case from a battle, whichever way
it went: if they won the day they would gather the fruits of victory, and
if they lost they would experience nothing of the evils of defeat. This
want of unanimity was the reason why the answer to Commines was deferred
until the following day, and why it was settled that on the next day he
should hold another conference with a plenipotentiary to be appointed in
the course of that night. The place of this conference was to be between
the two armies.

The king passed the night in great uneasiness. All day the weather had
threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly the Taro
could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow onwards
prove an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had only been
asked for with a view to putting the French army in a worse position. As
a fact the night had scarcely come when a terrible storm arose, and so
long as darkness lasted, great rumblings were heard in the Apennines, and
the sky was brilliant with lightning. At break of day, however, it
seemed to be getting a little calmer, though the Taro, only a streamlet
the day before, had become a torrent by this time, and was rapidly
rising. So at six in the morning, the king, ready armed and on
horseback, summoned Commines and bade him make his way to the rendezvous
that the Venetian 'proveditori' had assigned. But scarcely had he
contrived to give the order when loud cries were heard coming from the
extreme right of the French army. The Stradiotes, under cover of the
wood stretching between the two camps, had surprised an outpost, and
first cutting the soldiers' throats, were carrying off their heads in
their usual way at the saddle-bow. A detachment of cavalry was sent in
pursuit; but, like wild animals, they had retreated to their lair in the
woods, and there disappeared.

This unexpected engagement, in all probability arranged beforehand by the
Spanish and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect of a
spark applied to a train of gunpowder. Commines and the Venetian
'proveditori' each tried in vain to arrest the combat an either side.
Light troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual fashion of those
days, prompted only by that personal courage which led them on to danger,
had already come to blows, rushing down into the plain as though it were
an amphitheatre where they might make a fine display of arms. Far a
moment the young king, drawn on b