Sforza was regarded with unqualified hatred and desire for vengeance.
Savoy wished to oust him from his seat. France and Orleans and Arragon
and Germany thought it sufficient for the present to brand him as
usurper. But the hatred of the Venetians for the man who once had been
their servant was of a deeper kind, and they did not shrink from
plotting his murder. On April 22, 1450, they had already decreed his
death, and by August 26th the plan was in full train. The Council had
heard through that gentleman and soldier, Ser Giacobo Antonio Marcello
of Crema, that Vittore dei Scoraderi, the squire of Francesco, _est
contentus occidere Comitem Francescum; et sicut omnes intelligere
possunt, mors illius comitis est salus et pax nostra et totius Italiæ_.
Nothing was to be sent in writing to this person which might compromise
the Venetian Senate, but Marcello was instructed to offer him ample
terms. Further injunctions were despatched on September 2nd, and early
in December we hear again of a candidate, _una persona intelligente et
discreta_, not a Venetian subject, who promised to despatch Count
Francesco with _aliqua venenosa materies_.[82] To this intelligent
assistant the Council recommended the use of certain little round
pellets which, thrown upon the fire, exhale a most sweet and delectable
odour; but before they were despatched for experiment on so illustrious
a subject a secret trial was to be given them in Venice on the person of
a prisoner condemned to death for larceny. In May, 1451, the Council
added three other persons to the conspiracy, and by June the proffered
reward had grown to the extravagant sum of 5,000 ducats, with a yearly
revenue of 1,000 ducats in addition, and liberty to recall four exiles.
In return for so much munificence it is expected that Count Francesco
“shall by your industry be despatched before the end of October.” But in
August an extension of leave was granted until December. Then the
messages became frequent; and it is easy to divine that the noble person
who is to despatch the Count is none other than Innocentio Cotta, a man
of one of the great Guelf houses of Milan, who, despite his blue blood,
was the most ardent champion of popular rights, and who is familiar to
the readers of Corio’s history as the head and front of that little
group of _nobili audacissimi_, who in 1459, unbroken by famine and long
misery, spurred the people of Milan on to resist the arms of Sforza, and
plundered the party of the Ghibellines for money to furnish troops to
defend the city. The success of Count Francesco had added ruin to the
chagrin and hatred of this man, and one of the conditions that Cotta
demanded of the Venetians was that he should regain _quelle forteze,
terre e possessioni mie chio goldeva al tempo de la felice memoria del
duca passato_. To this man, even as to the Council, it appeared that the
death of Count Francesco could only be useful and fertile in good
(_practica non potest esse nisi utilis et fructuosa, quum ex ea nullum
damnum sequi potest_), and with the sentiments less of an assassin than
of a lofty classic tyrannicide—a character ever dear to the
Italians—Innocentio Cotta received, in his Brescian exile, the little
round and perfumed pellets of poison.
Footnote 82:
See the documents in Lamansky, “Secrets d’Etat de Venise,” 161, 14,
&c.
No less than eighteen times between the August of 1448 and the December
of 1453 did the Venetian Council instigate their assistant to the deed.
Poisons were despatched to him and apparently administered. But the
venom of the Venetians was more odious than fatal. Their poisons,
sublimated from an irrational medley of volatile substances, had no
regular chemical action, and the receipts of them which remain exhibit
an incoherent confusion of mercury, sal-volatile, copperas, cantharides,
burned yeast, salts of nitre and arsenic, from which, after the endless
simmerings and powderings of their preparation, the most deadly
qualities had evaporated, and which left (according to the analysis of
Professor Boutlerow) a comparatively harmless combination of ammoniacal
chlorides.
The sedative prescription made no perceptible effect upon the iron
constitution of the _soi-disant_ Duke of Milan. He probably remained in
total ignorance of the poison so frequently administered in the unbroken
Venice glasses; but he could not remain equally unaware of the distaste
and suspicion which environed him, and he grew to desire some superior
show of legality. The troops and bread, with which he had convinced the
Milanese, were admirable agents, but they could not do everything.
