A.D. 476.
Orestes having undertaken to dethrone Nepos, the emperor of the West, raised an army, merely showed himself, and the weak monarch abandoned the diadem. The fortunate rebel encircled the head of his son Romulus Augustulus with it. The Roman empire of the West was in its last period of decay. Odoacer, at the head of an army of Goths, Heruli, Scyrri, and Thuringians, came to give it the last blow, and to reign over its vast wreck. Terror and confusion preceded him. All fled, all dispersed at his approach. The plains were deserted, the cities opened their gates to him. Orestes, too weak to withstand him, shut himself up in Pavia. Odoacer pursued him thither, carried the city by storm, made a frightful carnage, and set fire to the churches and houses. Orestes was taken and decapitated on the 28th of August, 476, the very day on which, one year before, he had dragged Nepos from his throne. Augustulus, abandoned by everybody, stripped himself of his dangerous dignity, and delivered up the purple to his conqueror, who, out of compassion for his age, left him his life, with a pension of six thousand golden pence, that is, about three thousand three hundred pounds sterling. Thus disappeared the empire of the West, after having subsisted five hundred and six years from the battle of Actium, and twelve hundred and twenty-nine from the foundation of Rome. Scarcely was its fall perceived, scarcely a look was fixed upon its last moments; it might be compared to an old man who dies of caducity.
SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 572.
Alboin, king of the Lombards, entered Italy for the purpose of founding a state. Pavia alone ventured to oppose him. The new conqueror laid siege to it; and that city, after a vigorous resistance of three years, reduced to the last extremity, was forced to surrender at discretion. The conqueror, exasperated by the obstinacy of the defence, had resolved to put all the inhabitants to the sword, but their submission disarmed his vengeance. He entered Pavia, not as a conqueror, but as a pacific king; forbade murder, violation, or pillage, and made that important place the capital of his new empire.
THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 774.
Two centuries of profound peace had rendered Pavia one of the most flourishing cities of the universe, when it beheld the standards of Didier, king of the Lombards, floating at its gates. This grasping prince, jealous of the power of Pope Adrian, sacked every place belonging to the Pontiff. The holy father fulminated horrible excommunications; but these arms were too weak to stop the usurper, and the Pope had recourse to Charlemagne. That monarch crossed the Alps, combated the enemies of the court of Rome, and made such a carnage of them, that the field of battle took the name of the Plain of the Dead. Didier sought refuge in Pavia. He had provided that capital with everything necessary for a long resistance. Charlemagne blockaded it, and left the command of his troops to his uncle Bernard; he then took the road to Rome, where he was received as the liberator of the Holy See. After having made a sojourn there, he returned to his army before Pavia, and pressed the siege so vigorously, that it opened its gates after an heroic defence of six months. Didier, his wife and children, were made prisoners and banished to LiÉge. Thus finished the kingdom of the Lombards, which had subsisted two hundred and six years. Charlemagne added to the titles of Emperor of the Franks and Patrician of the Romans, that of King of the Lombards.
FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1524.
