PART II. Gallantry of their chival ry. December, on which this battle was won, came on Friday, the same ominous day of the week, which had so often proved auspicious to the Spaniards under the present reign.10 The disparity of the forces actually engaged was probably not great, since the extent of country over which the French were quartered prevented many of them from coming up in time for action. Several corps, who succeeded in reaching the field at the close of the fight, were seized with such a panic as to throw down their arms without attempting resistance." The admirable artillery, on which the French placed chief reliance, was not only of no service, but of infinite mischief to them, as we have seen. The brunt of the battle fell on their chivalry, which bore itself throughout the day with the spirit and gallantry worthy of its ancient renown; never flinching, till the arrival of the Spanish rear-guard fresh in the field, at so critical a juncture, turned the scale in their adversaries' favor. Early on the following morning, Gonsalvo made preparations for storming the heights of mount Orlando, which overlooked the city of Gaeta. Such Guicciardini, who has been followed in this by the French writers, fixes the date of the rout at the 28th of December. If, however, it occurred on Friday, as he, and every authority, indeed, asserts, it must have been on the 29th, as stated by the Spanish historians. Istoria, lib. 6, p. 330. 11 Giovio, Vita Magni Gonsalvi, fol. 268. XV. was the despondency of its garrison, however, that CHAPTER this strong position, which bade defiance a few months before to the most desperate efforts of Spanish valor, was now surrendered without a struggle. The same feeling of despondency had communicated itself to the garrison of Gaeta; and, before Navarro could bring the batteries of mount Orlando to bear upon the city, a flag of truce arrived from the marquis of Saluzzo with proposals for capitulation. of Gaeta. This was more than the Great Captain could Capitulation have ventured to promise himself. The French were in great force; the fortifications of the place in excellent repair; it was well provided with artillery and ammunition, and with provisions for ten days at least; while their fleet, riding in the harbour, afforded the means of obtaining supplies from Leghorn, Genoa, and other friendly ports. But the French had lost all heart; they were sorely wasted by disease; their buoyant self-confidence was gone, and their spirits broken by the series of reverses, which had followed without interruption from the first hour of the campaign, to the last disastrous affair of the Garigliano. The very elements seemed to have leagued against them. Further efforts they deemed a fruitless struggle against destiny; and they now looked with melancholy longing to their native land, eager only to quit these illomened shores for ever. The Great Captain made no difficulty in granting such terms, as, while they had a show of liberality, secured him the most important fruits of victory. PART IL This suited his cautious temper far better than pressing a desperate foe to extremity. He was, moreover, with all his successes, in no condition to do so; he was without funds, and, as usual, deeply in arrears to his army; while there was scarcely a ration of bread, says an Italian historian, in his whole camp. 12 It was agreed by the terms of capitulation, Jan1504. uary 1st, 1504, that the French should evacuate Gaeta at once, and deliver it up to the Spaniards with its artillery, munitions, and military stores of every description. The prisoners on both sides, including those taken in the preceding campaign, an arrangement greatly to the advantage of the enemy, were to be restored; and the army in Gaeta was to be allowed a free passage by land or sea, as they should prefer, to their own country. 13 Magni Gonsalvi, fol. 252, 253, 269.) Gonsalvo, in consequence of this manifest breach of faith, refusing to regard them as comprehended in the treaty, sent them all prisoners of state to the dungeons of Castel Nuovo in Naples. This action has brought on him much unmerited obloquy with the French writers. Indeed, before the treaty was signed, if we are to credit the Italian historians, Gonsalvo peremptorily refused to include the Neapolitan lords within it. Thus much is certain; that, after having been taken and released, they were now found under the French banners a second time. It seems not improbable, therefore, that the French, however naturally desirous they may have been of protection for their allies, finding themselves unable to enforce it, acquiesced in such an equivocal silence with re XV. Gonsalvo's courtesy. From the moment hostilities were brought to a CHAPTER close, Gonsalvo displayed such generous sympathy for his late enemies, and such humanity in relieving them, as to reflect more honor on his character than all his victories. He scrupulously enforced the faithful performance of the treaty, and severely punished any violence offered to the French by his own men. His benign and courteous demeanour towards the vanquished, so remote from the images of terror with which he had been hitherto associated in their minds, excited unqualified admiration; and they testified their sense of his amiable qualities, by speaking of him as the "gentil capitaine et gentil cavalier." 14 Louis XII. The news of the rout of the Garigliano and the Chagrin of surrender of Gaeta diffused general gloom and consternation over France. There was scarcely a family of rank, says a writer of that country, that had not some one of its members involved in these sad disasters.15 The court went into mourning. The king, mortified at the discomfiture of all his lofty spect to them as, without apparently compromising their own honor, left the whole affair to the discretion of the Great Captain. With regard to the sweeping charge made by certain modern French historians against the Spanish general, of a similar severity to the other Italians indiscriminately, found in the place, there is not the slightest foundation for it in any contemporary authority. See Gaillard, Rivalité, tom. iv. p. 254. Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. p. 456.- Varillas, Hist. de Louis XII., tom. i. pp. 419, 420. 14 Fleurange, Mémoires, chap. 5, apud Petitot, Collection des 15 Brantôme, who visited the PART II. Sufferings of the French. schemes, by the foe whom he despised, shut himself up in his palace, refusing access to every one, until the agitation of his spirits threw him into an illness, which had wellnigh proved fatal. Meanwhile his exasperated feelings found an object on which to vent themselves in the unfortunate garrison of Gaeta, who so pusillanimously abandoned their post to return to their own country. He commanded them to winter in Italy, and not to recross the Alps without further orders. He sentenced Sandricourt and Allègre to banishment for insubordination to their commander-in-chief; the latter, for his conduct, more particularly, before the battle of Cerignola; and he hanged up the commissaries of the army, whose infamous peculations had been a principal cause of its ruin.16 But the impotent wrath of their monarch was not needed to fill the bitter cup, which the French soldiers were now draining to the dregs. A large number of those, who embarked for Genoa, died of the maladies contracted during their long bivouac in the marshes of Minturnæ. The rest recrossed the Alps into France, too desperate to heed their master's prohibition. Those who took their way by land suffered still more severely from the Italian peasantry, who retaliated in full measure the barbarities they had so long endured from the French. They were seen wandering like spectres along the high roads and principal cities on the route, pining 16 Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. V. pp. 456-458. - Giovio, Vitæ Illust. Virorum, fol. 269, 270. Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 6, pp. 332, 337. St. Gelais, Hist. de Louys XII., p. 173. |