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 an 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 Marechai 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. Far 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 far
standard-bearer, pensioners of the king's household under Aymar de
Prie, some Scots, and two hundred cross-bowmen an 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 'proveditori', 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 defence for flight. It was at this
moment that the king was really in the greatest danger; for he had
let himself be carried away in pursuit of the fugitives, and
presently found himself all alone, surrounded by these men, who, had
they not been struck with a mighty terror, would have had nothing to
do but unite and crush him and his horse together; but, as Commines
remarks, "He whom God guards is well guarded, and God was guarding
the King of France."
All the same, at this moment the French were sorely pressed in the
rear; and although de Guise and de la Trimouille held out as firmly
as it was possible to hold, they would probably have been compelled
to yield to superior numbers had not a double aid arrived in time:
first the indefatigable Charles, who, having nothing more to do among
the fugitives, once again dashed into the midst of the fight, next
the servants of the army, who, now that they were set free from the
Stradiotes and saw their enemies put to flight, ran up armed with the
axes they habitually used to cut down wood for building their huts:
they burst into the middle of the fray, slashing at the horses' legs
and dealing heavy blows that smashed in the visors of the dismounted
horsemen.
The Italians could not hold out against this double attack; the
'furia francese' rendered all their strategy and all their
calculations useless, especially as for more than a century they had
abandoned their fights of blood and fury for a kind of tournament
they chose to regard as warfare; so, in spite of all Gonzaga's
efforts, they turned their backs upon the French rear and took to
flight; in the greatest haste and with much difficulty they recrossed
the torrent, which was swollen even more now by the rain that had
been falling during the whole time of the battle.
Some thought fit to pursue the vanquished, for there was now such
disorder in their ranks that they were fleeing in all directions from
the battlefield where the French had gained so glorious a victory,
blocking up the roads to Parma and Bercetto. But Marechal de Gie and
de Guise and de la Trimouille, who had done quite enough to save them
from the suspicion of quailing before imaginary dangers, put a stop
to this enthusiasm, by pointing out that it would only be risking the
loss of their present advantage if they tried to push it farther with
men and horses so worn out. This view was adopted in spite of the
opinion of Trivulce, Camillo Vitelli, and Francesco Secco, who were
all eager to follow up the victory.
The king retired to a little village an the left bank of the Taro,
and took shelter in a poor house. There he disarmed, being perhaps
among all the captains and all the soldiers the man who had fought
best.
During the night the torrent swelled so high that the Italian army
could not have pursued, even if they had laid aside their fears. The
king did not propose to give the appearance of flight after a
victory, and therefore kept his army drawn up all day, and at night
went on to sleep at Medesano, a little village only a mile lower down
than the hamlet where he rested after the fight. But in the course
of the night he reflected that he had done enough for the honour of
his arms in fighting an army four times as great as his own and
killing three thousand men, and then waiting a day and a half to give
them time to take their revenge; so two hours before daybreak he had
the fires lighted, that the enemy might suppose he was remaining in
camp; and every man mounting noiselessly, the whole French army,
almost out of danger by this time, proceeded on their march to Borgo
San Donnino.
While this was going on, the pope returned to Rome, where news highly
favourable to his schemes was not slow to reach his ears. He learned
that Ferdinand had crossed from Sicily into Calabria with six
thousand volunteers and a considerable number of Spanish horse and
foot, led, at the command of Ferdinand and Isabella, by the famous
Gonzalva de Cordova, who arrived in Italy with a great reputation,
destined to suffer somewhat from the defeat at Seminara. At almost
the same time the French fleet had been beaten by the Aragonese;
moreover, the battle of the Taro, though a complete defeat for the
confederates, was another victory for the pope, because its result
was to open a return to France for that man whom he regarded as his
deadliest foe. So, feeling that he had nothing more to fear from
Charles, he sent him a brief at Turin, where he had stopped for a
short time to give aid to Novara, therein commanding him, by virtue
of his pontifical authority, to depart out of Italy with his army,
and to recall within ten days those of his troops that still remained
in the kingdom of Naples, on pain of excommunication, and a summons
to appear before him in person.
