be found in the “Livre des faicts du Marischal Boucicaut,” part iii.
chap. 10. I give them and I believe in them, because in every instance
I have found the documents of Archives to confirm or explain the
assertions of this particular chronicle; because the articles breathe
the very spirit of Boucicaut; and because I think it is to this
agreement that the Florentines refer in the letter quoted further on
(Spoglio del Carteggio i. ii. fo. 221), under date 15th of August,
1406. The act by which the Florentines constitute themselves vassals
of France for Pisa is well known. It is printed in Dumont.
4. That the ratification of King and Council shall be asked for this
agreement.
The Florentines agreed, and messengers were despatched to France, where
there was great joy in Council at thus receiving two Signories for one.
The King confirmed the agreement (it is said) by letters-patent, which
were sent to Genoa and Florence. The Ten paid certain sums (as we learn
from a later letter), to Gabriel’ Maria, and other moneys to Boucicaut;
and then in earnest the Florentines resumed the siege of Pisa.
Famine fought with them and pestilence; yet valiant Pisa proved
irreductible. Month after month sped on in fruitless heroism, and a year
after the resumption of the siege the Florentines were still
indefatigably attacking, the Pisans heroically defending. Then the
beleaguered city sent by privy ways a messenger to Ladislas, King of
Naples, offering herself to him if he would defend her. The King
promised, but did nothing.
After a month or so the Pisans smuggled out a second messenger, this
time to France, who offered the city to the Duke of Burgundy on the same
terms. Mindful of the agreement of last year which assigned Pisa to
Florence, Burgundy hesitated; and, perceiving his perplexity, the Pisan
envoys “qui assez sçavoient le tour de leur baston,” addressed
themselves to certain of the Councillors of Orleans, and promised the
city to him; whereupon the said Councillors induced Orleans and
Burgundy, enemies as they were, to go hand in hand to the poor
bewildered King and beseech him to grant them leave to accept the homage
of Pisa. Charles, doubtless, was not quite in his right mind. The deed
granting Pisa to Burgundy and Orleans[124] is signed “For the King” by
the Count of Tancarville and other princes. An ancient dependence upon
Burgundy, a blind affection for Orleans (“rien n’eut refusé à son
frère”), united with his perplexed and feeble memory, to obliterate the
treaty of last year. The King forgot his new vassals, forgot the Pope,
the schemes of Boucicaut, the money that had been paid him by the
Florentines on account of the agreement. He granted Pisa to Burgundy and
Orleans, who wrote to the Florentines that they must raise the siege at
once, and sent to Boucicaut bidding him assist the Pisans.
Footnote 124:
“Arch. Nat.”, Paris, Carton K. 55, No. 11, prèce 8; July 27, 1406:
”Charles par la Grâce de Dieu Roy de France, à nos amés et féaulx gens
de nos comptes et trésoriers à Paris et à tous nos aultres justiciers
et officiers ou à leur lieutenant, Salut et dilectation!
“Savoir vous faisons que nos très-chers et très-amés frère et cousin
les Ducs d’Orléans et de Bourgoigne, nous ont au jour dit fait foy et
hommaige lige des ville terre et Seigneurie de Pise et de toutes
terres appartenans et appendans quelconque, à eulx appartenir
communément. Auquel hommaige nous les avons reçus sauf notre droit et
l’autrui. Vous mandons, et à chacuns de vous sicomme à luy
appartiendra que, pour cause du dit hommaige à nous faict, vous ne
faictes ou souffrey nos ditz frère et cousin ne aulcun d’eulx estre
molestez, troublez ou empeschez ès dictes ville terre el seigneurie de
Pise ni es terres appartenans et appendans en aucune manière. Mais si
pour la dicte cause elles estoient empeschées mettez les leur ou
faictes mettre a plaine delivrance. Donné a Paris le 26 jour de
Juillet, 1406, et de nostre regne 26. Pour le Roy, le Comte de
Tancarville et aultres princes.”
The previous difficulties of Boucicaut had been as nothing compared to
this dilemma. How could he refuse his service to the King, his lord and
suzerain? How, on the other hand, could he break his plighted word? The
vassal and the man of honour struggled together in his breast; and from
that long and cruel duel the man of honour emerged triumphant. So
Boucicaut refused to desert his Florentine allies, refused to assist the
Royal fief of Pisa.
