, and
announced to Ludovico that his nephew was just dead: Ludovico at once
begged Charles to excuse his leaving him to finish the journey alone;
the interests which called him back to Milan were so important, he said,
that he could not under the circumstances stay away a single day longer.
As a fact he had to make sure of succeeding the man he had assassinated.
But Charles VIII continued his road not without some uneasiness. The
sight of the young prince on his deathbed had moved him deeply, for at
the bottom of his heart he was convinced that Ludovico Sforza was his
murderer; and a murderer might very well be a traitor. He was going
forward into an unfamiliar country, with a declared enemy in front of
him and a doubtful friend behind: he was now at the entrance to the
mountains, and as his army had no store of provisions and only lived
from hand to mouth, a forced delay, however short, would mean famine.
In front of him was Fivizzano, nothing, it is true, but a village
surrounded by walls, but beyond Fivizzano lay Sarzano and Pietra Santa,
both of them considered impregnable fortresses; worse than this, they
were coming into a part of the country that was especially unhealthy in
October, had no natural product except oil, and even procured its own
corn from neighbouring provinces; it was plain that a whole army might
perish there in a few days either from scarcity of food or from the
unwholesome air, both of which were more disastrous than the impediments
offered at every step by the nature of the ground. The situation was
grave; but the pride of Piero dei Medici came once more to the rescue of
the fortunes of Charles VIII.
CHAPTER V
PIERO DEI MEDICI had, as we may remember, undertaken to hold the
entrance to Tuscany against the French; when, however, he saw his
enemy coming dawn from the Alps, he felt less confident about his own
strength, and demanded help from the pope; but scarcely had the rumour
of foreign invasion began to spread in the Romagna, than the Colonna
family declared themselves the French king's men, and collecting all
their forces seized Ostia, and there awaited the coming of the French
fleet to offer a passage through Rome. The pope, therefore, instead of
sending troops to Florence, was obliged to recall all his soldiers to be
near the capital; the only promise he made to Piero was that if Bajazet
should send him the troops that he had been asking for, he would
despatch that army for him
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