Victories of Gaston de Foix, the Thun derbolt of Italy. Battle of The French armies in Italy were under the command of Gaston de Foix, nephew of Louis XII. and brother-in-law of Ferdinand of Spain -a young nobleman of remarkable talents, whose short and brilliant career astonished Europe and acquired for him the title of the Thunderbolt of Italy. By a swift and determined movement he threw his army into Bologna, which the allies were then besieging. The forces of the Holy League at once fled; and Gaston de Foix strongly guarded Bologna and then rapidly marched into Lombardy, where he ascertained that two cities had driven away their French garrisons or taken them captive. He defeated the Venetians near Isola della Scala before dawn by the light which the stars reflected from the snow. He took Brescia by storm and gave the city up to plunder and massacre. Bergamo escaped a similar fate by prompt submission and the payment of a ransom. The King of France now ordered his victorious commander to fight Ravenna. one decisive battle, and, if victorious, to march upon Rome, depose Pope Julius II. and dictate terms of peace. In executing this plan, Gaston de Foix marched toward Ravenna, driving the allied army before him. The great battle of Ravenna, which was fought April 11, 1512, has been described as "one of those tremendous days into which human folly and wickedness compress the whole devastation of a famine or a plague." 'Victory and Death of Gaston de Foix. French Triumph and Ex from The French general, who claimed the Kingdom of Navarre, and who considered the King of Spain his personal enemy and rival, bared his left arm so that he might bathe it in Spanish blood. The artillery of the Duke of Ferrara, from one end of the crescent-shaped line of the French army, kept up a destructive cross-fire, mowing down entire ranks of the Spanish and papal troops. The French were victorious in the cavalry charge which followed; but the serried ranks of the Swiss, bristling with the points of their long lances, like a Macedonian phalanx, had to sustain a harder struggle with the short swords and the Roman drill of the Spanish infantry. The Swiss columns were only rescued from destruction by the French cavalry, led by the gallant Gaston de Foix himself, who won the victory by the sacrifice of his life. On receiving the fatal tidings, Louis XII. exclaimed: "Would to God that I had lost all Italy, and that Gaston were safe!" In the midst of the panic of the allies all Romagna fell into the power of the victorious French. Rome trembled, and the iron-hearted pulsion Pope Julius II. was ready to accept the French king's conditions of peace. But in a few weeks the entire situation was changed. The French soldiery were dispirited by the death of their gallant commander. The German lancers were withdrawn, and the Duke of Ferrara negotiated a separate peace with the Pope. The council which Italy. convened at Rome three weeks after the battle of Ravenna opposed the terms of peace offered by France. Pope Julius II., the Emperor Maximilian I. and the Swiss Republic united in making Maximilian Sforza, Ludovico's son, Duke of Milan. The French forces, under La Palisse, fled before the allies to Pavia, and thence, after a sanguinary battle, into their own country. At the close of June, 1512, only three towns and three fortresses in Italy remained in the French king's possession. But, after the expulsion of the French from Italy, the Holy League fell to pieces from its own dissensions. Pope Julius II., who was resolved upon enlarging the States of the Church to their former limits, wrested the cities of Parma and Piacenza from the new Duke of Milan, and sent his nephew to occupy the Duchy of Ferrara, while he kept the now pardoned and reconciled Alfonso a prisoner at Rome. The Emperor Maximilian I. sent a German army to prey upon the territories of his new allies, the Venetians; while the Swiss kept possession of the three districts of the Valtelline, Locarno and Chiavenna, and levied forced contributions upon the Milanese and deposed their new duke, Maximilian Sforza. The late allies agreed upon the necessity of chastising Florence for her neutrality during their wars, by bestowing power in the Florentine Republic upon the party which was able to pay the highest price. Cardinal John de Medici had been taken prisoner in the battle of Ravenna, but escaped in the confusion during the French retreat from Milan. He was now sent with a Spanish army to revolutionize Florence and to restore the dominion of his family. This force took the suburban village of Prato and subjected it to a brutal massacre and pillage. The Florentine government, in utter dismay, deposed its chief magistrate, and