Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

This worthy couple then joined hands, to recover the lost cities, and Carmagnola began to show something of his quality. He recaptured Milan, killing the usurper, and, one by one, brought back the other cities to his employer, as a reward for which he was made Count of Castelmuro and married to a daughter of Giovanni Galleazzo, one Antonia.

It seemed as though Fortunatus’ purse had been emptied over him, in the years that followed; wealth, honour, position all were his, and so rich and powerful did he become that he was even permitted to invest in the bonded debt of Venice.

He must have grown careless, after a while, for his enemies—and they were numbered by the score—continued to get the Duke’s ear and to poison his mind. They probably used Carmagnola’s popularity with his men as an instrument, and played upon Filippo’s morbid pride and his unhealthy nerves, until he saw in his great general a Frankenstein of his own creation, which, if it were not itself destroyed, would presently destroy him.

One cannot think that Carmagnola was anything but careless, for when Philip demanded some of his bodyguard from him for a special purpose he protested with honest vigour against this taking of a weapon from one who knew how to use it and handing it to one who did not. Getting no reply, he became impatient, and sought one in person, by forcing his way into Philip’s presence, but he was stopped at the gate and then his temper left him.

His remarks were few and incisive, his opinions of the courtiers about Philip’s person plain as the tower at which he shouted them, and he wound up with an open threat directed at both. That done, he turned and rode off with his half-dozen attendants, and one brave gentleman who had ridden out to pursue him was so terrified at the sight of him, as he galloped across the marshy fields, his head on his chest, rage like an embodied spirit beside him, that he thought better of his intention and made back into the safe shelter of Abbiti. Carmagnola pursued his way without pausing until he came to the Court of Amadeus of Savoy, who was his own liege lord, and here he immediately offered his services, explaining at the same time what had just happened to him.

Filippo, in the meanwhile, confiscated his estates and seized his wife and daughter as hostages. That Antonia was his own sister—or, at least, had always passed as such—made not the slightest difference to the scoundrelly Filippo, and Carmagnola does not seem to have so much as troubled his head about the women.

Yet, for some reason, he seems to have excused Filippo’s conduct—openly, at least—and to have placed the blame where most of it belonged—on his surroundings. Then, casually, as though the idea had only just occurred to him, he spoke of various and choice pieces of territory, whose ownership, though nominally Filippo’s, was, he averred, doubtful.

To his disappointment, Amadeus refused to be drawn into the affair, and Carmagnola presently set off for Venice, always a safe resort for warriors of any quality.

He arrived at an auspicious moment, for Venice was hesitating as to the worth-whileness of an alliance which had been proposed to her by Florence for the purpose of attacking Carmagnola’s late master, Filippo of Milan.

The Venetians, living as they did, in an almost continuous state of war with one or other of their neighbours, were only too glad of the opportunity of gaining the services of the famous free-lance and gave him the command of their land army, within a very few weeks of his arrival—Foscari, the Procurator of St. Mark, in the meantime, pushing forward the alliance with Florence, in season and out of season. In this he was opposed by Mocenigo, the Doge, who, in spite of his eighty years, and even on his deathbed, in the presence of senators and ministers, uttered a solemn and prophetic warning against the war. He must have been a truly wonderful old man, for in that farewell speech of his, delivered from the edge of the grave, he gave a complete and accurate account of the State’s finances, and of its employés’, down to the ship’s caulkers and the manufacturers of fustian, besides remembering the number of gentlemen with incomes between seven hundred and four thousand ducats. At the end of it, he told his hearers that, if they rejected his advice and quarrelled with Milan, in a very short while they would find themselves under the heel of a military despotism which would take the very coats from their backs—all of which presently came to pass. Finally he warned them against Foscari, whose election to the Dogeship some of them, as he knew, favoured.