"It is indispensable to the public service to maintain our present
position," he said to the officers who appealed to him to move; "and be
assured, I would sooner march forward two steps, though it would bring me
to my grave, than fall back one, to gain a hundred years of life."
After that there were no more appeals. Gonsalvo's usual cheerfulness was
maintained, infusing spirit into his men in all the inconveniences of
their situation. He had a well-planned object in view. The hardy
Spaniards, long used to rough campaigning, bore their trying position with
unyielding resolution. The French, on the contrary, largely new recruits,
grew weary and mutinous, while sickness broke out in their ranks and
increased with alarming rapidity.
At length Gonsalvo's day came. His opponent, not dreaming of an attack,
had extended his men over a wide space. On the night of December 28, in
darkness and storm, the Spanish army broke camp, marched to the river that
divided the forces, silently threw a bridge across the stream, and were
soon on its opposite side. Here they fell like a thunderbolt on the
unsuspecting and unprepared French, who were soon in disordered retreat,
hotly pursued by their foes, their knights vainly attempting to check the
enemy. Bayard had three horses killed under him, and was barely rescued
from death by a friend. So utterly were the French beaten that their
discouraged garrisons gave up town after town without a blow, and that
brilliant night's work not only ended the control of France over the
kingdom of Naples, but filled Louis XII. with apprehension of losing all
his possessions in Italy.
Such were the most brilliant exploits of the man who well earned the proud
title of the Great Captain. He was as generous in victory as vigorous in
battle, and as courteous and genial with all he met as if he had been a
courtier instead of a soldier. In the end, his striking and unbroken
success in war aroused the envy and jealousy of King Ferdinand, and after
the return of Gonsalvo to Spain the unjust monarch kept him in retirement
till his death, putting smaller men at the head of his armies rather than
permit the greatest soldier of the century to throw his own exploits more
deeply into the shade.