Having on the 7th of December, 1494, entered Acquapendente, and, on the 10th, Viterbo, he there received, on the following day, a message from Pope Alexander VI., who in his own name and that of Alphonso II., King of Naples, made him an offer of a million ducats to defray the expenses of the war, and a hundred thousand livres annually, on condition that he would abandon his enterprise against the kingdom of Naples. “I have no mind to make terms with the Arragonese usurper,” answered Charles: “I will treat directly with the pope when I am in Rome, which I reckon upon entering about Christmas. I have already made known to him my intentions; I will forthwith send him ambassadors commissioned to repeat them to him.” And he did send to him the most valiant of his warriors, Louis de la Tremoille, “the which was there,” says the contemporary chronicler, John Bouchet, “with certain speakers, who, after having pompously reminded the pope of the whole history of the French kingship in its relations with the papacy, ended up in the following strain: ‘prayeth you, then, our sovereign lord the king not to give him occasion to be, to his great sorrow, the first of his lineage who ever had war and discord with the Roman Church, whereof he and the Christian Kings of France, his predecessors, have been protectors and augmenters.’ More briefly and with an affectation of sorrowful graciousness, the pope made answer to the ambassador: ‘If it please King Charles, my eldest spiritual son, to enter into my city without arms in all humility, he will be most welcome; but much would it annoy me if the army of thy king should enter, because that, under shadow of it, which is said to be great and riotous, the factions and bands of Rome might rise up and cause uproar and scandal, wherefrom great discomforts might happen to the citizens.’” For three weeks the king and the pope offered the spectacle, only too common in history, of the hypocrisy of might pitted against the hypocrisy of religion. At last the pope saw the necessity of yielding; he sent for Prince Ferdinand, son of the King of Naples, and told him that he must no longer remain at Rome with the Neapolitan troops, for that the King of France was absolute about entering; and he at the same time handed him a safe-conduct under Charles’s own hand. Ferdinand refused the safe-conduct, and threw himself upon his knees before the pope, asking him for his blessing: “Rise, my dear son,” said the pope; “go, and have good hope; God will come to our aid.” The Neapolitans departed, and on the 1st of January, 1495, Charles VIII. entered Rome with his army, “saying gentlewise,” according to Brantome, “that a while agone he had made a vow to my lord St. Peter of Rome, and that of necessity he must accomplish it at the peril of his life. Behold him, then, entered into Rome,” continues Brantome, “in bravery and triumph, himself armed at all points, with lance on thigh, as if he would fain pick forward to the charge. Marching in this fine and furious order of battle, with trumpets a-sounding and drums a-beating, he enters in and takes his lodging, by the means of his harbingers, wheresoever it seems to him good, has his bodies of guards set, posts his sentinels about the places and districts of the noble city, with no end of rounds and patrols, has his tribunals and his gallows planted in five or six different spots, his edicts and ordinances being published and proclaimed by sound of trumpet, as if he had been in Paris. Go find me ever a King of France who did such things, save Charlemagne; yet trow I he did not bear himself with authority so superb and imperious. What remained, then, more for this great king, if not to make himself full master of this glorious city which had subdued all the world in days of yore, as it was in his power to do, and as he, perchance, would fain have done, in accordance with his ambition and with some of his council, who urged him mightily thereto, if it were only for to keep himself secure. But far from this: violation of holy religion gave him pause, and the reproach that might have been brought against him of having done offence to his Holiness, though reason enough had been given him: on the contrary, he rendered him all honor and obedience, even to kissing in all humility his slipper!” [Oeuvres de Brantome (Paris, 1822), t. ii. p. 3.] No excuse is required for quoting this fragment of Brantome; for it gives the truest and most striking picture of the conditions of facts and sentiments during this transitory encounter between a madly adventurous king and a brazen-facedly dishonest pope. Thus they passed four weeks at Rome, the pope having retired at first to the Vatican and afterwards to the castle of St. Angelo, and Charles remaining master of the city, which, in a fit of mutual ill-humor and mistrust, was for one day given over to pillage and the violence of the soldiery. At last, on the 15th of January, a treaty was concluded which regulated pacific relations between the two sovereigns, and secured to the French army a free passage through the States of the Church, both going to Naples and also returning, and provisional possession of the town of Civita Vecchia, on condition that it should be restored to the pope when the king returned to France. On the 16th and 19th of January the pope and the king had two interviews, one private and the other public, at which they renewed their engagements, and paid one another the stipulated honors. It was announced that, on the 23d of January, the Arragonese King of Naples, Alphonso II., had abdicated in favor of his son, Ferdinand II.; and, on the 28th of January, Charles VIII. took solemn leave of the pope, received his blessing, and left Rome, as he had entered it, at the head of his army, and more confident than ever in the success of the expedition he was going to carry out.
