A nation of good haters.—Madama's soldier trade.—A new Pope has to found a new family.—Catherine's bounty to recruits.—A shrewd dealer meets his match.—Signs of hard times.—How to manage a free council.—ForlÌ ungrateful.—Catherine at bay.—"A Borgia! A Borgia!"—A new year's eve party in 1500.—The lioness in the toils.—Catherine led captive to Rome.

Dr. Samuel Johnson ought to have been a warm admirer of Italian character had he been acquainted with it; for he "liked a good hater." And assuredly the leading physiological characteristic which colours the whole course of Italian history, and furnishes the most universally-applicable master-key to the understanding of its intricacies, is the intensity of mutually-repellant aversion which has always existed among all the constituent elements of society. Private hatred between man and man; clan hatred between family and family; party hatred between blacks and whites, or longs and shorts, or any other distinctive faction-cry; political hatred between patricians and plebeians; social hatred between citizens and the inhabitants of the fields around their walls; and, by no means least though last, municipal hatred between one city and another, has ever been in Italy the master passion, vigorous in its action and notable in its results in proportion to the vigour of social life animating the body of the nation.

Orsini clans no longer level Colonna palaces with the soil in the streets of Rome; the story-graven flagstones of the old Florentine Piazza are no longer stained with the blood of Bianchi or Neri; Siena no more sends out her war-car against Pisa, nor does Genoa fit out fleets against Venice. Despotism has crushed out all vigour from the life and torpified every pulse; and having made a deathlike "solitude, calls it peace."

And has not, then, Despotism done well, even on the showing of the preceding statements? asks its apologists.

The true and enlightened believer in a god-governance, and no devil-governance, of the world, will of course answer unhesitatingly, No! But to answer from the conscience, No!—with faith still as firm as when the nineteenth century was young and proud with chimerical hopes—to answer with convictions still undefeated by the defeats of '48, for ever No!—requires, it must be admitted, a strong and clear belief in the immutability of the causes that result in human good and evil; a lively perception of the truth that no faults of a nation's life can best be remedied by national death; and such a whole-hearted persuasion of the universality of God's law of progress as can cast out all doubt of the fact, that every nation on earth's surface must either advance to improved civilisation, or else prepare to quit the scene, as some little improvable peoples have done and are doing, and leave the valuable space they occupy to more highly-gifted races.

The Italian writers of every age, from the sixteenth century to the present day, are naturally inclined to attribute all the misfortunes of their country to foreign wrong-doing and aggression. And they date the sunset of Italian prosperity, as Guicciardini does in the passage previously referred to, from the French invasion in the last years of the fifteenth century. But not even the dangers to be anticipated from the pretensions of the French monarch, nor the actual presence of foreign troops on the soil of Italy, could avail to check, even for a time, the deadly hatred of city against city.

This had blazed out fatally between Florence and Pisa in 1496, and was still raging in the early months of 1499. Pisa was assisted by the Venetians; and the strength of the two maritime republics seems to have tried the resources of the Florentines severely. Like the other second-rate princes of Italy, our "Madama di ForlÌ" drove a considerable and important trade in hireling troops. This species of business was in every respect profitable to the rulers of these petty states. They thus, besides pocketing considerable sums, maintained bodies of troops owing allegiance to them and fighting under their flag, which their own resources would have been wholly insufficient to support. And the power of hiring out these to either of two contending powers caused their alliance to be bid for by their more powerful neighbours, and gave them an importance in the political calculations of the time disproportioned to the size of their little territories.

Madama had had considerable dealings of this sort with the Florentines. Ottaviano had taken service with the wealthy republicans, and drew a handsome stipend from them as General. Early in 1499 the Republic had sent proposals for a fresh body of troops, and Madama desired nothing better than to execute the order. But times were hard in ForlÌ, and were daily threatening to become harder. Pestilence had been raging throughout the city and territory, and had inopportunely raised the value of the raw material of armies.

Worse still, in March of this year Pope Alexander, in full conclave, had declared Catherine and sundry other little potentates of Romagna deposed from their sovereignties, for not having punctually paid up their dues to the Apostolic Chamber. Catherine, indeed, forthwith sent up envoys to Rome—doctors learned in law and others—to point out to Pope Alexander that there was an outstanding account due to her late husband, the noble Count Riario, which had not been settled at the time of Sixtus IV.'s death; and that she would readily pay anything that at a fair settling might be found due. One would have thought that a Riario's wife might have known the Apostolic court better than to have taken such useless trouble. Did she think Uncle Sixtus of holy memory was the only Pope who had a family to found? Of course her envoys were sent about their business without having been allowed to speak a syllable of their errand.

