The night was obscure, but unfortunately a driving storm of rain set in, which did such damage to the roads as greatly to impede the march, and the dawn was nigh at hand when the troops reached the place of destination. To their great surprise, they then understood that the object of attack was Rome itself.
Alva halted at a short distance from the city, in a meadow, and sent forward a small party to reconnoitre the capital, which seemed to slumber in quiet. But, on a nearer approach, the Spaniards saw a great light, as if occasioned by a multitude of torches, that seemed glancing to and fro within the walls, inferring some great stir among the inhabitants of that quarter. Soon after this, a few horsemen were seen to issue from one of the gates, and ride off in the direction of the French camp at Tivoli. The duke, on receiving the report, was satisfied that the Romans had, in some way or other, got notice of his design; that the horsemen had gone to give the alarm to the French in Tivoli; and that he should soon find himself between two enemies. Not relishing this critical position, he at once abandoned his design, and made a rapid countermarch on the place he had left the preceding evening.
In his conjectures the duke was partly in the right and partly in the wrong. The lights which were seen glancing within the town were owing to the watchfulness of Caraffa, who, from some apprehensions of an attack, in consequence of information he had received of preparations in the Spanish camp, was patrolling this quarter before daybreak to see that all was safe; but the horsemen who left the gates at that early hour in the direction of the French camp were far from thinking that hostile battalions lay within gunshot of their walls.[171]
Such is the account we have of this strange affair. Some historians assert that it was not the duke's design to attack Rome, but only to make a feint, and, by the panic which he would create, to afford the pope a good pretext for terminating the war. In support of this, it is said that he told his son Ferdinand, just before his departure, that he feared it would be impossible to prevent the troops from sacking the city, if they once set foot in it.[172] Other accounts state that it was no feint, but a surprise meditated in good earnest, and defeated only by the apparition of the lights and the seeming state of preparation in which the place was found. Indeed, one writer asserts that he saw the scaling-ladders, brought by a corps of two hundred arquebusiers, who were appointed to the service of mounting the walls.[173]
The Venetian minister, Navagero, assures us that Alva's avowed purpose was to secure the person of his holiness, which, he thought, must bring the war at once to a close. The duke's uncle, the cardinal of Sangiacomo, had warned his nephew, according to the same authority, not to incur the fate of their countrymen who had served under the Constable de Bourbon, at the sack of Rome, all of whom, sooner or later, had come to a miserable end.[174]
ROME MENACED BY THE SPANIARDS.
This warning may have made some impression on the mind of Alva, who, however inflexible by nature, had conscientious scruples of his own, and was, no doubt, accessible, as others of his time, to arguments founded on superstition.
We cannot but admit that the whole affair,—the preparations for the assault, the counsel to the officers, and the sudden retreat on suspicion of a discovery,—all look very much like earnest. It is quite possible that the duke, as the Venetian asserts, may have intended nothing beyond the seizure of the pope. But that the matter would have stopped there, no one will believe. Once fairly within the walls, even the authority of Alva would have been impotent to restrain the licence of the soldiery; and the same scenes might have been acted over again as at the taking of Rome under the Constable de Bourbon, or on the capture of the ancient capital by the Goths.
When the Romans, on the following morning, learned the peril they had been in during the night, and that the enemy had been prowling round, like wolves about a sheepfold, ready to rush in upon their sleeping victims, the whole city was seized with a panic. All the horrors of the sack by the Constable de Bourbon rose up to their imaginations,—or rather memories, for many there were who were old enough to remember that terrible day. They loudly clamored for peace before it was too late; and they pressed the demand in a manner which showed that the mood of the people was a dangerous one. Strozzi, the most distinguished of the Italian captains, plainly told the pope that he had no choice but to come to terms with the enemy at once.[175]