Louis was at Lyons when he heard of his army’s victory in Milaness and of Ludovic Sforza’s flight. He was eager to go and take possession of his conquest, and, on the 6th of October, 1499, he made his triumphal entry into Milan amidst cries of “Hurrah! for France.” He reduced the heavy imposts established by the Sforzas, revoked the vexatious game-laws, instituted at Milan a court of justice analogous to the French parliaments, loaded with favors the scholars and artists who were the honor of Lombardy, and recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks, leaving as governor of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant Condottiere, who, four years before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand II., King of Naples, for that of Charles VIII. Unfortunately Trivulzio was himself a Milanese and of the faction of the Guelphs. He had the passions of a partisan and the habits of a man of war; and he soon became as tyrannical and as much detested in Milaness as Ludovic the Moor had but lately been. A plot was formed in favor of the fallen tyrant, who was in Germany expecting it, and was recruiting, during expectancy, amongst the Germans and Swiss in order to take advantage of it. On the 25th of January, 1500, the insurrection broke out; and two months later Ludovic Sforza had once more become master of Milaness, where the French possessed nothing but the castle of Milan. In one of the fights brought about by this sudden revolution the young Chevalier Bayard, carried away by the impetuosity of his age and courage, pursued right into Milan the foes he was driving before him, without noticing that his French comrades had left him; and he was taken prisoner in front of the very palace in which were the quarters of Ludovic Sforza. The incident created some noise around the palace; Ludovic asked what it meant, and was informed that a brave and bold gentleman, younger than any of the others, had entered Milan pell-mell with the combatants he was pursuing, and had been taken prisoner by John Bernardino Casaccio, one of the leaders of the insurrection. Ludovic ordered him to be brought up, which was done, though not without some disquietude on the part of Bayard’s captor, “a courteous gentleman, who feared that Lord Ludovico might do him some displeasure.” He resolved himself to be his conductor, after having dressed him in one of his own robes and made him look like a gentleman. “Marvelling to see Bayard so young, ‘Come hither, my gentleman,’ said Ludovico: ‘who brought you into the city?’ ‘By my faith, my lord,’ answered Bayard, who was not a whit abashed, ‘I never imagined I was entering all alone, and thought surely I was being followed of my comrades, who knew more about war than I, for if they had done as I did they would, like me, be prisoners. Howbeit, after my mishap, I laud the fortune which caused me to fall into the hands of so valiant and discreet a knight as he who has me in holding.’ ‘By your faith,’ asked Ludovico, ‘of how many is the army of the King of France?’ ‘On my soul, my lord,’ answered Bayard, ‘so far as I can hear, there are fourteen or fifteen hundred men-at-arms and sixteen or eighteen thousand foot; but they are all picked men, who are resolved to busy themselves so well this bout that they will assure the state of Milan to the king our master; and meseems, my lord, that you would surely be in as great safety in Germany as you are here, for your folks are not the sort to fight us.’ With such assurance spoke the good knight that Lord Ludovico took pleasure there-in, though his say was enough to astound him. ‘On my faith, my gentleman,’ said he, as it were in raillery, ‘I have a good mind that the King of France’s army and mine should come together, in order that by battle it may be known to whom of right belongs this heritage, for I see no other way to it.’ ‘By my sacred oath, my lord,’ said the good knight, ‘I would that it might be to-morrow, provided that I were out of captivity.’ ‘Verily, that shall not stand in your way,’ said Ludovico, ‘for I will let you go forth, and that presently. Moreover, ask of me what you will, and I will give it you.’ The good knight, who, on bended knee, thanked Lord Ludovico for the offers he made him, as there was good reason he should, then said to him, ‘My lord, I ask of you nothing save only that you may be pleased to extend your courtesy so far as to get me back my horse and my arms that I brought into this city, and so send me away to my garrison, which is twenty miles hence; you would do me a very great kindness, for which I shall all my life feel bounden to you; and, barring my duty to the king my master and saving my honor, I would show my gratitude for it in whatsoever it might please you to command me.’ ‘In good faith,’ said Lord Ludovico, ‘you shall have presently that which you do ask for.’ And then he said to the Lord John Bernardino, ‘At once, Sir Captain, let his horse be found, his arms and all that is his.’ ‘My lord,’ answered the captain, ‘it is right easy to find, it is all at my quarters.’ He sent forthwith two or three servants, who brought the arms and led up the horse of the good young knight; and Lord Ludovico had him armed before his eyes. When he was accoutred, the young knight leaped upon his horse without putting foot to stirrup; then he asked for a lance, which was handed to him, and, raising his eyes, he said to Lord Ludovico, ‘My lord, I thank you for the courtesy you have done me; please God to pay it back to you.’ He was in a fine large court-yard; then he began to set spurs to his horse, the which gave four or five jumps, so gayly that it could not be better done; then the young knight gave him a little run, in the which he broke the lance against the ground into five or six pieces; whereat Lord Ludovico was not over pleased, and said out loud, ‘If all the men-at-arms of France were like him yonder, I should have a bad chance.’ Nevertheless he had a trumpeter told off to conduct him to his garrison.” [Histoire du bon Chevalier sans Peur et sans Reproche, t. i. pp. 212-216.]
For Ludovic the Moor’s chance to be bad it was not necessary that the men-at-arms of France should all be like Chevalier Bayard. Louis XII., so soon as he heard of the Milanese insurrection, sent into Italy Louis de la Tremoille, the best of his captains, and the Cardinal d’Amboise, his privy councillor and his friend, the former to command the royal troops, French and Swiss, and the latter “for to treat about the reconciliation of the rebel towns, and to deal with everything as if it were the king in his own person.” The campaign did not last long. The Swiss who had been recruited by Ludovic and those who were in Louis XII.‘s service had no mind to fight one another; and the former capitulated, surrendered the strong place of Novara, and promised to evacuate the country on condition of a safe-conduct for themselves and their booty. Ludovic, in extreme anxiety for his own safety, was on the point of giving himself up to the French; but, whether by his own free will or by the advice of the Swiss who were but lately in his pay, and who were now withdrawing; he concealed himself amongst them, putting on a disguise, “with his hair turned up under a coif, a collaret round his neck, a doublet of crimson satin, scarlet hose, and a halberd in his fist;” but, whether it were that he was betrayed or that he was recognized, he, on the 10th of April, 1500, fell into the hands of the French, and was conducted to the quarters of La Tremoille, who said no more than, “Welcome, lord.” Next day, April 11, Louis XII. received near Lyons the news of this capture, “whereat he was right joyous, and had bonfires lighted, together with devotional processions, giving thanks to the Prince of princes for the happy victory he had, by the divine aid, obtained over his enemies.” Ludovic was taken to Lyons. “At the entrance into the city a great number of gentlemen from the king’s household were present to meet him; and the provost of the household conducted him all along the high street to the castle of Pierre-Encise, where he was lodged and placed in security.” There he passed a fortnight. Louis refused to see him, but had him “questioned as to several matters by the lords of his grand council; and, granted that he had committed nought but follies, still he spoke right wisely.” He was conducted from Pierre-Encise to the castle of Loches in Touraine, where he was at first kept in very strict captivity, “without books, paper, or ink,” but it was afterwards less severe. “He plays at tennis and at cards,” says a despatch of the Venetian ambassador, Dominic of Treviso, “and he is fatter than ever.” [La Diplomatic Venitienne, by M. Armand Baschet (1862), p. 363.] He died in his prison at the end of eight years, having to the very last great confidence in the future of his name, for he wrote, they say, on the wall of his prison these words: “Services rendered me will count for an heritage.” And “thus was the duchy of Milan, within seven months and a half, twice conquered by the French,” says John d’Auton in his Claronique, “and for the nonce was ended the war in Lombardy, and the authors thereof were captives and exiles.”