These dues, a feudal tribute always reserved to the Holy See in its bulls of investiture, seem rarely to have been heard anything of as long as a friendly pope occupied the chair of St. Peter; but as soon as ever an excuse was wanted at Rome for getting rid of an obnoxious princeling, the Holy Father looked up his ledger and pronounced sentence of dechÉance against the debtor.

Now, Pope Alexander had sons, whom he did not even take the trouble of calling nephews; and he was, to say the least, quite as royal-minded as the Franciscan Sixtus. His eldest hope, Cesare Borgia, was exceeding royal-minded too. And so the Borgias had to be founded as well as the Riarii; and, unhappily for the other princes of Romagna, as well as for Catherine and her son, upon a much wider foundation.

Thus from the early spring of 1499, things wore a stormy and troubled appearance at ForlÌ. Not that it is to be imagined that Catherine for an instant dreamed of submitting to the sentence pronounced against her. Such a course would have been unheard of in her day. Holy Father might say what he pleased, hail bulls, and do his worst. The Countess of ForlÌ would hold her son's sceptre for him, as long as the walls of the city and fortress would hold together!

And besides, this old debauchee of a Pope might die any fine morning. He was well stricken in years, and his life said to be none of the best. And then there would be a fresh shuffle of the cards, and a new deal, with who knows what new fortunes, and Borgias nowhere in the race.

Meantime it was very desirable to keep on good terms of friendship with Florence, and Madama accordingly set about preparing the body of troops desired by the Republic. But symptoms unpleasant enough of Rome's ban having already begun to produce dangerous effects were not slow to manifest themselves.

Two deputies were appointed for each ward of the city to make out lists of all the men capable of bearing arms; and the roll having been duly sent in to the castle, all those named in it were ordered to present themselves in the space in front of the citadel at a given hour, to receive, as they were bound to do, their sovereign's orders.[137] Catherine and her officers were there to receive their brave lieges. But time came—time went—and not a man appeared. The lady was angered to a degree she rarely suffered herself to appear; and issued orders that officers should that night go round to every house in ForlÌ at midnight, when the inmates were sure to be found there, and warn each enrolled man severally, that if he did not appear at the appointed hour on the morrow, he should be dangling from a gallows before the next nightfall. But the result of this vigorous measure by no means tended to mend matters. For the threatened men, almost to a man, used the remaining hours of that night to escape from the city; a contingency against which no provision had been made; as it had never entered into the head of Catherine or her counsellors that the daring disaffection of her subjects could proceed to such lengths. The anger of the baffled sovereign may be imagined. But it was still worse to find, from the unusually loud mutterings of the citizens, that public opinion was in favour of the deserters. One said that citizens unaccustomed to soldiership could be of no use in war; another, that it was hard for men with families to be called on to abandon them for Madama's affairs, and merely because she willed it; while others, more daringly meddling with matters of state policy, maintained, that it was against all reason that ForlÌ should unite herself with Florence, which could be of no use to her, against the Venetians, with whom was the principal commerce of the city.

The incident was assuredly an ominous one. But Catherine was not to be easily frightened or diverted from her intent; and for this time the required levies were obtained from the apparently more docile and more long-suffering peasants of the territory.

A little later in July of this year 1499, we find the Florentines again negotiating with Catherine, and no less a man than NiccolÒ Macchiavelli was the agent sent to her by the Republic. The written instructions received by him from the Signory on the occasion of this embassy, and seven letters from him to the GonfoloniÈre and council, giving an account of his proceedings, have been printed from the originals preserved in the Archives at Florence.[138]

The business in hand was the signing of a new engagement for another year with the Count Ottaviano, as general in the army of the Republic. The young count was now just twenty years old. But he does not appear to have taken any part in the matter, leaving his mother to make the best bargain for his services that she could. But Florence wanted to reduce his pay from the twelve thousand ducats it had been fixed at the previous year, to ten thousand; and this was the point which Macchiavelli was urged to use all his state-craft and subtilty in gaining. The arguments used, the considerations put forward, and the weighing of the probabilities as to the opposite party yielding or holding out, are very amusingly similar in tone and turn of mind, to those of any Florentine driving a hard bargain at the present day; and show us the learned and profound Secretary of the Republic almost a match for any chafferer of the Mercato nuovo.

He alleges the exhausted condition of the Florentine treasury for the moment; enlarges much on the advantages to be drawn from the friendship of Florence, and speaks largely of her well-known gratitude to her supporters. At the same time he points out, that the present proposition of the Republic is solely motived by its wish to continue a connexion honourable to both parties, as, for the present, it has absolutely no need of the noble Count's services.

