The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France

A comparison of the three treaties of 1492 and 1493 suggests that the best for France was the Treaty of Etaples, for it disposed of England’s traditional enmity without loss of territory. France’s acquisition of Brittany made up for the loss of Franche-Comté and Artois in the Treaty of Senlis. She also scored a diplomatic triumph by obtaining implicit recognition of Charles VIII’s marriage. Only the Treaty of Barcelona was seriously damaging. The return of Roussillon and Cerdagne to Spain, though legally justified, failed to ensure stable Franco-Spanish relations: the two powers were soon to fall out in Italy. Yet, in exchange for her sacrifices, France, including Brittany, gained domestic peace for the remainder of Charles VIII’s reign.

THREE Charles VIII and the Italian Wars(1494–8) (#ulink_3cdb62e1-35ed-5e6c-9e35-c243010772f6)

In 1494, King Charles VIII invaded Italy and conquered the kingdom of Naples. His action marked the beginning of a series of French campaigns south of the Alps which have come to be known as the Italian Wars. They lasted on and off till the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559.

Italy at the end of the fifteenth century was a tempting prey to a more powerful neighbour, for it was divided into a large number of more or less independent states which could be played off against each other. The most important were Venice, Milan, Florence, the States of the Church and Naples. The Venetian republic, though threatened by the westward expansion of the Ottoman empire, was at the height of its power. In addition to an extensive territory on the mainland, it controlled lands along the Adriatic seaboard, in the Aegean and in the eastern Mediterranean. The Venetian constitution was the most stable in Italy, being vested in an aristocratic oligarchy and exercised through a well-balanced system of councils. To the west lay the duchy of Milan which the house of Visconti had created out of a collection of cities; it was now ruled by the house of Sforza under which it continued to prosper economically. A strong Milan was regarded by other Italian states as a necessary bulwark against foreign invasion and Venetian expansionism. Florence was ruled in theory by a popular government, but effective authority was in the hands of the Medici family. Though weak militarily, the republic was influential among the other Italian states on account of the Medicis’ extensive banking connections and genius for diplomacy. The States of the Church stretched diagonally across the Italian peninsula from the Tiber to the Po and comprised a number of virtually autonomous towns and districts. The city of Rome was continually disturbed by the feuds of its leading families, while dreams of republican government still stirred among its inhabitants. A principal aim of the Renaissance popes was to establish their authority firmly throughout their territories, a policy which often led them into nepotism. Naples, the only feudal monarchy in the peninsula, was a land of large estates ruled by turbulent barons. It was divided into two parts: Sicily belonged to the house of Aragon, while Naples and the mainland were ruled by an illegitimate branch of the same house. Notable among the lesser Italian states were the duchy of Savoy, sitting astride the Alps and under the shadow of France; the republic of Genoa, which had lapsed into political insignificance as a result of domestic squabbles; and the duchy of Ferrara, serving as a buffer state between Venice and the States of the Church.

Following the Peace of Lodi (1454) the preservation of order in Italy was made to depend on a close understanding between Milan, Florence and Naples, which Lorenzo de’ Medici strove untiringly to maintain. His son Piero, however, who succeeded him in 1492, lacked political judgement. By leaning too heavily on the side of Naples he upset the tripartite axis and precipitated a breakdown of relations between Milan and Naples. Isabella of Aragon, duchess of Milan, was the daughter of Alfonso duke of Calabria and granddaughter of Ferrante I, king of Naples. She and her husband, Giangaleazzo Sforza, felt overshadowed by the regent, Lodovico Sforza. Alfonso was always looking for an opportunity to extend his power in Italy. He also remembered that his grandfather, Alfonso I of Naples, had been named by Filippo Maria Visconti duke of Milan (d. 1447) as his heir. As the duke prepared to attack Milan, Lodovico turned to France for help. He probably did not wish to bring the king of France into the peninsula, only to shelter beneath the threat of a French invasion. But there were others, apart from Lodovico, who were urging the king of France to make good his own claim to the kingdom of Naples.

French intervention in the area had a long history. The emperor Charlemagne had carried the defence of Christendom to the heart of Italy. The Capetian kings, on the other hand, had been content to observe Italian affairs from afar. St Louis refused the kingdom of Sicily, but allowed his brother Charles comte d’Anjou to respond to calls for help from the papacy and to accept for himself and his heirs territories in southern Italy. In 1481, Louis XI inherited the Angevin lands, including the county of Provence and the kingdom of Naples, but was too near death to take possession of them. In 1486 the annexation of Provence to the kingdom of France was formally ratified by the Parlement of Paris; but the claim to Naples was disputed between the king of France and the duke of Lorraine.