As the Florentines pressed closer and closer round the beleaguered city,
the Pisans for the third time contrived to smuggle out a messenger who
was to make his way as best he could to Asti (the city of Orleans), and
thence to France to beseech the King to send a messenger and
reinforcements.[125] But the Pisan envoy was discovered in the
Florentine camp, and Capponi, the General, drowned him in the sea.
Footnote 125:
Corio.
So that when the news of his interception came to Paris, it was too late
for aught but indignation. “The Florentine merchants had to suffer for
it,” says Corio; and Desjardins (in his introduction to the Tuscan
Statipassers), expresses his astonishment at the obstacles laid in the
way of Florentine trade by Marshal Boucicaut that year. For human nature
is not consistent, and though Boucicaut had indignantly refused to
desert his allies of Florence, none the less he was wrath at their
success, which meant the injury of France.
For on the 10th of October, 1406,[126] a Florentine army marched into
Pisa, garrisoned the citadels, established their government, and marched
back with many hostages to Florence. Pisa was honourably lost to
France.[127] Pisa was lost, and great was the sting and smart of it.
Railing and bitter names flung at Boucicaut, detention of the Florentine
Ambassadors by Orleans,[128] wrath of the King himself, were each and
all wholly unavailing. Florence was the King’s ally and too great a
power to be rashly assailed; and Florence was firm in Pisa.
Footnote 126:
“Filza xxii. della Signoria”: see f^o. 283, Spoglio del Carteggio,
October 10, 1406, a Florentine army enters Pisa: “La città di Pisa si
rende al comune di Firenze: l’esercito vi entra vittorioso nel di
senza commettere alcune violenza e prende il possesso di tutte le
Fortezze.” On the 14th of October a certain number of Pisans were sent
as hostages into Florence; arms of offence and defence were taken from
all the Pisans. On the 12th of November a further number of hostages
to the amount of one hundred of the Pisan citizens, “dei più atti alle
fazioni,” were ordered to be sent into Florence. Civil order was
established under the government of a Magistrate and eight Priors.
Footnote 127:
“Spoglio del Carteggio,” i. ii., f^o. 221 (Filza xx. della Signoria),
15th of August, 1406: “Lettera della Signoria responsiva a quella del
Re di Francia in commendazione dei Pisani ai quali si annunciava di
aver’ data un Signore. _Si lamenta la Signoria di questa procedere
dopo che l’acquisto di quella città fatto della Signoria per compta
era stato confermato del Re con figlio e già erano state pagate
diverse somme a Gabriel’ Maria Visconti e a Giovanni Le Meingre_
(Boucicaut) _Luogotenente Generale della Corona e Governatone di
Genova_.” A replica of this is sent to Orleans, Burgundy, and Berry.
Footnote 128:
There are a number of documents concerning this detention of the
Florentine Ambassadors to be found: “Signori Cart. Miss.” Reg. 1.
Cancelleria 27, f^o. 26 _et seq._, in the Florence Archives, under
dates 10th of May, 3rd of June, 25th of June, 11th of July. The
letters are too long to publish here, see also “Spoglio del
Carteggio,” f^o. 286, for summary of an embassy sent by the Signory to
the King of France, Orleans, and Burgundy, in justification of the
purchase of Pisa and the siege. The Ambassadors “erano stati spogliati
e ritenuti dal Duca d’Orliens, per el che, seguito l’acquisto della
detta città, si spedisce ivi Bonaccorso Pitti.” Pitti was to join
Alberto degli Albizzi already in France, and, going by Avignon, they
were to interview the Antipope, to treat of the union of the Church,
to expound to him the policy of the Republic, and to obtain from him
commendatory letters to the Court at France. But the Antipope was a
less formidable ally than in the days of Clement.
It is curious to observe that the Signory instruct their ambassadors,
if they cannot obtain from the King the liberation of the imprisoned
Ambassadors, to appeal finally to the Parliament. This is assuming
that the Parliament was stronger than the King or even than Orleans—a
piece of trans-Alpine provincialism.
Had Orleans lived, he might indeed have undertaken an expedition into
Italy. But in the middle of his disappointment he was murdered as we
know. Messer Gabriel’ Maria went to Milan, where he lived half a
captive,[129] half a traitor for some while; and then took refuge again
in Genoa. But in the year 1409 being detected by Boucicaut in a plot of
singular treachery against the French, he was ruthlessly beheaded. Three
years later, in 1412, after Gabriele’s death that plot succeeded.