But the astute Secretary had met with a match for his diplomacy. Catherine said, that she had ever found the Florentines, as now, abounding in most satisfactory assurances and courteous words, but that their acts matched badly with them. She thought she merited better treatment at their hands, having exposed her State to the inroads of the Venetians by her faithful adherence to them. She wished nothing but to continue on the good and friendly terms they had hitherto been on. And as for this matter of the reduction of the salary, it pained her, because it was seeming to cast a slight upon her son to diminish his appointments, while those of other generals were maintained by the Republic at the old amount. Besides, there was the Duke of Milan, her relative, now offering to engage Ottaviano at twelve thousand ducats: and what excuse could she make to him, if she refused his offer, and accepted a worse one from Florence? Then again, the stipend due for last year had not been paid yet; and really she wished to see that settled before entering on new engagements.

Macchiavelli writes home, that he strove hard to content her with good words, saying everything he could think of to cajole her; but was forced to come away convinced, he says, that "words and reasoning will not avail much to satisfy her, unless some partial performance be added to them." As to this offer from the Duke of Milan, he fears there may be some grounds of apprehension concerning it, as Messer Giovanni Casale, the Duke's envoy, had been at ForlÌ for the last two months, and evidently had much influence there.

It is amusing, knowing as we do right well, what was in the minds of either party, to read the abundance of complimentary speeches, duly detailed by the careful secretary, in which all these bargainings were carefully wrapped up.

At last Macchiavelli writes home to his masters to the effect, that he thinks they must pay off the old score, and increase their present offer to twelve thousand ducats. And the treaty was eventually signed for that amount.

There are signs however in these letters of Macchiavelli, that the Florentine coffers were really running low. The envoy had been instructed to ask for a body of 500 troops; and writes back, that they may be had; and that Catherine will take all care to send picked men, well armed, and faithful;—but that the cash must be sent beforehand, five hundred ducats at the least, before a man could march. If the above sum were sent, they might reckon on having the five hundred men before Pisa in fifteen days; but the ready cash was an absolute sine-quÂ-non. And the result of this communication from the envoy was, that the Signory suffered the negociation quietly to drop.

Then come orders to purchase sundry war-stores and ammunitions; to which the reply is, that Catherine had neither powder nor balls to spare, being but badly provided for her own exigences. To show however her wish to do everything in her power for the Republic, Madama had consented to let the Signory have the half of a parcel of twenty thousand pounds of nitre, which she had succeeded in purchasing at Pesaro.

And so on the 25th of July Macchiavelli left ForlÌ, having been obliged to yield every point in dispute to our business-like heroine.

But the evil days were at hand. Louis XII., who had succeeded to Charles VIII., entered into a league with the Venetians and Pope Alexander, with the understanding that the king should be assisted in seizing the Duchy of Milan, while Cesare Borgia was to be helped to possess himself of the various small principalities of Romagna, specially those of Imola and ForlÌ. Early in November, Borgia with a numerous army, chiefly French, appeared before Imola. Ottaviano hurried thither immediately, and having done what he could to persuade the little city to make a vigorous defence, returned to the more important care of preparing ForlÌ to stand a siege.

Imola surrendered at the first summons of Borgia. But not so did Dionigi Naldi the Castellano of the fortress. To every threat of the enemy he replied, that he was determined to do his duty to the last; and in fact only yielded when the fortress had been battered into ruins around him.

Meanwhile Madama and her son were taking every means to defend ForlÌ. The country was laid waste around, and everything portable brought into the city. The fortifications were repaired, Ottaviano himself labouring as a porter to encourage his subjects, and Madama herself personally superintending the work. But the conduct of Imola made Catherine feel, that unless the ForlÌvesi really intended to stand by her and defend their city, it would be much wiser to employ all her efforts in preparing for an obstinate resistance in the fortress, and leave the town to itself. She therefore determined to call a general council of the citizens, and invite every one to speak his opinion freely on the measures to be adopted, for raising the necessary supplies. Her own plans and intentions were first fully explained, and then any who had objections to make were desired to speak. Whereupon many rose to put forward different views, to whom the superior advantages of the lady's plans were duly pointed out. But it so happened, that the objectors were still unconvinced. Whereupon Madama became so angered, that "she regarded this circumstance as an abuse of her kindness; and being resolved to tolerate such opposition no further, caused a gallows to be forthwith raised on the piazza, and a rack to be erected by the side of it; wishing thus to let it be understood to the terror of all, that, though her goodness was great, it had its limits."[139]

Yet these conciliatory measures do not seem to have had all the effect that could have been desired on the minds of the citizens. For notwithstanding the persuasive nature of the arguments mentioned above, it seems, that the result of one or two other councils of her lieges finally convinced Catherine that no hope was to be placed in the fidelity of the city; and that she had nothing to look to but the strength of the fortress, and her own energy in defending it.

