The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume III Part 27

The advance of the French, who had now got possession of Bologna, alarmed Ferdinand. He had secured the objects for which he had entered into the war, and was loath to be diverted from enterprises in which he was interested nearer home, "I know not," writes Peter Martyr, at this time, "on what the king will decide. He is intent on following up his African conquests. He feels natural reluctance at breaking with his French ally.

But I do not well see how he can avoid supporting the pope and the church, not only as the cause of religion, but of freedom. For if the French get possession of Rome, the liberties of all Italy and of every state in Europe are in peril." [14]

The Catholic king viewed it in this light, and sent repeated and earnest remonstrances to Louis the Twelfth, against his aggressions on the church, beseeching him not to interrupt the peace of Christendom, and his own pious purpose, more particularly, of spreading the banners of the Cross over the infidel regions of Africa. The very sweet and fraternal tone of these communications filled the king of France, says Guicciardini, with much distrust of his royal brother; and he was heard to say, in allusion to the great preparations which the Spanish monarch was making by sea and land, "I am the Saracen against whom they are directed." [14]

To secure Ferdinand more to his interests, the pope granted him the invest.i.ture, so long withheld, of Naples, on the same easy terms on which it was formerly held by the Aragonese line. His Holiness further released him from the obligation of his marriage treaty, by which the moiety of Naples was to revert to the French crown, in case of Germaine's dying without issue. This dispensing power of the successors of St. Peter, so convenient for princes in their good graces, is undoubtedly the severest tax ever levied by superst.i.tion on human reason. [15]

On the 4th of October, 1511, a treaty was concluded between Julius the Second, Ferdinand, and Venice, with the avowed object of protecting the church,--in other words, driving the French out of Italy. [16] From the pious purpose to which it was devoted, it was called the Holy League. The quota to be furnished by the king of Aragon was twelve hundred heavy and one thousand light cavalry, ten thousand foot, and a squadron of eleven galleys, to act in concert with the Venetian fleet. The combined forces were to be placed under the command of Hugo de Cardona, viceroy of Naples, a person of polished and engaging address, but without the resolution or experience requisite to military success. The rough old pope sarcastically nicknamed him "Lady Cardona." It was an appointment, that would certainly have never been made by Queen Isabella. Indeed, the favor shown this n.o.bleman on this and other occasions was so much beyond his deserts, as to raise a suspicion in many, that he was more nearly allied by blood to Ferdinand, than was usually imagined. [17]

Early in 1512, France, by great exertions, and without a single confederate out of Italy, save the false and fluctuating emperor, got an army into the field superior to that of the allies in point of numbers, and still more so in the character of its commander. This was Gaston de Foix, duke de Nemours, and brother of the queen of Aragon. Though a boy in years, for he was but twenty-two, he was ripe in understanding, and possessed consummate military talents. He introduced a severer discipline into his army, and an entirely new system of tactics. He looked forward to his results with stern indifference to the means by which they were to be effected. He disregarded the difficulties of the roads, and the inclemency of the season, which had hitherto put a check on military operations.

Through the midst of frightful mora.s.ses, or in the depth of winter snows, he performed his marches with a celerity unknown in the warfare of that age. In less than a fortnight after leaving Milan, he relieved Bologna, then besieged by the allies, made a countermarch on Brescia, defeated a detachment by the way, and the whole Venetian army under its walls; and, on the same day with the last event, succeeded in carrying the place by storm. After a few weeks' dissipation of the carnival, he again put himself in motion, and, descending on Ravenna, succeeded in bringing the allied army to a decisive action under its walls. Ferdinand, well understanding the peculiar characters of the French and of the Spanish soldier, had cautioned his general to adopt the Fabian policy of Gonsalvo, and avoid a close encounter as long as possible. [18]

This battle, fought with the greatest numbers, was also the most murderous, which had stained the fair soil of Italy for a century. No less than eighteen or twenty thousand, according to authentic accounts, fell in it, comprehending the best blood of France and Italy. [19] The viceroy Cardona went off somewhat too early for his reputation. But the Spanish infantry, under the count Pedro Navarro, behaved in a style worthy of the school of Gonsalvo. During the early part of the day, they lay on the ground, in a position which sheltered them from the deadly artillery of Este, then the best mounted and best served of any in Europe. When at length, as the tide of battle was going against them, they were brought into the field, Navarro led them at once against a deep column of landsknechts, who, armed with the long German pike, were bearing down all before them. The Spaniards received the shock of this formidable weapon on the mailed panoply with which their bodies were covered, and, dexterously gliding into the hostile ranks, contrived with their short swords to do such execution on the enemy, unprotected except by corselets in front, and incapable of availing themselves of their long weapon, that they were thrown into confusion, and totally discomfited. It was repeating the experiment more than once made during these wars, but never on so great a scale, and it fully established the superiority of the Spanish arms. [20]

