The abdication of Alfonso in favour of his son Ferrante II.; the latter’s retreat from San Germano, where he had intended to make a determined stand against the enemy; and finally a revolution in the town of Naples itself to overthrow its Aragonese defenders—these completed the downfall of what might truly be called a “House of Cards.” Ferrante, declaring that the sins of his fathers and not his own had been visited on his head, fled to Sicily; and on February 22d, Charles, clad in imperial purple and holding a golden sceptre in his hand, entered the capital in triumph and was duly crowned as “King of Naples and Jerusalem and Emperor of the East.”
Almost without the loss of a soldier and in less than six months he had achieved his stepping-stone. Alexander VI., referring to the campaign, remarked sarcastically that the French needed only a child’s wooden spurs to urge on their horses, and chalk to mark their lodgings for the night. For all their previous scoffing the armies of Italy had melted away like mist before the despised “Barbarians,” or else had fled in terror at the first encounter.
Contemporary historians are ready enough with their explanations. The wars in the peninsula, says the Florentine Guicciardini, had been waged hitherto chiefly in the study or on paper; and his fellow-citizen, Machiavelli, elaborates this theory. The luxury, the civilization, and the culture, that made the cities of Italy the admiration and the desire of the rest of Europe, had produced an enervating atmosphere in which the healthy virtues of patriotism and hardihood withered away. States grew to rely for their defence not on their own subjects but on mercenary armies enrolled by Condottieri generals; and these, actuated by no motive save to secure their pay for as many weeks as possible, converted war from a grim struggle for existence into an intricate but nearly bloodless pastime.
They spared no effort to relieve themselves and their men from fatigue and danger, not killing one another in battle, but making prisoners who were afterwards released without ransom. They would attack no town by night, nor would those within make sorties against their besieging foe. Their camps were without rampart or trench. They fought no winter campaigns.
Little wonder if men used to a warfare of courtesies shrank appalled from a ferocity that, once aroused, spared neither young nor old, women nor invalids. In the early stages of the invasion the Duke of Orleans had defeated Federigo, brother of King Alfonso of Naples, at Rapallo; and the town, daring to resist the conquerors, had been put to the sack with all the brutality attending a general massacre. Its fate had a paralysing effect on future attempts to hinder the French advance, especially in Naples, where devotion to the reigning House of Aragon was never more than half-hearted.
Ferrante I. and his son, Alfonso II., had been typical Italian despots, ruling by fear rather than by love, and to satisfy their own caprice rather than to win their land prosperity or glory. Ferrante II. was gentle and well-intentioned but too little known to be popular. Thus the Neapolitans, cynically assured that the sovereign did not exist for whom it was worth while to risk their lives, threw open their gates to the French and joyfully acclaimed them as long-hoped for saviours.
In a century that witnessed the perseverance and daring of the Moorish struggle, the campaign of Charles VIII. stands out like a monstrous caricature of triumph. Founded in vanity, its success had startled Europe, but was to prove as evanescent as it was cheaply won. The fault lay to a large extent with the conquerors.
At our first entrance into Italy [says Commines sadly] we were regarded like saints, and everybody thought us people of the greatest goodness and sincerity in the world; but that opinion lasted not long for our own disorders and the false reports of our enemies quickly convinced them of the contrary.
The Frenchman and the Swiss or German mercenary, conscious of their easy victory, fell into the trap of regarding the Italians as cowards whom it was scarcely worth while to conciliate; and Charles on his part, too little of the statesman to secure what he had won, abandoned himself to idle pleasure. Tyranny and licence worked hand in hand to teach the Neapolitans that a change of dynasty may not be always for the better, and as they groaned under the taxation and insolence of foreign officials they began to remember Ferrante in his exile in Sicily.
Elsewhere in Italy there were also signs of reaction. Ludovico “Il Moro” had swept his Aragonese rivals from his path; and death, not without his assistance if there was any truth in rumour, had removed the young Duke Gian Galeazzo; but it was now the all-conquering French who filled him with dismay. Before the Sforza had established their rule in Milan, the Visconti, had reigned there, and Louis, Duke of Orleans, cousin of Charles VIII. and a near heir to the throne, was a descendant of the Visconti in the female line.[[9]] Since the French had found how easy it was to invade Italy, what should prevent them from claiming not only Naples but Milan?