to turn the impregnable position; and fortunately a guide undertook to lead the French over the Cottian Alps into the marquisate of Saluces. Even for the army to pass was a work of difficulty, but their artillery was what the French captains chiefly relied on to discomfit the Swiss. To drag cannons over deep valleys and precipitous steeps was more than Hannibal had achieved, and was afterwards one of the principal boasts of the army that conquered at Marengo. The soldiers of France accomplished the task, however, and penetrated into Italy by the sources of the Po. The Italians did not suspect the possibility of so hardy an enterprise. Prospero Colonna was traversing Piedmont at the head of the papal cavalry to join the Swiss, and was reposing at Villefranche, when the town was surprised, and Colonna himself, and his troops, taken prisoners by La Palisse and d'Aubigny. The news of this surprise soon reached the Swiss, and they abandoned in a rage their now useless position, retreating to Milan, and pillaging the towns they were obliged to evacuate. Their disappointment produced quarrels between the chiefs. The cardinal of Sion reproached one of the captains of Berne with partiality to the French. The captain and his soldiers, by way of retort, demanded their pay; and the cardinal, the sworn enemy of France, was obliged to fly from their clamours.

This opened the way for negotiation. The king, with the rest of his army, had in the mean time crossed the Alps, and lay encamped at Marignano. The prowess of the Swiss was dreaded, and the terrific day of Novara was held in remembrance. Consequently, when they demanded a large sum of money for themselves, and a pension for Maximilian Sforza, in return for evacuating the Milanese, the terms were granted. Francis raised the money instantly by borrowing of his officers; and envoys were already despatched with the stipulated sum, when tidings were brought to the constable, that the Swiss, in lieu of concluding a treaty, were meditating an attack. The cardinal of Sion had,

1515.

BATTLE OF MARIGNANO.

197

in fact, hurried back to Milan on the first news of the accommodation. He called his countrymen round him, harangued them, and rekindled that hatred to the French for which history assigns no sufficient cause.

The Swiss determined to surprise the French, to carry the artillery in the first attack, and turn it on their enemies, an operation so successful at Novara. Bourbon, however, was prepared for them. The artillery, consisting of seventy pieces, were placed behind an entrenchment, commanding the road; the lansquenets were stationed to guard it, while the cavalry, drawn up behind, and on each side, waited to observe the order of the Swiss. They came on in silence, without drum or trumpet; a cloud of dust, raised by their speed, announcing, nevertheless, their approach. It was the middle of September, several hours after noon. The Swiss came in one compact column, rushing on the artillery, and against the lansquenets, those rivals in their mercenary profession of war, whom they hated, and whom they swore that day to exterminate. At first the lansquenets recoiled from the furious charge of the Swiss some of the cannon were already captured; when the cavalry and the black bands, the king himself amongst them, extended in the form of wings, and took the phalanx of the Swiss on either side in flank. The lansquenets, thus supported, took courage. The first charge of the Swiss, so universally victorious, was here not decidedly successful, and having no longer the advantage of an impulse, their pikes became less formidable. Obliged to face enemies that almost surrounded them, their phalanx was split into numerous bodies, which continued the combat, not only till sunset, but even till the moonlight failed them. Some of these bodies succumbed, however: one yielded to a charge led by the king himself; the Swiss throwing down their halberds, and crying" France!" in token of submission. Towards midnight, utter darkness stopped the combat, and both parties, intermingled, slept or kept watch in little bands amongst their ene0 3

mies. The king himself reposed on the stock of a

cannon.

When day broke, both armies rallied;-the Swiss to form their original phalanx ; the French round their cannon, which were again plied with true aim and fearful alacrity. The Swiss renewed the attack. The lansquenets still held the entrenchment; the rest of the army assailed the enemy in flank. After some hours' fighting, the Swiss began to despair. They now condescended to manœuvre, and despatched a considerable body to turn and attack the French camp in rear: but it was too late; the division was beaten back, and naught was left for the Swiss but to retreat. This they did in good order and undaunted; though pursued not only by the victorious French, but by the Venetians, who arrived at the close of the action. The count de Petigliana, the Venetian general, desirous to share in the combat, charged the retreating Swiss, and perished.