Ferdinand II., the new King of Naples, who had no lack of energy or courage, was looking everywhere, at home and abroad, for forces and allies to oppose the imminent invasion. To the Duke of Milan he wrote, “Remember that we two are of the same blood. It is much to be desired that a league should at once be formed between the pope, the kings of the Romans and Spain, you, and Venice. If these powers are united, Italy would have nought to fear from any. Give me your support; I have the greatest need of it. If you back me, I shall owe to you the preservation of my throne, and I will honor you as my father.” He ordered the Neapolitan envoy at Constantinople to remind Sultan Bajazet of the re-enforcements he had promised his father, King Alphonso: “Time presses; the King of France is advancing in person on Naples; be instant in solicitation; be importunate if necessary, so that the Turkish army cross the sea without delay. Be present yourself at the embarkation of the troops. Be active; run; fly.” He himself ran through all his kingdom, striving to resuscitate some little spark of affection and hope. He had no success anywhere; the memory of the king his father was hateful; he was himself young and without influence; his ardor caused fear instead of sympathy. Charles kept advancing along the kingdom through the midst of people that remained impassive when they did not give him a warm reception. The garrison of Monte San Giovanni, the strongest place on the frontier, determined to resist. The place was carried by assault in a few hours, and “the assailants,” says a French chronicler, “without pity or compassion, made short work of all those plunderers and malefactors, whose bodies they hurled down from the walls. The carnage lasted eight whole hours.” A few days afterwards Charles with his guard arrived in front of San Germano: “The clergy awaited him at the gate with cross and banner; men of note carried a dais under the which he took his place; behind him followed men, women, and children, chanting this versicle from the Psalms: ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini! Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!’” The town of Capua was supposed to be very much attached to the house of Arragon; John James Trivulzio, a valiant Milanese captain, who had found asylum and fortune in Naples, had the command there; and thither King Ferdinand hurried. “I am going to Naples for troops,” said he to the inhabitants; “wait for me confidently; and if by to-morrow evening you do not see me return, make your own terms with King Charles; you have my full authority.” On arriving at Naples, he said to the Neapolitans, “Hold out for a fortnight; I will not expose the capital of my kingdom to be stormed by barbarians; if, within a fort-night hence, I have not prevented the enemy from crossing the Volturno, you may ask him for terms of capitulation;” and back he went to Capua. When he was within sight of the ramparts he heard that on the previous evening, before it was night, the French had been admitted into the town. Trivulzio had been to visit King Charles at Teano, and had offered, in the name of his troops and of the Capuans, to surrender Capua; he had even added, says Guicciardini, that he did not despair of bringing King Ferdinand himself to an arrangement, if a suitable provision were guaranteed to him. “I willingly accept the offer you make me in the name of your troops and of the Capuans,” answered Charles: “as for the Arragonese prince, he shall be well received if he come to me; but let him understand that not an inch of ground shall be left to him in this kingdom; in France he shall have honors and beautiful domains.” On the 18th of February Charles entered Capua amidst the cheers of the people; and on the same day Trivulzio went over to his service with a hundred lances. On returning to Naples, Ferdinand found the gates closed, and could not get into Castel Nuovo save by a postern. At that very moment the mob was pillaging his stables; he went down from the fortress, addressed the crowd collected beneath the ramparts in a few sad and bitter words, into which he tried to infuse some leaven of hope, took certain measures to enable the two forts of Naples, Castel Nuovo and Castel dell Uovo, to defend themselves for a few days longer, and, on the 23d of February, went for refuge to the island of Ischia, repeating out loud, as long as he had Naples in sight, this versicle from the Psalms: “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!” At Ischia itself “he had a fresh trial to make,” says Guicciardini, “of his courage and of the ungrateful faithlessness displayed towards those whom Fortune deserts.” The governor of the island refused to admit him accompanied by more than one man. The prince, so soon as he got in, flung himself upon him, poniard in hand, with such fury and such an outburst of kingly authority, that all the garrison, astounded, submitted to him and gave up to him the fort and its rock. On the very eve of the day on which King Ferdinand II. was thus seeking his last refuge in the island of Ischia, Charles VIII. was entering Naples in triumph at the head of his troops, on horseback, beneath a pall of cloth of gold borne by four great Neapolitan lords, and “received,” says Guicciardini, “with cheers and a joy of which it would be vain to attempt a description; the incredible exultation of a crowd of both sexes, of every age, of every condition, of every quality, of every party, as if he had been the father and first founder of the city.” And the great French historian bears similar witness to that of the great Italian historian: “Never,” says Commynes, “did people show so much affection to king or nation as they showed to the king, and thought all of them to be free of tyranny.”
