Europe in the Sixteenth Century 1494-1598 Part 5

The conspiracy put down, nothing seemed to stand in the way of the papal ambition. Urbino was again reduced; Citta di Castello and Perugia submitted; most of the Orsini strongholds fell; and Alexander was playing off Spain against France, in the hopes of gaining the a.s.sistance of one or another in support of the still more magnificent scheme of making Caesar King of Tuscany, when father and son were suddenly struck down by an illness, to which Alexander succ.u.mbed on August 8. It was popularly believed that they had fallen victims to a poisoned cup, which they had intended for one of the cardinals.

The story needs confirmation, but this and others of the kind are at least an indication of the popular opinion, which thought no crime too horrible, or too improbable, to be imputed to the Borgias.

| The election of Julius II. fatal to his cause. Nov. 1, | 1503.

The fate of Caesar now depended on the choice of the cardinals. If he could secure the election of one who would support him, he might yet hold his own. Of late Louis XII. had shown an inclination to desert the Borgia alliance. Caesar therefore from his sick-bed intrigued to get one of the Spanish cardinals chosen, but in this he failed.

Louis had hoped to obtain the papal tiara for the Cardinal D'Amboise; Giuliano della Rovere was determined to prevent the election of a Spaniard, and hoped to succeed himself. Foiled in the first instance, Giuliano concurred in the choice of an Italian cardinal, Piccolomini, who, in memory of his famous uncle Pius II., took the name of Pius III. But, in October, Pius died, and della Rovere, coming to terms with Caesar, secured the votes of the conclave by promises and bribes.

Machiavelli, who however exaggerates Caesar's influence in the College of Cardinals, blames his shortsightedness, because, 'if he could not procure the election of his own nominee, he might have prevented that of della Rovere.' The new Pope, Julius II., had long been the enemy of the Borgias. He had instigated Charles VIII. to invade Italy, and urged him to summon a council to depose Alexander, and although of late he had acquiesced in the inevitable, and affected reconciliation, he was not the man to forget past injuries. Fear of the designs of Venice on the Romagna caused him to support Caesar for a moment. But Julius was determined to win the Romagna for the Papacy, not for the Borgia family, and no sooner did Caesar attempt to act independently than he ordered him to return to Rome (November 29).

Caesar's captains, however, refused to surrender the places which they held without his consent, and Caesar would not consent except at the price of freedom. After long negotiation the agreement was concluded, and Caesar, free once more, set out for Naples to seek the aid of Spain (April 1504).

| The end of Caesar's career.

Ferdinand was at first inclined to listen, till, convinced by the Pope that Caesar would only disturb the peace of Italy, he ordered his arrest on May 26, 1504, as the Duke was on the point of sailing for the Romagna. In violation of a safe-conduct given him by Gonzalvo, he was shortly sent to Spain, where he remained a prisoner till November, 1506. Escaping at last, he found refuge with his brother-in-law, now King of Navarre, to die in the succeeding March (1507), in a skirmish with a rebel va.s.sal of the King.

Thus, at the age of thirty-one, ended the career of the man whom Machiavelli in his _Prince_ holds up as a pattern, in all but his ill-fortune, to him who would attempt to form a united kingdom of Italy. No doubt Caesar had many of the qualities requisite for success. Clever and versatile in conception, rapid and resolute in action, and a master of diplomacy, he had in a high degree the quality of 'virtu,' that compound of force and intellect, which we find praised not only by Machiavelli, but by Commines and other writers of the day, as the essential characteristic of the ruler.

We must, alas! allow that private morality is not always the accompaniment of good statesmans.h.i.+p. Although Caesar was absolutely without scruple in his treatment of the petty princes of the Romagna, it may be questioned whether the independence of these petty princ.i.p.alities was worth preserving. Ruled by despots, no question of political freedom was involved. With a few exceptions, such as that of Urbino, they ill.u.s.trated the evils without the advantages of the larger tyrannies, and their history is one tangled tale of faction, murder, and intrigue. The country too, it must be confessed, was well governed under him, and his rule was not unpopular. But, when all is said, we cannot believe that a kingdom founded by such cruelty, and maintained by such villany and treachery, can really be a solid one.