An additional complication was the fact that Naples was a papal fief. Its hereditary transmission was determined by a bull of investiture of 1265 which conferred the kingdom on Charles d’Anjou and his heirs in the direct or collateral line up to the fourth degree of kinship. Charles VIII was too far removed in kinship from Charles d’Anjou to qualify, but this did not deter him from pressing his claim. In 1493, Naples was ruled by Ferrante I, the brother-in-law of Ferdinand of Aragon, as part of a kingdom comprising the whole of Italy south of the States of the Church except Sicily which belonged to Ferdinand. Ferrante was hardly a docile vassal of the papacy: he had been excommunicated by Pope Innocent VIII and had opposed the election of Alexander VI, who repeatedly called on the French king to attack Naples.

Charles VIII wanted Naples not only for itself but as a springboard from which to launch a crusade against the Turks. The fifteenth century had seen a rapid expansion of Turkish power westward under Sultan Mehmet II. After capturing Greece and Albania, the Turks established a foothold in southern Italy in August 1480. The death of Mehmet in May 1481 was followed by a respite. In 1482 the Turks were driven out of southern Italy, but they remained a threat. There was general agreement among the Christian powers of the need for a new crusade aimed ultimately at freeing Constantinople and the Holy Places; but there was no consensus as to who should lead it. Two possible candidates were Charles VIII and Maximilian, King of the Romans. Although Philippe de Commynes doubted Charles’s sincerity in proposing a crusade, ample evidence suggests otherwise. As Robert Gaguin, on an embassy to England, explained: the king, his master, was anxious to follow the example set by Henry IV of England, who at the end of his life had planned to lead an expedition to the Holy Land. He was also much impressed by the efforts of Ferdinand of Aragon to wrest the kingdom of Granada from the Saracens. A Venetian envoy wrote from Rome in June 1495: ‘You may be sure that the king’s intention is to attack the Turks. He has made the vow to God and would already have launched his enterprise if so many troubles had not befallen him. I, who have spoken to His Majesty, know this to be true.’

In planning a crusade Charles was almost certainly influenced by a number of legends. One was that of Charlemagne, who had allegedly freed the Holy Places and handed them over to the emperor in Constantinople. Another was that of a king of France, called Philip ‘le despourveu’, who had travelled incognito to Naples in order to rescue the king of Sicily and his daughter from the Saracens. A prophecy popular in the 1490s forecast that a French prince called Charles, crowned at fourteen and married to Justice, would destroy Florence and be crowned in Rome after purging it of bad priests. He would then sail to Greece, become its king, defeat the Turks and end his life as king of Jerusalem.

Charles was also subject to less fanciful influences. There were Neapolitan exiles at his court, such as Antonello San Severino, who wanted his help to return to their native land. He gave them pensions and the use of a fortress in Burgundy until he could raise an army in support of their cause. Alongside the Neapolitans were Frenchmen, like Etienne de Vesc or Guillaume Briçonnet, who could see opportunities of personal enrichment or advancement arise out of a French intervention in Italy. Briçonnet was anxious to get a red hat. Even outside the court there was support for a French expedition south of the Alps. The bankers of Lyon and the merchants of Marseille wanted to expand their commercial interests in the Mediterranean at the expense of the Venetians and Aragonese.

Even within Italy there were forces working for a French intervention. Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il Moro, the effective ruler of the duchy of Milan, urged the king of France as early as 1491 to make good his claim to Naples. He suggested that Genoa might serve as a base for an attack on the southern kingdom. In January 1494 he was much alarmed when Alfonso, who had tried several times to have him assassinated, became king of Naples. His appeals to the king of France became desperate. Among Italian states, Florence was the only ally of the king of Naples, for the silk trade on which much of its prosperity depended passed through his territories, yet even there support for a French invasion existed. Many Florentines, who resented the autocratic ways of Piero de’ Medici, looked favourably towards France. For example, the Dominican preacher Savonarola prophesied Charles VIII’s coming in his Lenten sermon of 1493. ‘I have seen’, he exclaimed, ‘in the sky a suspended sword and I have heard these words: Ecce gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter. The sword fell bringing about wars, massacres and numberless ills.’ As for the Venetians, their foreign policy was primarily dictated by commercial interests: they wanted to maintain the status quo in the Adriatic and were, in general, opposed to any move which might antagonize the Turks. Yet they needed French help against the Habsburgs, who, having gained control of Trieste and Fiume, were entertaining maritime ambitions. Thus the Venetians were among the first to encourage Charles VIII to seize Naples. Another Italian who exerted similar pressure upon the king was Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. He came to France shortly after his defeat in the papal conclave of 1492. Hoping to use a French invasion to topple his successful rival, Pope Alexander VI, he assured the French of the support of the Colonna faction which controlled the port of Ostia and several castles in the Roman Campagna.

