“Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’,
Und wollten uns verschlingen;
So fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr,
Es soll uns doch gelingen!”—Luther.
Sect. 1.—Destruction of the French Army before Naples, 1528.
The events to which we are now about to allude, demonstrate, by their surprising course, that the fate of nations is at times far more dependent on the laws of physical life than on the will of potentates or the collective efforts of human action, and that these prove utterly impotent when opposed to the unfettered powers of nature. These powers, inscrutable in their dominion, destructive in their effects, stay the course of events, baffle the grandest plans, paralyse the boldest flights of the mind, and when victory seemed within their grasp, have often annihilated embattled hosts with the flaming sword of the angel of death.
To obliterate the disgrace of Pavia[145], Francis I. in league with England, Switzerland, Rome, Genoa and Venice against the too powerful Emperor of Germany, sent a fine army into Italy. The emperor’s troops gave way wherever the French plumes appeared, and victory seemed faithful only to the banners of France and to the military experience of a tried leader[146]. Every thing promised a glorious issue; Naples alone, weakly defended by German lansquenets and Spaniards[147], remained still to be vanquished. The siege was opened on the 1st of May, 1528, and the general confidently pledged his honour for the conquest of this strong city, which had once been so destructive to the French[148]. It was easy with an army of 30,000 veteran warriors[149] to overpower the imperialists; and a small body of English[150] seemed to have come merely to partake in the festivals after the expected victory. The city too suffered from a scarcity, for it was blockaded by Doria, with his Genoese galleys; and water, fit to drink, failed after Lautrec had turned off the aqueducts of Poggio reale; so that the plague, which had never entirely ceased among the Germans since the sacking of Rome[151], began to spread.
But amidst this confidence in the success of the French arms, the means for ensuring it were gradually neglected. The valour of the intrepid and prudent commander was doubtless equal to the minor vicissitudes of war, but whilst the length of the delay paralysed his activity, nature herself suddenly proved fatal to this hitherto victorious army: pestilences began to rage among the troops, and human courage could no longer withstand the “far-shooting arrows of the god of day.” The consequence was, that within the space of seven weeks, out of the whole host which up to that period had been eager for combat, a mere handful remained, consisting of a few thousands of cadaverous figures, who were almost incapable of bearing arms or of following the commands of their sick leaders. On the 29th of August the siege was raised, fifteen days after the heroic Lautrec, bowed down by chagrin and disease, had resigned his breath; the wreck of the army retreated amid thunder and heavy rain[152], and were soon captured by the imperialists, so that but few of them ever saw their native land again.
This siege brought still greater misery upon France than even the fatal battle of Pavia, for about 5000 of the French nobility, some from the most distinguished families, had perished under the walls of Naples; its remoter consequences too were humiliating to the king, and the people; since owing to its failure all those hitherto feasible schemes were blighted, which had for their object the establishment of French dominion beyond the Alps. It behoves us, therefore, to pay so much the more attention to those essential causes of this event, which fall within the province of medical research.