That Machiavelli, dazzled by the temporary good fortune of Caesar, should boldly hold him up as a model to be copied, only makes one realise the cynical despair of the Italians as to the possibility of success in their country by any other means, and the depth of degradation to which the people had fallen.[20] Nor, finally, do we believe that the idea of thus founding a temporal dominion of the Papacy was likely to succeed. Had Alexander lived longer, it might, perhaps, have ended in the establishment of another petty kingdom in Italy. But the state would have been founded in the interest of the Borgia, not of the Papacy, and would have only added one more enemy to the advance of the temporal dominion. If the papal authority in the Romagna was to become a reality, it must be based on a firmer foundation than that of papal nepotism. This Julius II. saw. Most of the cities held or threatened by Caesar fell at once into his hands, with the exception of Rimini, Faenza, and Cesena, which were seized by Venice, to be secured, however, by Julius in the war of the League of Cambray. Meanwhile Perugia and Bologna were gained by Julius in 1506, while the Duchy of Urbino fell to his nephew, Francesco della Rovere, who was adopted by Guidobaldo, its late Duke. These territories were incorporated into the papal dominions; the history of their semi-independent princes came to an end, and Julius II., rather than Alexander, established the papal dominion in the Romagna.

-- 5. _The League of Cambray._

The pretext for the invasion of Italy by France and Spain had been the necessity of securing a base of operations for a crusade against the Turk. This had been prevented by the quarrel of the robbers over their spoil. They were now to prove by their attack on Venice--the only power which had seriously attempted to check the Moslem advance--that the idea, even if ever seriously entertained, had been definitely abandoned.

| Jealousy against Venice, the result of her advance on | the mainland.

The hostility with which that republic was viewed by the rest of Italy dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, when she definitely began to aim at establis.h.i.+ng a dominion on the Italian mainland. A quarrel between Milan and the Carrara of Padua enabled her to overthrow that family, to seize Padua, then, step by step, Vicenza and Verona, and to advance to the Adige (1405). In 1427 and 1428, she wrested Brescia and Bergamo from the hands of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and after his death secured Crema (1454). Meanwhile she had acquired the district of Friuli from the Patriarch of Aquileia (1420), and in 1441 had added Ravenna, hitherto an independent state under the Polentani, to her conquests. In 1484, the peace of Bagnolo, which closed the Ferrarese war, gave her Rovigo and the Polesine. In 1499, she gained Cremona and the Ghiara d'Adda from Louis XII., as the price of her a.s.sistance against Ludovico. On the death of Caesar Borgia, she had occupied Faenza, Rimini, and Cesena; while in Apulia, she held the four towns, Trani, Otranto, Gallipoli, Brindisi, which she had acquired at the date of Charles VIII.'s expedition. Thus, within the s.p.a.ce of some hundred years, Venice had completely altered her character. The island city had gained a large territory on the mainland, which stretched to the neighbourhood of Milan, Florence, and the Papal States. The change of policy has usually been attributed to the advance of the Turk, which threatened her possessions in the aegean Sea, and on the coast of Greece. This no doubt was one of her motives at a later date. But as her first advance on the mainland occurred in 1405, some years before the Turk seriously menaced her, we must look elsewhere for the primary cause. This is to be found in the danger to be apprehended from the growing power of Milan. As long as the plain of Lombardy and the approaches to the Alpine pa.s.ses were in the hands of petty princes, she could hope to purchase, or to extort, an outlet for her commerce to the north; but, if these were to fall into the hands of the powerful and aggressive Dukes of Milan, they might be closed against her. An alternative route no doubt remained.

She might have threaded the Straits of Gibraltar and reached the north of Europe by the Atlantic and the English Channel. But, though of late a Flanders fleet had yearly sailed from Venice, this route was not developed. It could, and probably would, have been closed by Spain.

Nor would such a policy have saved her from Milan, which, if she became too powerful, might cut off her food supplies, surround her, and drive her into the sea.

The attempt, then, to form a state in Lombardy appears to have been inevitable; nor was it so selfish as her enemies declared it to be.

Her treatment of the cities under her rule was not only infinitely superior to that of Milan, but compared most favourably with that of Florence. She left them as much local autonomy as was compatible with the maintenance of her supremacy; she did not tax them heavily.

It was the aim of Venice to secure the affection of her subjects, and their loyalty in the days of her troubles, proved that she had succeeded. With equal injustice the policy of Venice towards the Turk has been denounced as faithless to the cause of Christianity. No doubt, despairing of the aid of Europe, she was anxious to keep on friendly terms with the Turk, and would, if possible, have avoided war; but this policy was forced upon her by the refusal of European states to sink their common jealousies and join heartily in a crusade.

