Part 388

"Bonnivet, the personal enemy of Bourbon, was now entrusted with the command of the French army. He marched without opposition into the Milanese, and might have taken the capital had he pushed on to its gates. Having by irresolution lost it, he retreated to winter quarters behind the Tesino. The operations of the English in Picardy, of the imperialists in Champagne, and of the Spaniards near the Pyrenees, were equally insignificant. The spring of 1524 brought on an action, if the attack of one point can be called such, which proved decisive for the time. Bonnivet advanced rashly beyond the Tesino. The imperialists, commanded by four able generals, Launoi, Pescara, Bourbon, and Sforza, succeeded in almost cutting off his retreat. They at the same time refused Bonnivet's offer to engage. They hoped to weaken him by famine. The Swiss first murmured against the distress occasioned by want of precaution. They deserted across the river; and Bonnivet, thus abandoned, was obliged to make a precipitate and perilous retreat. A bridge was hastily flung across the Sessia, near Romagnano; and Bonnivet, with his best knights and gensdarmerie, undertook to defend the passage of the rest of the army. The imperialists, led on by Bourbon, made a furious attack. Bonnivet was wounded, and he gave his place to Bayard, who, never entrusted with a high command, was always chosen for that of a forlorn hope. The brave Vandenesse was soon killed; and Bayard himself received a gun-shot through the reins. The gallant chevalier, feeling his wound mortal, caused himself to be placed in a sitting posture beneath a tree, his face to the enemy, and his sword fixed in guise of a cross before him. The constable Bourbon, who led the imperialists, soon came up to the dying Bayard, and expressed his compassion. 'Weep not for me,' said the chevalier, 'but for thyself. I die in performing my duty; thou art betraying thine.' Nothing marks more strongly the great rise, the sudden sacro-sanctity of the royal authority in those days, than the general horror which the treason of Bourbon excited. … The fact is, that this sudden horror of treason was owing, in a great measure, to the revived study of the classics, in which treason to one's country is universally mentioned as an impiety and a crime of the deepest dye. Feudality, with all its oaths, had no such horror of treason. … Bonnivet had evacuated Italy after this defeat at Romagnano. Bourbon's animosity stimulated him to push his advantage. He urged the emperor to invade France, and recommended the Bourbonnais and his own patrimonial provinces as those most advisable to invade. Bourbon wanted to raise his friends in insurrection against Francis; but Charles descried selfishness in this scheme of Bourbon, and directed Pescara to march with the constable into the south of France and lay siege to Marseilles. … Marseilles made an obstinate resistance," and the siege was ineffectual. "Francis, in the meantime, alarmed by the invasion, had assembled an army. He burned to employ it, and avenge the late affront. The king of England, occupied with the Scotch, gave him respite in the north; and he resolved to employ this by marching, late as the season was, into Italy. His generals, who by this time were sick of warring beyond the Alps, opposed the design; but not even the death of his queen, Claude, could stop Francis. He passed Mount Cenis; marched upon Milan, whose population was spiritless and broken by the plague, and took it without resistance. It was then mooted whether Lodi or Pavia should be besieged. The latter, imprudently, as it is said, was preferred. It was at this time that Pope Clement VII., of the house of Medici, who had lately succeeded Adrian, made the most zealous efforts to restore peace between the monarchies. He found Charles and his generals arrogant and unwilling to treat. The French, said they, must on no account be allowed a footing in Italy. Clement, impelled by pique towards the emperor, or generosity to Francis, at once abandoned the prudent policy of his predecessors, and formed a league with the French king, to whom, after all, he brought no accession of force. This step proved afterwards fatal to the city of Rome. The siege of Pavia was formed about the middle of October [1524]. Antonio de Leyva, an experienced officer, supported by veteran troops, commanded in the town. The fortifications were strong, and were likely to hold for a considerable time. By the month of January the French had made no progress; and the impatient Francis despatched a considerable portion of his army for the invasion of Naples, hearing that the country was drained of troops. This was a gross blunder, which Pescara observing, forbore to send any force to oppose the expedition. He knew that the fate of Italy would be decided before Pavia. Bourbon, in the mean time, disgusted with the jealousies and tardiness of the imperial generals, employed the winter in raising an army of lansquenets on his own account. From the duke of Savoy he procured funds; and early in the year 1525 the constable joined Pescara at Lodi with a fresh army of 12,000 mercenaries. They had, besides, some 7,000 foot, and not more than 1,500 horse. With these they marched to the relief of Pavia. Francis had a force to oppose to them, not only inferior in numbers, but so harassed with a winter's siege, that all the French generals of experience counselled a retreat. Bonnivet and his young troop of courtiers were for fighting; and the monarch hearkened to them. Pavia, to the north of the river, was covered in great part by the chateau and walled park of Mirabel. Adjoining this, and on a rising ground, was the French camp, extending to the Tesino. Through the camp, or through the park, lay the only ways by which the imperialists could reach Pavia. The camp was strongly entrenched and defended by artillery, except on the side of the park of Mirabel, with which it communicated." On the night of February 23, the imperialists made a breach in the park wall, through which they pressed next morning, but were driven back with heavy loss. "This was victory enough, could the French king have been contented with it. But the impatient Francis no sooner beheld his enemies in rout, than he was eager to chase them in person, and complete the victory with his good sword. He rushed forth from his entrenchments at the head of his gensdarmerie, flinging himself between the enemy and his own artillery, which was thus masked and rendered useless. The imperialists rallied as soon as they found themselves safe from the fire of the cannon," and the French were overwhelmed. "The king … behind a heap of slain, defended himself valiantly; so beaten and shattered, so begrimed with blood and dust, as to be scarcely distinguishable, notwithstanding his conspicuous armour. He had received several wounds, one in the forehead; and his horse, struck with a ball in the head, reared, fell back, and crushed him with his weight: still Francis rose, and laid prostrate several of the enemies that rushed upon him." But presently he was recognized and was persuaded to surrender his sword to Lannoi, the viceroy of Naples. "Such was the signal defeat that put an end to all French conquests and claims in Italy."