Francesco Sforza had six young sons, and in his heart there increased
that invincible longing to found a dynasty which has overcome so many
conquerors. Somewhere in the Archives, he began to think, in some
unfound testament or neglected codicil, there must be surely some
mention of his wife, the late Duke’s only child. With possession already
in its favour, the slightest mention in the old Duke’s will would serve
to legalize the dynasty of Sforza. But nowhere in will or codicil was
there any last reversion in favour of Madonna Bianca. The searchers only
brought to light the testament of Giangaleazzo, which bequeathed Milan,
failing direct male heirs, to the sons of his daughter Valentine.
Still, if Francesco Sforza could not legalize his own succession, he
could at least secure himself against the raising of better-founded
claims. On February 19, 1452,[83] Count Francesco wrote to Andriano
Oliari of Pavia (the Oliari were a family of notaries to whom for
generations the Archives of Milan were entrusted) commanding him to come
at once to Milan and to bring with him to the palace the original will
of Giangaleazzo Visconti,
“for [he explained], because of certain matters
which fall out at present, it is necessary that we see
the testament made by the illustrious quondam duke
the first.... Thou must come to-morrow, Sunday,
the twentieth of the present month, here, to our
presence, and bring with thee the said original will....
And we advise thee, that for the viewing of the
said will we will deal with thee according as thou
wouldst.”
Oliari and his father before him had been servants of the legal Dukes.
Something in the tone of Sforza’s letter, its awkward mingling of the
menace and the bribe, gave pause to the faithful notary. He had no mind
to render up so sacred a deposit to the tender mercies of this blunt old
soldier, who signed himself “Cichus” (Frank), and who was wholly without
the dignity of the legitimate tyrants. Oliari wrote back and said that
he believed a copy of the original will would be found to answer every
purpose.
Footnote 83:
Ghinzone, in the “Archivio Storico Lombardo,” Anno ix, Fasc. 2, 1882,
quotes the original documents from the Milanese Archives, Reg. Miss.
N. 12, foglio 40. The letters are all of the greatest interest.
The so-called Duke of Milan was irate, and despatched a curt letter to
the suspicious and insubordinate lawyer, and by the same messenger he
sent a line to the Castellan of Pavia, informing him that Oliari had not
come, and bidding him despatch the notary at once, _cum dicto testamento
et non cum la copia_. But neither the Duke nor the constable of the
castle could induce Oliari to go back from his decision. “I really
cannot come,” he replied to Sforza on February 24th, “for I have neither
money nor horses.” Now Pavia is not so long a journey from Milan, but
that, to serve a sovereign, a man might borrow his neighbour’s hackney.
The same day, the 24th, the Duke replied in anger, both to Oliari and to
the castellan, that he could not conceive why it should be so difficult
to come at the said testament. “And forasmuch as you hold dear our
favour, and under pain of rebellion, you must be here with us to-morrow
with the said will, for if you dost not come we will make you repent
it.” Oliari dared not hold out against so ominous a command. He made in
secret five copies of the precious document, and then we may suppose
that he took the original to Sforza, for no more letters require it from
his custody. Thus the original will of Giangaleazzo Visconti was
destroyed.
But while Sforza was stooping to a crime in order to protect himself
against the rivalry of Orleans, as a fact that pretender was less
dangerous than he had been before. However good his claim might be, his
inefficiency was a terrible counterpoise. When,[85] at the new year of
1454, Alfonso the Magnanimous wrote to Venice requesting the government
to continue their relations with Orleans, the Venetians replied that
Orleans was too far off and too unready. They were as desirous as
Arragon to get rid of the usurper. A month before they strove to enlist
Arragon in favour of their novel candidate, they had written to
Savoy,[84] asking Duke Louis to join with them in requesting the Dauphin
of France to invade Italy and suppress Francesco Sforza. They proposed
that the Dauphin should conquer the Ticinese and Piacenza for himself,
and the Duchy of Milan for the Duke of Orleans. In case the Duke was not
minded to go to this expense and danger for a cousin’s sake, the
Venetians let it be understood that any French prince would be agreeable
to them upon the throne of Milan.
