Where was now that devotion to Arragon, which (as he told Bibbiena with so proud a swagger) traho ad immolandum? Where was that loyalty, “which I shall preserve in hell itself”? They had vanished to that dim limbo of generous resolutions where they would meet his fealty to the Republic, his love of country, and his self-sacrificing affection for his people. All these golden sentiments had completely vanished from the mind of Piero. The warm tent, after the long snowy ride, the kind reception, so different from his terrified previsions, the amiable friendliness of the French lords, who showed no humiliating surprise at his visit, all combined to fill him with a sense of genial relief. After all, Capponi was right: “Look at these French near, and there is nothing to be afraid of.” Piero, if he was afraid at all, was only filled with that pleasant awe which the reverential parvenu experiences when received on kindly terms in aristocratic society. He had not quite recovered yet from the honour that the French had shown him in sending St. Malo and the King’s herald to receive him. Perhaps on the rack Piero might have kept his word an hour or so. It vanished quite out of remembrance as soon as he felt the soft influence of royal converse.
And this was the King, the second Charlemagne, the marvel of nations, the terrible Flagellum Dei! Piero, accustomed to the kind voice, raised his eyes, and beheld a very small man of four-and-twenty, unusually youthful in aspect, with high shoulders, a sickly air, and extraordinarily thin long legs. He looked not quite grown up; and he was certainly very ugly, with his large head, long nose, wide mouth, and timid, delicate appearance. His ugliness was, however, redeemed by a pair of singularly beautiful and shining eyes, whose intelligent, kind, straightforward glance promised a liberal and honest nature. The King was, in fact, both liberal and honest; a simple, inconsequent, honourable creature, too nonchalant to make himself obeyed, and too incapable of dissimulation to win by art what he could not gain by force. He was, we learn from Commines, “the gentlest creature alive; of no great sense, but of so good a nature it were impossible to find a kinder creature; a youth but newly crept out of the shell.” This description does not promise a very terrible monarch, or an insidious diplomatist, but all the duplicity of Lodovico il Moro could not have gained a greater triumph than the careless good-nature of Charles achieved over the flattered Florentine.
The King sat like a quaint elfin child in his tent among his splendid counsellors. These polite and courtly people had rather a more decided smile than usual about their pleasant lips as they glanced towards Piero. The young Florentine was submerged, drowned, in his satisfaction with the King and with his own reception. He was on the best terms with his friend, the King of France. Charles, who did not quite understand the situation, asked a great deal more than ever he hoped to obtain from penitent Florence, thinking he would have to abate his demands (a few weeks in Italy had taught him how to bargain), especially when dealing with a mercantile person like Piero de’ Medici. He put forward in fact an extravagant requisition: the Florentine troops were all to be dismissed (the troops that Piero had ordered yesterday), the fortresses of Sarzana, of Sarzanello, Librafatto, Pisa, Leghorn, and Pietra Santa were to be delivered to the King; his army was to have free passage, and he was to receive a loan of 200,000 ducats. Now the French party of Florence were prepared to allow the King to lodge in Pisa, and to grant him a free passage, but more than this had never been dreamed of by Savonarola or Capponi. Piero, however, when he heard the King’s demand, did not abate a jot of it. Who was he to contradict the King? (“I go,” he had said; “I go head down in front of peril to bring you back a welcome message, or else to leave my bones in the camp of the enemy!”) He immediately agreed to grant the whole, yielding the entire force and estate of Florence into the power of France. “Those that negotiated with the said Peter,[Peter,]” says Commines, “have often told me, scoffing and jesting at him, that they wondered to see him so lightly condescend to so weighty a matter, granting more than they looked for.” And Guicciardini adds: “There was no Frenchman there that did not greatly marvel that Piero so easily consented to matters of so great importance, because without a doubt the King would have accepted very far inferior conditions.” But Piero, the hero of fidelity, the new Lorenzo, did not think of this. “I require the six fortresses, the dismissal of your army, free passage, and a loan of 200,000 ducats,” repeated the slow, stammering, timid voice of the King. “I agree,” said Piero.
