LITMIR.BIZ

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to the very walls of Rome. A squadron of cavalry, whose gallant bearing had filled the heart of the old pope with exultation, sallied out against the marauders. An encounter took place not far from the city. The Romans bore themselves up bravely to the shock; but, after splintering their lances, they wheeled about, and, without striking another blow, abandoned the field to the enemy, who followed them up to the gates of the capital. They were so roughly handled in their flight, that the valiant troopers could not be induced again to leave their walls, although Cardinal Caraffa—who had a narrow escape from the enemy—sallied out with a handful of his followers, to give them confidence.[152]

      During this time Alva was vigorously pressing the siege of Ostia; but though more than a week had elapsed, the besieged showed no disposition to surrender. At length, the Spanish commander, on the seventeenth of November, finding his ammunition nearly expended and his army short of provisions, determined on a general assault. Early on the following morning, after hearing mass as usual, the duke mounted his horse, and, riding among the ranks to animate the spirits of his soldiers, gave orders for the attack. A corps of Italians was first detached, to scale the works; but they were repulsed with considerable loss. It was found impossible for their officers to rally them, and bring them back to the assault. A picked body of Spanish infantry was then despatched on this dangerous service. With incredible difficulty they succeeded in scaling the ramparts, under a storm of combustibles and other missiles hurled down by the garrison, and effected an entrance into the place. But here they were met with a courage as dauntless as their own. The struggle was long and desperate. There had been no such fighting in the course of the campaign. At length, the duke, made aware of the severe loss sustained by his men, and of the impracticability of the attempt, as darkness was setting in, gave the signal for retreat. The assailants had doubtless the worst of it in the conflict; but the besieged, worn out with fatigue, with their ammunition nearly exhausted, and almost without food, did not feel themselves in condition to sustain another assault on the following day. On the nineteenth of November, therefore, the morning after the conflict, the brave garrison capitulated, and were treated with honor as prisoners of war.[153]

      The fate of the campaign seemed now to be decided. The pope, with, his principal towns in the hands of the enemy, his communications cut off both with the country and the coast, may well have felt his inability to contend thus single-handed against the power of Spain. At all events, his subjects felt it, and they were not deterred by his arrogant bearing from clamoring loudly against the continuance of this ruinous war. But Paul would not hear of a peace. However crippled by his late reverses, he felt confident of repairing them all on the arrival of the French, who, as he now learned with joy, were in full march across the territory of Milan. He was not so disinclined to a truce, which might give time for their coming.

      Cardinal Caraffa, accordingly, had a conference with the duke of Alva, and entered into negotiations with him for a suspension of arms. The proposal was not unwelcome to the duke, who, weakened by losses of every kind, was by no means in condition at the end of an active campaign to contend with a fresh army under the command of so practised a leader as the duke of Guise. He did not care to expose himself a second time to an encounter with the French general, under disadvantages nearly as great as those which had foiled him at Metz.

      With these amiable dispositions, a truce was soon arranged between the parties, to continue forty days. The terms were honorable to Alva, since they left him in possession of all his conquests. Having completed these arrangements, the Spanish commander broke up his camp on the southern bank of the Tiber, recrossed the frontier, and in a few days made his triumphant entry, at the head of his battalions, into the city of Naples.[154]

      So ended the first campaign of the war with Rome. It had given a severe lesson, that might have shaken the confidence and humbled the pride of a pontiff less arrogant than Paul the Fourth. But it served only to deepen his hatred of the Spaniards, and to stimulate his desire for vengeance.

      GUISE ENTERS ITALY

CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      WAR WITH THE POPE.

      Guise enters Italy.—Operations in the Abruzzi.—Siege of Civitella.—Alva drives out the French.—Rome menaced by the Spaniards.—Paul consents to Peace.—Paul's subsequent Career.

      1557.

      While the events recorded in the preceding pages were passing in Italy, the French army, under the duke of Guise, had arrived on the borders of Piedmont. That commander, on leaving Paris, found himself at the head of a force consisting of twelve thousand infantry, of which five thousand were Swiss, and the rest French, including a considerable number of Gascons. His cavalry amounted to two thousand, and he was provided with twelve pieces of artillery. In addition to this, Guise was attended by a gallant body of French gentlemen, young for the most part, and eager to win laurels under the renowned defender of Metz.

      The French army met with no opposition in its passage through Piedmont. The king of Spain had ordered the government of Milan to strengthen the garrisons of the fortresses, but to oppose no resistance to the French, unless the latter began hostilities.[155] Some of the duke's counsellors would have persuaded him to do so. His father-in-law, the duke of Ferrara, in particular, who had brought him a reinforcement of six thousand troops, strongly pressed the French general to make sure of the Milanese before penetrating to the south; otherwise he would leave a dangerous enemy in his rear. The Italian urged, moreover, the importance of such a step in giving confidence to the Angevine faction in Naples, and in drawing over to France those states which hesitated as to their policy, or which had but lately consented to an alliance with Spain.

      France, at this time, exercised but little influence in the counsels of the Italian powers. Genoa, after an ineffectual attempt at revolution, was devoted to Spain. The coöperation of Cosmo de'Medici, then lord of Tuscany, had been secured by the cession of Sienna. The duke of Parma, who had coquetted for some time with the French monarch, was won over to Spain by the restoration of Placentia, of which he had been despoiled by Charles the Fifth. His young son, Alexander Farnese, was sent as a hostage, to be educated under Philip's eye, at the court of Madrid—the fruits of which training were to be gathered in the war of the Netherlands, where he proved himself the most consummate captain of his time. Venice, from her lonely watch-tower on the Adriatic, regarded at a distance the political changes of Italy, prepared to profit by any chances in her own favor. Her conservative policy, however, prompted her to maintain things as far as possible in their present position. She was most desirous that the existing equilibrium should not be disturbed by the introduction of any new power on the theatre of Italy; and she had readily acquiesced in the invitation of the duke of Alva, to mediate an accommodation between the contending parties. This pacific temper found little encouragement from the belligerent pontiff who had brought the war upon Italy.

      The advice of the duke of Ferrara, however judicious in itself, was not relished by his son-in-law, the duke of Guise, who was anxious to press forward to Naples as the proper scene of his conquests. The pope, too, called on him, in the most peremptory terms, to hasten his march, as Naples was the object of the expedition. The French commander had the address to obtain instructions to the same effect from his own court, by which he affected to be decided. His Italian father-in-law was so much disgusted by this determination, that he instantly quitted the camp, and drew off his six thousand soldiers, declaring that he needed all he could muster to protect his own states against the troops of Milan.[156]

      Thus shorn of his Italian reinforcement, the duke of Guise resumed his march, and, entering the States of the Church, followed down the shores of the Adriatic, passing through Ravenna and Rimini; then, striking into the interior, he halted at Gesi, where he found good accommodations for his men and abundant forage for the horses.

      Leaving his army in their pleasant quarters, he soon after repaired to Rome, in order to arrange with the pope the plan of the campaign. He was graciously received by Paul, who treated him with distinguished honor

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