Yet if Charles was under heavy pressure at home and abroad to invade Italy, support for such an enterprise among his own subjects was far from unanimous. According to a Florentine envoy it was opposed by the princes of the blood, most other nobles, royal councillors, prelates, finance ministers and all the people. Belgioioso, the Milanese ambassador, remarked: ‘It is truly a miracle that the king, young as he is, has persevered in his design in spite of all the opposition he has encountered.’ Charles himself informed the Italians in 1494 that he had left his kingdom ‘against the wishes of the princes and great nobles’. The opposition, however, was not united. Some great nobles resented the influence exercised by de Vesc and Briçonnet over the king. Louis d’Orléans wanted to divert the expedition from Naples to Milan, to which he had inherited a claim from his grandmother Valentina Visconti. The Bourbons showed no enthusiasm for the enterprise, yet took part in it. Nobles generally believed that the costs of equipping themselves for such a distant campaign would not be offset by the results. However, the main focus of opposition lay in the towns of northern France which refused royal demands for a subsidy. Many French people disapproved of the king leaving his kingdom when the Dauphin was still only an infant.

Commynes tells us that the French invasion of Italy in 1494 was poorly prepared. ‘All things necessary to so great an enterprise’, he writes, ‘were lacking.’ But Guillaume de La Mare, a usually reliable eyewitness, wrote on 27 March: ‘the Neapolitan campaign … is being prepared with the utmost prudence and zeal …There is nothing that the king is not putting into execution with extreme activity and care.’ Collecting the funds necessary to such a campaign was a matter of primary importance. Marshal d’Esquerdes informed Charles that he would need one million gold écus before the start of the campaign and another million once the army had crossed the Alps. The king managed to raise the first million by resorting to various expedients. The great nobles were asked for a loan of 50,000 ducats and contributions were also requested from the Chambre des comptes and other state departments. What the clergy offered is unknown, but a number of bonnes villes responded with varying generosity. Lyon offered 10,000 livres, while Paris refused to give anything. Amiens gave 3000 livres, half as much as the king had demanded. Parts of the royal domain were sold or mortgaged to the tune of 120,000 livres. The wages of royal officials and pensioners were delayed for six months. Finally, the taille was increased to 575,000 livres. As far as the second million was concerned, Charles relied mainly on contributions from various Italian cities.

On 13 February 1494, shortly after the death of Ferrante of Naples, Charles VIII travelled to Lyon and assumed the title of King of Sicily and Jerusalem. He dispatched an ambassador to the pope asking for the investiture of Naples, but on 18 April, at a secret consistory, Alexander conferred it on Ferrante’s son Alfonso. This volte-face by the pope, who had previously been hostile to Ferrante, did not cause the king to change his plans. On 29 July he reaffirmed his determination to go to Italy and appointed Pierre de Bourbon as lieutenant-general of the kingdom in his absence. Meanwhile, Charles assembled his army.

At the start of the summer of 1494 the king’s gendarmerie comprised slightly more than 1500 lances: that is to say, about 6000 to 8000 troops reinforced by the cavalry, archers and crossbowmen of the royal household. In addition there were some Italian lances, comprising fewer men than the French ones (one auxiliary and one page per man-at-arms). The infantry consisted of 4000 to 5000 men raised in France and about as many Swiss mercenaries. Thus it was an army of about 16,000 to 20,000 men which Charles led into Italy. To this number must be added the sizeable amount of non-combatants such as valets and pages, secretaries, merchants, camp followers and vagabonds in quest of loot. An important component of the French army was the artillery, which was larger and more advanced technically than any other and accounted for 8 per cent of the king’s total military expenditure. In 1489, Charles had about 150 pieces, dozens of gunners and large quantities of gunpowder. He was allegedly the first to use in Italy cannon balls made of iron instead of stone.

Charles crossed the Alps at the end of August, using the Mont Genèvre pass. His principal lieutenants were Stuart d’Aubigny, Louis d’Orléans and Gilbert de Montpensier. The army’s passage through the mountains was eased by the fact that the artillery was sent to Genoa by sea. On reaching Piedmont the army marched on Asti, which belonged to the duc d’Orléans, before advancing on Turin. The house of Savoy had for some time distanced itself from France, but the duke was a child and his mother, Blanche, could only welcome her cousin the French king, backed, as he was, by such a considerable force. On 5 September he was magnificently received in Turin. Meanwhile, at Rapallo, the first serious engagement of the campaign took place, when a Neapolitan attack on Genoa was repulsed by a fleet commanded by Louis d’Orléans. After spending nearly a month in Asti, Charles moved to Milan. On 22 October, following the death of Giangaleazzo Sforza, the citizens asked Lodovico to become their duke. Although there were other claimants to the duchy, including Louis d’Orléans, Charles did not oppose Lodovico for fear of prejudicing his own campaign.

