Henri II: His Court and Times (5 page)

A few words concerning Bourbon and the reasons which
induced him to betray his sovereign and his country may not
be without interest.

Charles de Bourbon-Montpensier, head of the younger
branch of the House of Bourbon, was, thanks to his marriage
with his cousin, Suzanne de Bourbon, heiress of the elder
branch of that family,
¹¹
the most powerful feudal prince in
France, and until the birth of sons to François I had been
heir presumptive to the throne. Never had there been a more
magnificent noble; in all Europe no one could vie with him
in splendour or generosity. At the supper which followed the
King's coronation he appeared wearing a robe of gold cloth,
with a train twelve ells long lined with ermine, and a velvet
cap sparkling with precious stones, which were said to be
worth a hundred thousand crowns. When, in 1517, he entertained François at Moulins, where he kept almost regal state,
the King was served at the banqueting-table by five hundred
gentlemen in velvet costumes, each wearing a gold chain
passed three times round his neck.

But Bourbon had other titles to respect besides his wealth
and magnificence. He was one of the most renowned soldiers
of his time, who had greatly distinguished himself in the
Italian wars of Louis XII, and had had no inconsiderable share
in the victory of Marignano; a just man in the highest sense
of the word, ruling his people and his soldiers with equal
firmness and gentleness, while, in a licentious age, his private
life seems to have been comparatively pure. Unfortunately, he
was also ambitious, imperious, and overweeningly proud, and
this, combined with his immense power and popularity, ended
by arousing the resentment of François I, who, though he
had created Bourbon Constable of France on his accession to
the throne, soon began to treat him with marked coldness.

The King's attitude appears to have been largely due to the
malevolent insinuations of Louise of Savoy, who, notwithstanding that she was fourteen years the Constable's senior,
had conceived for him a violent passion, and had never
forgiven his contemptuous rejection of her advances. Any
way, when war broke out in 1521, although Bourbon had
raised at his own expense a force of 800 men-at-arms and
6,000 foot, François would not trust him with any command,
and in the Flemish campaign even refused him the right to
lead the vanguard, on the pretext that he wished to keep him
near his own person. This affront deeply wounded the pride
of Bourbon; but it proved to be but an earnest of what was
in store for him. Towards the close of the year his wife died,
and her death was soon followed by that of his three sons and
his mother-in-law, Madame de Bourbon, his staunchest supporter
at the Court. Thereupon Louise of Savoy claimed her
cousin Suzanne's inheritance, alleging that the marriage-contract,
which had assured the inheritance of the Bourbon
possessions to the survivor, was null and void; while the
Attorney-General, Lizet, asserted that the duchies of Auvergne
and the Bourbonnais, with the county of Clermont, reverted
to the Crown by inalienable right. At the same time, it was
suggested to the Constable that all conflicting interests might
easily be reconciled by his consenting to marry the King's
mother; but he repulsed the proposal with scorn, declaring
that "never would he wed a shameless woman." These words
were reported to Louise, who, beside herself with indignation,
determined to leave no stone unturned to compass his ruin,
and, thanks to the machinations of Du Prat, in August 1523,
the
Parlement
of Paris sequestrated all Bourbon's estates, and
referred the case to the King's Council, whose decision was, of
course, a foregone conclusion.

The shameful persecution to which he was subjected had
already proved too great a strain on the Constable's loyalty
and patriotism, and since the previous autumn he had been in
communication with the agents of Charles V. The Emperor
hoped much from Bourbon's defection, and, though the latter's
terms were high, he resolved to accede to them; and in the
spring of 1523 a secret treaty for the dismemberment of
France was concluded between the Constable, Charles, and
Henry VIII, by which it was agreed that, in the event of
success, an independent kingdom should be given to Bourbon,
composed of Aries, Dauphiné, and Provence, with his former
possessions of Auvergne and the Bourbonnais, and the hand
of the Emperor's eldest sister Eleanor, Queen-Dowager of
Portugal;
¹²
while
the Emperor received as his share of the
spoil Burgundy, Champagne, and Picardy, and Henry VIII
the old English inheritance in the south and west.

