Under these circumstances, it is not strange that Philip, if he had ever entertained a vague project of a journey to the Netherlands, should have yielded to his natural habit of procrastination. The difficulties of a winter's voyage, the necessity of summoning the cortes and settling the affairs of the kingdom, his own protracted illness, furnished so many apologies for postponing the irksome visit, until the time had passed when such a visit could be effectual.
That he should so strenuously have asserted his purpose of going to the Netherlands may be explained by a desire in some sort to save his credit with those who seemed to think that the present exigency demanded he should go. He may have also thought it politic to keep up the idea of a visit to the Low Countries, in order to curb—as it no doubt had the effect in some degree of curbing—the licence of the people, who believed they were soon to be called to a reckoning for their misdeeds by their prince in person. After all, the conduct of Philip on this occasion, and the motives assigned for his delay in his letters to Margaret, must be allowed to afford a curious coincidence with those ascribed, in circumstances not dissimilar, by the Roman historian to Tiberius.[936]
On the fifteenth of April, 1567, Alva had his last audience of Philip at Aranjuez. He immediately after departed for Carthagena, where a fleet of thirty-six vessels, under the Genoese Admiral Doria, lay riding at anchor to receive him. He was detained some time for the arrival of the troops, and while there he received despatches from court containing his commission of captain-general, and particular instructions as to the course he was to pursue in the Netherlands. They were so particular, that, notwithstanding the broad extent of his powers, the duke wrote to his master complaining of his[{314}] want of confidence, and declaring that he had never been hampered by instructions so minute, even under the emperor.[937] One who has studied the character of Philip will find no difficulty in believing it.
On the twenty-seventh of April, the fleet weighed anchor; but in consequence of a detention of some days at several places on the Catalan coast, it did not reach the Genoese port of Savona till the seventeenth of the next month. The duke had been ill when he went on board; and his gouty constitution received no benefit from the voyage. Yet he did not decline the hospitalities offered by the Genoese nobles, who vied with the senate in showing the Spanish commander every testimony of respect. At Asti he was waited on by Albuquerque, the Milanese viceroy, and by ambassadors from different Italian provinces, eager to pay homage to the military representative of the Spanish monarch. But the gout under which Alva labored was now aggravated by an attack of tertian ague, and for a week or more he was confined to his bed.
Meanwhile the troops had assembled at the appointed rendezvous; and the duke, as soon as he had got the better of his disorder, made haste to review them. They amounted in all to about ten thousand men, of whom less than thirteen hundred were cavalry. But though small in amount, it was a picked body of troops, such as was hardly to be matched in Europe. The infantry, in particular, were mostly Spaniards,—veterans who had been accustomed to victory under the banner of Charles the Fifth, and many of them trained to war under the eye of Alva himself. He preferred such a body, compact and well disciplined as it was, to one which, unwieldy from its size, would have been less fitted for a rapid march across the mountains.[938]
HIS REMARKABLE MARCH.
Besides those of the common file, there were many gentlemen and cavaliers of note, who, weary of repose, came as volunteers to gather fresh laurels under so renowned a chief as the duke of Alva. Among these was Vitelli, marquis of Cetona, a Florentine soldier of high repute in his profession, but who, though now embarked in what might be called a war of religion, was held so indifferent to religion of any kind, that a whimsical epitaph on the sceptic denies him the possession of a soul.[939] Another of these volunteers was Mondragone, a veteran of Charles the Fifth, whose character for chivalrous exploit was unstained by those deeds of cruelty and rapine which were so often the reproach of the cavalier of the sixteenth century. The duties of the commissariat, particularly difficult in a campaign like the present, were intrusted to an experienced Spanish officer named Ibarra. To the duke of Savoy Alva was indebted for an eminent engineer named Paciotti, whose services proved of great importance in the construction of fortresses[{315}] in the Netherlands. Alva had also brought with him his two sons, Frederic and Ferdinand de Toledo,—the latter an illegitimate child, for whom the father showed as much affection as it was in his rugged nature to feel for any one. To Ferdinand was given the command of the cavalry, composed chiefly of Italians.[940]
Having reviewed his forces, the duke formed them into three divisions. This he did in order to provide the more easily for their subsistence on his long and toilsome journey. The divisions were to be separated from one another by a day's march; so that each would take up at night the same quarters which had been occupied by the preceding division on the night before. Alva himself led the van.[941]
He dispensed with artillery, not willing to embarrass his movements in his passage across the mountains. But he employed what was then a novelty in war. Each company of foot was flanked by a body of soldiers, carrying heavy muskets with rests attached to them. This sort of fire-arms, from their cumbrous nature, had hitherto been used only in the defence of fortresses. But with these portable rests, they were found efficient for field service, and as such came into general use after this period.[942] Their introduction by Alva may be regarded, therefore, as an event of some importance in the history of military art.
The route that Alva proposed to take was that over Mount Cenis, the same, according to tradition, by which Hannibal crossed the great barrier some eighteen centuries before.[943] If less formidable than in the days of the Carthaginian,[{316}] it was far from being the practicable route so easily traversed, whether by trooper or tourist, at the present day. Steep rocky heights, shaggy with forests, where the snows of winter still lingered in the midst of June; fathomless ravines, choked up with the débris washed down by the mountain torrent; paths scarcely worn by the hunter and his game, affording a precarious footing on the edge of giddy precipices; long and intricate defiles, where a handful of men might hold an army at bay, and from the surrounding heights roll down ruin on their heads;—these were the obstacles which Alva and his followers had to encounter, as they threaded their toilsome way through a country where the natives bore no friendly disposition to the Spaniards.