THE RETREAT OF THE INVINCIBLE ARMY

 

At last, the Imperial army assembled on the frontiers of the Milanese, to the amount of forty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, while that of France encamped near Vercelli in Piedmont, being greatly inferior in number, and weakened by the departure of a body of Swiss, whom Charles artfully persuaded the popish cantons to recall, that they might not serve against the duke of Savoy, their ancient ally. The French general not daring to risk a battle, retired as soon as the Imperialists advanced.

The emperor put himself at the head of his forces [May 6], which the marquis del Guasto, the duke of Alva, and Ferdinand de Gonzago commanded under him, though the supreme direction of the whole was committed to Antonio de Leyva, whose abilities and experience justly entitled him to that distinction. Charles soon discovered his intention not to confine his operations to the recovery of Piedmont and Savoy, but to push forward and invade the southern provinces of France. This scheme he had long meditated, and had long been taking measures for executing it with such vigor as might ensure success. He had remitted large sums to his sister, the governess of the Low-Countries, and to his brother, the king of the Romans, instructing them to levy all the forces in their power, in order to form two separate bodies, the one to enter France on the side of Picardy, the other on the side of Champagne; while he, with the main army, fell upon the opposite frontier of the kingdom. Trusting to these vast preparations, he thought it impossible that Francis could resist so many unexpected attacks on such different quarters; and began his enterprise with such confidence of its happy issue, that he desired Jovius the historian, to make a large provision of paper sufficient to record the victories which he was going to obtain.

His ministers and generals, instead of entertaining the same sanguine hopes, represented to him in the strongest terms the danger of leading his troops so far from his own territories, to such a distance from his magazines, and into provinces which did not yield sufficient subsistence for their own inhabitants. They entreated him to consider the inexhaustible resources of France in maintaining a defensive war, and the active zeal with which a gallant nobility would serve a prince whom they loved, in repelling the enemies of their country; they recalled to his remembrance the fatal miscarriage of Bourbon and Pescara, when they ventured upon the same enterprise under circumstances which seemed as certainly to promise success; the marquis del Guasto in particular fell on his knees, and conjured him to abandon the undertaking as desperate.

But many circumstances combined in leading Charles to disregard all their remonstrances. He could seldom be brought, on any occasion, to depart from a resolution which he had once taken; he was too apt to underrate and despise the talents of his rival the king of France, because they differed so widely from his own; he was blinded by the presumption which accompanies prosperity; and relied, perhaps, in some degree, on the prophecies which predicted the increase of his own grandeur. He not only adhered obstinately to his own plan, but determined to advance towards France without waiting for the reduction of any part of Piedmont, except such towns as were absolutely necessary for preserving his communication with the Milanese.

The marquis de Saluces, to whom Francis had entrusted the command of a small body of troops left for the defence of Piedmont, rendered this more easy than Charles had any reason to expect. That nobleman, educated in the court of France, distinguished by continual marks of the king's favor, and honored so lately with a charge of such importance, suddenly, and without any provocation or pretext of disgust revolted from his benefactor. His motives to this treacherous action were as childish as the deed itself was base. Being strongly possessed with a superstitious faith in divination and astrology, he believed with full assurance, that the fatal period of the French nation was at hand; that on its ruins the emperor would establish a universal monarchy; that therefore he ought to follow the dictates of prudence, in attaching himself to his rising fortune, and could incur no blame for deserting a prince whom Heaven had devoted to destruction. His treason became still more odious, by his employing that very authority, with which Francis had invested him, in order to open the kingdom to his enemies. Whatever measures were proposed or undertaken by the officers under his command for the defence of their conquests, he rejected or defeated. Whatever properly belonged to himself, as commander in chief, to provide or perform for that purpose, he totally neglected. In this manner, he rendered towns even of the greatest consequence, untenable, by leaving them destitute either of provisions, ammunition, artillery, or a sufficient garrison; and the Imperialists must have reduced Piedmont in as short a time as was necessary to march through it, if Montpezat, the governor of Fossano, had not, by an extraordinary effort of courage and military conduct, detained them almost a month before that inconsiderable place.

By this meritorious and seasonable service, he gained his master sufficient time for assembling his forces, and for concerting a system of defence against a danger which he now saw to be inevitable. Francis fixed on the only proper and effectual plan for defeating the invasion of a powerful enemy; and his prudence in choosing this plan, as well as his perseverance in executing it, deserve the greater praise, as it was equally contrary to his own natural temper, and to the genius of the French nation. He determined to remain altogether upon the defensive; never to hazard a battle, or even a great skirmish without certainty of success; to fortify his camps in a regular manner; to throw garrisons only into towns of great strength; to deprive the enemy of subsistence, by laying waste the country before them; and to save the whole kingdom, by sacrificing one of its provinces. The execution of this plan he committed entirely to the marechal Montmorency, who was the author of it; a man wonderfully fitted by nature for such a trust, haughty, severe, confident in his own abilities, and despising those of other men; incapable of being diverted from any resolution by remonstrances or entreaties; and, in prosecuting any scheme, regardless alike of love or of pity.

