A few slight advantages gained by the papal soldiers in the kingdom of Naples, led to the conclusion of a truce that was to be ratified by the Pope and by the Emperor. At this news a frightful tumult broke out in the Constable's army. The Spanish troops revolted, compelled him to flee, and pillaged his tent. Then approaching the lansquenets, they began to shout as loudly as they could, the only German words they knew: Lance! lance! money! money![48] These words found an echo in the bosoms of the Imperialists; they were moved in their turn, and also began to cry with all their might: Lance! lance! money! money! Freundsberg beat to muster, and having drawn up the soldiers around him and his principal officers, calmly demanded if he had ever deserted them. All was useless. The old affection which the lansquenets bore to their leader seemed extinct. One chord alone vibrated in their hearts: they must have pay and war. Accordingly, lowering their lances, they presented them, as if they would slay their officers, and again began to shout, "Lance! lance! money! money!"—Freundsberg, whom no army however large had ever frightened! Freundsberg, who was accustomed to say, "the more enemies, the greater the honour," seeing these lansquenets, at whose head he had grown gray, aiming their murderous steel against him, lost all power of utterance, and fell senseless upon a drum, as if struck with a thunderbolt.[49] The strength of the veteran general was broken for ever. But the sight of their dying captain produced on the lansquenets an effect that no speech could have made. All the lances were upraised, and the agitated soldiers retired with downcast eyes. Four days later, Freundsberg recovered his speech. "Forward," said he to the Constable; "God himself will bring us to the mark." Forward! forward! repeated the lansquenets. Bourbon had no other alternative: besides, neither Charles nor Clement would listen to any propositions of peace. Freundsberg was carried to Ferrara, and afterwards to his castle of Mindelheim, where he died after an illness of eighteen months; and on the 18th April, Bourbon took the highroad to Rome, which so many formidable armies coming from the north had already trodden.
THE ASSAULT.
Whilst the storm descending from the Alps was approaching the eternal city, the Pope lost his presence of mind, sent away his troops, and kept only his body-guard. More than thirty thousand Romans, it is true, capable of bearing arms, paraded their bravery in the streets, dragging their long-swords after them, quarrelling and fighting; but these citizens, eager in the pursuit of gain, had little thought of defending the Pope, and desired on the contrary that the magnificent Charles would come and settle in Rome, hoping to derive great profit from his stay.
On the evening of the 5th May Bourbon arrived under the walls of the capital; and he would have begun the assault at that very moment if he had had ladders. On the morning of the 6th the army, concealed by a thick fog which hid their movements,[50] was put in motion, the Spaniards marching to their station above the gate of the Holy Ghost, and the Germans below.[51] The Constable, wishing to encourage his soldiers, seized a scaling-ladder, mounted the wall, and called on them to follow him. At this moment a ball struck him: he fell, and expired an hour after. Such was the end of this unhappy man, a traitor to his king and to his country, and suspected even by his new friends.
His death, far from checking, served only to excite the army. Claudius Seidenstucker, grasping his long sword, first cleared the wall; he was followed by Michael Hartmann, and these two reformed Germans exclaimed that God himself marched before them in the clouds. The gates were opened, the army poured in, the suburbs were taken, and the Pope, surrounded by thirteen cardinals, fled to the Castle of St. Angelo. The Imperialists, at whose head was now the Prince of Orange, offered him peace on condition of his paying three hundred thousand crowns. But Clement, who thought that the Holy League was on the point of delivering him, and who fancied he already saw their leading horsemen, rejected every proposition. After four hours' repose, the attack was renewed, and by an hour after sunset the army was master of all the city. It remained under arms and in good order until midnight, the Spaniards in the Piazza Navona, and the Germans in the Campofiore. At last, seeing no demonstrations either of war or of peace, the soldiers disbanded and ran to pillage.
THE SACK.
Then began the famous "Sack of Rome." The Papacy had for centuries put Christendom in the press. Prebends, annates, jubilees, pilgrimages, ecclesiastical graces,—she had made money of them all. These greedy troops, that for months had lived in wretchedness, determined to make her disgorge. No one was spared, the imperial not more than the ultramontane party, the Ghibellines not more than the Guelfs. Churches, palaces, convents, private houses, basilics, banks, tombs—every thing was pillaged, even to the golden ring that the corpse of Julius II. still wore on its finger. The Spaniards displayed the greatest skill; they scented out and discovered treasures in the most mysterious hiding-places; but the Neapolitans were still more outrageous.[52] "On every side were heard," says Guicciardini, "the piteous shrieks of the Roman women and of the nuns whom the soldiers dragged away by companies to satiate their lust."[53]
GERMAN HUMOURS.
At first the Germans found a certain pleasure in making the Papists feel the weight of their swords. But ere long, happy at finding food and drink, they were more pacific than their allies. It was upon those things which the Romans called "holy" that the anger of the Lutherans was especially discharged. They took away the chalices, the pyxes, the silver remonstrances, and clothed their servants and camp-boys with the sacerdotal garments.[54] The Campofiore was changed into an immense gambling-house. The soldiers brought thither golden vessels and bags full of crowns, staked them upon one throw of the dice, and after losing them, they went in search of others. A certain Simon Baptista, who had foretold the sack of the city, had been thrown into prison by the Pope; the Germans liberated him, and made him drink with them. But, like Jeremiah, he prophesied against all. "Rob, plunder," cried he to his liberators; "you shall however give back all; the money of the soldiers and the gold of the priests will follow the same road."
Nothing pleased the Germans more than to mock the papal court. "Many prelates," says Guicciardini, "were paraded on asses through all the city of Rome."[55] After this procession, the bishops paid their ransom; but they fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who made them pay it a second time.[56]