Boucicaut and the French were expelled from Genoa; and the wars of
Burgundy and Armagnac, the woes of Agincourt and the long invasion of
the English, for thirty years diverted the French from their endeavours
to colonize beyond the Alps.
Footnote 129:
“Archives of Florence: Spoglio del Carteggio universale della
Repubblica Fiorentina dell’ anno, 1401-1426,” tome 2, f^o. 273:
“Ricuse la Signoria di pagare la rata dovuta a Gabriel’ Maria
Visconti, non essendo egli in sua libertà, ma in poter’ del Duca di
Milano, che serbava convertire il denaro in suo servigio.” _Vide_
“Filza II de’ Dieci,” f^o. 170. June, 1406.
II.
The Florentine conquest was the beginning of ninety years of slavery for
Pisa—a terrible slavery, heavy with exaggerated imports, bitter with the
tolerated plunder of private Florentines, humiliating with continual
espionage. Ruin fell upon the lovely city; and as the waters of the sea
crept slowly back over the reclaimed Maremma, they sapped the
foundations of her fairest palaces. Malaria and decay went hand in hand
along the streets; though round the ruined town, the only whole thing
there, the strong forts of Florence, proclaimed the wealth and power of
the oppressor. It was not that the Florentines were avaricious; they
spent abundantly and lavishly on fortifications and garrisons for their
soldiers; on a university in Pisa for their sons; and they paid the most
imaginative of living Florentine painters to put his frescoes on the
walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. But they spent their money in the
Master’s way, declaring and sustaining the glory of Florence rather than
alleviating the miseries of Pisa. And the Pisans themselves were unable
either to supply the omissions of Florence, or to direct and advise a
more efficient expenditure. They had descended into a nation of poor
artizans, for all their ancient trades were now forbidden to them.
Florence had secured the first place for her own manufactures, by
absolutely prohibiting the wool-weaving, silk-spinning, ship-building,
in which the Pisans had for so many centuries excelled. Moreover no
Pisan might barter merchandise by land or sea. Restricted to the
commonest handicrafts, they lost the resource of wealth; deprived of
public office, denied the most ordinary civil rights, they sank into a
mute and long-enduring slavery, secretly nourishing a spark of flame in
their rebellious hearts.
Pisa was the Ireland of Florence, captive and yet unvanquished. Ever
ready to revolt, never for an hour forgetful of her antique superiority.
By means of the many exiles that Florence expelled from home, she kept
continually in touch with the enemies of Florence. Men expelled for
private crimes—the meanest of the Pisans—turned patriots in exile and
dedicated the best of their souls to the service of an unhappy country.
The Florentines, prosperous and successful, were divided among
themselves into half-a-dozen different factions; and patriotism for them
meant largely a pious self-satisfaction dashed with party principles.
But the magic of an unfortunate glory, the pathos that hangs over the
place of one’s birth when it has once been great and is fallen into
ruin—this personal and omnipotent sentiment inspired every rank and
every kind of Pisan. There was none of them that would have shrunk from
any heroism, or (as it seemed to the Florentines) from any treachery, in
order to reinstate his country in her ancient grandeur.
It was with Venice and with Milan that the Pisans held especial
practice. It mattered little to them that at heart these two powers were
deadly enemies; that ever since the death of Filippo Maria Visconti the
Venetians had been plotting with Orleans to destroy the house of Sforza;
that Lodovico il Moro left no chance unchallenged to limit the
pretensions of his Adriatic rival. The Pisans were of neither party;
their one political tenet was hatred of their conquerors, and (as a
little later they declared) of the two, they preferred the Devil to the
Florentines.
Such patience as theirs, ceaselessly labouring underground, never
wearied, militant but not aggressive, does not fail to meet an
opportunity. At last a favourable chance was offered to the Pisans. The
King of France who in 1483 had disregarded the invitation of the
Venetians, accepted, ten years later, the persuasions of Lodovico of
Milan; and in the autumn of 1494, the armies of Charles VIII. poured
into Italy.
It had been the custom of the Florentines, in times of war and danger,
to call the heads of every Pisan household into Florence, as hostages
for the good behaviour of their families and fellow citizens.