In these nearly desperate circumstances the still undaunted Countess determined on the 11th of December to send her son away into Tuscany, that his safety at least might in case of the worst be secured, while she remained to face the storm. The division between the town and the citadel now became complete. The citizens made no longer any secret of their intentions to open their gates to Borgia, and tender him their allegiance; while all those who were personal adherents of the Riarii, or who determined still to link their fortunes with that of Madama and her sons retreated into the fortress.

The citizens had thus abandoned and defied in her danger and extremity the high-handed and haughty mistress, before whom they had so often trembled; and were doubtless congratulating themselves in having been permitted so easily to change their allegiance from a sinking house to one in the ascendant, when they were suddenly reminded that they were not yet well "off with the old love," by the opening of the fortress guns on the city. The astonishment was great, that Catherine, who must well know that she would shortly have need of every arm and every ounce of powder she could muster, should thus commence a contest with a second enemy, as if the Borgia were not enough. But the proud Dame held that all those who were not for her, were against her; and could ill brook the disobedience and desertion of her vassals. But this cannonading her own city, was, under any provocation, an act but poorly excusable by the motives set forth in its defence by Burriel;—that the enemy might not suppose that she was an acquiescing party in the abandonment of the city, or that she was alarmed or discouraged by it.

On the other hand it must not be imagined that the injury inflicted on the citizens by such a measure was in any way comparable to that which we naturally picture to ourselves, as the result of firing on a city from the walls of a fortress. The proportion between the means of offence and defence at the disposal of European combatants, has for the last four hundred years been continually changing in favour of the former. So that the mischief done in a given time by any military operations is infinitely greater now than was the case when Catherine battered ForlÌ.

On the 19th of December Cesare Borgia made his triumphal entry into ForlÌ, with all those theatrical circumstances of personal pomp and bravery which in the conceptions of those peacock-like southern idiosyncracies form so large and essential portion of the idea of "greatness." The troops and their officers having filed into the city before him, the great man,—most wicked, base, and incapable of any great or noble thought of all men there;—the great man, most reverenced, admired, and obeyed of all men there, advanced stately in full armour on a white horse, with an heraldically embroidered silk tunic over his armour, a tall white plume nodding above his helmet, and in his hand a long green lance, the point of which rested on the toe of his boot.

And these well selected properties answered their purpose so perfectly, that no man in the vast concourse there guessed, that Cesare Borgia was not a great man, even when to the considerable discomfiture of all the scenic arrangements a sudden torrent of rain threatened to wash out all visible distinction between his Highness and ordinary mortals. The magistrates and deputation of nobles, who were receiving him at the gate, turned and fled in scamping disorder, each man to the nearest shelter.[140] Borgia hastily rode round the piazza in performance of the recognised symbol of taking possession of the city, and then hurried off to the lodging prepared for him. But the storm was productive of far more serious evil to the unfortunate townsfolk. For all the officers, having hurried away to their various quarters, no one remained to superintend the billeting of the soldiers with any regularity. And the consequence was, that they rushed pell-mell through the city, forcing their way into the houses, and finding lodging for themselves according to their own discretion.

The results of this irruption, and of the license which followed it, were almost equivalent to the sack of the city. The town became a perfect hell, writes one chronicler.[141] The shops were gutted. The Palazzo Pubblico was almost entirely devastated. The great council hall was turned into a tavern, and all the seats burned. The guard-room and the offices of the customs were made a slaughter-house; and the utmost confusion and disorder prevailed everywhere. "In the houses," writes Burriel, "neither could any business be carried on, nor could their inmates even live there, as the soldiers entered in parties, made themselves masters of everything, and ill-treated the owners;—not to mention the worse lot of widows, and of those who had daughters, and could find no place of safety for them."

The citizens began to find that things could hardly have been worse with them had they rallied round their courageous liege lady, and bravely defended their walls.