_E. E. Crowe, History of France, volume 1, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 4 (volume 2)._

_J. S. Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 21 (volume 2)._

_H. G. Smith, Romance of History, chapter 6._

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FRANCE: A. D. 1525-1526. The captivity of Francis I. and his deliberate perfidy in the Treaty of Madrid.

The captive king of France was lodged in the castle at Pizzighitone. "Instead of bearing his captivity with calmness and fortitude, he chafed and fretted under the loss of his wonted pleasures; at one moment he called for death to end his woes, while at another he was ready to sign disastrous terms of peace, meaning to break faith so soon as ever he might be free again. … France, at first stupefied by the mishap, soon began to recover hope. The Regent, for all her vices and faults, was proud and strong; she gathered what force she could at Lyons, and looked round for help. … Not only were there anxieties at home, but the frontiers were also threatened. On the side of Germany a popular movement ['the Peasant War'], closely connected with the religious excitement of the time, pushed a fierce and cruel rabble into Lorraine, whence they proposed to enter France. But they were met by the Duke of Guise and the Count of Vaudemont, his brother, at the head of the garrisons of Burgundy and Champagne, and were easily dispersed. It was thought that during these troubles Lannoy would march his army, flushed with victory, from the Po to the Rhone. … But Lannoy had no money to pay his men, and could not undertake so large a venture. Meanwhile negotiations began between Charles V. and the King; the Emperor demanding, as ransom, that Bourbon should be invested with Provence and Dauphiny, joined to his own lands in Auvergne, and should receive the title of king; and secondly that the Duchy of Burgundy should be given over to the Emperor as the inheritor of the lands and rights of Charles the Bold. But the King of France would not listen for a moment. And now the King of England and most of the Italian states, alarmed at the great power of the Emperor, began to change sides. Henry VIII. came first. He signed a treaty of neutrality with the Regent, in which it was agreed that not even for the sake of the King's deliverance should any part of France be torn from her. The Italians joined in a league to restore the King to liberty, and to secure the independence of Italy: and Turkey was called on for help. … The Emperor now felt that Francis was not in secure keeping at Pizzighitone. … He therefore gave orders that Francis should at once be removed to Spain." The captive king "was set ashore at Valencia, and received with wonderful welcome: dances, festivals, entertainments of every kind, served to relieve his captivity; it was like a restoration to life! But this did not suit the views of the Emperor, who wished to weary the King into giving up all thought of resistance: he trusted to his impatient and frivolous character; his mistake, as he found to his cost, lay in thinking that a man of such character would keep his word. He therefore had him removed from Valencia to Madrid, where he was kept in close and galling confinement, in a high, dreary chamber, where he could not even see out of the windows. This had the desired effect. The King talked of abdicating; he fell ill of ennui, and was like to die: but at last he could hold out no longer, and abandoning all thought of honourable action, agreed to shameful terms, consoling himself with a private protest against the validity of the deed, as having been done under compulsion."