Meanwhile, in Florence, news of the French invasion revived the myth of liberty so closely associated with the French crown. Piero de’ Medici, unlike his father, had failed to remain primus inter pares. His government had become increasingly arbitrary. Without the consent of the Signoria he had drawn closer to Naples and broken the city’s alliance with France, a move seen by the Florentines as a serious abuse of power. Their civic tradition was deeply rooted in the Carolingian legend. According to Villani, Charlemagne had given them independence and freedom while Charles d’Anjou had caused the Guelf cause to triumph over imperial tutelage. Charles VIII was regarded as their descendant and his coming was taken by the Florentines as an opportunity to demonstrate their unshaken loyalty to the French alliance. As the French army penetrated Tuscany there was panic in Florence. On 30 October, after a show of resistance, Piero handed over to Charles the Signoria’s fortresses. His caution or cowardice precipitated his downfall. On 9 November the Medici regime was toppled.

The French invasion of Italy also coincided with a widely felt eschatological vision. Many people believed that the old world was coming to an end and a new Golden Age was about to begin. This seemed confirmed by a profusion of natural phenomena such as eclipses, floods and thunderbolts. Charles VIII appeared as the man of Providence chosen to bring peace, liberty and justice, to purify the church, to drive the infidel out of Jerusalem and to rid Italy of her shame. He was still in Pisa when he was visited by a deputation from Florence headed by Savonarola, who, claiming to be God’s spokesman, acclaimed him as ‘an instrument in the hands of the Lord’. The friar urged Charles to fulfil his divine mission of purification, begging him at the same time to show mercy to the people of Florence. Meanwhile, the Pisans asked to be released from Florentine tutelage, but Charles would give them only vague promises; the support of Florence was more precious to him at this moment than the gratitude of the Pisans. On 17 November he entered Florence in triumph. However, his accord with the republic alienated the duke of Milan who had hoped to recover two former Genoese towns – Sarzana and Pietrasanta – which Florence had seized in the past. He recalled 6000 troops who were serving alongside the French and began to intrigue against them with other powers.

From the moment Charles crossed the Alps until his arrival in Naples, his march through Italy was a triumphal progress. Wherever he passed, large crowds flocked to acclaim him. Each town received him in the same way: an official deputation, made up of senior churchmen and representatives of the local government, would come forward to meet him, they would hand him the keys of the town, and a length of its wall would be destroyed as a mark of subservience. Great efforts were also made to decorate the streets in the king’s honour. Precious hangings adorned the façades of houses and temporary monuments, such as triumphal arches, were erected in his path. Inscriptions comparing him to Caesar or Alexander the Great stressed the sacredness of his mission as well as his invincibility. Many coins bearing his effigy were struck. Wherever the king made his entry he was accompanied by a large military contingent. Italian spectators were much impressed by the sheer size of the French army and by the colourful costumes worn by the king and his nobles.

The unanimous capitulation of towns to Charles VIII was inspired not only by his reputation as a divinely appointed liberator but also by fear of the force at his disposal. The size of the French army, its formidable armament and the fighting qualities of its troops were awesome to the Italians. Although the invasion met with little resistance and was, therefore, largely bloodless, a few incidents, such as the sack of a fortress at Fivizzano, revealed the cruelty of the French. They took no prisoners, and massacred everyone regardless of sex or age. They seemed to have respect neither for God nor the devil. The furia francese was compared by some observers to a tempest. Not content with shedding blood, the French liked to set fire to everything. An eyewitness, Passaro, described them as worse than the Turks and the Moors, worse even than savages.

The French invasion divided Italy rather than helping to unify it. The various states fell into two camps as they sided with or against Charles. His coming created a climate of tension in the peninsula in which antagonisms hitherto latent became manifest. A wind of revolt blew across the peninsula, reviving old conflicts between Guelfs and Ghibellines. Mercenary captains offered their services to the highest bidder. Towns of the contado rid themselves of the tutelage of the Signoria. In Tuscany, revolts broke out in Pisa, Montepulciano and Arezzo. The fragile edifice of the States of the Church also collapsed: at Perugia, the Baglioni strengthened their authority at the pope’s expense. The towns of the papal states capitulated to the French in rapid succession. Partisans of the Colonna harried the pope up to the gates of Rome. Alexander VI, finding himself abandoned by his court and the people of Rome, prepared to fortify Castel Sant’Angelo in self-defence.

The pope had every reason to be fearful as the French drew closer to Rome. He was not unduly worried about the threat to the Aragonese regime in Naples, which had not always been submissive to his suzerainty, but he did not wish to see the French permanently established in the southern kingdom. On the other hand, he could not risk opposing the king of France for fear of provoking a Gallican reaction and reviving an earlier threat that a General Council would be created bent on reforming the church in its head and members. Charles, for his part, did not wish to incur excommunication which would harm his international standing. So both sides played a devious game. In a bid to avoid Charles’s presence in Rome, Alexander offered to meet him on the way, but the king declared himself unworthy of such an honour. His Christian duty, he explained, was to do the pope reverence in his own apostolic palace. He assured him of his desire to lead a crusade against the Turks after reconquering his Neapolitan inheritance.