Thus did the young monarch signalise the very commencement of his reign by a splendid victory gained over the most renowned soldiers in Europe, and those whom the French had most to fear. The veteran Trivulzio, who had seen seventeen pitched battles, called all of them "child's play," in comparison with that of Marignano, which he designated as the "battle of giants." Yet it is more remarkable for the glory won, than for the blood spilled in it. Trivulzio, the king, the constable Bourbon, the duke of Lorraine, and Bayard, were all wounded or unhorsed, or in imminent peril. He who most distinguished himself was Claude count de Guise, brother of the duke of Lorraine: he commanded the black bands, and had fallen, pierced by innumerable wounds; from which he nevertheless recovered, and lived to found an illustrious name. The principal of the slain were, a prince of the house of Lorraine, one of the house of Bourbon, and the prince of Talmont, elder son of La Tremouille. One of the first acts of the king, after the action, was to receive knighthood from the hand of Bayard, "the chevalier without fear

1515.

CONCORDAT.

199

and without reproach." Sensible of the honour done to him by the choice, Bayard vowed that the sword which had knighted so valiant a monarch should never be wielded except against the infidels. "When he had uttered this vow," quoth his secretary, who was his historian, “he took two leaps, and returned the sword to its scabbard."

The duchy of Milan was conquered by the victory of Marignano. The Swiss, who held the fortress of the capital, surrendered it, being hard pressed by the armies of Peter of Navarre, which were now in the service of the French king. Maximilian Sforza abandoned his rights in return for a pension of 30,000 crowns, which he was to enjoy in France, "no wise discontented," he said, "to be delivered from the tyranny of the Swiss, the caprices of the emperor, and the bad faith of the Spaniards." It now behoved pope Leo to make submission. He had long temporised, and ill concealed his adherence to that patriotic policy which was averse to the establishment of any ultramontane power in Italy. The pope sought an interview with the young monarch, hoping to repair by address the weakness of his position; nor did he fail. The king and the pontiff met at Bologna. Francis was inexorable as to the fortresses and territorial possessions: the pope was obliged to give up Parma and Placentia, of which Julius II, had taken possession after the battle of Ravenna. On other points Francis was not averse to the wishes of Leo: he agreed to protect the influence of the Medicis in Florence; the sovereignty of a family being far more agreeable to the king's ideas than democratic freedom. But it was chiefly in procuring the repeal of the pragmatic sanction, that bulwark of the rights of the Gallican church, that Leo showed his sagacity. This law, which secured the appointment of French prelates by free election, was superseded by an agreement, called the Concordat, which conveyed the right of nominating prelates to the king, who in return conceded the annates, or first year's revenue, to the pope. Both sovereigns gained

by this transaction, at the expense of the nation the pope, a revenue of which he stood much in need; the king, the means of gratifying and providing for the younger members of the nobility.

excess.

Here we may pause to remark that the old aristocracy had almost disappeared; not only the sovereign or ducal families, but the great territorial noblesse. And this was owing, in a great measure, to the necessity of either dividing the family possessions amongst many brothers, the younger having no professional resource but the honourable rather than lucrative profession of arms; or else to the provident care, arising from the same motives, of not rearing a numerous family of noble rank. The court and favouritism of Francis created a new noblesse, which fortunately his wars distinguished; whilst his policy, reserving to them the benefices and prelacies of the church, hitherto open to the democracy, gave encouragement to the production and perpetuation of noble families, which soon caused a great and pernicious The policy of Francis, however, in abrogating the pragmatic sanction, was not so far-sighted. The popes had been long hostile to France on this account: they were of the first influence, not only in Italy, but with the Swiss. To win over the pope to his side, and secure so potent an ally in support of his designs upon Italy, was the chief aim of the king. The parliament, however, made an obstinate resistance: they refused to register the concordat. The king sent the Bastard of Savoy, his uncle, to expostulate and menace. They would not consult in his presence: they sent a deputation to Francis, who was then at Nampont. He made them an angry reply,—“ I am king, as well as my predecessors," said he, "and will be obeyed, as they were. You are incessantly vaunting to me Louis XII., and his love of justice; know that I love justice as much as he. That monarch, so exemplarily just, drove those who rebelled against him out of the kingdom, though they were members of the parliament: oblige me not to do the same." The king insisted that they should de