Footnote 84:
Reg. 20, fol. 1. Secreta del Senato, MS. January 3, 1454.
Footnote 85:
Reg. 19, fol. 232. Secreta del Senato, MS. December 11, 1453.
V.
The House of Orleans had no more dangerous enemy than the royal house of
France. Matters had greatly changed since, immediately after the
liberation of Orleans, Charles VII. had seconded his claim to the
Milanese. The reduction to insignificance of the great feudal houses in
general, and particularly the reduction of Orleans, was now the policy
of the French crown; and at that moment the policy of the already
inscrutable Dauphin appears to have been the conquest of a kingdom which
should comprise the Dauphiny, the Ticinese, Asti, the Piacentine angle
of the Emilia, and the entire stretch of Liguria. To the restless
contriver of a plan so bold the claims of Sforza and of Orleans came
equally amiss; and, in secret, the chief enemy of either credulous
pretender was the Dauphin.
Sforza, however, had little to fear from Orleans, and less from the
French. In fact, in King Charles he found at this difficult period his
ablest friend. The records of the Archives of Milan, from the year 1452
until the death of King Charles, abound in friendly letters, and are
evidence of the cordial relations existing not only between the Duke of
Milan and the King of France, but between the House of Sforza and the
royal Governor of Asti. In 1459 the King besought Francesco to ask the
hand of the little Princess Marie d’Orléans for his only son; but we may
presume that Orleans would not consent to so much recognition of the
usurper, for the negotiation came to nothing. Yet with the Court of
France Francesco continued on terms of affectionate friendship and
mutual respect.
In 1453 the Dauphin still had designs on Italy, and offered to the
Venetian Signory his aid in Italy to combat Count Francesco.[86] It was
arranged that he should come with from eight to ten thousand men,
dispossess Sforza, and conquer for himself a Duchy of Milan to extend
from Adda to Ticino, from Padua beyond Piacenza. Or, if the King and the
Dauphin would guarantee the army, Venice professed herself willing to
aid the Duke of Orleans in the same undertaking. But while these princes
were arranging their future conquests, a spirit stronger than they was
making these conquests impossible—a spirit which, a score of years ago,
had begun to draw together Scotland and England, those ancient enemies,
to the alarm of France; a spirit which had estranged Burgundy and
Brittany from their English companions in so many battles, and which was
leading them to the feet of the long-despised and outraged King of
France; a spirit which now should reconcile Venice with Sforza, Florence
with Milan, and make, for a brief moment of millennium, those immemorial
foes at peace together; a spirit which awoke in these middle years of
the fifteenth century—aroused Heaven knows whence or how—and strangely
changed the world it breathed across: I have named the spirit of
Nationality.