The Italian infantry, which had fallen back before the landsknechts, now rallied under cover of the Spanish charge; until at length the overwhelming clouds of French gendarmerie, headed by Ives d'Allegre, who lost his own life in the _melee_, compelled the allies to give ground. The retreat of the Spaniards, however, was conducted with admirable order, and they preserved their ranks unbroken, as they repeatedly turned to drive back the tide of pursuit. At this crisis, Gaston de Foix, flushed with success, was so exasperated by the sight of this valiant corps going off in so cool and orderly a manner from the field, that he made a desperate charge at the head of his chivalry, in hopes of breaking it.

Unfortunately, his wounded horse fell under him. It was in vain his followers called out, "It is our viceroy, the brother of your queen!" The words had no charm for a Spanish ear, and he was despatched with a mult.i.tude of wounds. He received fourteen or fifteen in the face; good proof, says the _loyal serviteur_, "that the gentle prince had never turned his back." [21]

There are few instances in history, if indeed there be any, of so brief, and at the same time so brilliant a military career, as that of Gaston de Foix; and it well ent.i.tled him to the epithet his countrymen gave him of the "thunderbolt of Italy." [22] He had not merely given extraordinary promise, but in the course of a very few months had achieved such results, as might well make the greatest powers of the peninsula tremble for their possessions. His precocious military talents, the early age at which he a.s.sumed the command of armies, as well as many peculiarities of his discipline and tactics, suggest some resemblance to the beginning of Napoleon's career.

Unhappily, his brilliant fame is sullied by a recklessness of human life, the more odious in one too young to be steeled by familiarity with the iron trade to which he was devoted. It may be fair, however, to charge this on the age rather than on the individual, for surely never was there one characterized by greater brutality, and more unsparing ferocity in its wars. [23] So little had the progress of civilization done for humanity.

It is not until a recent period, that a more generous spirit has operated; that a fellow-creature has been understood not to forfeit his rights as a man, because he is an enemy; that conventional laws have been established, tending greatly to mitigate the evils of a condition, which with every alleviation is one of unspeakable misery; and that those who hold the destinies of nations in their hands have been made to feel, that there is less true glory, and far less profit, to be derived from war, than from the wise prevention of it.

The defeat at Ravenna struck a panic into the confederates. The stout heart of Julius the Second faltered, and it required all the a.s.surances of the Spanish and Venetian ministers to keep him staunch to his purpose.

King Ferdinand issued orders to the Great Captain to hold himself in readiness for taking the command of forces to be instantly raised for Naples. There could be no better proof of the royal consternation. [24]

The victory of Ravenna, however, was more fatal to the French than to their foes. The uninterrupted successes of a commander are so far unfortunate, that they incline his followers, by the brilliant illusion they throw around his name, to rely less on their own resources, than on him whom they have hitherto found invincible; and thus subject their own destiny to all the casualties which attach to the fortunes of a single individual. The death of Gaston de Foix seemed to dissolve the only bond which held the French together. The officers became divided, the soldiers disheartened, and, with the loss of their young hero, lost all interest in the service. The allies, advised of this disorderly state of the army, recovered confidence, and renewed their exertions. Through Ferdinand's influence over his son-in-law, Henry the Eighth of England, the latter had been induced openly to join the League in the beginning of the present year. [25] The Catholic king had the address, moreover, just before the battle to detach the emperor from France, by effecting a truce between him and Venice. [26] The French, now menaced and pressed on every side, began their retreat under the brave La Palice, and, to such an impotent state were they reduced, that, in less than three months after the fatal victory, they were at the foot of the Alps, having abandoned not only their recent, but all their conquests in the north of Italy. [27]

The same results now took place as in the late war against Venice. The confederates quarrelled over the division of the spoil. The republic, with the largest claims, obtained the least concessions. She felt that she was to be made to descend to an inferior rank in the scale of nations.

