The situation was grave indeed, but he took it lightly, with a facile temerity that would not condescend to prudence. On the 3rd of October his ambassador at Milan wrote that the French spoke of wintering in Pisa and Sarzana. Yet not a single fortress had a week’s provisions. So late as the 22nd of October, in answer to a last appeal from France, he sent the Bishop of Arezzo to King Charles with a vague, exasperating, indecisive answer. The same week the two cousins of Piero escaped from their villas, and rode post-haste to the French camp. “Sire,” they cried to Charles, “be not angry with Florence. The tyrant is against you, but you have the faithful devotion of the people.” The King was well inclined to believe the two young men with whom he had often practised, and who had suffered a year’s imprisonment for his sake. “We do not confuse the people of Florence with the governor,” answered the Council. “The last alone is the King’s enemy.” And, departing from Piacenza, the armies of France marched on the Florentine territories.
In a few days they were on the Tuscan border. At Fivizzano and Pontremoli they had so avenged a slight resistance that the gates flew open at their approach. Who dare resist the Scourge of God? Terror and awe bent every head before them. In Florence the populace surged along the narrow streets, and declared they would not resist the King of France. Three days after Piero had sent off the Bishop of Arezzo, a popular tumult seemed ready to burst at any moment.
What could he do? The French were now within fifty miles of Pisa, and though the mountain fortresses ought to have kept them at bay all the winter long, Piero remembered too late that he had forgotten to provision them; that he had neglected to call the Pisan hostages into Florence, and that Pisa hated her cruel mistress, and was certain to revolt to France. Only one course suggested itself to the desperate young man, and this course was so adventurous, romantic, and unusual, that it captivated at once his unsteady imagination. Many years ago, when Arragon had worsted Florence on the battlefield, Lorenzo de’ Medici had gone as his own ambassador to Naples, running, it is true, a great risk of steel or poison, but by his fascinating address making a devoted friend of an exasperated enemy. Piero determined to follow the example of his father. On the 26th of October he heard that the French were arriving before Sarzana, within two days’ march of Florence. On the evening of that day the tyrant of Florence secretly escaped from his own palace, left the city in the dusk of evening, and rode through the chill autumn night as far as Empoli.
II.
“Empoli, 26 Oct., 1494.
“Piero de’ Medici to the Signory of Florence.
“Because I believe I ought not to suffer imputation or reproach for that which, according to my mind and feeble judgment, appeared to me the most salutary remedy to preserve my menaced country, I depart from you to offer myself to the most Christian king, and to turn on to my own head the storm that menaces my native land. Nor is there any consequent punishment, but I would rather suffer it in my own person than behold it inflicted on this republic.
“After all, I am not the first of my house to go on such an enterprise; and since there is no fatigue, hardship, cost, nay not even death itself, but, endured for any one of you, it would appear to me a benefit, how much more do I not welcome these rude chances for the sake of the universal city!
“Be sure, if I return it will be to bring good tidings to you and to the city; either this, or I shall leave my life in the camp of the enemy.
“To you, in this extreme moment, I recommend my brothers and my children. And, for the faith and affection you bare to the bones of Lorenzo my father, I pray you be content to pray to God for me.”[[115]]