Montmorency made choice of a strong camp, under the walls of Avignon, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Durance, one of which plentifully supplied his troops with all necessaries from the inland provinces, and the other covered his camp on that side where it was most probable the enemy would approach. He labored with unwearied industry to render the fortifications of this camp impregnable, and assembled there a considerable army, though greatly inferior to that of the enemy; while the king with another body of troops encamped at Valence higher up the Rhone. Marseilles and Arles were the only towns he thought it necessary to defend; the former, in order to retain the command of the sea; the latter, as the barrier of the province of Languedoc; and each of these he furnished with numerous garrisons of his best troops, commanded by officers on whose fidelity and valor he could rely. The inhabitants of the other towns, as well as of the open country, were compelled to abandon their houses, and were conducted to the mountains, or to the camp at Avignon, or to the inland provinces. The fortifications of such places as might have afforded shelter or defence to the enemy, were thrown down. Corn, forage, and provisions of every kind, were carried away or destroyed; all the mills and ovens were ruined, and the wells filled up or rendered useless. The devastation extended from the Alps to Marseilles, and from the sea to the confines of Dauphiné; nor does history afford any instance among civilized nations, in which this cruel expedient for the public safety was employed with the same rigor.

At length, the emperor arrived with the van of his army on the frontiers of Provence, and was still so possessed with confidence of success, that during a few days when he was obliged to halt until the rest of his troops came up, he began to divide his future conquests among his officers; and, as a new incitement to serve him with zeal, gave them liberal promises of offices, lands, and honors in France. The face of desolation, however, which presented itself to him, when he entered the country, began to damp his hopes, and convinced him that a monarch, who, in order to distress an enemy, had voluntarily ruined one of his richest provinces, would defend the rest with desperate obstinacy. Nor was it long before he became sensible that Francis’s plan of defence was as prudent as it appeared to be extraordinary. His fleet, on which Charles chiefly depended for subsistence, was prevented for some time by contrary winds, and other accidents to which naval operations are subject, from approaching the French coast; even after its arrival, it afforded at best a precarious and scanty supply to such a numerous body of troops; nothing was to be found in the country itself for their support; nor could they draw any considerable aid from the dominions of the duke of Savoy, exhausted already by maintaining two great armies. The emperor was no less embarrassed how to employ, than how to subsist his forces; for though he was now in possession of almost an entire province, he could not be said to have the command of it, while he held only defenseless towns; and while the French, besides their camp, at Avignon, continued masters of Marseilles and Arles. At first he thought of attacking their camp, and of terminating the war by one decisive blow; but skilful officers who were appointed to view it, declared the attempt to be utterly impracticable. He then gave orders to invest Marseilles and Arles, hoping that the French would quit their advantageous post in order to relieve them; but Montmorency adhering firmly to his plan, remained immoveable at Avignon, and the Imperialists met with such a warm reception from the garrisons of both towns, that they relinquished their enterprises with loss and disgrace. As a last effort, the emperor advanced once more towards Avignon, though with an army harassed by the perpetual incursions of small parties of the French light troops, weakened by diseases, and dispirited by disasters, which seemed the more intolerable, because they were unexpected.

During these operations, Montmorency found himself exposed to greater danger from his own troops than from the enemy; and their inconsiderate valor went near to have precipitated the kingdom into those calamities which he with such industry and caution had endeavored to avoid. Unaccustomed to behold an enemy ravaging their country almost without control; impatient of such long inaction; unacquainted with the slow and remote, but certain effects of Montmorency’s system of defence; the French wished for a battle with no less ardor than the Imperialists. They considered the conduct of their general as a disgrace to their country, his caution they imputed to timidity; his circumspection to want of spirit; and the constancy with which he pursued his plan, to obstinacy or pride. These reflections, whispered at first among the soldiers and subalterns, were adopted, by degrees, by officers of high rank; and as many of them envied Montmorency’s favor with the king, and more were dissatisfied with his harsh disgusting manner, the discontent soon became great in his camp, which was filled with general murmurings, and almost open complaints against his measures.

Montmorency, on whom the sentiments of his own troops made as little impression as the insults of the enemy, adhered steadily to his system; though, in order to reconcile the army to his maxims, no less contrary to the genius of the nation, than to the ideas of war among undisciplined troops, he assumed an unusual affability in his deportment, and often explained, with great condescension, the motives of his conduct, the advantages which had already resulted from it, and the certain success with which it would be attended.

At last, Francis joined his army at Avignon, which, having received several reinforcements, he now considered as of strength sufficient to face the enemy. As he had pit no small constraint upon himself, in consenting that his troops should remain so long upon the defensive, it can hardly be doubted but that his fondness for what was daring and splendid, added to the impatience both of officers and Soldiers, would at last have overruled Montmorency’s salutary caution.

