V.
But the end is not yet; a little longer the cunning Lodovico and the empty-headed Medici have still their parts to play, and for the next few days the part of Piero is no easy one. He has to answer to Florence for having delivered her, without her own consent, into the hands of the French.
For the Signory were still in ignorance of this sad disposal of their fate. So soon as they discovered the flight of Piero they sent off seven envoys to the camp of Charles to treat with the King, “with Piero or without Piero,” and to express the thanks of Florence for his honourable welcome accorded “to our fellow-citizen, Piero de’ Medici.” When the seven Florentine negotiators arrived at the French camp they found the French had been three days already in Sarzana and Sarzanello; they found that their fellow-citizen had dispossessed them of all that they had gained in a hundred years or more—of Sarzana, their frontier town; Pietra Santa, which[which] had cost them 150,000 ducats and a two months’ siege; of Leghorn and Pisa—her seaports, the two eyes of Florence—without which her commerce were impossible: and he had promised, in the name of the Republic, the extravagant subsidy of 200,000 ducats!
Before the bad news could reach home the Signory had sent off a second embassy of five: Tanai dei Nerli, Savonarola, Capponi, and two other staunch Republicans, Guelfs and democrats, the leaders of the French party. They arrived to discover in their late opponent a more disastrous friend, so French that he had ceased to be Florentine at all. Capponi then and there determined to prevent the continuance of the Medici in Florence. Savonarola spoke words of tragic warning to the astonished King: “If thou respect not Florence, God shall whip thee with His whips and scourges.” But no eloquence and no resolve could change the fact that the French were in the fortresses.
So the twelve ambassadors mournfully set their faces homewards; and Piero also returned to Florence—Piero, brilliant, presumptuous, arrogant as ever. There was no sign of shame or sorrow about him; but even he could notice the cold reception of the people. Every man frowned upon him as he passed along the streets; they murmured together and talked of banishment.
It was the 8th of November when he came home to Florence. On the morning of the 9th he rode to the Piazza with his ordinary guard to announce the King’s coming, but when he knocked at the gate of the Palazzo Vecchio, young Nerli refused to let him in unless he sent away his soldiery. Piero, indignant at this behaviour, rode home again and sent a message to his wife’s brother, Pagolo Orsini, captain of the horse, to bid him lead the troops at once to Florence. Meanwhile, in the streets the ominous cry of “Liberty, liberty!” gathered and grew. All the adventurous temper of Piero de’ Medici was roused. Without waiting for the troops, he armed himself and a few servants, and rushed cavalcading along the hostile streets, crying out the rallying cry of his family, “Palle! Palle!” But everywhere he was met with sullen silence—silence that gradually broke into a roar of disapproval, a shout of “Libertà!” By the time Orsini and the soldiers came, Piero was glad of their assistance, not to quell the disaffected Florentines, but to escape from a town in open mutiny. They left the women behind in the great house in Via Larga, and, accompanied by a few cavaliers, the three young Medici fled from their city. Piero rode in the middle, disguised as a monk. It was the second time in fourteen days that he had secretly escaped from Florence.
When the sun rose on the 10th of November, Florence was in deed, as well as in name, a republic. Piero was a fugitive in reproachful Bologna, a price of 5,000 ducats on his head. Nor ever again, in the ten remaining years of his life, did he re-enter Florence; and when his brothers, seventeen years after, were readmitted to their ancient home, it was through the blood of Prato that they waded into Florence.
Florence would brave any danger rather than receive the Medici. When King Charles, a few days after the escape of Piero, made a brave stand for his guest of Sarzana, the Florentines threatened him with open war. “You can sound your trumpets,” said Piero Capponi; “I will ring my bells.” Charles looked out of the window at the narrow streets, at the solemn, strong-walled city that, at the sound of the tocsin, became a mysterious and terrible ambush, raining death from every window, shooting unsuspected sallies along the tortuous streets. He understood that a plain French soldier could not deal with such an enemy as this. “Take off the price upon his head,” he declared, “and I will say no more.”
Nevertheless, had Piero gone at once to Charles instead of to Bologna, the King might have forced him back on Florence. But the young man fled from Bologna to Venice; and when King Charles sent him a message and bade him come to his camp, Piero refused to stir. Piero Capponi, he said, had told him the French King meant only to betray him. Piero Capponi was at least resolved that his namesake should no more betray the city, and by his persuasions the Medicean Piero remained at Venice. “There I often saw him,” wrote Commines, “and he discoursed to me at large of all his misfortunes, and I, as well as I could, comforted him. Methought him a man of no great stuff or sense.”
[114]. See Desjardins I., “Négociations diplomatiques dans la Toscane.”
[115]. “Négociations diplomatiques dans la Toscane,” vol. i. p. 587, et seq.
[116]. His infant son, born 1492, in after days the father of Catherine de’ Medici.
[117]. The boy-cardinal, Giovanni de’ Medici, Piero’s brother, afterwards Leo X.