As the king pressed on through Orvieto, Viterbo and Bracciano, his army occupied Civitavecchia. On 20 December the French vanguard was joined outside Ostia by 2000 infantry that had come from Genoa by sea. The talks with the pope, meanwhile, dragged on. Charles wanted the investiture of Naples and the surrender into his own hands of Djem, the sultan’s brother, who was being held hostage in Rome. Alexander wriggled for as long as possible, but eventually gave way. On 29 December the French army entered Rome as a few Neapolitan troops who had come to defend the pope left the city. Charles made his entry by torchlight on the night of 31 December. He had cause to feel satisfied with his progress to date. Within four months he had reached the Holy City without encountering any major obstacle; his army was more or less intact.

On 15 January, Charles and the pope came to an agreement and next day the king knelt before the Vicar of Christ after attending mass at St Peter’s. On 20 January, Alexander celebrated mass in the basilica before the king and a congregation of 15,000 people. Among the cardinals present was the newly created Guillaume Briçonnet. The service lasted five hours, after which the pope blessed the French troops and gave them general absolution. Charles took his leave of the pope on 28 January. He had gained right of passage for his army through the States of the Church, but Alexander had not given him the investiture of Naples.

The French now resumed their southward advance. On 4 February they attacked the fortress of Monte San Giovanni. As the king wrote:

My cousin Montpensier had arrived before me with my artillery … and after firing for four hours my said artillery had made a breach wide enough for an assault. I ordered it to be made by men-at-arms and others, and though the place was held by 5–600 good fighting men as well as its inhabitants, they went in in such a manner that, thanks to God [the town] has been taken with little loss to me, and to the defenders great loss, punishment and great example to those others who might think of obstructing me.

As the French were entering the kingdom of Naples, its people rose in rebellion. King Alfonso fled to Sicily after abdicating in favour of his son Ferrandino, who, finding himself abandoned by most of his followers, shut himself up in the Castel Nuovo in Naples. On 19 February the first French troops entered the city. Soon afterwards Ferrandino accepted the offer of honourable retirement in France.

Charles VIII had improved on Caesar’s achievement for, as Guicciardini wrote, the king had conquered even before he had seen. This he owed largely to the reputation which had preceded him, clearing obstacles from his path. Without exception every town on his march south had opened its gates to him, making possible the spanking pace of his progress. In the words of Marsilio Ficino, Charles ‘had shaken the world by a nod of his head’. Chroniclers were dumbfounded by the effortlessness of his victory. One remarked that he had conquered Naples with a falcon on his wrist. Some contemporaries looked for rational explanations of his triumph; others just called it a miracle.

The king’s first task was to reward all the people who had assisted him in his campaign. They were showered with offices and lands. Eleven Frenchmen and only one Neapolitan were appointed to the council of state (sacro consilio). Frenchmen also acquired the principal offices of state, the only notable exceptions being the prince of Salerno and Giacomo Caracciolo, who recovered their offices of admiral and chancellor respectively. The governorships of provinces and towns were distributed in the same way. Etienne de Vesc, one of the main promoters of the Neapolitan expedition, acquired a veritable principality: he became duke of Nola and Ascoli, count of Avellino, great chamberlain and president of the Sommaria or chamber of accounts. The Colonna family was rewarded with dozens of fiefs. Several profitable marriages were also concluded between French noblemen and Neapolitan heiresses. Thus Louis de Luxembourg married Eleonora de Guevara, whose lands in Apulia yielded an annual income of 30,000 to 40,000 ducats, and Pierre de Rohan, marshal de Gié, married Eleonora’s younger sister.

However, the French conquest of Naples was not acceptable in the long term to other Italian states. In March 1495, as the king of France and his troops were enjoying the pleasures, reputable and disreputable, of Naples, four states – Milan, Venice, the papacy and Mantua – formed a league aimed at their expulsion from the peninsula. They planned to sever Charles’s communications with France. The king’s position was made all the more critical by the material aid promised to the league by Maximilian (who had succeeded as emperor in 1493) and King Ferdinand of Aragon. Maximilian recalled that the French expedition had been intended as a crusade, not a conquest, while Ferdinand argued that Charles had broken the Treaty of Barcelona. The league was the beginning of official interference by Spain in Italian affairs and more generally of foreign domination of the peninsula; it soon reached out beyond Italy, becoming a European coalition. Not all the Italian states joined the league. Florence and Ferrara abstained, and the hostility that divided the latter from Venice showed that the league could not eradicate internal rivalries. In spite of the challenge posed by the French conquest of Naples, Italian politics continued to focus on local interests. However, contemporary historians and chroniclers argued that the Italian states needed to work more closely together. As from 1494 the political outlook of many Italians, notably Machiavelli, was not entirely devoid of a certain national consciousness.

