More Italian Yesterdays

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

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 freelance, 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 employees’ down to the ships’ 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.

But his warnings were in vain, for Foscari was elected over Loredano, in a conclave, the account of which is curiously like that of a political convention of to-day—the holding of a number of votes in reserve, the speeches on both sides, the trick by which Foscari irritated his noble old opponent into losing his temper and abusing his adversaries. There is nothing new, of course, under the sun, but it gives one a queer thrill when one comes upon things like these.

Soon afterwards Carmagnola was offered the command already referred to, and Filippo, on hearing the news, made an attempt to have his old comrade poisoned, but the agents were caught and executed after having been thoroughly and soundly tortured.

There followed visits and embassies from Milan and Florence, the Milanese, gay, careless, assured, the Florentines, grave and soberly clad, leaving no stone unturned, no mine of favour unworked. Carmagnola stalked through the Milanese Masque like a shadow through a field of poppies, and when the Senators, torn between the pleadings of the Florentine Ambassador and the easy, somewhat scornful reply of the Milanese envoy, hesitated, the Condottiere, enraged by the attempt just made upon his life, presented his side of the case, pointing out that Filippo’s apparent strength was only the result of his, Carmagnola’s, victories, and that of his own he had none at all, and openly proclaiming his hatred and scorn both of the Duke and his soldiers.

That settled the matter, and the league with Florence, which presently embraced Ferrara, Mantua, the Sienese, Amadeus VIII of Savoy, and King Alphonso of Naples, was formed.