The Pope had covertly supported the claims of Francis, with whom he intended some ulterior combination for expelling the Spaniards from Lower Italy. But the accession of strength which their sovereign thus acquired gave Leo an excuse for changing sides, an evolution grateful to his faithless nature. The struggle was once more to be made in Lombardy, and, as Charles was bent upon wresting the Milanese from his rival, the opportunity seemed tempting of recovering Parma and Piacenza for the Church by his means. To men in the Duke of Urbino's desperate position, any convulsion would be welcome, as offering the chance of better things. The impression left by his biographers, that he maintained a cautious neutrality in the contest thus opening, is disproved by some documents in the Bibliothèque du Roi, which establish him as a retained adherent of the French monarch.[280] One of them is an undated draft of articles proposed by him, his nephew Sigismondo Varana, Camillo Orsini, the Baglioni, and the Petrucci, as conditions of their entering the service of Francis, with the usual pay and allowances. They stipulated for his constant protection and support in the recovery of their respective states, and for the restoration of various allodial fiefs claimed by them in Naples, as soon as Francis should, with their aid, regain that kingdom. Francesco Maria, finding it necessary to quit the territory of his brother-in-law Federigo, now Duke of Mantua, who had been named captain-general of the ecclesiastical forces, and to surrender the allowance of 3000 scudi, hitherto made by him for the Duchess's maintenance, asked a pension of equal amount from his new ally, together with 1500 scudi in hand, to meet the expense of removing his family to a place of security, probably Goito. He accompanied these overtures with a plan for very extended operations upon Central Italy, whereby, with the assistance of Venice and Genoa, armaments by sea and land were to be directed in overwhelming force, at once against Tuscany and the Papal States. The result of this negotiation does not appear, but the only one of its provisions which seems to have taken effect was the Duke's pension, for which he writes thanks to the French Monarch from the camp of Lautrec on the Taro, the 27th of September, 1521. Giraldi mentions that he suddenly quitted the French service in consequence of a slight from Lautrec at a council of war, and he appears then to have retired to Lonno on the Lago di Guarda. From that lovely spot he watched the course of events, until the wheel of fortune should bring round his turn. The ladies of his family meanwhile lived in great seclusion at Mantua, and on the 19th of July, 1521, the dowager Duchess writes him, that she and his consort frequented the convents, soliciting from the nuns their prayers that God would direct his counsels, and vouchsafe the fulfilment of his wishes.[281] As the strife approached, these distinguished ladies withdrew to Verona. Upon its progress we need not dwell. By his oppressive sway Lautrec had rendered the French name odious at Milan, and when the confederate army approached its walls, bringing with them Francesco Sforza, second son of Ludovico il Moro, and brother of Maximiliano their last native sovereign, the people hailed them as liberators, and expelled their foreign masters.
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
Death of Leo X.—Restoration of Francesco Maria—He enters the Venetian service—Louis XII. invades the Milanese—Death of Bayard—The Duke’s honourable reception at Venice—Battle of Pavia.
NEWS of the evacuation of Milan by the French reached Leo X. at his hunting-seat of La Magliana, five miles down the Tiber from Rome. Though not quite well, he hurried to his capital on the 24th of November, to witness the bonfires and rejoicings at their discomfiture, and on the morning of the 1st of December was found dead in bed.[*282] The mystery attending this sudden death of one in the prime of life has never been cleared up. Suspicions of poison were rife at the time, and have not been removed; they point at the Duke of Urbino or of Ferrara, whom he had grievously outraged, or at Francis I., whom he recently disgusted, as its probable but undetected author. In absence of tangible accusation or tittle of evidence, it seems needless to repel such a charge from Francesco Maria, especially as other accounts impute the Pontiff's dissolution to malaria fever, to a severe catarrh,[283] to debauchery, or even to excessive exultation at the joyful news. So unexpected was the event that there was not time to administer the last sacrament, a circumstance which gave occasion to this bitter epigram, in allusion to the notorious venality of church privileges during his reign:—
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"Why were not Leo's latest hours consoled By holy rites? such rites he long had sold."[284] |
Tidings so momentous to Francesco Maria reached him when on a visit to the Benedictine monastery at Magusano, on the Lago di Garda. He had audience on the same day with Lautrec and Gritti, the French and Venetian commanders, who bade him God-speed. Hurrying to his consort at Verona, he there spent two days in consulting with such friends as were at hand, and despatching courtiers to others, his resolution being taken to strike a speedy blow for recovery of his state. The impoverished finances of the papacy encouraged the attempt, and he was quickly in communication with Malatesta and Orazio Baglioni, who had been in like manner despoiled of Perugia. But before assuming offensive operations, he commissioned a special envoy to lay before the conclave a statement of his grievances, and a justification of the measures he was about to pursue.[285] In two days more he reached Ferrara, with the Baglioni, at the head of three thousand foot and above five hundred horse. On the 16th he was at Lugo, where, and all along his route by Cesena, numerous reinforcements poured in. "His subjects," to borrow the words of Muratori, "desired and expected him with clasped hands, because they loved him beyond measure for his gracious government." Anticipating a renewal of his "Saturnian reign," they, on his approach, flew to arms, threw the lieutenant of Urbino out of the palace window, and welcomed him with the well-known cry of "Feltro! Feltro! the Duke! the Duke!"
Pesaro received him on the 22nd, after a slight hesitation as to their relations with the Church; but the citadel was held by eighty men, there being no artillery at hand to bring against it. In absence of cannon-balls, it was carried by paper pellets thrown in from cross-bows, on which were written offers of a thousand scudi to the castellan, and twenty-five to each soldier. The terms were accepted, and the money advanced by Alfonso of Ferrara. On the day of the Duke's arrival there, a deputation from Urbino laid its homage at his feet, and, being thus secure of his own subjects, he turned to succour his friends. Taught by the lesson of three successive pontificates, whose policy it had been to crush the feudatories of Umbria, he saw the necessity of making common cause with such of these as still maintained a precarious independence. He therefore undertook the re-establishment of his nephew, Sigismondo Varana, and of the Baglioni, ere he devoted himself to the consolidation of his own authority. After two days' repose in Pesaro, he marched by La Pergola to Fabriano, where, hearing that Sigismondo had been cordially received at Camerino, he, on the 28th, turned towards Perugia, and, by the 5th of January, had reinstated the Baglioni, notwithstanding a spiritless resistance by their uncle Gentile, and by the vacillating Vitelli. Contrary to his own judgment,—but, as we shall presently see, by a happy chance,—he was induced to accompany his Perugian allies with seven thousand men in a foray upon Tuscany, for the double purpose of annoying the Medici, by whom Gentile was supported, and of re-establishing Pandolfo Petrucci as tyrant of Siena.[*286] When, however, he found no responding movement from within, and that the army of Giovanni delle Bande Nere was hovering in the neighbourhood, he withdrew to Bonconvento, and endeavoured to gain credit for his forbearance by despatching to the magistracy of that city the following oily missive:—
"Most illustrious and most excellent Lords, much honoured Fathers: