PART II. surrendered. The two Abruzzi, the Capitanate, all the Basilicate, except Venosa, still held by Louis d'Ars, and indeed every considerable place in the kingdom, had tendered its submission, with the exception of Gaeta. Summoning, therefore, to his aid Andrada, Navarro, and his other officers, the Great Captain resolved to concentrate all his strength on this point, designing to press the siege, and thus exterminate at a blow the feeble remains of the French power in Italy. The enterprise was attended with more difficulty than he had anticipated. 30 Ferdinand's Policy examined. - First Symptoms of Joanna's Insanity. - Isabella's Distress and Fortitude. Efforts of France.-Siege of Salsas. Isabella's Levies. - Ferdinand's Successes. Reflections on the Campaign. XIII. Treaty of THE events noticed in the preceding chapter CHAPTER glided away as rapidly as the flitting phantoms of a dream. Scarcely had Louis the Twelfth re- Lyons. ceived the unwelcome intelligence of Gonsalvo de Cordova's refusal to obey the mandate of the archduke Philip, before he was astounded with the tidings of the victory of Cerignola, the march on Naples, and the surrender of that capital, as well as of the greater part of the kingdom, following one another in breathless succession. It seemed as if the very means, on which the French king had so confidently relied for calming the tempest, had been the signal for awakening all its fury, and bringing it on his devoted head. Mortified and incensed at being made the dupe of what he deemed a perfidious policy, he demanded an explanation of the archduke, who was still in France. The latter, vehemently protesting his own innocence, felt, or affected to feel so sensibly the ridiculous and, as it PART II. appeared, dishonorable part played by him in the transaction, that he was thrown into a severe illness, which confined him to his bed for several days. Without delay, he wrote to the Spanish court in terms of bitter expostulation, urging the immediate ratification of the treaty made pursuant to its orders, and an indemnification to France for its subsequent violation. Such is the account given by the French historians. The Spanish writers, on the other hand, say, that, before the news of Gonsalvo's successes reached Spain, King Ferdinand refused to confirm the treaty sent him by his son-in-law, until it had undergone certain material modifications. If the Spanish monarch hesitated to approve the treaty in the doubtful posture of his affairs, he was little likely to do so, when he had the game entirely in his own hands.* Rejected by He postponed an answer to Philip's application, willing probably to gain time for the Great Captain to strengthen himself firmly in his recent acquisitions. At length, after a considerable interval, he despatched an embassy to France, announcing his final determination never to ratify a treaty made in contempt of his orders, and so clearly detrimental to his interests. He endeavoured, however, to gain further time by spinning out the negotiation, hold Ferdinand. XIII. ing up for this purpose the prospect of an ultimate CHAPTER accommodation, and suggesting the reëstablishment of his kinsman, the unfortunate Frederic, on the Neapolitan throne, as the best means of effecting it. The artifice, however, was too gross even for the credulous Louis; who peremptorily demanded of the ambassadors the instant and absolute ratification of the treaty, and, on their declaring it was beyond their powers, ordered them at once to leave his court. "I had rather," said he, "suffer the loss of a kingdom, which may perhaps be retrieved, than the loss of honor, which never can." A noble sentiment, but falling with no particular grace from the lips of Louis the Twelfth.3 examined. The whole of this blind transaction is stated in His policy so irreconcilable a manner by the historians of the different nations, that it is extremely difficult to draw any thing like a probable narrative out of them. The Spanish writers assert that the public commission of the archduke was controlled by strict private instructions; while the French, on the other hand, are either silent as to the latter, or represent them to have been as broad and unlimited 3 Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. p. 388. Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 13, sec. 3.- Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. p. 300, ed. 1645.-Zurita, Anales, tom. v. lib. 5, cap. 9. It is amusing to see with what industry certain French writers, as Gaillard and Varillas, are perpetually contrasting the bonne foi of Louis XII. with the méchanceté of Ferdinand, whose secret intentions, PART as his credentials. 5 If this be true, the negotiations must be admitted to exhibit, on the part of Ferdinand, as gross an example of political jugglery and falsehood, as ever disgraced the annals of diplomacy." But it is altogether improbable, as I have before remarked, that a monarch so astute and habitually cautious should have intrusted unlimited authority, in so delicate a business, to a person whose discretion, independent of his known partiality for the French monarch, he held so lightly. It is much more likely that he limited, as is often done, the full powers committed to him in public, by private instructions of the most explicit character; and that the archduke was betrayed by his own vanity, and perhaps ambition (for the treaty threw the immediate power into his own hands), into arrangements unwarranted by the tenor of these instructions.7 5 Seyssel, Hist. de Louys XII., 6 Varillas regards Philip's mission to France as a coup de maître on the part of Ferdinand, who thereby rid himself of a dangerous rival at home, likely to contest his succession to Castile on Isabella's death, while he employed that rival in outwitting Louis XII. by a treaty which he meant to disavow. (Politique de Ferdinand, liv. 1, pp. 146 - 150.) The first of these imputations is sufficiently disproved by the fact that Philip quitted Spain in opposition to the pressing remonstrances of the king, queen, and cortes, and to the general disgust of the whole nation, as is repeatedly stated by Gomez, Martyr, and other contemporaries. The second will be difficult to refute and still harder to prove, as it rests on a man's secret intentions, known only to himself. Such are the flimsy cobwebs of which this political dreamer's theories are made. Truly chateaux en Espagne. 7 Martyr, whose copious correspondence furnishes the most valuable commentary, unquestionably, on the proceedings of this reign, is provokingly reserved in regard to this interesting matter. He contents himself with remarking in one of his letters, that "the Spaniards derided Philip's negotiations as of no consequence, and indeed altogether preposterous, considering |