thout
armour save the officers, who wore steel corselets and head-pieces.
These, again, were followed by five thousand Gascon arbalisters, each
shouldering his arbalest--a phalanx of short, rude fellows, not to be
compared with the stately Swiss. Next came the cavalry, advancing in
squadrons, glittering and resplendent in their steel casings; 2,500 of
these were in full heavy armour, wielding iron maces and the ponderous
lances that were usual also in Italy. Every man-at-arms had with him
three horses, mounted by a squire and two valets (four men going to the
lance in France). Some 5,000 of the cavalry were more lightly armed, in
corselets and head-piece only, and they carried long wooden bows in the
English fashion; whilst some were armed with pikes, intended to complete
the work of the heavier cavalry. These were followed by 200 knights--the
very flower of French chivalry for birth and valour--shouldering their
heavy iron maces, their armour covered by purple, gold-embroidered
surcoats. Behind them came 400 mounted archers forming the bodyguard of
the king.

The misshapen monarch himself was the very caricature of a man, hideous
and grotesque as a gargoyle. He was short of stature, spindle-shanked,
rachitic and malformed, and of his face, with its colossal nose, loose
mouth and shallow brow, Giovio says that "it was the ugliest ever seen
on man."

Such was the person of the young king--he was twenty-four years of age
at the time--who poured his legions into Rome, and all full-armed as if
for work of immediate destruction. Seen, as they were, by torchlight
and the blaze of kindled bonfires--for night had fallen long before
the rearguard had entered the city--they looked vague, fantastic, and
terrifying. But the most awe-inspiring sight of all was kept for the
end; it consisted of the thirty-six pieces of artillery which brought
up the rear, each piece upon a carriage swiftly drawn by horses, and
the longest measuring eight feet, weighing six thousand pounds, and
discharging an iron ball as big as a man's head.

The king lay in the Palace of San Marco, where a lodging had been
prepared for him, and thither on the day after his entrance came Cesare
Borgia, with six Cardinals, from the Castle of Sant' Angelo, whither
the Pope had withdrawn, to wait upon his Christian Majesty. Charles
immediately revealed the full and exigent nature of his demands. He
required the Pope's aid and counsel in the conquest of Naples, upon