigneur de
Saint-Paul, brother of Cardinal de Luxembourg; and just as he was
starting he despatched thither the new Archbishop of Lyons. They both
were commissioned to assure Alexander that the King of France had the
most sincere desire and the very best intention of remaining his friend.
In truth, Charles wished for nothing so much as to separate the pope
from the league, so as to secure him as a spiritual and temporal
support; but a young king, full of fire, ambition, and courage, was not
the neighbour to suit Alexander; so the latter would listen to nothing,
and as the troops he had demanded from the doge and Ludavico Sforza had
not been sent in sufficient number for the defense of Rome, he was
content with provisioning the castle of S. Angelo, putting in a
formidable garrison, and leaving Cardinal Sant’ Anastasio to receive
Charles while he himself withdrew with Caesar to Orvieto. Charles only
stayed in Rome three days, utterly depressed because the pope had
refused to receive him in spite of his entreaties. And in these three
days, instead of listening to Giuliano delta Rovere, who was advising
him once more to call a council and depose the pope, he rather hoped to
bring the pope round to his side by the virtuous act of restoring the
citadels of Terracina and Civita Vecchia to the authorities of the
Romagna, only keeping for himself Ostia, which he had promised Giuliano
to give back to him. At last, when the three days had elapsed, he left
Rome, and resumed his march in three columns towards Tuscany, crossed
the States of the Church, and on the 13th reached Siena, where he was
joined by Philippe de Commines, who had gone as ambassador extraordinary
to the Venetian Republic, and now announced that the enemy had forty
thousand men under arms and were preparing for battle. This news
produced no other effect on the king and the gentlemen of his army than
to excite their amusement beyond measure; for they had conceived such a
contempt for their enemy by their easy conquest, that they could not
believe that any army, however numerous, would venture to oppose their
passage.

Charles, however, was forced to give way in the face of facts, when he
heard at San Teranza that his vanguard, commanded by Marechal de Gie,
and composed of six hundred lances and fifteen hundred Swiss, when it
arrived at Fornova had come face to face with the confederates, who had
encamped at Guiarole. The marechal had ordered an instant halt, and he
too had pitched his tents, utilising for his defence the natural
advantages of the hilly ground. When these first measures had been
taken, he sent out, first, a herald to the enemy’s camp to ask from
Francesco di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, generalissimo of the
confederate troops, a passage for his king’s army and provisions at a
reasonable price; and secondly, he despatched a courier to Charles VIII,
pressing him to hurry on his march with the artillery and rearguard. The
confederates had given an evasive answer, for they were pondering
whether they ought to jeopardise the whole Italian force in a single
combat, and, putting all to the hazard, attempt to annihilate the King
of France and his army together, so overwhelming the conqueror in the
ruins of his ambition. The messenger found Charles busy superintending
the passage of the last of his cannon over the mountain of Pontremoli.
This was no easy matter, seeing that there was no sort of track, and the
guns had to be lifted up and lowered by main farce, and each piece
needed the arms of as many as two hundred men. At last, when all the
artillery had arrived without accident on the other side of the
Apennines, Charles started in hot haste for Fornovd, where he arrived
with all his following on the morning of the next day.

From the top of the mountain where the Marechal de Gie had pitched his
tents, the king beheld both his own camp and the enemy’s. Both were on
the right bank of the Taro, and were at either end of a semicircular
chain of hills resembling an amphitheatre; and the space between the two
camps, a vast basin filled during the winter floods by the torrent which
now only marked its boundary, was nothing but a plain covered with
gravel, where all manoeuvres must be equally difficult for horse and
infantry. Besides, on the western slope of the hills there was a little
wood which extended from the enemy’s army to the French, and was in the
possession of the Stradiotes, who, by help of its cover, had already
engaged in several skirmishes with the French troops during the two days
of halt while they were waiting for the king.

The situation was not reassuring. From the top of the mountain which
overlooked Fornovo, one could get a view, as we said before, of the two
camps, and could easily calculate the numerical difference between them.
The French army, weakened by the establishment of garrisons in the
various towns and fortresses they had won in Italy, were scarcely eight
thousand strong, while the combined forces of Milan and Venice exceeded
a total of thirty-five thousand. So Charles decided to try once more the
methods of conciliation, and sent Commines, who, as we know, had joined
him in Tuscany, to the Venetian ’proveditori’, whose acquaintance he had
made when on his embassy; he having made a great impression on these
men, thanks to a general high opinion of his merits. He was commissioned
to tell the enemy’s generals, in the name of the King of France, that
his master only desired to continue his road without doing or receiving
any harm; that therefore he asked to be allowed a free passage across
the fair plains of Lombardy, which he could see from the heights where
he now stood, stretching as far as the eye could reach, away to the foot
of the Alps. Commines found the confederate army deep in discussion: the
wish of the Milanese and Venetian party being to let the king go by, and
not attack him; they said they were only too happy that he should leave
Italy in this way, without causing any further harm; but the ambassadors
of Spain and Germany took quite another view. As their masters had no
troops in the army, and as all the money they had promised was already
paid, they must be the gainer in either case from a battle, whichever
way it went: if they won the day they would gather the fruits of
victory, and if they lost they would experience nothing of the evils of
defeat. This want of unanimity was the reason why the answer to Commines
was deferred until the following day, and why it was settled that on the
next day he should hold another conference with a plenipotentiary to be
appointed in the course of that night. The place of this conference was
to be between the two armies.