At the news hereof the disquietude and vexation of the principal Italian powers were displayed at Venice as well as at Milan and at Rome. The Venetian senate, as prudent as it was vigilant, had hitherto maintained a demeanor of expectancy and almost of good will towards France; they hoped that Charles VIII. would be stopped or would stop of himself in his mad enterprise, without their being obliged to interfere. The doge, Augustin Barbarigo, lived on very good terms with Commynes, who was as desirous as he was that the king should recover his senses. Commynes was destined to learn how difficult and sorry a thing it is to have to promote a policy of which you disapprove. When he perceived that a league was near to being formed in Italy against the King of France, he at once informed his master of it, and attempted to dissuade the Venetians from it. They denied that they had any such design, and showed a disposition to form, in concert with the Kings of France, Spain, and the Romans, and with the whole of Italy, a league against the Turks, provided that Charles VIII. would consent to leave the King of Naples in possession of his kingdom, at the same time keeping for himself three places therein, and accepting a sum in ready money which Venice would advance. “Would to God,” says Commynes, “that the king had been pleased to listen then! Of all did I give him notice, and I got bare answer. . . . When the Venetians heard that the king was in Naples, and that the strong fort, which they had great hopes would hold out, was surrendered, they sent for me one morning, and I found them in great number, about fifty or sixty, in the apartment of the prince (the doge) who was ill. Some were sitting upon a staircase leading to the benches, and had their heads resting upon their hands, others otherwise, all showing that they had great sadness at heart. And I trow that, when news came to Rome of the battle lost at Cannae against Hannibal, the senators who had remained there were not more dumbfounded and dismayed than these were; for not a single one made sign of seeing me, or spoke to me one word, save the duke (the doge), who asked me if the king would keep to that of which he had constantly sent them word, and which I had said to them. I assured them stoutly that he would, and I opened up ways for to remain at sound peace, hoping to remove their suspicions, and then I did get me gone.”
The league was concluded on the 31st of March, 1495, between Pope Alexander VI., Emperor Maximilian I., as King of the Romans, the King of Spain, the Venetians, and the Duke of Milan: “To three ends,” says Commynes, “for to defend Christendom against the Turks, for the defence of Italy, and for the preservation of their Estates. There was nothing in it against the king, they told me, but it was to secure themselves from him; they did not like his so deluding the world with words by saying that all he wanted was the kingdom, and then to march against the Turk, and all the while he was showing quite the contrary. . . . I remained in the city about a month after that, being as well treated as before; and then I went my way, having been summoned by the king, and being conducted in perfect security, at their expense, to Ferrara, whence I went to Florence for to await the king.”
When Ferdinand II. took refuge in the island of Ischia, and Castel Nuovo and Castel dell’ Uovo had surrendered at Naples, Charles VIII., considering himself in possession of the kingdom, announced his intention, and, there is reason to believe, actually harbored the design, of returning to France, without asserting any further his pretensions as a conqueror. On the 20th of March, before the Italian league had been definitively concluded, Briconnet, Cardinal of St. Malo, who had attended the king throughout his expedition, wrote to the queen, Anne of Brittany, “His Majesty is using diligence as best he can to return over yonder, and has expressly charged me, for my part, to hasten his affairs. I hope he will be able to start hence about the 8th of April. He will leave over here, as lieutenant, my lord de Montpensier, with a thousand or twelve hundred lances, partly French and partly of this country, fifteen hundred Swiss, and a thousand French crossbow-men.” Charles himself wrote, on the 28th of March, to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bourbon, that he would mount his horse immediately after Quasimodo [the first Sunday after Easter], to return to France without halting, or staying in any place. But Charles, whilst so speaking and projecting, was forgetful of his giddy indolence, his frivolous tastes, and his passion for theatrical display and licentious pleasure. The climate, the country, the customs of Naples charmed him. “You would never believe,” he wrote to the Duke of Bourbon, “what beautiful gardens I have in this city; on my faith, they seem to me to lack only Adam and Eve to make of them an earthly paradise, so beautiful are they, and full of nice and curious things, as I hope to tell you soon. To add to that, I have found in this country the best of painters; and I will send you some of them to make the most beautiful ceilings possible. The ceilings at Beauce, Lyons, and other places in France do not approach those of this place in beauty and richness. . . . Wherefore I shall provide myself with them, and bring them with me for to have some done at Arnboise.” Politics were forgotten in the presence of these royal fancies. Charles VIII. remained nearly two months at Naples after the Italian league had been concluded, and whilst it was making its preparations against him was solely concerned about enjoying, in his beautiful but precarious kingdom, “all sorts of mundane pleasaunces,” as his councillor, the Cardinal of St. Malo, says, and giving entertainments to his new subjects, as much disposed as himself to forget everything in amusement. On the 12th of May, 1495, all the population of Naples and of the neighboring country was afoot early to see their new king make his entry in state as King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, with his Neapolitan court and his French army. Charles was on horseback beneath a rich dais borne by great Neapolitan lords; he had a close crown on his head, the sceptre in his right hand, and a golden globe in his left; in front of this brilliant train he took his way through the principal streets of the city, halting at the five knots of the noblesse, where the gentlemen and their wives who had assembled there detained him a long while, requesting him to be pleased to confer with his own hand the order of knighthood on their sons, which he willingly did. At last he reached the cathedral church of St. Januarius, which had recently been rebuilt by Alphonso I. of Arragon, after the earth-quake of 1456. The archbishop, at the head of his clergy, came out to meet him, and conducted him to the front of the high altar, where the head of St. Januarius was exhibited.