Footnote 86:
“Secreta,” tome (_sic_ Reg?) xix. fol. 211, under date August 31,
1453, quoted M. Étienne Charavay in his “Rapport sur les Lettres de
Louis XI. conservées dans les Archives d’Italie.” The following
documents from the Venetian Archives—as yet, I believe,
unpublished—form the natural sequel to this interesting letter:
“Senato” I., Reg. 19, fol. 232, under date December 11, 1453.—The
Venetians send Venier to ask Savoy to join with them in requesting the
Dauphin to invade Italy: “Venier must ascertain the views of the Duke
of Savoy as to Sforza, since King René comes into Italy. Let him
clearly understand that Sforza is a most ambitious man, and that if he
continue to prosper as he does he will certainly turn his thoughts
towards Savoy. Venice not only intends to secure her own estate, but
for the sake of her friends and allies will as much and as resolutely
as possible repress the said Count Francesco Sforza, who may become
the Common Enemy. And to this end Venice has determined to request the
aid of France, and among others the aid of the Dauphin, asking the
said Dauphin for the common good to invade Italy with a force of from
8,000 to 10,000 men. And we of Venice entreat Savoy to send a suitable
ambassador along with ours to persuade the said Dauphin to this
undertaking. And our intention is to grant the said Dauphin a suitable
subvention in money and whatsoever he may conquer from Adda to Ticino,
and from Padua to Piacenza, except the domains of Savoy and
Montferrat.... Let Venier then discover how many men and of what sort
and when Savoy could supply to the field.... And if my Lord Dauphin
stand out for the consent of his father, you shall offer on our part
to implore it and procure it for him. And if he wish you to go to the
King you shall go, and, as best you can, procure his consent.... And
if the said King or Dauphin say to you this undertaking regards the
Duke of Orleans, say it is true that on the death of Filippo Maria he
sent to us notifying his claims (and fain would we see a prince of the
house of France on the throne of Milan!), and saying he expected
supplies from France, and we assured him of our delight and pleasure;
and if indeed the King or the Dauphin, at your instance, will supply
the said Lord Duke with an army of from viii. thousand to x. thousand
men, we will aid and assist him upon the same terms and conditions as
my Lord the Dauphin. And go then to the Duke of Orleans and persuade
him to the enterprize.”
Reg. 20, fol. 26, July 23, 1454.—This document concerns a League meant
to secure Italian peace by means of an offensive and defensive
alliance, against all breakers of the peace, to be made between
Venice, Milan, Florence, and Naples. Florence desires an exception in
favour of the house of France. At this Milan, much alarmed, desires
Venice by a secret and separate agreement to sign the First Clause at
least with him. Venice sends ambassadors to Florence and to Milan,
pointing out that the First Clause is absolutely necessary, since,
without it, there is no reason why the King of Arragon should enter
the League. Indeed if an exception be made in favour of France, it
will only and justly irritate him, and thus the alliance would bring
rather discord than peace into the Peninsula. No specific mention need
be made of the house of France, to which Venice entertains the most
friendly feelings. But if the First Clause were signed and Arragon
induced to enter the League Italy might look forward to many years of
peace and tranquillity.
Reg. 20, fol. 103, October 8, 1456.—The Marquis of Varese, ambassador
to the Duke of Milan, informs the Venetians that the Doge of
Genoa—notwithstanding his open alliance with France and apparent
subjection to her—has made a second and secret alliance with Arragon
and Milan, in which Venice is prayed to join, against the French. The
Venetians reply that, owing to the mutability and diversity of Genoese
affairs, it is impossible to give any solid advice.
Reg. 21, fol. 21, October 10, 1465.—The descendants of Valentine
Visconti—_i.e._, the Dukes of Orleans and Brittany and the Count of
Angoulême—sent secret ambassadors to Venice to treat concerning the
recovery of the Duchy of Milan from the hands of Count Francesco
Sforza. Venice replies with compliments, but expresses herself
desirous to keep the peace.
Reg. 22, fol. 176, July 28, 1466.—French ambassadors have been
received at Venice from Louis XI., King of France. Venice assures him
of her excellent disposition towards the new Duke of Milan as well as
of her “antiqua benivolentia” towards his father. Venice believes a
resumption of the Italian League is not at that moment necessary,
extols King Louis for his intention to proceed against the Turk, and
congratulates him on the quiet of his realm.
The Latin originals of these documents will be included in the volume
of “Pièces Justificatives,” for my History of the French in Italy,
1378-1530.