Venice, after all, was the only power which seriously attempted to check the advance of the Moslem, and the coalition against her is the best proof of the hollowness of the cry of a crusade on the part of her spoilers. But though the advance on the mainland seems to have been inevitable, and is capable of justification, it was none the less a fatal step. Had it been possible for Venice to conquer Milan, and to have secured the whole of Lombardy before the date of the French invasion, she might some day have become the capital of a united Italy, and the history of the Peninsula might have been a happier one. But for this her resources were not sufficient, nor is it likely that the European powers would have acquiesced. Failing this, her vain attempts to find a strategic frontier only added to her enemies, and earned her the name of the most selfish and grasping of the Italian states; while in her endeavour to protect her commerce by friendly treaties with the Turk, she added to her crimes the charge of treachery towards the cause of Christendom.

| The real faults of Venetian policy.

The real fault of Venice has not been so often noted by historians.

Her interests imperatively demanded that the foreigner should be excluded from Italy. As long as the Peninsula was left to itself, she was strong enough to hold her own; but she was no match for the more powerful kingdoms of the north. Her vacillation at the date of the expedition of Charles VIII. she had in part redressed by forming the League of Venice and driving him from Italy, although her occupation at that date of the Apulian towns eventually earned her the hostility of Ferdinand. The good work was, however, again undone by her foolish alliance with Louis XII. in his war against Milan. By this short-sighted policy she earned with some justice the accusation of territorial greed; irritated Maximilian, who did not relish being excluded from Lombardy; and established on her western frontier the ever-grasping power of France. Thus, by the close of the fifteenth century, Venice had incurred the enmity not only of the petty Italian states, but of the chief powers of Western Europe.

| European combinations leading to the League of | Cambray.

Maximilian desired to recover Friuli; Louis XII. wished to extend the frontiers of the Milanese; Florence feared that Venice might cross the Apennines; Ferdinand was determined to recover the cities in Apulia. Above all, Pope Julius was bent on humbling the proud republic. Her acquisitions in the Romagna interfered with his darling scheme of establis.h.i.+ng the papal rule in that district. Between France in Milan, and Spain in Naples, Julius might hope to hold the balance, and to establish the temporal dominion of the Papacy, but Venice, or indeed any strong Italian power, would strenuously oppose it. In this Julius only followed the traditional policy of his predecessors in the papal chair, that of inveterate hostility to the growth of a strong native state in Italy. Moreover, the independent att.i.tude of the republic in matters of church government, ill.u.s.trated at this moment by her refusal to allow him to nominate to the vacant bishopric of Vicenza, angered the haughty prelate. 'They wish to treat me as their chaplain,' he said, 'let them beware lest I make them humble fishermen as they once were.'

Under these circ.u.mstances the sole hope for Venice lay in the mutual jealousies of her enemies. From these she had profited hitherto, but when they ceased her day of reckoning would come. Hence it is necessary to treat in some detail the relations of the European powers at the opening of the sixteenth century.

At the close of the Neapolitan war, the alliance between the houses of Hapsburg and Spain, based on the marriage of the Archduke Philip, son of Maximilian, with Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, threatened to break up. By the deaths in 1497, and 1500, of John, the eldest son, and of Michael of Portugal, the grandson of the Spanish monarchs, Joanna became the heiress of Castile and Aragon,[21] and, in the event of Isabella's death, would become Queen of Castile to the exclusion of her father. This at once aroused the jealousy of Ferdinand against her husband the archduke. The temporary division of Castile and Aragon would arrest the unification of the Peninsula; while the prospect of Spain eventually falling to the Hapsburg was equally distasteful to him.

| Treaty of Lyons, April 5, 1503; and of Blois, Sept.

| 22, 1504.

Ferdinand had accordingly rejected the treaty of Lyons (April 1503), concluded between Philip and Louis XII. for the settlement of the Neapolitan quarrel. By that treaty, it had been agreed that the kingdom of Naples should one day fall to Claude, the infant daughter of Louis XII., who had already, in 1501, been betrothed to Charles, the young son of the archduke. Philip, abandoned by his father-in-law, clung all the closer to the French alliance, and was supported by his father, Maximilian, who hoped by this marriage treaty to realise his most magnificent dreams. In September 1504, at Blois, Louis XII., influenced by his wife, Anne of Brittany, promised Milan, Genoa, Asti, Brittany, and Blois, as Claude's dower, to which Burgundy was to be added in the event of his own death without male heirs. In the following year, Maximilian actually proposed, with the approval of the French Queen, that the Salic Law should be repealed, in order that Claude might succeed her father on the French throne.

| Second Treaty of Blois. Oct. 12, 1505.