The king passed the night in great uneasiness. All day the weather had
threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly the
Taro could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow
onwards prove an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had
only been asked for with a view to putting the French army in a worse
position. As a fact the night had scarcely come when a terrible storm
arose, and so long as darkness lasted, great rumblings were heard in the
Apennines, and the sky was brilliant with lightning. At break of day,
however, it seemed to be getting a little calmer, though the Taro, only
a streamlet the day before, had become a torrent by this time, and was
rapidly rising. So at six in the morning, the king, ready armed and on
horseback, summoned Commines and bade him make his way to the rendezvous
that the Venetian ’proveditori’ had assigned. But scarcely had he
contrived to give the order when loud cries were heard coming from the
extreme right of the French army. The Stradiotes, under cover of the
wood stretching between the two camps, had surprised an outpost, and
first cutting the soldiers’ throats, were carrying off their heads in
their usual way at the saddle-bow. A detachment of cavalry was sent in
pursuit; but, like wild animals, they had retreated to their lair in the
woods, and there disappeared.

This unexpected engagement, in all probability arranged beforehand by
the Spanish and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect of
a spark applied to a train of gunpowder. Commines and the Venetian
’proveditori’ each tried in vain to arrest the combat an either side.
Light troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual fashion of those
days, prompted only by that personal courage which led them on to
danger, had already come to blows, rushing down into the plain as though
it were an amphitheatre where they might make a fine display of arms.
For a moment the young king, drawn on by example, was an the point of
forgetting the responsibility of a general in his zeal as a soldier; but
this first impulse was checked by Marechal de Gie, Messire Claude de la
Chatre de Guise, and M. de la Trimauille, who persuaded Charles to adopt
the wiser plan, and to cross the Taro without seeking a battle,—at the
same time without trying to avoid it, should the enemy cross the river
from their camp and attempt to block his passage. The king accordingly,
following the advice of his wisest and bravest captains, thus arranged
his divisions.

The first comprised the van and a body of troops whose duty it was to
support them. The van consisted of three hundred and fifty men-at-arms,
the best and bravest of the army, under the command of Marechal de Gie
and Jacques Trivulce; the corps following them consisted of three
thousand Swiss, under the command of Engelbert der Cleves and de Larnay,
the queen’s grand equerry; next came three hundred archers of the guard,
whom the king had sent to help the cavalry by fighting in the spaces
between them.

The second division, commanded by the king in person and forming the
middle of the army, was composed of the artillery, under Jean de
Lagrange, a hundred gentlemen of the guard with Gilles Carrone for
standard-bearer, pensioners of the king’s household under Aymar de Prie,
some Scots, and two hundred cross-bowmen on horseback, with French
archers besides, led by M. de Crussol.

Lastly, the third division, i.e. the rear, preceded by six thousand
beasts of burden bearing the baggage, was composed of only three hundred
men-at-arms, commanded by de Guise and by de la Trimouille: this was the
weakest part of the army.

When this arrangement was settled, Charles ordered the van to cross the
river, just at the little town of Fornovo. This was done at once, the
riders getting wet up to their knees, and the footmen holding to the
horses’ tails. As soon as he saw the last soldiers of his first division
on the opposite bank, he started himself to follow the same road and
cross at the same ford, giving orders to de Guise and de la Trimouille
to regulate the march of the rear guard by that of the centre, just as
he had regulated their march by that of the van. His orders were
punctually carried out; and about ten o’clock in the morning the whole
French army was on the left bank of the Taro: at the same time, when it
seemed certain from the enemy’s arrangements that battle was imminent,
the baggage, led by the captain, Odet de Reberac, was separated from the
rear guard, and retired to the extreme left.

Now, Francisco de Gonzaga, general-in-chief of the confederate troops,
had modelled his plans on those of the King of France; by his orders,
Count de Cajazzo, with four hundred men-at-arms and two thousand
infantry, had crossed the Taro where the Venetian camp lay, and was to
attack the French van; while Gonzaga himself, following the right bank
as far as Fornovo, would go over the river by the same ford that Charles
had used, with a view to attacking his rear. Lastly, he had placed the
Stradiotes between these two fords, with orders to cross the river in
their turn, so soon as they saw the French army attacked both in van and
in the rear, and to fall upon its flank. Not content with offensive
measures, Gonzaga had also made provision for retreat by leaving three
reserve corps on the right bank, one to guard the camp under the
instruction of the Venetian ’provveditori’, and the other two arranged
in echelon to support each other, the first commanded by Antonio di
Montefeltro, the second by Annibale Bentivoglio.

