"Truly," the good Benedictine exclaimed, as he wandered through these flowery meadows with their banks of roses and myrtles, and clear springs of running water—"truly, this is Paradise upon earth!"
On the 6th of September, after a feeble effort on the part of the Milanese nobles to preserve the rights and liberties of the city, the keys were given up to Trivulzio, who entered by the Porta Ticinese with Ligny and two hundred horse, and, after visiting the Duomo, breakfasted in the house of his kinsman, the Bishop of Como.
The Count of Caiazzo had gone out to meet Trivulzio the day before, and had been received with great honour, while his brothers Fracassa and Antonio Maria took refuge with Giovanni Adorno at Genoa, and waited to see how the tide would turn.
Still the Castello held out, and Trivulzio was debating how best to reduce this almost impregnable citadel, when Bernardino da Corte sent a herald to parley with Francesco Bernardino Visconti. At the end of a few days the faithless governor agreed to surrender the Castello, in exchange for a large sum of money and the concession of various privileges for his family and friends. On the 22nd, letters from the duke arrived, telling the castellan to be of good cheer, for the German troops were on their way. But when they reached Milan, the Castello was already in the hands of the French. The treasures of gold and silver plate which the Rocca contained, the money and the precious stuffs, the pictures and statues and furniture which adorned its Camerini, were divided between the treacherous governor, Francesco Visconti, and Antonio Pallavicini, while Trivulzio reserved Lodovico's magnificent tapestries, that alone were valued at 150,000 ducats, for his share of the spoil. Then the wonders of antique and modern art which the Moro had collected from all parts of Italy, the paintings of Leonardo and the gems of Caradosso, the Greek marbles and Roman cameos, Lorenzo da Pavia's rare instruments and Antonio da Monza's miniatures, were scattered to the winds. Certain things—the gorgeous altar-plate and vestments of the chapel, with the priceless manuscripts of the Castello of Pavia, and most of the Sforza portraits—were taken to Blois, others found their way to Venice or Mantua, and many fell into unworthy hands and vanished altogether.
Lodovico was lying ill of asthma in the castle at Innsbrück, discussing the best means of relieving the Castello with Galeazzo, when the news of Bernardino da Corte's treachery reached him. For some minutes he remained silent, as if unable to realize the full meaning of the words. Then he said to the friends at his bedside, "Since the day of Judas there has never been so black a traitor as Bernardino da Corte." And all the rest of that day he never spoke again.
Even the French were filled with horror at Bernardino's treachery, and shunned him like a criminal when he appeared among them. As for his old friends and comrades, the poets and scholars of Lodovico's court, their indignation knew no bounds, Lancinus Curtius hurled bitter epigrams at his head, and Pistoia held him up to the scorn of the whole world in some of his finest sonnets. He did not live long to enjoy the reward of his treachery and it was popularly believed in Italy that he had poisoned himself in his despair, or put an end to his wretched life by falling upon his own sword. Even Charon, sang the poet, shuddered when he heard the traitor's name, and refused to let him enter the gates of Hades.
When the news of the conquest of Milan reached Lyons, Louis XII. crossed the Alps without delay. On the 21st of September he was at Vercelli; on the 26th, at Lodovico's favourite Vigevano; on the 2nd of October he reached Pavia, where the Marquis of Mantua and the Duke of Ferrara, who feared the Pope's vengeance and Cæsar Borgia's army even more than the French, came to meet him.
"Duke Ercole and his two sons," wrote the Ferrarese annalist, "are gone to meet the King of France. As for the Duke of Milan, his name is never mentioned, and you might think that he had never lived."
On Sunday, the 6th of October, he made his triumphal entry into Milan, with the Dukes of Ferrara and Savoy riding at his side; the Cardinals della Rovere and d'Amboise were in front of him; and ambassadors from all the chief cities of Italy, and a goodly array of princes and nobles, in his train. Francesco Gonzaga, who had so lately been Duke Lodovico's guest, was there. And there, too, were men like Caiazzo and Fracassa, who had eaten and drunk at the Moro's table, and were fighting under his banner only a few weeks before, and with them one, who was still more closely associated with Lodovico and his wife by the ties of blood and friendship—Niccolo da Correggio, the favourite courtier and poet of the Moro, and the cousin of Beatrice.
Conspicuous among them all by his height and majestic bearing was the Pope's son, Cæsar Borgia, while the king himself made a gallant show in his long white mantle embroidered with golden lilies over a suit of royal purple, bearing the ducal cap and sword. Eight Milanese nobles carried an ermine-lined canopy over his head, and the doctors of the University of Pavia were there in their scarlet robes, as they appeared a few short years before at Lodovico's coronation. Fair ladies in gay attire welcomed the victor with their smiles. Everywhere tall white lilies were seen blossoming in the streets that led to the Duomo—Notre Dame du Dôme, as the monkish chronicler calls the glorious pile of dazzling marbles that rose into the summer air. Here the procession paused, and the king walked up the vaulted aisles to pay his devotions at the Madonna's shrine. Then he rode on again, to the sound of trumpets and horns, and the royal guard of Gascon archers led the way up the well-known street, with the frescoed palaces and goldsmiths and armourers' shops, to the gates of the famous Castello, where the victor entered and took up his abode in this proud citadel of the Sforzas, the core and centre of the Milanese.