Leonora D'Orco: A Historical Romance

by G. P. R. James

But I must follow a little farther the history of the gallant prince whom the French monarch came to dethrone. Left almost alone in his palace, Ferdinand saw nothing around him but desertion and treachery--heard of nothing but plots against his person or his power. Calmly, deliberately he took his resolution. He selected several vessels in the harbour, manned them with persons on whom he could rely, and then addressed the people of Naples, telling them, in a speech which may be apocryphal, but which is full of calm dignity and noble courage, that it was his intention to leave the capital.

He told them that he was ready to fight with them and for them, but that the cowardice of the soldiery and treachery of their leaders deprived him of the hope of success. He advised them, as soon as he was gone, to treat with France; he set them free from their allegiance to him; he exhorted them to live peacefully under their new lord. But he told them that he would ever be near them, and promised that, should the yoke of the stranger ever become insupportable, they would find him by their side, ever ready to shed his last drop of blood for their deliverance.

"In my exile," he said, "it will be some consolation to me if you allow that since my birth I have never injured any one of you, that I have done my best to render you happy, and that it is not by my own fault that I have lost a throne."

Some of the people wept, we are told, but the rest stole away to the palace, and at once commenced the work of pillage. Ferdinand drove them out at the point of the sword; but, finding that the garrison of Castel Nuovo had already conspired to seize his person and sell him to the French, he hurried on board his ships with a few friends, set fire to the rest of the vessels in the harbour, and sailed for the Island of Ischia.

There a new trait of human baseness awaited him. The governor of the island and of an old castle, built, as is said, by the Saracens, which then stood on the island, attempted to parley with the prince to whom he owed all, refusing to receive him with more than one attendant. Ferdinand sprang ashore alone, seized the villain by the throat, and, casting him under his feet, trampled upon him in presence of his own forces and the garrison. The castle was soon in his possession, but he remained not long in Ischia.

On the 21st February, 1495, the French monarch approached the city of Naples. The gates were thrown open, the streets hung with tapestry, the windows crowded with admiring groups, and Charles entered, as if in triumph, with an imperial crown upon his head, a sceptre in one hand, and a globe in the other, while heralds proclaimed him emperor, though it does not appear that they said of what empire.

The mercurial population went half wild with excitement, and shouted, and danced, and screamed before his horse's feet; and had Charles been St. Januarius himself, Naples could not have roared with more lusty joy.

Yet the two castles still held out, the one merely to make conditions for the benefit of the garrison, the other from nobler motives. The Castel Nuovo was bought and sold without a shot being fired; but in the Ovo was Frederick, the uncle of the dethroned king, and a faithful garrison. The French artillery advanced and opened fire; the guns of the castle replied boldly. Some damage was done in the city, and it became evident that many of the finest buildings might be destroyed.

Negotiation was then commenced, and to Frederick's high honour be it said, that he sought no terms for himself, although he knew that the castle could not hold out many days. It was his nephew alone that he thought of; and he strove hard to persuade the King of France to bestow upon Ferdinand the duchy of Calabria on condition of his abdicating the throne: but the council of the king would not consent to leave so popular a competitor in Italy. They offered large possessions in France, and drew out the negotiations to such a length, that Frederick, finding the Ovo could hold out no longer, withdrew with a small body of men, and, joining his nephew, took refuge with him in Ischia.

The city of Naples was now completely in the power of the French, but the kingdom was not so. Scattered over its various provinces were many strong places. Brindisi, Otranto, Regio, Galliopoli, held out for the house of Arragon, and the governors, too honest or too wise, would not suffer themselves to be corrupted. The French army, holding already several fortresses in Naples and the States of the Church, could not afford men enough either to form the regular siege of any of those places, or to garrison them if taken; and Charles and his court gave themselves up to all those enjoyments for which the city of the Siren has always been renowned.