There was a silence in the tent, half-amused, half-painful, a feeling as if they had overreached a little child.
IV.
Piero de’ Medici was not the only Italian tyrant who had come to visit the camp of Charles before Sarzana. The day after Piero had arrived, Lodovico il Moro of Milan, who had been called home from Piacenza by the most timely death of his nephew, returned this time as Duke of Milan, to the tents of his allies. He had not expected to encounter there the ally of Alfonso, the tyrant of Florence, and the meeting was not pleasant. Lodovico had an especial dislike to Piero de’ Medici; firstly, because Florence possessed the forts of Pietra Santa and Sarzana, which used to belong to the Genoese, of whom Lodovico was the suzerain; secondly, because Piero was the staunchest ally of Arragon in Italy; and lastly, because on one occasion that charming fool had actually outwitted the wise Lodovico himself. On this occasion Piero, suspecting Lodovico of a Janus face that turned different fronts to Florence and to France, had hidden the French ambassador behind a screen in his audience-chamber, while he made Lodovico’s ambassador protest that Charles had no surer enemy than his master. The French envoy had been very properly scandalized, but instead of preserving a quiet distrust of Milan, King Charles had proclaimed his wrongs from the house-tops; Lodovico had persuaded him they were inventions of the enemy, and henceforth had vowed an eternal hate to Piero.
Thus there was a personal coolness between the Duke of Milan and the head of the Florentine Republic; but on political grounds their meeting was still more awkward. Lodovico il Moro was a man who loved to fish in troubled waters. He had sown dislike and distrust between the French and Florence; he had meant the Florentines to keep the troops of Charles all the winter imprisoned in the fastnesses of their hills. And when in the spring, the King, disgusted with the Neapolitan enterprise, should return to France, he had hoped to obtain for himself whatever places the French had gained from Tuscany. Lodovico had gained the great object which had made him call the French into Italy; he was Duke of Milan. He now wished no farther progress for Charles. He hoped that the King might winter in Tuscany, and then retire to France, having handed over to Milan Sarzana and Pietra Santa, and leaving behind an intimidated Naples, a plundered Florence, a triumphant and victorious Milan. Judge of his immense displeasure when he discovered that, in the few days of his absence, Piero de’ Medici had delivered to the King the passes of the Apennines.
Lodovico was of that far-sighted order of politicians who, when a cherished project fails, have ever an under-study ready to supply its place. It was an unfortunate fact that nothing now prevented Charles from making himself the lord of Italy; but at any rate Milan might gain possession of the towns in the Lunigiana. Lodovico went to Charles, and asked him for the six fortresses which Piero had yielded yesterday. But Charles, though a very simple and youthful person, was not a fool; he would not close himself in a trap in the South of Italy with all the passes homeward shut behind him. He answered Lodovico that he preferred to keep the fortresses, at least until after his return from Naples. The Duke of Milan was a grave and modest man, quiet in manner and majestic, never irascible or angry; he feigned to agree with his ally the King of France. Yes, it would certainly be wiser for Charles to keep the passes; and, to add a point to his conciliation, he remembered that Milan owed the King the 30,000 ducats due for the investiture of Genoa.
But, notwithstanding his beautiful manners, the Duke of Milan did not smile when, in the King’s camp, he encountered the man who had spoiled all his well-considered policy. He had left Milan at an awkward moment in order to get the promise of Sarzana and Pietra Santa. The King had promised him nothing; had got beyond his reach, had just cost him 30,000 ducats; and all this was the fault of Piero. The young Florentine saw the look of irritation on Lodovico’s face, and in his eternal self-preoccupation he thought it due to the fact that he had received no official welcome into Tuscany.
“I rode out to meet you yesterday,” cried Piero, “but I could not find you anywhere. You must have missed the way!”