Had Bourbon issued his challenge to his ungrateful
sovereign from his own dominions, it might have awakened
a response which would have torn the sceptre from François's
grasp, for the whole country was seething with discontent
under the intolerable burdens laid upon it for a war in which
neither noble, citizen, nor peasant had any interest. But
he delayed too long; his plans were discovered, and he
was obliged to fly for his life to Italy, where he arrived
with but a scanty following, and accepted a command in
the Imperial Army of Italy under Lannoy, Viceroy of
Naples.
¹³

Although Bourbon's conspiracy had failed, the uneasiness
which it aroused, joined to a combined invasion of the
English and Imperialists, who advanced to within eleven
leagues of Paris, prevented François from again leading the
French across the Alps, as he had intended. He remained at
Lyons, and entrusted the command of the invading army to
Bonnivet, who owed his appointment to the solace for
Bourbon's disdain which he had brought to Louise of Savoy's
wounded heart. Less successful in the field than in the boudoir,
he proved no match for the ex-Constable and the Imperialist
generals Lannoy and Pescara,
¹⁴
and in the spring of 1524,
weakened by the desertion of the Swiss, who declared that
François's failure to send the reinforcement of cavalry which
he had promised
¹⁵
freed
them from their engagements, he
was driven back across the Sesia. His retreat has been
rendered memorable by the death of the celebrated Bayard —
"
le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche
" — which occurred on
April 30.

The Imperialists pressed the French hard, and the latter
only escaped destruction through the gallantry with which
Bayard, who commanded the rear-guard, covered the retreat.
He saved the army, however, at the cost of his own life, for,
after seeing many of his officers fall around him, he himself was
struck by
"une pierre d'arquebuse,"
which passed through his
body and shattered his spine. When he felt himself wounded,
he exclaimed,
"Jésus!
" and then observed,
"Hélas, mon Dieu,
je suis mort!"
He kissed the hilt of his sword, which was
in the form of a cross, and requested those about him to assist
him from his horse and lay him at the foot of a tree, with his
face turned towards the enemy; and then begged them to leave
him and seek their own safety. A few moments later, Bourbon,
who was hotly pursuing the French, in the hope of making
Louise's minion, Bonnivet, a prisoner, galloped up, and expressed
his pity at seeing him in this extremity. "Monsieur," replied
the dying hero, "there is no need to pity me, for I die a man
of honour. But I pity you, to see you in arms against your
prince, your country, and your oath!" Bourbon rode away
without replying; but Pescara, who came up soon afterwards,
directed that everything possible should be done to alleviate
the wounded man's sufferings, declaring that he would have
willingly shed "the half of his blood" to have taken him
unhurt; while his officers crowded round "with great mourning
and lamentation," for Bayard had made war with humanity
and courtesy, and they esteemed him almost as much as did
the French. All their care, however, was, of course, unavailing,
and in a little while the "flower of all chivalry" breathed
his last. His magnanimous foes caused his body to be transported to
Dauphiné; and from the foot of the Alps to Grenoble
it was escorted by immense crowds. There it was laid to rest
in his family vault in the Convent of the Minims; and "all
fêtes, dances, banquets, and pastimes ceased for a month in
the province."
¹⁶

After the death of Bayard the army continued its retreat and
re-entered Dauphiné by the Lower Valais; the last French
garrisons of Lombardy capitulated, and not a rod of Italian soil
remained to François I.

The peninsula once cleared of the French, the Pope
¹⁷
and the other Italian members of the coalition wished to make
peace with France and to secure the withdrawal of the Spanish
and German troops, who exercised over the provinces which
they had "delivered" a domination even more insolent and
oppressive than the soldiers of François. But the Emperor
desired to remain master of Italy and to follow up his successes against France; and when Clement appealed to Henry
VIII to use his influence on behalf of a general pacification,
Wolsey, who was naturally inclined to look coldly upon
overtures coming from his successful rival for the tiara, and
wished to reserve to himself the honour of regulating the
destiny of Europe, caused the proposal to be rejected.
¹⁸

The Pope, the Venetians, and the Tuscan republics then
withdrew from the league and announced their intention of
observing a strict neutrality; but the other members renewed
their offensive alliance against France, and at the beginning
of July an army of some 18,000 men, under the command of
Bourbon, advanced rapidly along the Corniche road, crossed
the Var, and entered Provence.