Charles VIII replied:
(1) That he did not understand how the pope, the chief of the league,
ordered him to leave Italy, whereas the confederates had not only
refused him a passage, but had even attempted, though unsuccessfully,
as perhaps His Holiness knew, to cut off his return into France;
(2) That, as to recalling his troops from Naples, he was not so
irreligious as to do that, since they had not entered the kingdom
without the consent and blessing of His Holiness;
(3) That he was exceedingly surprised that the pope should require
his presence in person at the capital of the Christian world just at
the present time, when six weeks previously, at the time of his
return from Naples, although he ardently desired an interview with
His Holiness, that he might offer proofs of his respect and
obedience, His Holiness, instead of according this favour, had
quitted Rome so hastily on his approach that he had not been able to
come up with him by any efforts whatsoever. On this point, however,
he promised to give His Holiness the satisfaction he desired, if he
would engage this time to wait for him: he would therefore return to
Rome so soon as the affairs that brought him back to his own kingdom
had been satisfactorily, settled.
Although in this reply there was a touch of mockery and defiance,
Charles was none the less compelled by the circumstances of the case
to obey the pope's strange brief. His presence was so much needed in
France that, in spite of the arrival of a Swiss reinforcement, he was
compelled to conclude a peace with Ludovico Sforza, whereby he
yielded Novara to him; while Gilbert de Montpensier and d'Aubigny,
after defending, inch by inch, Calabria, the Basilicate, and Naples,
were obliged to sign the capitulation of Atella, after a siege of
thirty-two days, on the 20th of July, 1496. This involved giving
back to Ferdinand II, King of Naples, all the palaces and fortresses
of his kingdom; which indeed he did but enjoy for three months, dying
of exhaustion on the 7th of September following, at the Castello
della Somma, at the foot of Vesuvius; all the attentions lavished
upon him by his young wife could not repair the evil that her beauty
had wrought.
His uncle Frederic succeeded; and so, in the three years of his
papacy, Alexander VI had seen five kings upon the throne of Naples,
while he was establishing himself more firmly upon his own pontifical
seat--Ferdinand I, Alfonso I, Charles VIII, Ferdinand II, and
Frederic. All this agitation about his throne, this rapid succession
of sovereigns, was the best thing possible for Alexander; for each
new monarch became actually king only on condition of his receiving
the pontifical investiture. The consequence was that Alexander was
the only gainer in power and credit by these changes; for the Duke of
Milan and the republics of Florence and Venice had successively
recognised him as supreme head of the Church, in spite of his simony;
moreover, the five kings of Naples had in turn paid him homage. So
he thought the time had now come for founding a mighty family; and
for this he relied upon the Duke of Gandia, who was to hold all the
highest temporal dignities; and upon Caesar Borgia, who was to be
appointed to all the great ecclesiastical offices. The pope made
sure of the success of these new projects by electing four Spanish
cardinals, who brought up the number of his compatriots in the Sacred
College to twenty-two, thus assuring him a constant and certain
majority.
The first requirement of the pope's policy was to clear away from the
neighbourhood of Rome all those petty lords whom most people call
vicars of the Church, but whom Alexander called the shackles of the
papacy. We saw that he had already begun this work by rousing the
Orsini against the Colonna family, when Charles VIII's enterprise
compelled him to concentrate all his mental resources, and also the
forces of his States, so as to secure his own personal safety.
It had come about through their own imprudent action that the Orsini,
the pope's old friends, were now in the pay of the French, and had
entered the kingdom of Naples with them, where one of them, Virginio,
a very important member of their powerful house, had been taken
prisoner during the war, and was Ferdinand II's captive. Alexander
could not let this opportunity escape him; so, first ordering the
King of Naples not to release a man who, ever since the 1st of June,
1496, had been a declared rebel, he pronounced a sentence of
confiscation against Virginio Orsini and his whole family in a secret
consistory, which sat on the 26th of October following--that is to
say, in the early days of the reign of Frederic, whom he knew to be
entirely at his command, owing to the King's great desire of getting
the investiture from him; then, as it was not enough to declare the
goods confiscated, without also dispossessing the owners, he made
overtures to the Colonna family, saying he would commission them, in
proof of their new bond of friendship, to execute the order given
against their old enemies under the direction of his son Francesco,
Duke of Gandia. In this fashion he contrived to weaken his
neighbours each by means of the other, till such time as he could
safely attack and put an end to conquered and conqueror alike.
The Colonna family accepted this proposition, and the Duke of Gandia
was named General of the Church: his father in his pontifical robes
bestowed on him the insignia of this office in the church of St.
Peter's at Rome.