Charles had observed all these arrangements, and had recognised the
cunning Italian strategy which made his opponents the finest generals in
the world; but as there was no means of avoiding the danger, he had
decided to take a sideway course, and had given orders to continue the
match; but in a minute the French army was caught between Count di
Cajazzo, barring the way with his four hundred men-at-arms and his two
thousand infantry, and Gonzaga in pursuit of the rear, as we said
before; leading six hundred men-at-arms, the flower of his army, a
squadron of Stradiotes, and more than five thousand infantry: this
division alone was stronger than the whole of the French army.

When, however, M. de Guise and M. de la Trimouille found themselves
pressed in this way, they ordered their two hundred men-at-arms to turn
right about face, while at the opposite end—that is, at the head of the
army-Marechal de Gie and Trivulce ordered a halt and lances in rest.
Meanwhile, according to custom, the king, who, as we said, was in the
centre, was conferring knighthood on those gentlemen who had earned the
favour either by virtue of their personal powers or the king’s special
friendship.

Suddenly there was heard a terrible clash behind it was the French
rearguard coming to blows with the Marquis of Mantua. In this encounter,
where each man had singled out his own foe as though it were a
tournament, very many lances were broken, especially those of the
Italian knights; for their lances were hollowed so as to be less heavy,
and in consequence had less solidity. Those who were thus disarmed at
once seized their swords. As they were far more numerous than the
French, the king saw them suddenly outflanking his right wing and
apparently prepared to surround it; at the same moment loud cries were
heard from a direction facing the centre: this meant that the Stradiotes
were crossing the river to make their attack.

The king at once ordered his division into two detachments, and giving
one to Bourbon the bastard, to make head against the Stradiotes, he
hurried with the second to the rescue of the van, flinging himself into
the very midst of the melee, striking out like a king, and doing as
steady work as the lowest in rank of his captains. Aided by the
reinforcement, the rearguard made a good stand, though the enemy were
five against one, and the combat in this part continued to rage with
wonderful fury.

Obeying his orders, Bourbon had thrown himself upon the Stradiotes; but
unfortunately, carried off by his horse, he had penetrated so far into
the enemy’s ranks that he was lost to sight: the disappearance of their
chief, the strange dress of their new antagonists, and the peculiar
method of their fighting produced a considerable effect on those who
were to attack them; and for the moment disorder was the consequence in
the centre, and the horse men scattered instead of serrying their ranks
and fighting in a body. This false move would have done them serious
harm, had not most of the Stradiotes, seeing the baggage alone and
undefended, rushed after that in hope of booty, instead of following up
their advantage. A great part of the troop nevertheless stayed behind to
fight, pressing on the French cavalry and smashing their lances with
their fearful scimitars. Happily the king, who had just repulsed the
Marquis of Mantua’s attack, perceived what was going on behind him, and
riding back at all possible speed to the succour of the centre, together
with the gentlemen of his household fell upon the Stradiotes, no longer
armed with a lance, for that he had just broken, but brandishing his
long sword, which blazed about him like lightning, and—either because he
was whirled away like Bourbon by his own horse, or because he had
allowed his courage to take him too far—he suddenly found himself in the
thickest ranks of the Stradiotes, accompanied only by eight of the
knights he had just now created, one equerry called Antoine des Ambus,
and his standard-bearer. "France, France!" he cried aloud, to rally
round him all the others who had scattered; they, seeing at last that
the danger was less than they had supposed, began to take their revenge
and to pay back with interest the blows they had received from the
Stradiotes. Things were going still better, for the van, which the
Marquis de Cajazzo was to attack; for although he had at first appeared
to be animated with a terrible purpose, he stopped short about ten or
twelve feet from the French line and turned right about face without
breaking a single lance. The French wanted to pursue, but the Marechal
de Gie, fearing that this flight might be only a trick to draw off the
vanguard from the centre, ordered every man to stay in his place. But
the Swiss, who were German, and did not understand the order, or thought
it was not meant for them, followed upon their heels, and although on
foot caught them up and killed a hundred of them. This was quite enough
to throw them into disorder, so that some were scattered about the
plain, and others made a rush for the water, so as to cross the river
and rejoin their camp.

When the Marechal de Gie saw this, he detached a hundred of his own men
to go to the aid of the king, who was continuing to fight with
unheard-of courage and running the greatest risks, constantly separated
as he was from his gentlemen, who could not follow him; for wherever
there was danger, thither he rushed, with his cry of "France," little
troubling himself as to whether he was followed or not. And it was no
longer with his sword that he fought; that he had long ago broken, like
his lance, but with a heavy battle-axe, whose every blow was mortal
whether cut or pierced. Thus the Stradiotes, already hard pressed by the
king’s household and his pensioners, soon changed attack for defence and
defenc

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