Charles wisely decided not to linger in his southern kingdom but to return home as quickly as possible. He divided his army into two parts: one to defend Naples under Gilbert de Montpensier as viceroy, the other to escort him back to France. On 20 May, Charles left Naples and travelled to Rome in only ten days. To avoid meeting him the pope retired first to Orvieto, then to Perugia. Meanwhile, in northern Italy, Louis d’Orléans, acting on his own authority, pre-empted a move by Lodovico Sforza against Asti by attacking the Milanese town of Novara. As this was an imperial fief, Louis’s move offered Maximilian a legitimate pretext for armed intervention. Charles, much alarmed by this turn of events, asked Pierre de Bourbon to send reinforcements in haste to Asti. Meanwhile, the king continued his march northward: he was at Siena on 13 June and at Pisa on the 20th, having by-passed Florence. While part of his army moved on Genoa, the bulk crossed the Appenines. Waiting for them on the north side was the league’s much larger army commanded by the marquis of Mantua. Charles was inclined to seek terms for a free passage, but Marshal Trivulzio argued successfully in favour of engaging the enemy. On 6 July the armies collided at Fornovo during a thunderstorm. Charles was nearly captured several times in the course of the battle which was extremely bloody, especially for the league. The marquis of Mantua claimed it as a victory, but it was really a draw; the French got through, admittedly with the loss of much baggage.

After covering 200 kilometres in seven days, Charles reached Asti on 15 July. Although annoyed with his cousin Louis for his unauthorized attack on Novara, he went to his assistance early in September. As he marched on Vercelli, the league opened talks which ended in a treaty (9 October): Novara was handed back to Milan, Orléans kept Asti, and Genoa was ‘neutralized’, though the French were still allowed to use its harbour facilities. Even more important, however, was Lodovico’s decision to abandon the league which promptly fell apart. On 15 October the situation in north Italy was sufficiently settled for Charles to undertake his homeward journey across the Alps.

Meanwhile, in the kingdom of Naples, the French under Montpensier found themselves subjected to mounting pressure as the Venetians attacked several towns along the Adriatic coast, and Ferrandino reoccupied Naples itself and laid siege to a number of fortresses within the city. Charles sent a fleet to Naples, but it was scattered by storms and never reached its destination. On 5 October, Montpensier signed a truce which prepared for his capitulation on 2 December unless he received help by that date. When it failed to materialize, several French garrisons surrendered. Gaeta and a few strongholds in Apulia held out longer, but they gradually fell to Ferrandino. Charles VIII clung to his rights in the kingdom, but the death of his infant son, Charles-Orland, prevented him from leading a rescue operation, for the king was traditionally bound to stay at home as long as his succession was not assured. He was also short of money. Even so, he spent the spring of 1496 in Lyon trying to organize two expeditions: one to relieve Montpensier, who was besieged in Atella, the other to defend Asti against attack by the duke of Milan. Early in 1498, Charles managed to win over his erstwhile opponent, the marquis of Mantua; but the king died on 7 April, before he was able to send a new expedition to Italy.

It is difficult to regard Charles’s Italian campaign as anything other than a disaster for France. One of its consequences was the demystification of the French king in Italian eyes. They had looked up to him as the heir of Charlemagne and as a benefactor chosen by God to bring them freedom and liberty. Instead, they had found him to be a repulsively ugly little man betraying a character not much better than his physique. His policies too upset them by their waywardness. The Florentines, in particular, felt betrayed by his apparent encouragement of the Pisan rebellion. In Naples he came to share in the execration aroused by the viciousness of his entourage. Italians everywhere believed that Charles had failed in his mission: he had brought them neither liberty nor justice; he had not reformed the church; and, far from leading a crusade, he had exacerbated the Turkish threat. The war he had unleashed had brought famine and inflation in its wake. In brief, Charles now appeared not as a benefactor but as an oppressor. As for the French soldiers and their captains, they had shown themselves to be worse than Turks or Moors: they were barbarians without regard for human life, who desecrated churches and turned palaces into pigsties.