accepted all the terms of the allies, including the payment of a vast sum of money to the Emperor Maximilian I. and King Ferdinand of Spain, and the restoration of the Medici as private citizens only. Julian de Medici, the youngest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, entered Florence, followed soon afterward by his brother, the cardinal, who, in a packed assembly of the citizens, procured a thorough reversal of the Republic and the establishment of a narrow oligarchy headed by Julian. Upon the death of Pope Julius II., the next year, A. D. 1513, John de Medici was elected Pope by the conclave of cardinals, with the title of Leo X. Leo X. had derived from his illustrious father and the brilliant freethinkers of the New Academy as much regard for pagan mythology as for the Christian religion, but his mind had been improved by travel and the conversation of the greatest and wisest men of his time. He had an excellent taste in art. His court was celebrated for His Italian Policy. Spanish Conquest of the highest elegance and the most profuse magnificence. He had remarkably charming and amiable manners. Leo X. differed from his stern and warlike predecessor in governmental principles as much as in manners. He dissolved the Holy League and made peace with France. He pursued his predecessor's policy of expelling all foreigners from Italy, for the purpose of uniting the entire peninsula under the rule of the Medici. His brother Julian was unfitted by his imbecile character for administering the government of a freedom-loving people, and therefore abdicated in favor of his nephew, Lorenzo II., and accepted the office of Captain-General of the Church, which his brother, the Pope, conferred upon him; and thus Florence became the slave of a despotic master. In the meantime the English army which was to have been transported to the coast of Guienne in Spanish vessels had been landed in Navarre. Spain by the order of King Ferdinand, who sought to enlist the English commander, the Marquis of Dorset, in his own schemes against the Kingdom of Navarre. The English declined to engage in actual hostilities against Navarre; but their presence as allies of Spain so overawed the Navarrese that the Duke of Alva, the Spanish general, was able to conquer the entire Kingdom of Navarre. That little kingdom was annexed to Spain; while its native sovereigns, who still retained their royal titles, only kept possession of the little principality of Bearn, on the north side of the Pyrenees. Coalition against France. French and Loss of Lombardy. In April, 1513, Margaret, regent of the Netherlands, concluded a new treaty at Mechlin between her father the Emperor Maximilian I., Ferdinand of Spain, Henry VIII. of England and Pope Leo X., by which the contracting parties bound themselves to invade France from four different points, while still pursuing their combined hostilities against the French king in Italy. Louis XII. hastened his preparations; and in May, 1513, his generConquest als subdued all of Lombardy, except two towns, by a series of brilliant victories. victories. The Italians, who were by this time equally disgusted with the inefficiency of Maximilian Sforza and the brutality of the Swiss, welcomed the French on every side. But the reaction was as sudden and rapid as the advance. The French were obliged to raise the siege of Novara in consequence of fresh arrivals of Swiss, and were defeated and driven beyond the Alps within a few days. English Victories over the French Scots. The English army under King Henry VIII. arrived at Calais, and was joined by the Emperor Maximilian I. in the siege of Terouenne; but the English victory in the "Battle of the Spurs," in which the French cavalry fled at the first onset, decided the fate of Terouenne, which surrendered and was destroyed, to the dismay of the Parisians. Several weeks after the Battle of the Spurs, September 9, 1513, King James IV. of Scotland, the generous ally of Louis XII. of France, was defeated and slain by an English army under the Earl of Surrey at Flodden Field, in the north-east corner of England. The invasion of Burgundy by German and Swiss troops in the Emperor Maximilian's pay was defeated by bribery. This was the most disgraceful period in the history of the Swiss Republic, when the brave Swiss mountaineers successively sold themselves to the highest bidders, not content with once exchanging their blood for the gold of their purchasers. The eventful year 1513 was signalized by still greater changes. Before it ended, Louis XII. had become reconciled with Pope Leo X., and sought the friendship of the Emperor Maximilian I. and King Ferdinand of Spain, for the purpose of furthering his designs