Happily the retreat of the enemy delivered the kingdom from the danger which any rash resolution might have occasioned. The emperor, after spending two inglorious months in Provence, without having performed anything suitable to his vast preparations, or that could justify the confidence with which he had boasted of his own power, found that besides Antonio de Leyva, and other officers of distinction, he had lost one half of his troops by diseases or by famine; and that the rest were in no condition to struggle any longer with calamities, by which so many of their companions had perished. Necessity, therefore, extorted from him orders to retire; and though he was some time in motion before the French suspected his intention, a body of light troops, assisted by crowds of peasants, eager to be revenged on those who had brought such desolation on their country, hung upon the rear of the Imperialists, and by seizing every favorable opportunity of attacking them, threw them often into confusion. The road by which they fled, for they pursued their march with such disorder and precipitation that it scarcely deserves the name of a retreat, was strewed with arms or baggage, which in their hurry and trepidation they had abandoned, and covered with the sick, the wounded, and the dead; insomuch that Martin Bellay, an eye-witness of their calamities, endeavors to give his readers some idea of them, by comparing their miseries to those which the Jews suffered from the victorious and destructive arms of the Romans. If Montmorency, at this critical moment, had advanced with all his forces, nothing could have saved the whole Imperial army from utter ruin. But that general, by standing so long and so obstinately on the defensive, had become cautious to excess; his mind, tenacious of any bent it had once taken, could not assume a contrary one as suddenly as the change of circumstances required; and he still continued to repeat his favorite maxims, that it was more prudent to allow the lion to escape than to drive him to despair, and that a bridge of gold should be made for a retreating enemy.

The emperor having conducted the shattered remains of his troops to the frontiers of Milan, and appointed the Marquis del Guasto to succeed Leyva in the government of that duchy, set out for Genoa. As he could not bear to expose himself to the scorn of the Italians, after such a sad reverse of fortune; and did not choose, under his present circumstances, to revisit those cities through which he had so lately passed in triumph for one conquest, and in certain expectation of another, he embarked directly for Spain [November].

Nor was the progress of his arms on the opposite frontier of France such as to alleviate, in any degree, the losses which he had sustained in Provence. Bellay, by his address and intrigues, had prevailed on so many of the German princes to withdraw the contingent of troops which they had furnished to the king of the Romans, that he was obliged to lay aside all thoughts of his intended irruption into Champagne. Though a powerful army levied in the Low-Countries entered Picardy, which they found but feebly guarded, while the strength of the kingdom was drawn towards the south; yet the nobility, taking arms with their usual alacrity, supplied by their spirit the defects of the king’s preparations, and defended Peronne, and other towns which were attacked, with such vigour, as obliged the enemy to retire, without making any conquest of importance.

Thus Francis, by the prudence of his own measures, and by the union and valor of his subjects, rendered abortive those vast efforts in which his rival had almost exhausted his whole force. As this humbled the emperor’s arrogance no less than it checked his power, he was mortified more sensibly on this occasion than on any other, during the course of the long contests between him and the French monarch. One circumstance alone embittered the joy with which the success of the campaign inspired Francis. That was the death of the dauphin, his eldest son, a prince of great hopes, and extremely beloved by the people on account of his resemblance to his father. This happening suddenly, was imputed to poison, not only by the vulgar, fond of ascribing the death of illustrious personages to extraordinary causes, but by the king and his ministers. The count de Montecuculi, an Italian nobleman, cupbearer to the dauphin, being seized on suspicion, and put to the torture, openly charged the Imperial generals, Gonzaga and Leyva, with having instigated him to the commission of that crime; he even threw out some indirect and obscure accusations against the emperor himself. At a time when all France was exasperated to the utmost against Charles, this uncertain and extorted charge was considered as an incontestable proof of guilt; while the confidence with which both he and his officers asserted their own innocence, together with the indignation, as well as horror, which they expressed on their being supposed capable of such a detestable action, were little attended to, and less regarded.

It is evident, however, that the emperor could have no inducement to perpetrate such a crime, as Francis was still in the vigor of life himself, and had two sons, besides the dauphin, grown up almost to the age of manhood. That single consideration, without mentioning the emperor’s general character, unblemished by the imputation of any deed resembling this in atrocity, is more than sufficient to counterbalance the weight of a dubious testimony uttered during the anguish of torture. According to the most unprejudiced historians, the dauphin’s death was occasioned by his having drunk too freely of cold water after overheating himself at tennis; and this account, as it is the most simple, is likewise the most credible. But if his days were cut short by poison, it is not improbable that the emperor conjectured rightly, when he affirmed that it had been administered by the direction of Catharine of Medici, in order to secure the crown to the duke of Orleans, her husband. The advantages resulting to her by the dauphin’s death were obvious as well as great; nor did her boundless and daring ambition ever recoil from any action necessary towards attaining the objects which she had in view.

 

1537. THE MADNESS OF THE FRENCH KING