Alessandria was now the only fortified town in the district which could arrest Trivulzio's onward march, and Lodovico, trusting to Galeazzo's valour, was confident he would be able to hold the town until the arrival of Maximilian's reinforcements. But, to the amazement of friend and foe alike, on the night of the 28th of August, Galeazzo, attended by only three horsemen, left Alessandria at nightfall, crossed the Po, and, after cutting the bridge behind him, rode as fast as he could go to Milan. There had been dissensions in the garrison, and the soldiers clamoured for pay and refused to fight, but whispers of darker treachery were abroad. The Count of Caiazzo, it was said, had forged a letter purporting to be from the duke, recalling his son-in-law to Milan on the spot, and Galeazzo himself afterwards showed the false orders which had deceived him to the French and Milanese chroniclers who repeat the story. There seems little doubt that Caiazzo's defection was one of the principal causes of Lodovico's ruin, but, whatever the circumstances of the case may have been, it is certain that on the next day the French entered Alessandria without meeting with any resistance, and Trivulzio sent word to his kinsman Erasmo that before the week was over he would dine with him in Milan.
When Lodovico heard that Alessandria was lost, his courage failed him. He determined to seek safety in flight, and prepared to send his sons to Germany under the charge of his brother Cardinal Ascanio Sforza and Cardinal Sanseverino, both of whom had left Rome secretly on the 14th of July, and travelled by Genoa to Milan. Once more the duke called the chief citizens together, and appealed to them, by the love which they bore to the house of Sforza and the memory of the peace and prosperity which they had enjoyed under his rule, to defend Milan against the foreign invaders. But already sedition was spreading among the people. That evening the ducal treasurer, Antonio Landriano, one of Lodovico's ablest and most loyal servants, was attacked by the mob on the Piazza of the Duomo and mortally wounded.
On the same day—Saturday, the 31st of August—the duke took leave of his sons, and sent them to Como in the charge of the two cardinals and their kinswoman, Camilla Sforza. "A truly piteous and heart-breaking sight it was," writes Corio, "to see these poor children embrace their beloved father, whose face was wet with their tears."
Twenty mules laden with baggage, and a large chariot bearing Lodovico's most precious jewels and 240,000 gold ducats, covered with black canvas and drawn by eight strong horses, followed in the young princes' train. All the rest of the Moro's treasures, including a sum of 30,000 ducats, his vast stores of gold and silver plate, and all Duchess Beatrice's rich clothes and possessions, were left in the Castello, which was provided with ample supplies of food and ammunition, and defended by 1800 guns and a garrison of 2800 men, who had received six months' pay in advance. These the duke entrusted solemnly to the charge of the governor, Bernardino da Corte, leaving him full instructions as to his future course of action, and a system of signals by which he could communicate with friends in the town, and telling him that he would return with 30,000 Germans before a month was over. Both Ascanio Sforza and Galeazzo di Sanseverino, it is said, entertained doubts of Bernardino da Corte's fidelity, and warned the duke not to leave him without a colleague in this responsible office; but Lodovico did not share their fears, and trusted implicitly in the loyalty of this servant, whom he had advanced from a humble position to fill this responsible post and loaded with favours.