Ferdinand earnestly remonstrated with the pope, and subsequently, by means of his Venetian minister, with Maximilian, on this mistaken policy. [28]

But the indifference of the one, and the cupidity of the other, were closed against argument. The result was precisely what the prudent monarch foresaw. Venice was driven into the arms of her perfidious ancient ally, and on the 23d of March, 1513, a definitive treaty was arranged with France for their mutual defence. [29] Thus the most efficient member was alienated from the confederacy. All the recent advantages of the allies were compromised. New combinations were to be formed, and new and interminable prospects of hostility opened.

Ferdinand, relieved from immediate apprehensions of the French, took comparatively little interest in Italian politics. He was too much occupied with settling his conquests in Navarre. The army, indeed, under Cardona still kept the field in the north of Italy. The viceroy, after re-establis.h.i.+ng the Medici in Florence, remained inactive. The French, in the mean while, had again mustered in force, and crossing the mountains encountered the Swiss in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle at Novara, where the former were entirely routed. Cardona, then rousing from his lethargy, traversed the Milanese without opposition, laying waste the ancient territories of Venice, burning the palaces and pleasure-houses of its lordly inhabitants on the beautiful banks of the Brenta, and approaching so near to the "Queen of the Adriatic" as to throw a few impotent b.a.l.l.s into the monastery of San Secondo.

The indignation of the Venetians and of Alviano, the same general who had fought so gallantly under Gonsalvo at the Garigliano, hurried them into an engagement with the allies near La Motta, at two miles' distance from Vicenza. Cardona, loaded with booty and entangled among the mountain pa.s.ses, was a.s.sailed under every disadvantage. The German allies gave way before the impetuous charge of Alviano, but the Spanish infantry stood its ground unshaken, and by extraordinary discipline and valor succeeded in turning the fortunes of the day. More than four thousand of the enemy were left on the field, and a large number of prisoners, including many of rank, with all the baggage and artillery, fell into the hands of the victors. [30]

Thus ended the campaign of 1513; the French driven again beyond the mountains; Venice cooped up within her sea-girt fastnesses, and compelled to enrol her artisans and common laborers in her defence,--but still strong in resources, above all in the patriotism and unconquerable spirit of her people. [31]

Count Daru has supplied the desideratum, so long standing, of a full, authentic history of a state, whose inst.i.tutions were the admiration of earlier times, and whose long stability and success make them deservedly an object of curiosity and interest to our own. The style of the work, at once lively and condensed, is not that best suited to historic writing, being of the piquant, epigrammatic kind, much affected by French writers.

The subject, too, of the revolutions of empire, does not afford room for the dramatic interest, attaching to works which admit of more extended biographical development. Abundant interest will be found, however, in the dexterity with which he has disentangled the tortuous politics of the republic; in the acute and always sensible reflections with which he clothes the dry skeleton of fact; and in the novel stores of information he has opened. The foreign policy of Venice excited too much interest among friends and enemies in the day of her glory, not to occupy the pens of the most intelligent writers. But no Italian chronicler, not even one intrusted with the office by the government itself, has been able to exhibit the interior workings of the complicated machinery so satisfactorily as M. Daru has done, with the aid of those voluminous state papers, which were as jealously guarded from inspection, until the downfall of the republic, as the records of the Spanish Inquisition.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iii. lib. 5, p. 257, ed. Milano, 1803.-- Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. vi. lib. 6, cap. 7, 9, et alibi.

[2] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, no. 30.--Fla.s.san, Diplomatie Francaise, tom. i. pp. 282, 283.

[3] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. p. 78.

[4] Fla.s.san, Diplomatie Francaise, tom. i. lib. 2, p. 283.--Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part 1, no. 52.

[5] This argument, used by Machiavelli against Louis's rupture with Venice, applies with more or less force to all the other allies. Opere, Il Principe, cap. 3.

[6] Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, tom. i. pp. 66, 67.--Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., fol. 36, 37. Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. p. 141.--Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, tom. ii. lib. 7.

[7] See a liberal extract from this harangue, apud Daru, Hist. de Venise, tom. iii. liv. 23,--also apud Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, tom. i. p. 240 et seq.--The old poet, Jean Marot, sums up the sins of the republic in the following verse:

"Autre Dieu n'ont que l'or, c'est leur creance."

Oeuvres de Clement Marot, avec les Ouvrages de Jean Marot, (La Haye, 1731,) tom. v. p. 71.

[8] See the undisguised satisfaction, with which Martyr, a Milanese, predicts (Opus Epist., epist. 410), and Guicciardini, a Florentine, records the humiliation of Venice. (Istoria, lib. 4, p. 137.) The arrogance of the rival republic does not escape the satirical lash of Machiavelli;

"San Marco, impetuoso ed importuno, Credendosi haver sempre il vento in poppa, Non si curu di rovinare ognuno; Ne vidde come la potenza troppa Era nociva."

Dell' Asino d'Oro, cap. 5.

[9] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, lib. 29, cap. 15.--Ammirato, Istorie Florentine, tom. iii. lib. 28, p. 286.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist.

423.

Louis XII. was in alliance with Florence, but insisted on 100,000 ducats as the price of his acquiescence in her recovery of Pisa. Ferdinand, or rather his general, Gonsalvo de Cordova, had taken Pisa under his protection, and the king insisted on 50,000 ducats for his abandonment of her. This honorable transaction resulted in the payment of the respective amounts to the royal jobbers; the 50,000 excess of Louis's portion being kept a profound secret from Ferdinand, who was made to believe by the parties that his ally received only a like sum with himself. Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. pp. 78, 80, 156, 157.

[10] Memoires de Bayard, chap. 30.--Fleurange, Memoires, chap. 8.-- Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. p. 183.

Jean Marot describes the execution in the following cool and summary style.

"Ce chastelain de la, aussi le capitaine, Pour la derrision et response vilaine Qu'ils firent au herault, furent pris et sanglez Puis devant tout le monde pendus et estranglez."

Oeuvres, tom. v. p. 158.

[11] The fullest account, probably, of the action is in the "Voyage de Venise" of Jean Marot. (Oeuvres, tom. v. pp. 124-139.) This pioneer of French song, since eclipsed by his more polished son, accompanied his master, Louis XII., on his Italian expedition, as his poet chronicler; and the subject has elicited occasionally some sparks of poetic fire, though struck out with a rude hand. The poem is so conscientious in its facts and dates, that it is commended by a French critic as the most exact record of the Italian campaign. Ibid. Remarques, p. 16.

[12] Foreign historians impute this measure to the former motive, the Venetians to the latter. The cool and deliberate conduct of this government, from which all pa.s.sion, to use the language of the abbe Du Bos, seems to have been banished, may authorize our acquiescence in the statement most flattering to the national vanity. See the discussion apud Ligue de Cambray, pp. 126 et seq.

[13] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 221.--Fleurange, Memoires, chap. 7.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 416.--Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. pp. 178, 179, 190, 191; tom. v. pp. 71, 82-86.--Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, lib. 7, 9, 10.

[14] Opus Epist., epist. 465.-Memoires de Bayard, chap. 46.--Fleurange, Memoires, chap. 26.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 225.

[14] Istoria, lib. 9, p. 135.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1511.-- Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 225.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 465.

Machiavelli's friend Vettori, in one of his letters, speaks of the Catholic king as the princ.i.p.al author of the new coalition against France, and notices three hundred lances which he furnished the pope in advance, for this purpose. (Machiavelli, Opere, Lettere Famigliari, no. 8.) He does not seem to understand that these lances were part of the services due for the fief of Naples. The letter above quoted of Martyr, a more competent and unsuspicious authority, shows Ferdinand's sincere aversion to a rupture with Louis at the present juncture; and a subsequent pa.s.sage of the same epistle shows him too much in earnest in his dissuasives, to be open to the charge of insincerity. "Ut mitibus verbis ipsum, Reginam ejus uxorem, ut consiliarios omnes Cabanillas alloquatur, ut agant apud regem suum de pace, dat in frequentibus mandatis." Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., ubi supra.--See further, epist. 454.

[15] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., no. 441.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom.

ii. lib. 29, cap. 24.--Giovio, Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, p. 164.--Sandoval, Hist. del Emp. Carlos V., tom. i. p. 18.

The act of invest.i.ture was dated July 3d, 1510. In the following August, the pontiff remitted the feudal services for the annual tribute of a white palfrey, and the aid of 300 lances when the estates of the church should be invaded. (Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. vi. lib. 9, cap. 11.) The pope had hitherto refused the invest.i.ture, except on the most exorbitant terms; which so much disgusted Ferdinand, that he pa.s.sed by Ostia on his return from Naples, without condescending to meet his Holiness, who was waiting there for a personal interview with him. Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist.

353.--Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. p. 73.

[16] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. v. lib. 10, p. 207.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 30, cap. 5.--Rymer, Foedera, tom. xiii. pp. 305-308.