Francis I. of France, after a brilliant campaign, in which he drove back the Imperialists from Provence to the Milanese, very unwisely employed his army in sieges, instead of pursuing his enemies with vigour to the other side of the Carnic Alps. Accumulating errors, he weakened an army of forty thousand men by dividing it; detaching from it a body of ten thousand soldiers upon an expedition into the kingdom of Naples. He thus left his enemy time to recover, and to remain master, by means of the armies he was able to raise in Germany and Naples. After having taken Milan, he commenced the siege of Pavia. That city, well fortified, had for governor Antonio de Leva, a great captain, commanding a numerous and warlike garrison. The French monarch attacked the place with vigour, but he evinced indecision in his points of attack. The siege was protracted; Pavia was reduced to extremity; the garrison mutinied more than once for want of pay; the governor was even in dread of seeing the city delivered up to the French by his unruly troops; but his genius, equally firm and fertile in resources, contrived to keep them to their duty. Lannoi, viceroy of Naples for Charles V., was informed of the distress of Pavia. The taking of that place might complete the disbanding of the Imperial troops for want of money and subsistence; he felt that this was the moment to venture to attack his enemy, and to attempt an action, hazardous without doubt, but which might re-establish the affairs of Charles V. in Italy. He set out then, accompanied by the marquis de Pescara and the constable De Bourbon. At his approach, the French monarch called a council; prudence would have commanded him to avoid an engagement, to raise the siege, and to refresh and enlarge his army: “Sire,” said La TrÉmouille to him, “the true honour in war is to succeed. A defeat can never be justified by a battle; you risk your army, your person, and your kingdom, and you risk nothing by raising the siege.” The monarch was deaf to the counsels of wisdom; his romantic spirit fancied that his honour would be compromised. The admiral Bonnevet promised so to dispose his troops that he should conquer his enemies, that the Imperialists should not dare to attack him, and that Pavia should fall into his hands. The king followed this fatal and pernicious advice. The troops were nearly equal in numbers on both sides, each reckoning about thirty thousand men. The Imperialists first fell upon the rear-guard of the French, placed at the castle and in the park of Mirabel. They expected to carry it if the king did not come to its assistance; and, if he did come, they should make him lose the advantage of the position in which he was fortified. What Lannoi anticipated, happened. Scarcely did the French monarch perceive the danger of his brother-in-law the duke of AlenÇon, who commanded the rear-guard, than, impatient to signalize himself, he rushed forward at the head of his cavalry, and fell upon the Imperialists. His artillery, placed with much skill by Gaillon de Genouillac, and served with great spirit, fired at first with such success, that every volley carried away a file. The Spanish infantry, being unable to resist this terrible fire, precipitately broke their ranks, to seek shelter, in great disorder, in a hollow way. Such a brilliant commencement dazzled Francis; he forgot that he owed all his success to his artillery, believed himself already the conqueror, and came out from his lines. This inconsiderate movement placed the prince between his own artillery and the fugitives, and rendered his cannon useless. The face of the battle was changed in a moment; the viceroy advanced with the gendarmerie and a body of arquebusiers; the king was pressed on all sides. The French gendarmerie did not, in this battle, sustain its ancient reputation; it was beaten and almost destroyed by two thousand Biscayans, of astonishing agility, who, separating by platoons of ten, twenty, or thirty men, attacked it with inconceivable celerity and address. They were seen, all at once, making a discharge, disappearing at the moment they should be in turn attacked, and re-appearing unexpectedly, again to disappear. It is said that Antonio de Leva had, for some time, trained these arquebusiers to fight thus in platoons, between the squadrons of the Spanish cavalry, and that he had borrowed the manoeuvre from the Greeks. A stratagem of Pescara’s contributed still further to the success of the day. This general having approached the enemy’s camp a little before the commencement of the battle, returned to his own to announce that the king of France had just published in his army a prohibition, under a capital punishment, to grant quarter to any Spaniard. This information, although false, produced so strong an impression upon his troops, that almost all the Imperialists swore to spare the life of no Frenchman, and to die sooner than surrender. This oath rendered the Spaniard equally invincible in fight, and ferocious after victory. The French monarch sustained the powerful charges of the enemy like a hero. Francis of Lorraine, and Richard De la Pole, the last heir of the house of Suffolk, endeavoured, with some companies of lansquenets, to disengage him; but they were killed, and the