Thus there seemed a prospect that the young Charles would some day unite the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, France, the Milanese, and the kingdom of Naples, with the hereditary dominions of the House of Hapsburg. Had this ever come about, the rest of Germany must have submitted, and the descendants of the poverty-stricken Frederick III.

would have found themselves masters of an empire over most of the Teutonic and Latin races of the continent. But the day dream was not to last. In November 1504, Isabella died, and Ferdinand, determined to retain his hold as regent of Castile, made haste to conciliate Louis XII. At Blois, in October 1505, he agreed to marry Germaine de Foix, the niece of the French king. To her the French claims on Naples were to be resigned, which, however, were to revert to Louis XII. in default of her having issue by Ferdinand. Ferdinand further promised to Louis a sum of money, and an amnesty to the French party in Naples.

In the June of the following year, 1506, Ferdinand was indeed obliged to surrender the regency of Castile to Philip and Joanna; but in September the Archduke Philip died at Burgos; the unfortunate Joanna was declared to show signs of madness,[22] and Ferdinand, by the help of Cardinal Ximenes, secured, though with difficulty, the government of Castile. Thus the quarrel between Louis XII. and Ferdinand was temporarily accommodated, and Ferdinand was secure in Spain and in Naples.

Meanwhile, in France the national hostility to a foreigner had been aroused. The Estates-General at Tours (May 1506) prayed the King to abandon the intended match between Claude and Charles, and to marry her to Francis of Angouleme, the heir-presumptive to the crown, who was 'entirely a Frenchman.' Maximilian, irritated at the failure of his schemes, now broke with Louis. In 1507, he summoned the Diet to Constance, and pa.s.sionately demanded help of the empire. 'The King of France,' he said, 'wishes to rob the Germans of the Imperial crown, the highest dignity of the world and the glory of our nation.' In return for a promise to reorganise the Imperial Chamber, he received a contingent from the Diet; he also took a body of Swiss mercenaries into his pay. Crossing the Brenner, he reached Trent in February, 1508, and there, with the consent of the papal legate, declared himself Emperor-elect.

| The League of Cambray. Dec. 10, 1508.

But as usual the pretensions of Maximilian outran his abilities to a ludicrous extent. The Venetians, fearing his designs on Friuli, refused him free pa.s.sage, and enforced their refusal by arms. His attempt on Vicenza failed. The Duke of Gueldres, stirred up by Louis XII., threatened the Netherlands, and the would-be ruler of Western Europe was forced to accept the terms of the insolent republic and retire. Burning to revenge himself, he pocketed his pride, and at Cambray, December 1508, came to terms with Louis XII. Peace was made with the Duke of Gueldres, and Maximilian promised, in return for money, the invest.i.ture of Milan to Louis XII. and his descendants.

Their quarrels thus accommodated, the King and Emperor agreed to part.i.tion the Venetian territory. All princes who had any claims on Venetian lands were asked to aid in checking her intolerable selfishness and greed by recovering their lost possessions. Ferdinand and the Pope shortly joined, the latter with some misgivings, and only after Venice had refused to restore to him Rimini and Faenza; a number of petty Italian princes followed suit, and Venice found herself face to face with one of the most shameful of coalitions in history.

Ferdinand, however, was engaged in wars against the Moors of Africa.

The penniless Maximilian was not ready for a fresh campaign; and the French, and papal troops, a.s.sisted by the Duke of Ferrara and other Italians, alone took the field.

| Battle of Agnadello or Vaila. May 14, 1509.