At Christmas-time in 1453 the Venetians spared neither pains nor prayers
nor promise to induce the Dauphin to come and suppress Count Francesco
Sforza. In April of the next year[89] they sent to tell him, as
delicately as possible, that they had no further need of his services (a
refined way of informing him that they would oppose him), since they had
made peace with the man whom four months ago they had called the Common
Enemy of his countrymen, and whom they had so many times endeavoured to
assassinate. And probably the Dauphin was not sorry. For the spirit that
animated these Italians inspired him also. Already it had touched his
intelligent and sensitive spirit. Already, in 1447,[88] he had laughed
for joy when the French lost Genoa, and had declared “le Roy se
gouvernoit si mal qu’on ne pouvoit pis.” In the five years between 1445
and 1450 the Dauphin had passed from the friendship of Orleans to the
friendship of Burgundy, and his ideal had changed. He raged to see the
King prefer Italy to the north, and amuse himself with taking Genoa and
securing Asti when he should have set to conquering Normandy. He said
aloud that the true place for such a King as that was in such a
Hermitage as the Duke of Savoy’s. He plotted to seize the government of
affairs himself, and leave the King, in prosperous desuetude, to amuse
himself with his Belle Agnès and his pleasures. As we know, the plot
fell through, and the impatient Dauphin, a discomfited fugitive, was
himself the one to seek a hermitage at the Court of Burgundy. There he
spent five years of chafing exile and mortification while his father
ruled France, not unsuccessfully, after his own fashion, pursuing
shadows indeed in Italy, yet at home administering affairs and inventing
a regular army with no less zeal and skill for this extraneous ambition.
Louis was still at the Court of Philip of Burgundy when, in 1461, he
heard the news of his father’s death. And the prince who, of all others,
should do most for the reintegration of his country ascended the throne
of France.[87]
Footnote 87:
Reg. 20, fol. 17, April 26, 1454.—“Ordre à Francesco Veniero de
prévenir le dauphin, avec tous les ménagements possible, qu’ils ont
faiz la paix avec Francesco Sforza et qu’ils n’ont plus besoin de ses
services” (Charavay, _loc. cit._).
Footnote 88:
Quoted by the Marquis de Beaucourt, iv. p. 244, from the “Procès de
Mariette.”
Footnote 89:
“Procès de Mariette” in the Preuves de Matthieu d’Escouchy, p. 290.
See Marquis de Beaucourt, “Histoire de Charles VII.,” pp. 207 _et
seq._
As we know, the law of historic necessity required that the Dauphin
should renounce his ambition of a North Italian state—he had, in fact,
already renounced it; that he should abandon his early visions and his
early friends, and adopt for his counsellors the very men who once had
ruined him. Henceforth he must bend the whole strength of his spirit to
the furthering of that policy which he had so long, and at so great a
sacrifice, resisted and attempted to destroy. The interests of the time
required that France should forego all ambitions foreign to herself in
order to consolidate herself; that she should sacrifice the south in
order to insure the north; that she should also sacrifice the
aristocracy to the people; and Louis XI., who, as a prince, had paid so
dear for his adherence to the rights of the nobles, became the monarch
who more than any other was governed by men of low and base
condition—who more than any other oppressed and resisted the pride of
feudalism. Those who had been his friends became his enemies; those
likewise who had been his enemies became his friends. Francesco Sforza,
from whom he had been so eager to take his duchy, became the one man
alive whom he admired and respected. Yes, this successful captain of
adventure, who for years had prevented him in Milan, in Naples, and in
Genoa, who once had been the chief stumbling-block in the path of the
Dauphin, became the corner-stone of the policy of the King. Like
Catherine de’ Medici, like Rodrigo Borgia, like most unscrupulous
rulers, there was something oddly magnanimous in the moral indifference
of Louis IX. Sforza never suffered for his enmity of yore. The new King
of France was a being as destitute of rancour as devoid of gratitude.
With Savoy, Orleans, Dunois, and Anjou the new king was ill-disposed to
treat. He had learned the secret of their intrigues and their ambitions.
On May 10, 1463, he wrote to Sforza that he was content to come to an
understanding with Milan, if Milan would utterly disavow Savoy. This
conspirator, versed since boyhood in all the dismal ins and outs of
treachery, was too well aware of the tricks of his confederates.[90] It
still might be possible that his enemies were honest. They at least were
the only people he could trust; and more than any other he confided in
Francesco Sforza. In December, 1463, he made to the _de facto_ Duke of
Milan the significant cession of the French claim to Genoa.[91] He also
arranged for the cession of Savona. Negotiations were even begun for
yielding Asti to Francesco Sforza; but the inhabitants declared that
they would stand by the house of Orleans.