_G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 2, book 2, chapter 5._

"By the Treaty of Madrid, signed January 14th, 1526, Francis 'restored' to the Emperor the Duchy of Burgundy, the county of Charolais, and some other smaller fiefs, without reservation of any feudal suzerainty, which was also abandoned with regard to the counties of Flanders and Artois, the Emperor, however, resigning the towns on the Somme, which had been held by Charles the Bold. The French King also renounced his claims to the kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the county of Asti, and the city of Genoa. He contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with Charles, undertaking to attend him with an army when he should repair to Rome to receive the Imperial crown, and to accompany him in person whenever he should march against the Turks or heretics. He withdrew his protection from the King of Navarre, the Duke of Gelderland, and the La Marcks; took upon himself the Emperor's debt to England, and agreed to give his two eldest sons as hostages for the execution of the treaty. Instead, however, of the independent kingdom which Bourbon had expected, all that was stipulated in his favour was a free pardon for him and his adherents, and their restoration in their forfeited domains. … The provisions of the above treaty Francis promised to execute on the word and honour of a king, and by an oath sworn with his hand upon the holy Gospels: yet only a few hours before he was to sign this solemn act, he had called his plenipotentiaries, together with some French nobles, secretaries, and notaries, into his chamber, where, after exacting from them an oath of secrecy, he entered into a long discourse touching the Emperor's harshness towards him, and signed a protest, declaring that, as the treaty he was about to enter into had been extorted from him by force, it was null and void from the beginning, and that he never intended to execute it: thus, as a French writer has observed, establishing by an authentic notarial act that he was going to commit a perjury." Treaties have often been shamefully violated, yet it would perhaps be impossible to parallel this gross and deliberate perjury. In March, Francis was conducted to the Spanish frontier, where, on a boat in mid-stream of the Bidassoa, "he was exchanged for his two sons, Francis and Henry, who were to remain in Spain, as hostages for the execution of the treaty. The tears started to his eyes as he embraced his children, but he consigned them without remorse to a long and dreary exile." As speedily as possible after regaining his liberty, Francis assembled the states of his kingdom and procured from them a decision "that the King could not alienate the patrimony of France, and that the oath which he had taken in his captivity did not abrogate the still more solemn one which had been administered to him at his coronation." After which he deemed himself discharged from the obligations of his treaty, and had no thought of surrendering himself again a prisoner, as he was honourably bound to do.

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 2, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _A. B. Cochrane, Francis I. in Captivity._

_W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 4 (volume 2)._

_C. Coignet, Francis I. and his Times, chapters 5-8._

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FRANCE: A. D. 1526-1527. Holy League with Pope Clement VII. against Charles V. Bourbon's attack on Rome.

See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527, and 1527.

FRANCE: A. D. 1527-1529. New alliance against Charles V. Early successes in Lombardy. Disaster at Naples. Genoa and all possessions in Italy lost. The humiliating Peace of Cambrai.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

FRANCE: A. D. 1529-1535. Persecution of the Protestant Reformers and spread of their doctrines.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.

FRANCE: A. D. 1531. Alliance with the Protestant princes of the German League of Smalkalde.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.

FRANCE: A. D. 1532. Final reunion of Brittany with the crown.

See BRITTANY: A. D. 1532.

FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547. Treaty with the Pope. Marriage of Prince Henry with Catherine de' Medici. Renewed war with Charles V. Alliance with the Turks. Victory at Cerisoles. Treaty of Crespy. Increased persecution of Protestants. Massacre of Waldenses. War with England. Death of Francis I.

"The 'ladies' peace' … lasted up to 1536; incessantly troubled, however, by far from pacific symptoms, proceedings and preparations. In October, 1532, Francis I. had, at Calais, an interview with Henry VIII., at which they contracted a private alliance, and undertook 'to raise between them an army of 80,000 men to resist the Turk.'" But when, in 1535, Charles V. attacked the seat of the Barbary pirates, and took Tunis, Francis "entered into negotiations with Soliman II., and concluded a friendly treaty with him against what was called 'the common enemy.' Francis had been for some time preparing to resume his projects of conquest in Italy; he had effected an interview at Marseilles, in October, 1533, with Pope Clement VII., who was almost at the point of death, and it was there that the marriage of Prince Henry of France with Catherine de' Medici [daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and granddaughter of Piero de' Medici] was settled. Astonishment was expressed that the pope's niece had but a very moderate dowry. 'You don't see, then,' said Clement VII.'s ambassador, 'that she brings France three jewels of great price, Genoa, Milan and Naples?' When this language was reported at the court of Charles V., it caused great irritation there. In 1536 all these combustibles of war exploded; in the month of February, a French army entered Piedmont, and occupied Turin; and, in the month of July, Charles V. in person entered Provence at the head of 50,000 men. Anne de Montmorency, having received orders to defend southern France, began by laying it waste in order that the enemy might not be able to live in it. … Montmorency made up his mind to defend, on the whole coast of Provence, only Marseilles and Aries; he pulled down the ramparts of the other towns, which were left exposed to the enemy. For two months Charles V. prosecuted this campaign without a fight, marching through the whole of Provence an army which fatigue, shortness of provisions, sickness, and ambuscades were decimating ingloriously. At last he decided upon retreating. … On returning from his sorry expedition, Charles V. learned that those of his lieutenants whom he had charged with the conduct of a similar invasion in the north of France, in Picardy, had met with no greater success than he himself in Provence." A truce for three months was soon afterwards arranged, and in June, 1538, through the mediation of Pope Paul III., a treaty was signed at Nice which extended the truce to ten years. Next month the two sovereigns met at Aigues-Mortes and exchanged many assurances of friendship."

_F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 28 (volume 4)._