During the engagement, neither baggage nor artillery were in danger of being taken, for they were excellently well defended by those who ran as much risk as others engaged in the main battle. Many were well mounted, so that, if fortune had been adverse, the poor adventurers might have been able to support their friends, and have renewed the fight.
The king made, this day, several new knights. During the conflict, the cardinal of Sion fled, on seeing the quantities of dead, under pretence, as he told Maximilian Sforza, of bringing back reinforcements, but returned when too late.
In the course of this great butchery, a body of Swiss retreated toward a cassino of the van-guard, where was posted the duke of Bourbon, constable of France: he instantly pursued them, had the cassino set on fire, and unless they could have flown through the flames, not one could have escaped. May God have mercy on their souls, and of all those who fell on this day! It is a great pity that it should be in the power of two or three persons to cause the deaths of so many human creatures, whom they seem to estimate no more than as so many sheep. Alas! they are not beasts, and have sense and reason, or at least ought to have, although sometimes their strength fails through wicked intentions.
Some of the wounded Swiss fled to Milan, others to Como: those who entered Milan told the citizens that they had gained the battle, on which they were led to the great hospital to be cured,—but when the Lansquenets afterwards entered that city, they finished to cure them in a strange and terrible manner.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Marignano,—eleven miles SE. from Milan.
[63] The marshal de Trivulce said that he had been at eighteen pitched battles, but that they were children's play compared with this.
MILAN SURRENDERS TO THE KING OF FRANCE.—THE CASTLE, BESIEGED BY THE FRENCH, SURRENDERS ON CAPITULATION.