Whilst matters were thus going on in the north of Italy, Louis XII. was preparing for his second great Italian venture, the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, in which his predecessor Charles VIII. had failed. He thought to render the enterprise easier by not bearing the whole burden by himself alone. On the 11th of November, 1500, he concluded at Grenada “with Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Castile and Arragon,” a treaty, by which the Kings of France and Spain divided, by anticipation, between them the kingdom of Naples, which they were making an engagement to conquer together. Terra di Lavoro and the province of the Abruzzi, with the cities of Naples and Gaeta, were to be the share of Louis XII., who would assume the title of King of Naples and of Jerusalem; Calabria and Puglia (Apulia), with the title of duchies, would belong to the King of Spain, to whom Louis XII., in order to obtain this chance of an accessary and precarious kingship, gave up entirely Roussillon and Cerdagne, that French frontier of the Pyrenees which Louis XI. had purchased, a golden bargain, from John II., King of Arragon. In this arrangement there was a blemish and a danger of which the superficial and reckless policy of Louis XII. made no account: he did not here, as he had done for the conquest of Milaness, join himself to an ally of far inferior power to his own, and of ambition confined within far narrower boundaries, as was the case when the Venetians supported him against Ludovie Sforza: he was choosing for his comrade, in a far greater enterprise, his nearest and most powerful rival, and the most dexterous rascal amongst the kings of his day. “The King of France,” said Ferdinand one day, “complains that I have deceived him twice; he lies, the drunkard; I have deceived him more than ten times.” Whether this barefaced language were or were not really used, it expressed nothing but the truth: mediocre men, who desire to remain pretty nearly honest, have always the worst of it, and are always dupes when they ally themselves with men who are corrupt and at the same time able, indifferent to good and evil, to justice and iniquity. Louis XII., even with the Cardinal d’Amboise to advise him, was neither sufficiently judicious to abstain from madly conceived enterprises, nor sufficiently scrupulous and clear-sighted to unmask and play off every act of perfidy and wickedness: by uniting himself, for the conquest and partition of the kingdom of Naples, with Ferdinand the Catholic, he was bringing upon himself first of all hidden opposition in the very midst of joint action, and afterwards open treason and defection. He forgot, moreover, that Ferdinand had at the head of his armies a tried chieftain, Gonzalvo of Cordova, already known throughout Europe as the great captain, who had won that name in campaigns against the Moors, the Turks, and the Portuguese, and who had the character of being as free from scruple as from fear. Lastly the supporters who, at the very commencement of his enterprises in Italy, had been sought and gained by Louis XII., Pope Alexander VI. and his son Caesar Borgia, were as little to be depended upon in the future as they were compromising at the present by reason of their reputation for unbridled ambition, perfidy, and crime. The King of France, whatever sacrifices he might already have made and might still make in order to insure their co-operation, could no more count upon it than upon the loyalty of the King of Spain in the conquest they were entering upon together.