The wisest policy for Venice would probably have been, as Pitigliano urged, to avoid pitched battles, and to play a waiting game. If the war were prolonged, the robbers would be sure to quarrel. But rasher counsels prevailed. Neglecting the movement of the papal troops in the Romagna, the Venetians turned against the French and attempted to stop their attack at the frontier. As the two armies were manuvring in the valley of the Adda, it came about that the rear-guard of the Venetian army, under Bartolomeo d'Alviano, came within striking distance of the French advanced guard. Alviano, a condottier with more valour than discretion, thought it more honourable to be beaten than to retreat, and at once ordered the attack. The Venetian army was a curious medley of Italian condottiers and peasants, Greek light horse from the Peloponnese and the aegean isles, and half-savage archers from Crete. Nevertheless it fought well, more especially the Italian infantry, composed of peasants from the Lombard plain and the slopes of the Alps and Apennines. But it was exposed to the attack of the whole French army, aided by a large body of Swiss. The van, under the Count of Pitigliano, whether from jealousy, or because it was too far distant, did not co-operate; and, after a desperate struggle, the Venetian army turned and fled, leaving Alviano a prisoner, and most of their infantry dead on the field. As is often the case with mercenaries, the defeated army soon became a mob. The cities refused refuge to the fugitives, and opened their gates to the victors. The French met with no opposition till they reached Peschiera, which they took by a.s.sault.

At Venice meanwhile, the Senate were debating their future policy amidst the wildest consternation. Deciding to bow to the storm and to abandon their subject cities, they authorised them to surrender.

Verona, Vicenza, and Padua forthwith sent their keys to Louis, and on his chivalrous refusal to accept their submission, since they did not fall to his share, they turned to Maximilian. In the Romagna, the Pope occupied Ravenna, Rimini, and Faenza. The Duke of Ferrara entered the Polesine; the Marquis of Mantua seized the territories of which Venice had deprived him; and the Apulian towns surrendered to Ferdinand.

| Venice saved by the loyalty of her subject lands and | the dissensions of her foes.

Venice had now lost all her acquisitions made during the fifteenth century, and seemed doomed to be confined again to her lagoons; nay, Maximilian even spoke of taking the city itself and dividing it into four districts among the confederates. But the Emperor as usual counted without his host. Neither Ferdinand nor Julius were willing to press matters so far; they stayed their hand, while Louis, having attained his object, withdrew to Milan, and then to France. In the conquered territories, more especially in those claimed by Maximilian, a reaction now took place in favour of the republic of St. Mark. The n.o.bles had easily deserted Venice, but now the lower cla.s.ses in town and country rose in her defence. The Senate regained courage. By a majority of one vote it was decided to resume the offensive, and, on July 17, Padua was re-taken. The law which forbade the Venetian n.o.bility to serve on the mainland was revoked, and one hundred and seventy-six young n.o.bles, headed by the sons of the Doge, Loredano, marched to the defence of the recovered city. Maximilian at last determined to come in person, and laid siege to Padua with a large army composed not only of Germans, but of Spanish auxiliaries, and reinforced by a French contingent. But the French and Germans were not on the best of terms. The French knights, when ordered to storm the breach on foot, demanded that they should be joined by the German men-at-arms, and not be left to fight side by side with low-born lansquenets, and the German knights refused to serve on foot at all. At last Maximilian, pa.s.sing as was his wont from overweening confidence to blank despair, raised the siege, October 3, 1509, and recrossed the Alps, to hear that Vicenza had also revolted, and recalled the Venetian troops.

Unable to defeat the Venetians in open battle, or to take their cities, Maximilian ordered their territories to be ravaged, and a cruel war of pillage and of ma.s.sacre went on in Friuli throughout the winter of 1509-10. On one occasion, six thousand men, women, and children were suffocated in a cave near Vicenza. Such cruelties could only serve to convince the people of the superiority of the Venetian rule.

Venice was now to be saved by the dissensions of her enemies. Julius II. had hitherto been the most bitter of her foes, and had supported the League not only by arms, but by excommunication. Yet he had always declared that Venice had driven him to this step by her refusal to recognise the just claims of the Papacy, spiritual and temporal. 'But for this,' he had said, 'we might have been united and found some way to free Italy from the tyranny of the foreigner.' Why should this not now be done? The lands he claimed were in his possession, and Venice was prepared to acknowledge his spiritual pretensions. Moreover, the overwhelming predominance, which France had gained, might be more dangerous to papal interests than the Venetian republic. Thus by joining Venice there was an opportunity, not only of furthering the papal cause, but also of realising that dream of every patriotic Italian, the expulsion of the foreigner. Julius, however, did not show his hand at once. It would be rash to do so until he could be sure that Venice was strong enough to resist her foes; hence his long refusal to listen to her prayers. When, at last, in February 1510, he admitted the city to his peace, it was only on the severest terms.

