271 THE EXPEDITION OF LOUIS THE TWELFTH. A. D. 1499. ALTHOUGH relieved from the immediate presence of Charles the Eighth, the Italian States were kept in continual alarm by the report that he was making great preparations for a second descent upon Naples. From this apprehension they were freed by his death, in 1498; but his successor, Louis the Twelfth, immediately assumed the titles of Duke of Milan and King of the Two Sicilies, and gave alarming proofs that he did not mean to content himself with empty names. Ever since the Medici had been driven from their native city, the Florentines had been completely under the sway of a fanatical monk, half knave half madman, named Savonarola, who was believed by his followers to possess miraculous powers. His fraudulent practices were at length discovered, and the Florentines, enraged at having been so long the dupes of an artful impostor, caused him to expiate his sins at the stake, and flung his ashes into the Arno. Although in their treaty with Charles the Eighth they had stipulated for the return of Pisa to its subjection, that city nourished too deep a hatred of her yoke tamely to resign her lately acquired freedom. A long and sanguinary war ensued between the rivals, which was at its height when Louis of France entered Italy. Ludovico, the guilty Duke of Milan, trembled at his approach. He had not yet recovered from his grief at the death of his wife and child, which had happened a twelvemonth before. From the moment of that fatal loss, he had never seated himself at his table, but received his food from the hands of his servants in a chamber hung with black, which he constantly occupied. Aroused from his stupor by the news that the King of France had assumed his title, and was rapidly approaching Milan, Ludovico found himself utterly destitute of means of self-defence, and fled from his duchy to the Tyrolese mountains, whence he vainly solicited assistance from the Emperor Maximilian. In the mean time Louis, at the head of his splendid army, advanced towards Milan, which he entered as a sovereign, on the 6th of October, 1499, amid the acclamations of the inconstant people. Louis's first act was to seize on the infant son of the unfortunate Galeazzo, who had died under the hands of his uncle Ludovico, to tear him from the arms of his mother, and send him captive to a French monastery. Isabella, the daughter and sister of kings, the mother and wife of princes, whose tears had nearly diverted Charles the Eighth from prosecuting his conquest, now bereft of her last hope, hastened, a hapless fugitive, to the court of Naples, only in time to behold the ruin of her remaining relatives. Ludovico, having purchased the aid of eight thousand Swiss, advanced upon Milan in hopes of regaining his duchy. Fortune at first seemed to smile upon him, but his troops were bought over by the French, and at the moment when he most depended upon their fidelity and bravery, they suddenly deserted. The unfortunate duke was taken prisoner, and sent by his pitiless conqueror to a dungeon in the duchy of Berri; where, for ten years, he dragged on a miserable existence, deprived of society and employment, and with no fruit for his meditations but the memory of his crimes*. Had Louis been contented with having thus far pursued his conquests, it would have been well. Milan, lying at the north of Italy, might easily have been united to his dominions by means of Savoy and Montferrat; but he could not be satisfied till he had acquired the less substantial but more brilliant prize of Naples. His only dread was, that Ferdinand of Spain would oppose his progress; but that monarch was willing to assist * Guicciardini. his enterprise, on condition of his afterwards sharing the spoils. Louis had already obtained the alliance of Rome, then under the influence of the infamous Alexander the Sixth and his son Cæsar Borgia, and with such powerful confederates he was enabled to approach Naples as a conqueror. The Spanish general, Gonsalvo da Cordova, under pretence of defending Ferdinand of Naples from his invader, obtained possession of all his strong-holds, and, when artifice was no longer necessary, threw off the mask, and declared himself the ally of France. This treacherous act, while it aroused Ferdinand's indignation against Spain, whom he had trusted as his last hope, inspired him with a disgust of the cares and dangers of royalty. Having conveyed his family in safety to Ischia, he proceeded as a suppliant to the court of France, and offered to exchange the uncertain tenure of a crown for a pension. Louis, glad to get rid of a dreaded rival, bestowed on him the title of Duke of Anjou, and an annuity of thirty thousand ducats. Historians have reproached Ferdinand with pusillanimity, but he perhaps hoped to promote his subjects' happiness as well as his own in thus resigning an unequal contest for the tranquillity of private life. No sooner had the Kings of France and Spain thus obtained the object of their ambition, than a furious quarrel arose respecting their mutual claims. The plains of Naples were again strewn with the slain in a conflict which, on whatever side victory declared, would leave her equally in slavery. The French were uniformly unsuccessful, and were at length forced to abandon the Neapolitan dominions. Piero de' Medici, who, since his expulsion from Florence, had made various efforts to regain possession of the city, had joined the French immediately on their entering Lombardy; and in their retreat from Naples he was drowned in attempting to cross a river in an over-loaded boat. It was during the contest between France and Spain for Naples, that a singular proof was given of Italian courage. Some negotiations having taken place between the rival commanders for the exchange of their prisoners, the Spanish general invited some of the French officers to sup with him; and in the course of conversation a dispute arose concerning the comparative bravery of the French and Italians. De Torgues, one of the Frenchmen, charged the Italians with weakness and cowardice; on which Lopez affirmed that he had under his command an Italian company who were equal, if not superior, to the French. question was warmly argued; and at length it was agreed that a combat on horseback should take place between thirteen Frenchmen and thirteen Italians, and that the victors should each be entitled The |