The outset of the campaign was attended with easy success. The French army, under the command of Stuart d’Aubigny, a valiant Scot, arrived on the 25th of June, 1501, before Rome, and there received a communication in the form of a bull of the pope which removed the crown of Naples from the head of Frederick III., and partitioned that fief of the Holy See between the Kings of France and Spain. Fortified with this authority, the army continued its march, and arrived before Capua on the 6th of July. Gonzalvo of Cordova was already upon Neapolitan territory with a Spanish army, which Ferdinand the Catholic had hastily sent thither at the request of Frederick III. himself, who had counted upon the assistance of his cousin the King of Arragon against the French invasion. Great was his consternation when he heard that the ambassadors of France and Spain had proclaimed at Rome the alliance between their masters. At the first rumor of this news, Gonzalvo of Cordova, whether sincerely or not, treated it as a calumny; but, so soon as its certainty was made public, he accepted it without hesitation, and took, equally with the French, the offensive against the king, already dethroned by the pope, and very near being so by the two sovereigns who had made alliance for the purpose of sharing between them the spoil they should get from him. Capua capitulated, and was nevertheless plundered and laid waste. A French fleet, commanded by Philip de Ravenstein, arrived off Naples when D’Aubigny was already master of it. The unhappy King Frederick took refuge in the island of Ischia; and, unable to bear the idea of seeking an asylum in Spain with his cousin who had betrayed him so shamefully, he begged the French admiral himself to advise him in his adversity. “As enemies that have the advantage should show humanity to the afflicted,” Ravenstein sent word to him, “he would willingly advise him as to his affairs; according to his advice, the best thing would be to surrender and place himself in the hands of the King of France, and submit to his good pleasure; he would find him so wise, and so debonnair, and so accommodating, that he would be bound to be content. Better or safer counsel for him he had not to give.” After taking some precautions on the score of his eldest son, Prince Ferdinand, whom he left at Tarento, in the kingdom he was about to quit, Frederick III. followed Ravenstein’s counsel, sent to ask for “a young gentleman to be his guide to France,” put to sea with five hundred men remaining to him, and arrived at Marseilles, whither Louis XII. sent some lords of his court to receive him. Two months afterwards, and not before, he was conducted to the king himself, who was then at Blois. Louis welcomed him with his natural kindness, and secured to him fifty thousand livres a year on the duchy of Anjou, on condition that he never left France. It does not appear that Frederick ever had an idea of doing so, for his name is completely lost to history up to the day of his death, which took place at Tours on the 9th of November, 1504, after three years’ oblivion and exile.
On hearing of so prompt a success, Louis XII.‘s satisfaction was great. He believed, and many others, no doubt, believed with him, that his conquest of Naples, of that portion at least which was assigned to him by his treaty with the King of Spain, was accomplished. The senate of Venice sent to him, in December, 1501, a solemn embassy to congratulate him. In giving the senate an account of his mission, one of the ambassadors, Dominic of Treviso, drew the following portrait of Louis XII.: “The king is in stature tall and thin, and temperate in eating, taking scarcely anything but boiled beef; he is by nature miserly and retentive; his great pleasure is hawking; from September to April he hawks. The Cardinal of Rouen [George d’Amboise] does everything; nothing, however, with-out the cognizance of the king, who has a far from stable mind, saying yes and no. . . . I am of opinion that their lordships should remove every suspicion from his Majesty’s mind, and aim at keeping themselves closely united with him.” [Armand Baschet, La Diplomatic, L’enitienne, p. 362.] It was not without ground that the Venetian envoy gave his government this advice. So soon as the treaty of alliance between Louis XII. and the Venetians for the conquest of Milaness had attained its end, the king had more than once felt and testified some displeasure at the demeanor assumed towards him by his former allies. They had shown vexation and disquietude at the extension of French influence in Italy; and they had addressed to Louis certain representations touching the favor enjoyed at his hands by the pope’s nephew, Caesar Borgia, to whom he had given the title of Duke of Valentinois on investing him with the countships of Valence and of Die in Dauphiny. Louis, on his side, showed anxiety as to the conduct which would be exhibited towards him by the Venetians if he encountered any embarrassment in his expedition to Naples. Nothing of the kind happened to him during the first month after King Frederick III.‘s abandonment of the kingdom of Naples. The French and the Spaniards, D’Aubigny and Gonzalvo of Cordova, at first gave their attention to nothing but establishing themselves firmly, each in the interests of the king his master, in those portions of the kingdom which were to belong to them.