But in the autumn of 1494, Piero de’ Medici who forgot everything, who
had forgotten to garrison his frontier, forgot to call the Pisan
hostages to Florence, although the French were steadily advancing on
Tuscany and the Pisans eager to rebel. Every Pisan household was intact
at home on that memorable 30th of October when, in the snowy camp of the
French outside Sarzana, Piero de’ Medici handed to the King of France
the keys of the Tuscan fortresses. It was of course provided that
Charles should restore the cities to the Florentines on his return from
Naples: but many things might happen in those troublous times that would
outweigh the value of an oath. In the advent of King Charles, the Pisans
found the opportunity, so long, so patiently, so ardently desired; and
the French army and the hope of liberty entered the unhappy city hand in
hand.
III.
It was the 8th of November, and a Sunday evening towards sunset, when
the army of Charles VIII. arrived in Pisa. The slanting rays of the
autumn sun lit up a brilliant spectacle, bathed in the soft aërial
richness of the miraculously warm St. Martin’s summer which, in 1494,
succeeded to the rigours of the earlier months. Tired with their march
across the wintry Apennines, the foreign soldiers found in Pisa a city
full of friends. Tables were laid in the streets where all might sup on
wine and meat and enjoy the hospitality of the city. Under foot the
branches of pine and boughs of autumn roses exhaled their fresh aroma;
and the ruined walls of the cracked and damp-stained palaces were hidden
by the great squares of pale-crimson silk, gold brocade, and Turkey
carpets that were hung from every window.
Along these altered streets, embellished for the festival, a train of
priests, in stole and chasuble, carrying their holiest relics, went out
to meet the King. But this, the arranged and official feature of his
reception, faded, on the event, into absolute unimportance. All took
place at first as had been designed. The great motley travel-stained
crowd of the French army came trampling down the boughs of pine and
roses; the priests met the soldiers; and finally the King came riding on
his great black horse, Savoy, under the blue-silk canopy sustained by
the nobles of Pisa: but when the people caught sight of this little
young man, with the large head, bright eyes, thin legs, high shoulders,
and quaint amiable air of elfin ugliness, then they forgot the dignity
of an official reception. This was the King of France! This was the
all-potent power which, at different moments of history had stretched
its invited and benevolent ægis over Asti, Genoa, Savona, nay, even over
Naples and haughty Florence, to shelter them from the cruelty of a
tyrannic neighbour. But instead of the dread magnificent symbolic
monarch they had expected to behold, lo, a benevolent, rather grotesque
little youth, with the most shining and enthusiastic eyes, a kind ugly
face, engaging rather timid manners, and a total lack of that anti-human
splendour which these enslaved republicans had expected in a king. A
great wave of love, of anticipated gratitude swept through the hearts of
all these people: he was, he must be, their hero, their deliverer. It
was with tears of passion streaming down their cheeks that men, women,
even little children, rushed into the ranks of the astonished soldiery,
seeing round each weather-beaten face the shimmer of an aureole,
pressing, hurrying, thronging towards the King—crying all together in
their sobbing voices “Libertate, Libertate!” while such as could master
a word or two of French, stammered in their soft lisping Pisan accent,
an appeal in the language of his distant country: “Liberté, liberté,
cher Sire!” There was no affectation in this outburst of enthusiasm,
nay, almost of idolatry. Any man who was stronger than Florence was a
possible hero to the Pisans. The great motley army of Charles proved his
force, and in the rugged amiable faces of master and of men the Pisans
recognized the faculty of sympathy.
The Pisans had been to some extent prepared to find this virtue in the
French by the correspondence of the Pisan exiles with Lodovico of Milan,
whose trump-card was to secure if possible the liberation of Pisa by the
French, and then, after their return to France, to offer himself as
protector to the abandoned city. This plan was so well-contrived that,
if only the first impulse were given, the machine must go on of itself;
for the Pisans would certainly accept their liberty, if the French could
be moved to grant it them; and, equally certainly, the French, after
their return to France, could not afford to hold Pisa against not only
Florence, but Milan, Venice, Genoa, and Lucca, who would none of them
submit to hand a Mediterranean port to Charles. Lodovico was convinced
that the Pisans would prefer the untried yoke of Milan to the hated
bonds of Florence. The great thing was to give the first impulse.