Venice acknowledged the justice of the excommunication; renounced her claims to tax her clergy, and to nominate to her bishoprics; promised that clerics should be tried by ecclesiastical courts, and declared the navigation of the Adriatic free to citizens of the Papal States. The Council of Ten indeed entered a secret protest against these concessions as having been extorted by force, and subsequently repudiated them, but for the moment the Papacy had triumphed.

It was now the aim of Julius to drive the French and Germans from Italy by the a.s.sistance of Venice, and of the Swiss, who had broken with Louis. The Swiss alliance for the time failed him. Nevertheless he met at first with transient success. The neutrality of Ferdinand was secured by the invest.i.ture of Naples and Sicily, hitherto refused by the Papacy (July 1510). Modena, belonging to the Duke of Ferrara, and Mirandola, were conquered; the first by the nephew of the Pope, the Duke of Urbino; the second by the warlike Julius himself, who, rising from a bed of sickness, crossed the trenches on the ice, and took the city by storm (January 1511). But here his success ended.

| The Holy League. Oct. 5, 1511.

On May 13, 1511, the French captured Bologna, aided by treachery within the city, and in September, Louis summoned a general council at Pisa, which had been at last reconquered by Florence two years before. The council was a failure, for Europe was not prepared for another schism. But it was evident that the French were not to be easily driven from Milan. Julius, therefore, determined to be avenged on France, now turned to Ferdinand. The wily Spaniard had long lost interest in the League. Having regained the Apulian towns, he did not care to see Venice further humbled, and dreaded the increase of French power in Lombardy. Moreover, a quarrel in Italy would give him a pretext for seizing Navarre, which he had long coveted. Ferdinand accordingly gladly welcomed the offers of the Pope; and on October 5, 1511, the Holy League was formed between the Pope, Ferdinand, and Venice. The ostensible object of the League was the protection of the Church, the recovery of Bologna, and the restoration to Venice of her territories. The real aim of the confederates was to drive the French from Italy, while a further stipulation in the treaty, that the Pope should confirm the Spaniards in any conquest made outside Italy, pointed clearly to Navarre. The allies also gained the support of the young Henry VIII. of England, who was anxious to revive his claims to Guienne, and to strengthen his alliance with his father-in-law.

Against this formidable coalition, Louis was at first successful. The French army was commanded by Gaston de Foix, the king's nephew and brother of Ferdinand's wife. The young man--he was twenty-three, 'a great general without having served as a soldier'--who by the rapidity of his movements earned in this campaign the t.i.tle of the Thunderbolt of Italy, first threw himself into Bologna (February 4), and forced the army of the League, under Raymond de Cardona, viceroy of Naples, to retire. Hearing of the revolt of Brescia, he hurried thither, took the town by a.s.sault, mounting the ramparts with bare feet to improve his hold on the steep slopes (February 18), and killed so many of the defenders 'that the horses could not put foot to the ground for the corpses that covered it.' Then, speeding back to Bologna, he forced his enemies to retire, and, pressing on to Ravenna, attempted to take the town by a.s.sault (April 19).

| Battle of Ravenna. Easter Day, 1512.

Cardona was anxious to avoid a pitched battle. Time, he knew, was on his side, for Maximilian was on the point of joining the League; the Swiss were preparing to pour down into the Milanese; and the projected invasion of France by Henry VIII. would prevent Louis from sending efficient reinforcements. He had accordingly retired to Faenza, but, fearing that Ravenna would fall if not relieved, was forced to return.

Even then his tactics were defensive. His camp was protected on the left flank by the river; in front, by some of the numerous ditches which intersect the marshy country. Strengthening this further by his artillery, and by waggons with scythe-like implements mounted on them, he awaited the French attack.

The position of Cardona was indeed a strong one, but in numbers his force was slightly inferior, and, if France was to win, the victory must be won at once. Gaston, therefore, decided rightly to tempt fortune once more, and on Easter Day at 8 A.M. he ordered the attack.

He had hoped to dislodge the enemy from their strong position by means of his artillery, which had been brought to a condition of high efficiency under the Duke of Ferrara. In this he was disappointed.

The fire of the Spaniards was nearly as effective as his own, and, although the cavalry of the League suffered as severely as that of the French, the Spanish infantry protected themselves by lying on the ground, a movement which French ideas of military honour forbade.