Footnote 90:
March 14, 1451, Amédée of Savoy had promised to assist the Dauphin
against all, “even against the King of France” (Charavay, _l. c._ p.
34). This had a different aspect after Louis’ coronation.
Footnote 91:
Dumont, iii. ccxxviii.
At first the cousins of the King could not believe that he had actually
abandoned them—he who had begun his career as the pupil of Dunois, and
had suffered so long as the champion of the nobles. So late as October
10, 1465, the descendants of Valentine Visconti sent a very secret
embassy to Venice[92] to propose to the Ten a league between their
government and the Duke of Orleans, the Count of Angoulême, and the Duke
of Brittany, for the purpose of ousting the usurper, Count Francesco,
and delivering the Duchy of Milan to Charles of Orleans. This league,
which could not be confirmed by the Pope, a political adversary, might,
it was suggested, be headed by the King of France. Probably the
Venetians were better informed as to the real intentions of Louis XI.
Certainly they knew that it was too late or too early to dream of
dislodging the Sforzas from Milan. They replied that they loved the
house of France, but that peace also was dear to them: they begged to be
excused from attacking Count Francesco.
Footnote 92:
Secreta del Senato, MS. Reg. 21, folio 21.
After this for many years the house of Orleans ceased to struggle.
Before the year was out Charles of Orleans was dead, and the French
pretender to the crown of Milan was only an infant, three years old.
Before the child was six Dunois was also dead. Dunois—who had not
suffered the children of his adoptive mother to be cheated of their
inheritance in Asti—would, had he lived, have instructed his nephew in
the details of his claim to Milan. But Louis II. of Orleans, born in his
father’s seventy-second year, was naturally doomed to lose in infancy
his father’s contemporaries. As the child grew up every link was severed
that might have bound him to the past, and he knew little or nothing of
the pretensions of his house. His mother, who had a romantic worship for
the memory of Valentine Visconti, related to her son many a legend of
the quasi-royal power which during the last century his ancestors
possessed. But that supremacy seemed at an end for ever. In France, in
Italy, the star of Orleans suffered a long eclipse. By his own
experience in rebellion Louis XI. was aware how dangerous to the Crown
and how disastrous to the kingdom was the power of the great feudal
houses. Alençon and Armagnac and many another he diminished by
confiscation and captivity; Dunois, Bourbon, Saint-Vallier, Sancerre, he
attached to the Crown by royal marriages. Kinship in subjection,
independence in imprisonment: these were the two alternatives presented
by the King to the nobles of France. Among the most unfortunate of those
who accepted the former gift was the young Louis d’Orléans. Louis XI.
had decided that with this young man the house of Orleans should end;
and when its representative was eleven years of age, the King married
him to Jeanne of France, a gentle girl, deformed, incapable of
offspring, and so ugly that when she was brought to court for her
wedding the king himself exclaimed: _Je ne la croyais pas si laide_. To
this bride the young duke was married in 1473. “They will have no
expense with a nursery,” wrote the malicious King to Dammartin: _ils
n’auraient guères à besoigner et nourrir les enfans qui viendraient du
dit mariage: mais toutefois se feroit-il_.
Meanwhile the six sons of Sforza had grown to manhood; and the eldest
ruled in Milan, accepted, by the mere fact of his unchallenged
succession, as the lawful inheritor of his father’s duchy.
VI.
When Louis II. of Orleans had reached the age of twenty he was the best
archer, the most dexterous horseman, the most adroit and brilliant
man-at-arms about the Court of France. He was handsome, fond of the
arts, and well instructed. He had an engaging manner, gentle, gracious,
and benign. A brave and eager cavalier, he was ready for adventures; but
a strong hand kept him down, a hand whose cruel restraint was never
lifted from that audacious brow. Suddenly the pressure ceased: the hand
was gone; on August 30, 1483, King Louis died.