Borgia twice had parley with Madama at his request; and used every argument to induce her to give up the fortress, wholly in vain. Towards the end of December the attack was commenced; and for about a week continued without much result. And then, at the beginning of the new year and century, a truce was agreed on for a few days. The French during this time gave themselves up to festivities and amusements, which seem not a little to have astonished the more civilised Italians. For instance, writes one of the historians, D'Aubigny and Galvani, two of Borgia's generals, lodging in the house of Messer Giovanni Monsignani determined on inviting a party of their brother officers. A sufficiently ample banqueting hall was provided by boarding up the arches of the "loggia" or open arcade so common in Italian domestic architecture; and provision for a feast intended to last two entire days was obtained at small cost by a razzia upon the peasants. When the guests arrived, they were followed, we are assured, by a mob of all sorts of people, who, while the convives sat at table, stood around eating and drinking all they could lay their hands on. And when the repast was finished, two men, "according to their barbarous, and truly too outrageous custom," sprung on the table, and dancing on it, smashed and destroyed all the plates and other utensils thereon, and threw the wreck with all the remnant of the eatables to the ground. "Then came in an exceedingly long procession of men and women," (of whom a considerable number, it should seem, accompanied the camp;) "driving before them a man on horseback in a long gown and cap like a mitre on his head. This procession stood around the tables drinking and making merry, with much laughter. Then all went out arm in arm, parading the streets, and roaring out their tasteless disagreeable songs to the exceeding wonder of the ForlÌvesi."[142] We can easily believe it;—easily imagine too the scene produced by the Lord of Misrule, who may probably be recognised in the gentleman with the long gown and mitre, and his roystering crew of roaring swash-bucklers startling the echoes from the tall stone walls of the old Italian town, amid the cautious peeping of the scared and scandalised burghers, quite at a loss to understand the meaning and intention of this strange manifestation of the barbarians.

On the 10th of January, 1500, the attack on the fortress was renewed, and by mid-day on the 12th, the breach was nearly practicable. Borgia left the attack, we are told, at that hour, to go to dinner! and while at table, made a bet of thirty ducats with some of his officers, that he would have Catherine in his hands within three days. Returning to the walls, he found that fortune had prepared for him a more rapid victory than he had hoped for. Either by treachery, as the ForlÌ historians, of course, maintain, or by the efforts of the enemy, a fire had broken out in the fort, which paralysed the garrison; and driving them from their defences, caused the principal part of the fortifications to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The case was now clearly hopeless; but Catherine retiring into the principal tower, still stood at bay. At the same time another tower, which had served as the magazine, and into which a large number of the enemy had penetrated, was fired by some of Catherine's people; and all those within it met with a fearful death. This act of useless cruelty so exasperated the soldiers of Borgia, that a general massacre of the garrison was commenced. At this juncture, Borgia once again demanded to parley with the Countess, who accordingly presented herself at a window of her tower. They spoke together at length, while he strove to persuade her of the uselessness of prolonging the struggle. But while she still stood at the window speaking with him, a French soldier, who had found some means of entrance into the tower, stepped up behind her, and made her prisoner in the name of his captain.

All this took place on the afternoon of the 12th of January. Catherine was that night kept prisoner in the citadel, where Borgia and the French general visited her, and talked with her, it is recorded, for more than an hour;—an hour sufficiently bitter, one may suppose, to that haughty dame, who had to listen to the courtesies of her captors, while the sounds of falling masonry, and exploding mines, the shouts of the pursuers, and the cries of the conquered as they fell, ever and anon came through the thick walls, and gave clear evidence of the work of destruction which was in progress.

The ForlÌ historians recount at much length the cruelties and insults which their forefathers had to suffer from the victorious barbarian army during several days,—the insatiable rapacity of all classes of the soldiers, the wanton destruction of that which could not be appropriated, and the general devastation of the city. But all this is unhappily too common, and too well known a story, to need repeating here.

History has for centuries been preaching to mankind from her great stock text, on war and its consequences;—and at last not so wholly in vain, as in the good old time. But if so terrible an amount of evil be inseparable from the most glorious war,—and the valorous assertion of right, against wrong-doing might is, and must ever be, glorious,—what shall be said of slaughter-matches, in which no high idea or noble feeling had any, the least share; by which the basest passions are intensified, the lowest motives alone brought into action, with only this distinction, that the higher the social rank of the "noble soldier," the baser were the objects he proposed to himself as the prizes of the fight!

Towards the end of January, Borgia left ForlÌ, wholly submitted to his authority, and led away his noble captive to Rome. Catherine, clothed, it is recorded, in a black satin dress, made the journey on horseback, riding between her conqueror and one of the French generals. She arrived in Rome on the 26th of February, 1500. And, as she once again entered that Porta del Popolo, the dethroned widow can hardly have failed to contrast the circumstances of her return with those of her first arrival in the Eternal City.