But, before long, disputes arose between the two generals as to the meaning of certain clauses in the treaty of November 11, 1500, and as to the demarcation of the French and the Spanish territories. D’Aubigny fell ill; and Louis XII. sent to Naples, with the title of viceroy, Louis d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, a brave warrior, but a negotiator inclined to take umbrage and to give offence. The disputes soon took the form of hostilities. The French essayed to drive the Spaniards from the points they had occupied in the disputed territories; and at first they had the advantage. Gonzalvo of Cordova, from necessity or in prudence, concentrated his forces within Barletta, a little fortress with a little port on the Adriatic; but he there endured, from July, 1502, to April, 1503, a siege which did great honor to the patient firmness of the Spanish troops and the persistent vigor of their captain. Gonzalvo was getting ready to sally from Barletta and take the offensive against the French when he heard that a treaty signed at Lyons on the 5th of April, 1503, between the Kings of Spain and France, made a change in the position, reciprocally, of the two sovereigns, and must suspend the military operations of their generals within the kingdom of Naples. “The French general declared his readiness to obey his king,” says Guicciardini; “but the Spanish, whether it were that he felt sure of victory or that he had received private instructions on that point, said that he could not stop the war without express orders from his king.” And sallying forthwith from Barletta, he gained, on the 28th of April, 1503, at Cerignola, a small town of Puglia, a signal victory over the French commanded by the Duke of Nemours, who, together with three thousand men of his army, was killed in action. The very day after his success Gonzalvo heard that a Spanish corps, lately disembarked in Calabria, had also beaten, on the 21st of April, at Seminara, a French corps commanded by D’Aubigny. The great captain was as eager to profit by victory as he had been patient in waiting for a chance of it. He marched rapidly on Naples, and entered it on the 14th of May, almost without resistance; and the two forts defending the city, the Castel Nuovo and the Castel dell’ Uovo surrendered, one on the 11th of June and the other on the 1st of July. The capital of the kingdom having thus fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, Capua and Aversa followed its example. Gaeta was the only important place which still held out for the French, and contained a garrison capable of defending it; and thither the remnant of the troops beaten at Seminara and at Cerignola had retired. Louis XII. hastened to levy and send to Italy, under the command of Louis de la Tremoille, a fresh army for the purpose of relieving Gaeta and recovering Naples; but at Parma La Tremoille fell ill, “so crushed by his malady and so despairing of life,” says his chronicler, John Bouchet, “that the physicians sent word to the king that it was impossible in the way of nature to recover him, and that without the divine assistance he could not get well.” The command devolved upon the Marquis of Mantua, who marched on Gaeta. He found Gonzalvo of Cordova posted with his army on the left bank of the Garigliano, either to invest the place or to repulse re-enforcements that might arrive for it. The two armies passed fifty days face to face almost, with the river and its marshes between them, and vainly attempting over and over again to join battle. Some of Gonzalvo’s officers advised him to fall back on Capua, so as to withdraw his troops from an unhealthy and difficult position; but “I would rather,” said he, “have here, for my grave, six feet of earth by pushing forward, than prolong my life a hundred years by falling back, though it were but a few arms’ lengths.” The French army was dispersing about in search of shelter and provisions; and the Marquis of Mantua, disgusted with the command, resigned it to the Marquis of Saluzzo, and returned home to his marquisate. Gonzalvo, who was kept well informed of his enemies’ condition, threw, on the 27th of December, a bridge over the Garigliano, attacked the French suddenly, and forced them to fall back upon Gaeta, which they did not succeed in entering until they had lost artillery, baggage, and a number of prisoners. “The Spaniards,” says John d’Auton, “halted before the place, made as if they would lay siege to it, and so remained for two or three days. The French, who were there in great numbers, had scarcely any provisions, and could not hold out for long; however, they put a good face upon it. The captain, Gonzalvo, sent word to them that if they would surrender their town he would, on his part, restore to them without ransom all prisoners and others of their party; and he had many of them, James de la Palisse, Stuart d’Aubigny, Gaspard de Coligny, Anthony de la Fayette, &c., all captains. The French captains, seeing that fortune was not kind to them, and that they had provisions for a week only, were all for taking this offer. All the prisoners, captains, men-at-arms, and common soldiers were accordingly given up, put to sea, and sailed for Genoa, where they were well received and kindly treated by the Genoese, which did them great good, for they were much in need of it. Nearly all the captains died on their return, some of mourning over their losses, others of melancholy at their misfortune, others for fear of the king’s displeasure, and others of sickness and weariness.” [Chroniques of John d’Auton, t. iii. pp. 68-70.]
