A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

And these well selected properties answered their purpose so perfectly, that no man in the vast concourse there guessed, that Cesare Borgia was not a great man, even when to the considerable discomfiture of all the scenic arrangements a sudden torrent of rain threatened to wash out all visible distinction between his Highness and ordinary mortals. The magistrates and deputation of nobles, who were receiving him at the gate, turned and fled in scamping disorder, each man to the nearest shelter.[140] Borgia hastily rode round the piazza in performance of the recognised symbol of taking possession of the city, and then hurried off to the lodging prepared for him. But the storm was productive of far more serious evil to the unfortunate townsfolk. For all the officers, having hurried away to their various quarters, no one remained to superintend the billeting of the soldiers with any regularity. And the consequence was, that they rushed pell-mell through the city, forcing their way into the houses, and finding lodging for themselves according to their own discretion.

WILD WORK IN FORLÌ.

The results of this irruption, and of the license which followed it, were almost equivalent to the sack of the city. The town became a perfect hell, writes one chronicler.[141] The shops were gutted. The Palazzo Pubblico was almost entirely devastated. The great council hall was turned into a tavern, and all the seats burned. The guard-room and the offices of the customs were made a slaughter-house; and the utmost confusion and disorder prevailed everywhere. "In the houses," writes Burriel, "neither could any business be carried on, nor could their inmates even live there, as the soldiers entered in parties, made themselves masters of everything, and ill-treated the owners;—not to mention the worse lot of widows, and of those who had daughters, and could find no place of safety for them."

The citizens began to find that things could hardly have been worse with them had they rallied round their courageous liege lady, and bravely defended their walls.

Borgia twice had parley with Madama at his request; and used every argument to induce her to give up the fortress, wholly in vain. Towards the end of December the attack was commenced; and for about a week continued without much result. And then, at the beginning of the new year and century, a truce was agreed on for a few days. The French during this time gave themselves up to festivities and amusements, which seem not a little to have astonished the more civilised Italians. For instance, writes one of the historians, D'Aubigny and Galvani, two of Borgia's generals, lodging in the house of Messer Giovanni Monsignani determined on inviting a party of their brother officers. A sufficiently ample banqueting hall was provided by boarding up the arches of the "loggia" or open arcade so common in Italian domestic architecture; and provision for a feast intended to last two entire days was obtained at small cost by a razzia upon the peasants. When the guests arrived, they were followed, we are assured, by a mob of all sorts of people, who, while the convives sat at table, stood around eating and drinking all they could lay their hands on. And when the repast was finished, two men, "according to their barbarous, and truly too outrageous custom," sprung on the table, and dancing on it, smashed and destroyed all the plates and other utensils thereon, and threw the wreck with all the remnant of the eatables to the ground. "Then came in an exceedingly long procession of men and women," (of whom a considerable number, it should seem, accompanied the camp;) "driving before them a man on horseback in a long gown and cap like a mitre on his head. This procession stood around the tables drinking and making merry, with much laughter. Then all went out arm in arm, parading the streets, and roaring out their tasteless disagreeable songs to the exceeding wonder of the Forlìvesi."[142] We can easily believe it;—easily imagine too the scene produced by the Lord of Misrule, who may probably be recognised in the gentleman with the long gown and mitre, and his roystering crew of roaring swash-bucklers startling the echoes from the tall stone walls of the old Italian town, amid the cautious peeping of the scared and scandalised burghers, quite at a loss to understand the meaning and intention of this strange manifestation of the barbarians.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

On the 10th of January, 1500, the attack on the fortress was renewed, and by mid-day on the 12th, the breach was nearly practicable. Borgia left the attack, we are told, at that hour, to go to dinner! and while at table, made a bet of thirty ducats with some of his officers, that he would have Catherine in his hands within three days. Returning to the walls, he found that fortune had prepared for him a more rapid victory than he had hoped for. Either by treachery, as the Forlì historians, of course, maintain, or by the efforts of the enemy, a fire had broken out in the fort, which paralysed the garrison; and driving them from their defences, caused the principal part of the fortifications to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The case was now clearly hopeless; but Catherine retiring into the principal tower, still stood at bay. At the same time another tower, which had served as the magazine, and into which a large number of the enemy had penetrated, was fired by some of Catherine's people; and all those within it met with a fearful death. This act of useless cruelty so exasperated the soldiers of Borgia, that a general massacre of the garrison was commenced. At this juncture, Borgia once again demanded to parley with the Countess, who accordingly presented herself at a window of her tower. They spoke together at length, while he strove to persuade her of the uselessness of prolonging the struggle. But while she still stood at the window speaking with him, a French soldier, who had found some means of entrance into the tower, stepped up behind her, and made her prisoner in the name of his captain.

All this took place on the afternoon of the 12th of January. Catherine was that night kept prisoner in the citadel, where Borgia and the French general visited her, and talked with her, it is recorded, for more than an hour;—an hour sufficiently bitter, one may suppose, to that haughty dame, who had to listen to the courtesies of her captors, while the sounds of falling masonry, and exploding mines, the shouts of the pursuers, and the cries of the conquered as they fell, ever and anon came through the thick walls, and gave clear evidence of the work of destruction which was in progress.