The French were to pay a heavy price for their debauches in Naples. They brought home a new and terrible disease, syphilis, which they called the ‘Neapolitan sickness’ while the Italians called it the ‘French sickness’. The first descriptions of it date from the battle of Fornovo. Cumano, a military doctor to the Venetian troops, relates that he saw ‘several men-at-arms or foot soldiers who, owing to the ferment of the humours, had “pustules” on their faces and all over their bodies’. Benedetto, another Venetian doctor, reported: ‘Through sexual contact, an ailment which is new, or at least unknown to previous doctors, the French sickness, has worked its way in from the West to this spot as I write. The entire body is so repulsive to look at and the suffering is so great, especially at night, that this sickness is even more horrifying than incurable leprosy or elephantiasis, and it can be fatal.’ Charles VIII’s mercenaries, who were disbanded in the summer of 1495, spread the new disease when they returned to their own countries. France was the first affected. Jean Molinet, the official historian of the house of Burgundy, blamed the king for bringing home the ‘pox’. In Lyon an agreement was made in March 1496 between the city magistrates and the king’s officers to expel from the city ‘persons afflicted with the great pox’. In Besançon, in April, the municipal authorities granted compensation to several victims of ‘what is known as the Neapolitan sickness’. Paris was affected by the autumn of 1496 at the latest, as we are informed by a ledger at the Hôtel-Dieu. Although by 1497 almost the entire kingdom was experiencing the epidemic, certain towns were particularly badly hit, such as Bordeaux, Niort, Poitiers and Rouen. Less than ten years after Fornovo the whole of Europe was affected. The scourge stimulated various theories as to its origin. Ambroise Paré, along with many others, was to invoke ‘God’s wrath, which allowed this malady to descend upon the human race, in order to curb its lasciviousness and inordinate concupiscence’.

FOUR Louis XII, ‘Father of the people’(1498–1515) (#ulink_1c90264b-61f2-5ea4-92b6-d7586ad2205b)

Louis duc d’Orléans was 36 years old when he succeeded his cousin as king of France on 7 April 1498. He was physically unattractive and subject to frequent bouts of ill-health, yet he was always a keen huntsman and took part in much violent exercise. From the start of his reign he sought popularity. He showed goodwill to the house of Bourbon by allowing the marriage of Suzanne, daughter of Pierre and Anne de Beaujeu, to her cousin, Charles de Bourbon-Montpensier, and he sought the loyalty of former opponents like Louis de La Trémoïlle. When delegates from Orléans excused themselves for not giving him more support in the past, Louis said that a king of France ought not to avenge the quarrels of a duc d’Orléans.

Louis XII ruled with a small council of less than ten members. Foremost among them was Georges d’Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, an old friend of the king whom he had served in various capacities. He had been imprisoned for two years (1487–90) for his part in Louis’s rebellion against the Beaujeus, and during Charles VIII’s Italian campaign he had helped to relieve Louis in Novara. Amboise became one of Louis XII’s most influential advisers. He combined a long experience of public affairs with dogged loyalty, but he lacked the duplicity needed for success in politics. That may be why he failed in his ambition to become pope. Another important member of the council was Florimond Robertet, an experienced civil servant with an unusual competence in foreign languages. After serving Charles VIII as a notary and secretary, he was drawn into the orbit of the house of Orléans by his marriage to the daughter of the treasurer, Michel Gaillard. Louis XII confirmed him as councillor and maître des comptes and Robertet later became secrétaire des finances and trésorier de France; but it was as the king’s personal secretary that he exercised an influence which may have been at least equal to that of Georges d’Amboise.

The king’s remarriage

One thought preoccupied Louis XII at his accession: to rid himself of his barren and deformed wife, Jeanne de France, and remarry Charles VIII’s widow, Anne of Brittany. He had been forced to marry Jeanne by her father Louis XI as a sinister ploy to ensure the early termination of the Orléans branch of the royal family and the absorption of its lands into the royal domain. For a long time Louis had refused to live with Jeanne, preferring a life of unrestrained debauchery, but eventually he had accepted the marriage to the extent of seeing his wife from time to time. He even slept with her, despite the physical revulsion which she inspired in him. He made no attempt to repudiate her during her father’s lifetime or that of her brother, Charles VIII, but only his conscience could stop him now that he was king if the pope would declare his marriage null and void.

Fortunately for Louis, Pope Alexander VI was prepared to subordinate spiritual values to his own temporal interests, notably the advancement of his illegitimate son Cesare Borgia, who was looking for a wife and rich fiefs. France could provide both, so Alexander sent Cesare to congratulate Louis on his accession and acceded to his matrimonial designs: on 29 July he issued a brief listing eight reasons for regarding the king’s marriage as null and void and Louis expressed his gratitude by making Cesare duc de Valentinois. The pope next set up a tribunal in France. It was generally assumed that Queen Jeanne would not face up to the ordeal of litigation, but she decided to defend herself. Many people, however, refused to assist her for fear of offending the king. When the tribunal met at Tours on 10 August 1498, the procureur du roi asked for the annulment of Louis’s marriage and that he should be allowed to remarry. Jeanne denounced the procureur’s statements as unworthy of refutation. Even so, she answered intimate questions with dignity. She denied that violence had been used to extort Louis’s consent to the marriage and, while conceding that she lacked the beauty of most other women, denied that she was incapable of sexual intercourse. While the tribunal was still sitting, Cesare Borgia arrived in Lyon bearing papal gifts: a cardinal’s hat for Georges d’Amboise and the dispensations required by Louis XII to marry Anne of Brittany. But, perhaps deliberately, Cesare did not reach the French court till judgement had been given in the king’s matrimonial suit.