When all these solemnities had been accomplished to the great satisfaction of the populace, bonfires were lighted up for three days; the city was illuminated; and only a week afterwards, on the 20th of May, 1495, Charles VIII. started from Naples to return to France, with an army, at the most, from twelve to fifteen thousand strong, leaving for guardian of his new kingdom his cousin, Gilbert of Bourbon, Count de Montpensier, a brave but indolent knight (who never rose, it was said, until noon), with eight or ten thousand men, scattered for the most part throughout the provinces.
During the months of April and May, thus wasted by Charles VIII., the Italian league, and especially the Venetians and the Duke of Milan, Ludovic the Moor, had vigorously pushed forward their preparations for war, and had already collected an army more numerous than that with which the King of France, in order to return home, would have to traverse the whole of Italy. He took more than six weeks to traverse it, passing three days at Rome, four at Siena, the same number at Pisa, and three at Lucca, though he had declared that he would not halt anywhere. He evaded entering Florence, where he had made promises which he could neither retract nor fulfil. The Dominican Savonarola, “who had always preached greatly in the king’s favor,” says Commynes, “and by his words had kept the Florentines from turning against us,” came to see him on his way at Poggibonsi. “I asked him,” said Commynes, “whether the king would be able to cross without danger to his person, seeing the great muster that was being made by the Venetians. He answered me that the king would have trouble on the road, but that the honor would remain his, though he had but a hundred men at his back; but, seeing that he had not done well for the reformation of the Church, as he ought, and had suffered his men to plunder and rob the people, God had given sentence against him, and in short he would have a touch of the scourge.”
Several contemporary historians affirm that if the Italian army, formed by the Venetians and the Duke of Milan, had opposed the march of the French army, they might have put it in great peril; but nothing of the kind was attempted. It was at the passage of the Appennines, so as to cross them and descend into the duchy of Parma, that Charles VIII. had for the first time to overcome resistance, not from men, but from nature. He had in his train a numerous and powerful artillery, from which he promised himself a great deal when the day of battle came; and he had to get it up and down by steep paths, “Here never,” says the chronicle of La Tremoille, “had car or carriage gone. . . .” The king, knowing that the lord of La Tremoille, such was his boldness and his strong will, thought nothing impossible, gave to him this duty, which he willingly undertook; and, to the end that the footmen, Swiss, German, and others, might labor thereat without fearing the heat, he addressed them as follows: ‘The proper nature of us Gauls is strength, boldness, and ferocity. We triumphed at our coming; better would it be for us to die, than to lose by cowardice the delight of such praise; we are all in the flower of our age and the vigor of our years; let each lend a hand to the work of dragging the gun-carriages and carrying the cannon-balls; ten crowns to the first man that reaches the top of the mountain before me!’ Throwing off his armor, La Tremoille, in hose and shirt, himself lent a hand to the work; by dint of pulling and pushing, the artillery was got to the brow of the mountain; it was then harder still to get it down the other side, along a very narrow and rugged incline; and five whole days were spent on this rough work, which luckily the generals of the enemy did not attempt to molest. La Tremoille, “black as a Moor,” says the chronicle, “by reason of the murderous heat he had endured, made his report to the king, who said, ‘By the light of this day, cousin, you have done more than ever could Annibal of Carthage or Caesar have done, to the peril of your person, whereof you have not been sparing to serve me, me and mine. I vow to God, that if I may only see you back in France, the recompense I hope to make you shall be so great, that others shall conceive fresh desire to serve me.’”