soldiers instantly turned their backs. Bonnevet perished fighting, and was regretted by nobody. Louis de la TrÉmouille shared the same fate; nearly nine thousand warriors, all gentlemen, were left lifeless on the field of battle. The mÊlÉe was terrible around the king. Left almost alone in the midst of a host of enemies, he inspired terror in all who ventured to approach him. He had already immolated five of his assailants, when his horse was killed, the monarch fell, and a rush was made to seize him. Springing up, he recovered himself, and killed two more Spaniards. At this moment, Molac de Kercado, first gentleman of the chamber, perceived the peril of his master, and dispersed or killed all who stood in the way of his zeal. He placed himself before his exhausted sovereign, protected him with his sword, and checked the savage impetuosity of the Spanish soldiery; but Kercado fell whilst defending the king, who refused to surrender to anybody but the viceroy of Naples: “Monsieur de Lannoi,” said he, “there is the sword of a king who deserves consideration, since, before parting with it, he has employed it in shedding the blood of several of your people, and who is not made prisoner by cowardice, but by a reverse of fortune.” Lannoi fell on his knees, received the arms of the king with respect, and kissed his hand, whilst presenting him with another sword, saying, “I beg your majesty to accept of mine, which has spared the blood of many of your subjects. It is not becoming in an officer of the emperor to behold a king disarmed, although a prisoner.” Francis was conducted, after the action, across the field of battle, to the place he was to be confined in. The Imperialists made him observe that all his Swiss guards had fallen in their ranks, and that they lay dead close to one another. “If all my troops had done their duty,” said he, much affected by this spectacle, “as well as these brave fellows, I should not be your prisoner, but you would be mine.” Francis announced this defeat to his mother in the energetic words: “Madame, all is lost but honour.” Whilst the king’s wounds were being dressed, a Spanish soldier, approaching him respectfully, said: “Knowing we should have a battle, Sire, I cast a golden bullet, which I destined for your majesty, and six silver ones, for the principal officers of your army. The six have been used, but yours is left, because I could not find the opportunity I watched for. I implore you, Sire, to accept of it, and to keep it to form part of your ransom.” The king took it, thanked the Spaniard, and praised his intelligence and generosity. The emperor issued a decree, by which he forbade any rejoicings on account of the victory; but this moderation was only apparent. Francis was taken to Madrid. Charles assembled a council to consider how the captive king ought to be treated. “As your brother and your friend,” replied the bishop of Osma; “he must be restored to liberty, without any other condition than that of becoming your ally.” Charles did not follow this wise counsel; he behaved towards the king like a Corsair with a rich prisoner. Francis recovered his liberty thirteen months after, by an onerous treaty, in which he gave up his claims to the Milanese, Genoa, and Asti. He was also to have ceded his rights to the duchy of Burgundy, but when Lannoi came to demand that province in the name of the emperor, Francis, as his only reply, required him to be present at an audience of the deputies of Burgundy, who told the king that he had not the power to dismember a province of the French monarchy. Francis I. preserving a continual desire to avenge himself for the disgrace before Pavia, entered into all the leagues that were formed against Charles V. The emperor derived but little advantage from this event, the most decisive and glorious of his reign. A modern writer has discovered the reason of this. Money constitutes the sinews of war, and the emperor could not pay his troops. He assembled the Cortes of Castille at Madrid, and all orders refused him assistance: the clergy, because they had no power to dispose of the goods consecrated to religion; the nobility would have derogated from their privilege, if they had paid a tribute; and the third estate, because, not having yet had it in their power to pay a gratuitous gift which had been demanded of them of four hundred thousand ducats, it was impossible for them to furnish fresh sums. The emperor, although very much dissatisfied, pretended to find these reasons good, although they defeated all his designs.—Napoleon, with that jealousy which he always professed to have for the honour of France, when master of Spain, caused the unfortunate king, his victim, to restore the sword and armour of Francis I., which were preserved at Madrid as a monument of this victory.
Pavia experienced something approaching to sieges in 1655, 1733, and 1745, but they furnish no details worth relating. In 1796, likewise, it was captured, without any trouble, by Buonaparte, who took the opportunity for uttering one of his glorious fanfaronnades: “If the blood of a single Frenchman,” said he, “had been shed, I would have caused a column to be erected over the ruins of the city, upon which should have been inscribed—Here stood the City of Pavia!”