This sudden invasion was totally unexpected by François,
who was quite unprepared to meet it. Bourbon, aware of
this, had conceived the bold plan of marching straight upon
Lyons, by way of Provence and Dauphiné, in the belief that,
if he penetrated to the heart of the kingdom, the discontented
nobles, particularly those of his own former dominions, would
hasten to rally round him. There was undoubtedly much to
be said for this course, though the ex-Constable perhaps over-estimated the strength of the rebellious faction. However,
Charles V had other views. He was set upon the capture of
Marseilles — the half-way house between Genoa and Barcelona
— which would convert the Gulf of Lions into a Spanish lake
and definitely transfer the sea-power on the Mediterranean
from France to Spain;
¹⁹
and Pescara, who had been associated
with Bourbon, and the Spanish officers refused their consent
to his project, and insisted on his undertaking the conquest
of Provence.

With the exception of Aix, whose defence was protracted
for over a month, most of the Provençal towns opened their
gates after scarcely a show of resistance, and on August 19
the Imperialists laid siege to Marseilles. The ramparts were
ill-fitted to withstand artillery; the inhabitants, in common
with all the Provençals, bore no very high reputation for
courage;
²⁰
and
Bourbon declared that "three cannon-shots
would so astonish the good citizens that they would come
with halters round their necks to bring him the keys of their
town." His calculations were grievously at fault, for the
"good citizens" of Marseilles offered an heroic resistance,
²¹
and when a breach had been made in the ramparts, threw
up with astonishing rapidity a formidable earthwork, which
was called
"le rempart des dames,"
since all the women in the
town had assisted in its construction. A Spanish squadron
which was blockading the port was defeated by the French
fleet under the famous naval
condottiere
Andrea Doria, then
in the service of France, who was thus able to throw provisions
into Marseilles; while the investing army, whose supplies
reached them with difficulty, suffered severe privations.
Finally, towards the end of September, the inactivity of the
Emperor and Henry VIII — the one through lack of means,
the other through lack of will — for Wolsey was already
negotiating with France — enabled François to assemble at
Avignon a formidable army for the relief of the town, upon
which the Imperialists raised the siege and retreated into Italy.

Emboldened by the retirement of the enemy, François
determined to make another descent into the Milanese and
revenge in person the reverses of Lautrec and Bonnivet and
the invasion to which his realm had just been exposed, by the
splendour of a conquest which he believed to be certain, and
which he intended should be permanent. His most experienced
generals, who had begun to entertain an almost superstitious
dread of Italy, and to regard it as a tomb in which
successive French armies were destined to be swallowed up,
²²
endeavoured to dissuade him from undertaking a campaign so
late in the year. But he would hear of no delay, and, early in
October, having nominated his mother Regent, at the head of
40,000 men, who included the flower of the French nobility,
he marched rapidly through Dauphiné and over Mont-Genèvre
into Italy, with the intention of cutting off the retreating
Imperialists from Lombardy.

In this he all but succeeded; indeed, he entered Milan by
the western gate as Bourbon and Pescara retired through the
eastern and fell back on Lodi. Here Pescara entrenched
himself in a strong position, in order to defend the line of the
Adda; while Bourbon hastened into Germany to raise a force
of mercenaries. Pescara's troops were worn out with sickness
and privation; they had received no pay for months, and were
utterly discouraged; and if François had attacked the disorganised
army before Bourbon could return, he would
probably have broken it up beyond all hope of rally. Instead
of doing so, however, he laid siege to Pavia, which blocked
the road from Milan southwards, and into which Pescara in
his retreat had thrown a force of some 6,000 men, under
Antonio de Leyva, a brave and capable officer. The King's
decision has been severely condemned by French historians;
but, as Mr. Armstrong points out in his admirable monograph
on Charles V, it was not unreasonable. "The garrison," he
says, "was mainly German, and was thought unlikely to hold
out without its pay; the occupation of Pavia would exercise
pressure on Florence and the Papacy, for Clement VII, at the
first sign of Imperial failure, had begun to veer towards
France; Pavia would serve as a base for an advance on
Naples; after all, sooner or later, it must be besieged, for its
powerful garrison could not be left in the rear of a force with
a long line of communications stretching from Naples back to
Milan."