upon Milan. As Anne of Brittany, the consort of Louis XII., died in January, 1514, he became the ally of Maximilian I. by engaging to marry the Emperor's granddaughter, Eleanora of Austria; while his own daughter Renée was affianced to the Archduke Charles, the heir to the sovereignty of Spain and the Netherlands, as the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the Emperor Maximilian I. and the Duchess Mary of Burgundy. This projected alliance of families alarmed Pope Leo X. by its threatened union of Austria, France, Spain and the Netherlands into one vast dominion, which would have inevitably destroyed the newly cherished balance of power in Europe. With the support of two English prelates, the Pope arranged a new marriage-treaty, by which Louis XII. espoused Mary, the sister of Henry VIII. of England. This royal wedding occurred at Abbeville, in October, 1514; but the festivities in honor of the marriage proved fatal to the already failing health of Louis XII., who breathed his last on January 1, 1515. The Princess Claude, the eldest daughter of Louis XII., was already married to Duke Francis of Angoulême, the representative of the younger branch of the House of Orleans. As Louis XII. left no son, this prince at once became King of France with the title of FRANCIS I.; and the duchy of Brittany, or Bretagne, thenceforth remained a part of the Kingdom of France. Swiss Venality Royal Alliances and Intermar riages. Alarm of Pope Leo X. Second Marriage and Death of Louis XII. Francis I. of France, A. D. 1515 1547. SECTION II.-WARS OF EMPEROR CHARLES V. WITH FRANCIS I. OF FRANCE (A. D. 1515-1547). FRANCIS I., the new King of France, was twenty-one years of age, gay, brilliant and equally fond of pleasure and military glory. The cares of government in France fell into the hands of his mother, whom Francis I., of France. His Mother. Chancellor Duprat and Constable de Bourbon. he made Duchess of Angoulême and Anjou. The queen-mother gathered the ladies of the noblest families around her, and under her auspices the French court first became noted for its elegance and extravagant gayety. The penetrating wit of French women, veiling profound art with consummate grace, has ever since exerted a good or evil influence in the affairs of France. The Chancellor Duprat and the Constable de Bourbon-both of whom had been raised to their dignities by the queen-mother's favoracted very conspicuous parts in the history of the reign of Francis I. Pedro Navarro, a famous military engineer, who had long been in the service of King Ferdinand of Spain, having been wronged by that sovereign, entered the armies of France; and from the recruits which Navarro. he raised among the mountaineers of the Cevennes and the Pyrenees he presented Francis I. with the powerful assistance of regiments organized upon the model of the Spanish infantry. Pedro Designs on Milan. French Invasion The new French king at once assumed the title of Duke of Milan, and prepared to prosecute the claims of his dynasty in Northern Italy. A Swiss army guarded the passes of Mont Cenis and Mont Genèvre— the only western Alpine passes considered practicable—and was stationed in the Italian plain near the exits from the valleys. In this emergency the French forces, numbering sixty-four thousand of Italy. men, with seventy-two great and three hundred smaller cannon, performed one of the most remarkable transits mentioned in history. Guided by chamois-hunters, the two great French generals, Trivulzio and Lautrec, with the engineer Navarro, pioneered a more southerly route over the Col d' Argentière. This path, which was scarcely passable by the sure foot and the practiced eye of the mountaineer, was prepared by the skill and genius of Navarro for the transportation of heavy artillery. Bridges were placed across from one dizzy height to another. Masses of solid rock were disposed of by charges of gunpowder. Cannon were swung from peak to peak by means of ropes. The French army suddenly surprised the enemy by appearing on the Lombard plain. French Successes. Battle A small division of cavalry, which had crossed the Alps by another route never before trodden by horses, had in the meantime surprised Prosper Colonna, the Pope's general, at Villa Franca, with seven hundred of his troops. The main army proceeded by way of Turin, the Swiss retiring before them to Milan and Novara; while a detachment marched southward and recovered Genoa and the entire region south of the Po by a bloodless victory. A decisive battle fought at Marignano, about ten miles from Milan, September 14-15, 1515, transferred the Duchy of Milan from Maxirignano. milian Sforza to King Francis I. of France. The Swiss, after being of Ma |