To this end the Duke of Milan, when he had quitted the French camp the
previous Tuesday, had left behind him Galeazzo di San Severino, the
brilliant young husband of his natural daughter. Galeazzo had
instructions to do his utmost in every way to induce the French to
protect the Pisans in a rebellion against Florence. He did not waste so
excellent an opportunity. No sooner were Charles and his nobles in the
Medici palace and the uncouth French soldiers housed like sons and
brothers in the homes of Pisa, than the adroit young San Severinesco
called a private council of the chief Pisan nobles. He advised them, as
a son of Milan, and as a friend and well-wisher of their own, to throw
themselves at once and utterly upon the generosity of France. This was a
tempting counsel; yet there were some, and among them the warlike Giulio
della Rovere, Cardinal of Saint Peter ad Vincula, that were for
patience. “What shall we do when France has left the city?” they asked
of one another. “Milan will protect you!” cried Messer Galeazzo, with a
burst of inspiring confidence.
The Pisans hesitated only for a moment. From Venice or from Milan they
had always hoped to gain their liberty at last, or at the least a change
of masters. France, backed by Milan, seemed the most desirable
deliverer: the ancient suzerain of the city supported by its latest
friend. It was difficult at that moment to imagine a stronger
conjunction in Italy; for in 1494 Charles was spoken of as the second
Charlemagne, and no one ventured to set a bound to the triumphs of
Lodovico of Milan. “All that he desires,” the Venetian secretary was
writing almost at this very time, “all that he desires, Fortune has
conceded him, and all his plans come true.” For France and Milan to
protect Pisa against the rest of Italy in 1494, was as if Russia and a
stronger Servia to-day were to join their forces to secure Bulgaria
against the anger of the other Balkan States.
Venice for a brief moment had sunk into the shade. She, who had
manœuvred so deeply to unseat Arragon and Sforza by the help of France,
beheld, to her immense chagrin, Charles VIII. following her own
suggestions as to the enterprise of Naples with Lodovico Sforza as his
mentor and ally. Milan had taken the place of Venice in the French
Council; Milan, which the French should have conquered as their earliest
prey. “It is extraordinary how that man succeeds,” wrote Marin Sanuto.
“Yet it may chance that he outwit himself at last. Please God, he come
to a good end! But I for one do not believe it!”
At Pisa Lodovico registered a new success. It was in vain that Vincula
(for the first time in his life, says Guicciardini, the author of quiet
counsels) represented to the assembled nobles the danger of the step.
They were beside themselves with the hope of liberty; and indeed, all
the French agree in telling us that their condition was truly desperate.
“Piteous, and lamentable,” says Desrey, and Commines, a staunch
Florentine in principle, allows that they were handled as cruelly as
slaves. To men in such a plight, and counselled by a person so important
as San Severino, no risk appears too great to run that leaves a chance
for liberty.
And so that very night the Pisans, still in their gala-dresses, but with
torn hair, faces of mourning, clasped hands and streaming eyes, thronged
into the council-chamber of the astonished King. “It was lamentable,”
writes an eye-witness, “to hear them tell the wrongs and grievances they
endured.” It was as if, in the middle of their gala, one of them, with a
significant irony, had raised the corner of the pale silk gala-hangings
and had revealed the mouldering stone, the unsightly ruin underneath. As
the Pisans exposed the real degradation of their slavery, the facile
rash humanity of the French was touched to tears; and when Messer Simone
Orlandi (an accomplished gentleman who could express himself in French)
had finished his recital, it was not only the Pisans who, pale with
indignation and with pity, turned to the King of France on the throne
seated of Medici, and cried out to him, “Liberté, liberté, cher Sire!”
At this point an accomplished Legist, a Counsellor of the Parliament in
Dauphiné, named Ribot, who also was a Master of Requests at Court,
turned to the King and said: it was indeed a lamentable case, and that
never, for sure, were any other men so hardly used as these. The King
himself—touched to the heart, as were all these frank and simple
Frenchmen, by the unsuspected misery beneath the gold brocades of this
fantastic Italy, and not quite understanding (as Commines suggests) what
it was the Pisans meant by this word Liberty—answered vaguely that he
would be content they should enjoy it. This at least is the mild version
of Commines, who was absent in Venice at the time; but Pierre Desrey,
actually present at the scene, puts a stronger warrant in the mouth of
Charles: “Il les assura de les conserver dans leurs franchises.”