Fortunately, the iron cage seems to have been a fable invented by the Venetian ambassador, and from all accounts the prisoner was well and honourably treated, although the king absolutely refused his request to see him during the fortnight that he remained in the fortress at Lyons. He received visits, however, from several of the king's ministers, who all remarked that if he had been guilty of some foolish actions his words were remarkably wise—"toutefois moult sagement parloit." Anger gave place to pity at the sight of this victim who had suffered so terrible a reverse of fortune, and the Benedictine chronicler, Jean d'Auton, deplores the sad fate of this unfortunate prince, who, after many golden days of wealth and prosperity, was doomed to end his life in weary and lonely captivity far from house and friends: "Somme, si le pauvre Seigneur captif, de deuil inconsolable avoit le cœur serrè a nul devoit sembler merveilles." The sorrowful destiny of the "infelice Duca," who had once boasted himself to be the favourite of fortune—"Il Figlio della Fortuna"—became the burden of popular poetry, alike in France and Italy. Jean d'Auton himself gives vent to his feelings in an elegy on the vanity of earthly glories—
"Si Ludovic, qui jadys pleine cacque
Heut de ducatz et pouvoir magnifique,
Est en exil, sans targe, escu ne placque,
Captif, afflict, plus mausain que cung heticque,
Et que, de main hostile et inimique,
Malheur le fiere rudement et estocque—
Gloire mondaine est fragile et caducque."
The grief of the Milanese bards for their duke's cruel fate found utterance in the following lament:
Son quel duca in Milano
Che compianto sto in dolore ...
Io diceva che un sel Dio
Era in cielo e un Moro in terra—
E secondo il mio disio
Io faveva pace e guerra
Son quel duca di Milano," etc.
Fausto Andrelino wrote a Latin poem beginning with the lines—
"Ille ego sum Maurus, franco qui captus ab hoste
Exemplum instabilis non leve sortis eo;"
and Jean Marot found inspiration in a Venetian song—"Ogni fumo viene al basso"—which he rendered in the following lines, alluding to the legend of the Moro's fresco in the Castello of Milan:—
"Jadiz fist paindre une dame, embellie
Par sur sa robe, des villes d'Ytalie
Et luy au près tenant des epoussetes,
Voullant dire, par superbe follie,
Que l'Ytalie estoit toute sonillie
Et qu'il voulloit faire les villes nettes.
Le roi Loys, voulant ravoir ses mettes,
Par bonne guerre luy a fait tel ennuy
Que l'Ytalie est nettoyé de lui!
Chose usurpée legier est consommée,
Comme argent vif qui retourne en fumée."
From Lyons the captive duke was removed to Lys Saint-Georges in Berry, where he remained during the next four years in the charge of Gilbert Bertrand, the king's old captain of the guard. He was allowed to take exercise in the precincts of the castle and to fish in the moat. According to Sanuto, he was not wholly cut off from his friends. "Since he likes to know what is happening in the world outside, the king allows him to receive letters and to hear the news." But his health suffered from the confinement, and in the summer of 1501, he became so ill that Louis XII., who was hunting in the neighbourhood, sent his doctor, Maitre Salomon, to see him. The physician was shocked at the prisoner's altered appearance; his long hair, as we learn from a contemporary miniature, had turned entirely white, and there were black circles round his eyes. He sighed constantly, complained of the faithless subjects who had caused his ruin, and asked eagerly for the latest news of the treaty with the King of the Romans. Maitre Salomon told the king that he believed Signor Lodovico was losing his reason, and his account moved Louis so much that he sent to Milan for one of the duke's favourite dwarfs, in order to beguile the weary hours of captivity. Meanwhile, in justice to Maximilian, it must be said that he was untiring in his efforts to obtain the release of his friend and kinsman. For many years he steadily refused to grant Louis XII. the investiture of Milan, unless Lodovico was set at liberty, and repeated his solicitations to this effect with the most unwearied pertinacity. On this point, however, the French king was inexorable. He knew the hold which the Moro had retained on the hearts of his subjects, and would not run the risk of another rebellion by allowing Lodovico to join his children at Innsbrück. At the prayer of the Empress Bianca, he released her brother, Ermes Sforza, in 1502, and a year later allowed Ascanio Sforza to return to Rome, at the request of Cardinal d'Amboise, and give his vote in the papal conclave. After the accession of his old enemy, Giuliano della Rovere, to the papal throne, Cardinal Sforza once more attained a high degree of honour and prosperity, and when he died, in 1505, Julius II. raised the magnificent monument in the church of S. Maria del Popolo to his memory. In February, 1504, the German ambassador made another strong appeal to the king on his master's behalf for Lodovico's release, but the only concession that he could obtain was some relaxation in the rigour of his treatment. The duke was removed to the château of Loches in Touraine, a healthy and beautiful spot, on the summit of a lofty hill, and was allowed greater liberty and more society.