Gaeta fell into the hands of the Spaniards on the 1st of January, 1504. The war was not ended, but the kingdom of Naples was lost to the King of France.
At the news of these reverses the grief and irritation of Louis XII. were extreme. Not only was he losing his Neapolitan conquests, but even his Milaness was also threatened. The ill-will of the Venetians became manifest. They had re-victualled by sea the fortress of Barletta, in which Gonzalvo of Cordova had shut himself up with his troops; “and when the king presented complaints of this succor afforded to his enemies, the senate replied that the matter had taken place without their cognizance, that Venice was a republic of traders, and that private persons might very likely have sold provisions to the Spaniards, with whom Venice was at peace, without there being any ground for concluding from it that she had failed in her engagements towards France. Some time afterwards, four French galleys, chased by a Spanish squadron of superior force, presented themselves before the port of Otranto, which was in the occupation of the Venetians, who pleaded their neutrality as a reason for refusing asylum to the French squadron, which the commander was obliged to set on fire that it might not fall into he enemy’s hands.” [Histoire de la Republique de L’enise, by Count Daru, t. iii. p. 245.] The determined prosecution of hostilities in the kingdom of Naples by Gonzalvo of Cordova, in spite of the treaty concluded at Lyons on the 5th of April, 1503, between the Kings of France and Spain, was so much the more offensive to Louis XII. in that this treaty was the consequence and the confirmation of an enormous concession which he had, two years previously, made to the King of Spain on consenting to affiance his daughter, Princess Claude of France, two years old, to Ferdinand’s grandson, Charles of Austria, who was then only one year old, and who became Charles the Fifth (emperor)! Lastly, about the same time, Pope Alexander VI., who, willy hilly, had rendered Louis XII. so many services, died at Rome on the 12th of August, 1503. Louis had hoped that his favorite minister, Cardinal George d’Amboise, would succeed him, and that hope had a great deal to do with the shocking favor he showed Caesar Borgia, that infamous son of a demoralized father. But the candidature of Cardinal d’Amboise failed; a four weeks’ pope, Pius III., succeeded Alexander VI.; and, when the Holy See suddenly became once more vacant, Cardinal d’Amboise failed again; and the new choice was Cardinal Julian della Rovera, Pope Julius II., who soon became the most determined and most dangerous foe of Louis XII., already assailed by so many enemies.
The Venetian, Dominic of Treviso, was quite right; Louis XII. was “of unstable mind, saying yes and no.” On such characters discouragement tells rapidly. In order to put off the struggle which had succeeded so ill for him in the kingdom of Naples, Louis concluded, on the 31st of March, 1504, a truce for three years with the King of Spain; and on the 22d of September, in the same year, in order to satisfy his grudge on account of the Venetians’ demeanor towards him, he made an alliance against them with Emperor Maximilian I. and Pope Julius II., with the design, all three of them, of wresting certain provinces from them. With those political miscalculations was connected a more personal and more disinterested feeling. Louis repented of having in 1501 affianced his daughter Claude to Prince Charles of Austria, and of the enormous concessions he had made by two treaties, one of April 5, 1503, and the other of September 22, 1504, for the sake of this marriage. He had assigned as dowry to his daughter, first the duchy of Milan, then the kingdom of Naples, then Brittany, and then the duchy of Burgundy and the countship of Blois. The latter of these treaties contained even the following strange clause: “If, by default of the Most Christian king or of the queen his wife, or of the Princess Claude, the aforesaid marriage should not take place, the Most Christian king doth will and consent, from now, that the said duchies of Burgundy and Milan and the countship of Asti, do remain settled upon the said Prince Charles, Duke of Luxembourg, with all the rights therein possessed, or possibly to be possessed, by the Most Christian king.” [Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, by J. Dumont, t. iv. part i. p. 57.] It was dismembering France, and at the same time settling on all her frontiers, to east, west, and south-west, as well as to north and south, a power which the approaching union of two crowns, the imperial and the Spanish, on the head of Prince Charles of Austria, rendered so preponderating and so formidable.