Between 25 September and 15 October the tribunal examined witnesses – four for the queen and twenty-seven for the king. Jeanne’s counsel pointed out that Louis had frequently slept with her. He also produced a dispensation from Sixtus IV which had removed impediments to their marriage. On 27 October, Louis was himself interrogated, but his answers were so inconclusive that he had to be questioned again, this time under oath. He solemnly swore that he had never had intercourse with Jeanne. Since royal perjury was unthinkable, the tribunal felt bound to accept his word.

On 17 December the cardinal of Luxemburg announced the court’s verdict: the king’s marriage had never taken place. Not everyone, however, would accept this outcome. Some well-known preachers spoke in support of Jeanne, who had won much public support during her ordeal. Rather than stifle such opinions, Louis allowed time to silence them. He was also generous to Jeanne. She was promised for the rest of her life ‘the fine and honest train’ due to the daughter, sister and ex-wife (even though the marriage was allegedly non-existent) of three successive monarchs. She was also given the duchy of Berry and devoted the rest of her life to the service of God. She founded an order of nuns, the Annonciades, and began building a convent in Bourges. In 1503 she took the veil herself and won admiration by her self-mortification. She died two years later and was canonized in 1950.

Louis was now free to marry Charles VIII’s widow. Anne attracted him for at least two reasons: first, she was only twenty-two years old and had proved herself capable of childbearing; secondly, by marrying her he would retain control of Brittany. While mourning her late husband, Anne asserted her independence as duchess. She appointed Jean de Chalon, prince of Orange, to administer Brittany in her name and instructed various towns in the duchy to send representatives who would accompany her to Paris for her meeting with the king.

Anne could drive a hard bargain. When Louis first proposed to her, she reminded him that he was not yet free to marry and seemed doubtful about his chances of getting his marriage annulled. She even declared that no verdict on this matter, however authoritative, would satisfy her conscience. Yet Anne’s religious scruples were, it seems, less strong than her desire to become queen for the second time. On 19 August she and Louis reached an agreement at Etampes. He promised to hand over to her representatives three Breton towns which had been under French occupation. Anne, for her part, promised to marry Louis as soon as he was free. Shortly afterwards she returned to Brittany.

On 7 January 1499, Anne and Louis signed their marriage contract in Nantes. This laid down that in the event of issue from the marriage, the second male child, or a female in default of a male, would inherit Brittany. If only one son were born, the heir to the duchy would be his second son. In any event, Anne would administer the duchy in her lifetime and draw its revenues. If she died first, Louis was to administer Brittany during his life; it would then revert to Anne’s relatives and heirs exclusively. On 19 January, Louis undertook to respect all the rights and privileges traditionally enjoyed by the Bretons.

Meanwhile, on 8 January, Louis and Anne were married in the château of Nantes. Though often praised for her beauty, Anne had one leg shorter than the other, an infirmity which she concealed by wearing a high heel. Her genetic antecedents were poor, which doubtless explains why so many of her pregnancies failed. Her first child by Louis, Claude, born on 13 October 1499, was for eleven years the only child in the royal nursery and the pivot of Louis’s matrimonial diplomacy. Though plain, Claude was a desirable match on account of her rich dowry which included the Orléans patrimony, the duchy of Brittany, and the French claims to Asti, Milan, Genoa and Naples.

The conquest of Milan

On becoming king, Louis XII acquired the Angevin claim to Naples. He also regained the county of Asti which he had ceded to Charles VIII in 1496; but he was mainly interested in the duchy of Milan, to which he had a personal claim dating back to the marriage of his grandfather Louis to Valentina, daughter of Giangaleazzo Visconti, duke of Milan. The house of Sforza now ruled Milan and Louis XII, as duc d’Orléans, had tried on several occasions to make good his claim.

Milan was among the richest, most powerful states in Italy. It had a flourishing agriculture and its arms industry enjoyed a reputation equalled only by that of Germany. Strategically, the duchy was well situated: in the north it controlled the mountain passes leading to the rich cities of south Germany; in the east its influence extended to the middle Po valley; and in the south it exercised a semi-protectorate over Genoa, giving it an outlet to the Mediterranean and access to Genoese banking facilities. For all these reasons, Milan was the envy of its neighbours. The Swiss wanted to annex the area near Lake Como controlling access to the Alpine passes; and Venice, having seized Brescia and Bergamo, was not averse to a further westward expansion of her terra firma.