After his children were gone, Lodovico drew up a last deed, by which he left certain of his lands and houses to his friends in Milan, and made reparation to others whom he had wronged. Chief among these was the widowed Duchess Isabella, to whom he gave his own duchy of Bari, in the kingdom of Naples, with a yearly revenue of 6000 ducats in place of her dowry. He restored the lands of Angleria and the fortress of Arona to the Borromeos, gave poor Beatrice's favourite country house of Villa Nuova to Battista Visconti, and divided his different domains among the chief representatives of noble Milanese families, in the hope of securing their allegiance. While he was engaged in this final disposal of his property, a deputation arrived to inform him that a meeting had been held that day in the Dominican hall of La Rosa, at which the Bishop of Como, Landriano, general of the Umiliati, Castiglione, Archbishop of Bari, and Francesco Bernardino Visconti were chosen to form a provisional committee of public safety, and that these councillors had decided to make terms with Trivulzio and admit the French. The duke said that he still put his trust in the people; upon which Visconti asked him why, if this were the case, he had sent his sons and his treasure away? "If you surrender the city to the French," replied the duke, "I will hold the Castello for the emperor." It was his last word. In vain Galeazzo urged him to put himself at the head of his loyal servants, and call upon the citizens of Milan to man the walls against the French and fight or die with their duke. It was already too late. While they were still speaking, news reached the Castello that the people had risen in tumultuous uproar, and that Galeazzo di Sanseverino's stables and the seneschal Ambrogio Ferrari's house had been sacked by the mob. The shops were closed, and the houses in the principal streets were barricaded. Terror and confusion prevailed everywhere, and Milan seemed in a state of siege. Lodovico now took leave of his faithful servants, and solemnly charged Bernardino da Corte to hold the Castello as a sacred trust. "As long as the Rocca holds out, I know that I shall return; but when that surrenders, the house of Sforza is doomed." With these words he kissed the castellan on the cheek, and, mounted on a black horse, in the long black mantle which he always wore since his wife's death, he rode out, accompanied by his chief senators to the Porta Vercellina. There he turned to his companions, and, with a noble and dignified air, thanked them once more for their faithful services, and bade them all farewell. "State con Dio—may God be with you," he said, and, with a last wave of his hand, put spurs to his black charger and rode off.
The sun was setting in the western sky, and the sorrowing courtiers thought that their master had gone to Como. But he alighted before the gates of S. Maria delle Grazie, and, throwing the reins to a page, entered the church where Beatrice was buried. There he knelt in prayer by the tomb of the wife whom he had loved so well and mourned so long—la sua amantissima duchessa—while the moments slipped away and his servants waited anxiously outside. At length he rose from his knees, took a last look at the fair face and form lying there in the deep repose of death, and left the church, accompanied by the weeping friars, who followed him with their tears and blessings to the door. Three times he turned round, while the tears streamed down his pale face, and looked at the stately pile, which held all that had been dearest to him in the world—where Leonardo had painted his Last Supper, and where Bianca and Beatrice slept together. Then, in the dusk of the summer evening, he rode slowly back through the park and gardens of the Castello.
At break of day on the following morning, Monday, the 2nd of September, Duke Lodovico, accompanied by his son-in-law, Galeazzo di Sanseverino, his nephews, Ermes and the Count of Melzi, and his brother-in-law, Ippolito d'Este, and attended by a few armed horsemen, left Milan and rode to Como. Here the fugitives spent the night, and the duke issued a last decree, by which he confirmed the privileges and grants of land which he had granted to the friars of S. Maria delle Grazie. Then he told the loyal citizens of Como that he would soon return at the head of a German army, and rode along the banks of the lake to the mountains of the Valtellina. Often on the road he looked back at the blue waters and lovely shores of that native land which he had been so proud to call his own, and, at last, addressing his companions in the words of the Roman poet, said sorrowfully, "Nos patriam fugimus et dulcia linquimus arva."
"Only think, reader," moralizes Marino Sanuto, "what grief and shame so great and glorious a lord, who had been held to be the wisest of monarchs and ablest of rulers, must have felt at losing so splendid a state in these few days, without a single stroke of the sword.... Let those who are in high places take warning, considering the miserable fall of this lord, who was held by many to be the greatest prince in the world, and let them remember that when Fortune sets you on the top of her wheel, she may at any moment bring you to the ground, and then the closer you have been to heaven, the greater and the more sudden will be your fall."
Already Ligny's horsemen were scouring the country round Como in pursuit of the fugitive, and reports reached Venice that the duke had been captured and Galeazzo slain. By this time, however, Lodovico had crossed the frontier and was safe on Tyrolese soil. At Bormio he met 2000 German troops, who were marching to his relief; and when he reached Innsbrück, he found that the Empress Bianca had prepared rooms for his reception, and received kindly messages from Maximilian, promising him more efficient support as soon as he had settled his quarrel with the Swiss.
Meanwhile Pavia had opened her gates to the French, upon hearing news of the duke's flight, Trivulzio had taken possession of the Castello, and Ligny was occupying the Certosa, while Jean d'Auton knew not whether to wonder most at the rich marbles and sumptuous chapels of the great church, or the vast herds of red deer which roamed in the park.