Failure of the Emperor's invasion of Provence — The new Dauphin joins Montmorency's camp at Avignon — His letter to the Maréchal d'Humières — Singular character of the Grand-Master — The Dauphin saves a quack doctor from being hanged — Arrival of the King in the camp — Retreat of the Emperor from Provence, with the loss of half his army — Warm attachment conceived by the Dauphin for Montmorency — Operations on the northern frontier — Campaign of Henri and Montmorency in Picardy — Truce of Bomy — Despatch of a fresh army to Piedmont — The Dauphin commands the vanguard with the Grand-Master — Affair of the pass of Susa — Barbarous treatment of the garrison of Avigliana — Armistice of Monçon — Conference at Nice — Conclusion of a ten years' truce — Interview at Aigues-Mortes between François I and the Emperor
IN the meanwhile, the invasion of Provence had terminated even more disastrously for the Imperialists than that of 1524. Charles advanced without encountering any serious opposition as far as Aix, which he occupied; but here his success ended. The country round had been so remorselessly devastated as to be incapable of supporting a single division, much less an entire army; the supplies which Andrea Doria's fleet landed at Toulon were repeatedly intercepted by the starving peasantry; the entrenched camp at Avignon, the towns of Marseilles and Aries, the fords of the Rhone, the passes of Dauphiné — all were reported to be impregnable. So he remained at Aix, hoping against hope that the French would offer him battle in the open field, while his army gradually melted away from famine and disease.
Henri, who, in consequence of the untimely death of his elder brother, now bore the title of Dauphin, while the Duc d'Angoulême soon afterwards assumed that of Duc d'Orléans, had accompanied François to Valence. He was, of course, all anxiety to win his spurs, and entreated his father to allow him to join Montmorency at Avignon, but the King, having just lost one son, was naturally reluctant to risk the life of another, and for some time he firmly refused to entertain his request. The young prince, however, returned again and again to the charge, and at length François yielded, giving him, however, the most stringent orders to defer in all things to the counsels of the Grand-Master. Accompanied by a few of his personal attendants, the Dauphin at once set out for Avignon, where he arrived on September 4, Montmorency coming to meet him as far as the Pont de Sorgue.
Henri was delighted with the reception which was accorded him. "My cousin," wrote he to the Maréchal d'Humières, "the Grand-Master has received me in the camp with the highest honours which it was possible for him to pay, and I promise you that I have found a force so united, so fine, so numerous, and animated by so excellent a spirit, that the King may expect great services from it, in view also of the order and good conduct which prevails amongst it, which does my said cousin [Montmorency] marvellous great honour."01
Montmorency certainly deserved credit for the order which he maintained in that heterogeneous army. He had some sixteen thousand Swiss under him, who were not easy people to keep in order, particularly when their pay did not happen to be forthcoming; a large body of landsknechts, who were a good deal worse, and a swarm of "Adventurers," as the French infantry were called, who were the worst of all — "vagabonds, lazy, abandoned, malign, flagitious, steeped in every kind of vice, robbers, murderers, ravishers, blasphemers, deniers of God." And yet such was the dread which the Grand-Master inspired that his lines are said to have resembled a well-governed city rather than a camp composed of soldiers of several nationalities.
Never was there a more terrible martinet. For the slightest symptom of insubordination he ordered death or torture, and sentence once passed on an offender, nothing could induce him to mitigate it. A devout Catholic, he was most punctilious in the discharge of his religious duties. "Never," says Brantôme, "did he fail in his devotions or his prayers, and there was not a morning on which he omitted to say his Paternosters." But he adds that "Beware of the Constable's02 Paternosters" became a saying in the army, "for, as he muttered them, he used to interject orders in connection with justice, police, or military matters, such as: 'Hang me that man! Tie that fellow up to yonder tree! Run him through with your pikes! Burn that village!' without, however, interrupting his prayers, until he had finished them."03
Personally one of the bravest of men and as unsparing of himself as of his soldiers, he was not a great general, for, if he inspired fear, he was powerless to communicate enthusiasm, and, if tenacious and persevering, he could seldom bring himself to take even those legitimate risks without which it is impossible to expect decisive victories.
The French nobles with Montmorency, impatient at being so long restrained behind the ramparts of the camp, hoped that the Dauphin had come to lead them against the Imperialists. But Henri, acting on the instructions which he had received from his father, respected the plans of the Grand-Master and showed no desire to usurp the command, much to the satisfaction of Montmorency, who wrote to their common friend Humières that "the prince was conducting himself so perfectly in accordance with the intention of the King, that the said lord ought to be very content with him."
On one occasion only did he assert his authority. Shortly before his arrival, there had come to the camp a Provencal, named Brusquet, who gave himself out as a doctor, and, by the aid of a learned appearance and a persuasive tongue, obtained a number of clients. But his remedies proved more fatal to the unfortunate soldiers whom he attended than the diseases from which they were suffering, and Montmorency, in great wrath, ordered his arrest, with the intention of having him hanged. The Dauphin, however, who assisted at Brusquet's examination, was much amused by his answers, and, recognising that he was merely a foolish quack, ordered him to be released and attached him to his Household in the quality of a jester, in which he gave so much satisfaction that, after being made valet de garde-robe and, later, valet de chambre, he was finally appointed post-master of Paris.
On September 12, François himself entered the camp, attended by a brilliant suite. He was, of course, received with loud acclamations, though, truth to tell, the troops saw him arrive with something approaching dismay, for, since the catastrophe of Pavia, a superstitious feeling had grown up in the French Army that the King's presence on the field of battle would inevitably entail defeat. If Montmorency did not actually share this superstition, he dreaded its effect upon the spirit of his men, and he had accordingly employed every persuasion to induce his Majesty to remain at Valence. However, François, warned that a forward movement on the part of the Imperialists was expected, in which event an engagement must follow, was determined not to forgo the chance of retrieving his lost laurels. "Foi de gentilhomme!" he exclaimed, in reply to the remonstrances of those about him. "Never shall it be said that while my arch-enemy is at the head of his armies, sword in hand, I am content to remain shut up within the walls of Valence, as though I feared to confront him on my own territories."
The forward movement of the Imperialists was merely a feint by a small body of troops to divert attention from the retreat of the main body, which began ten days after François's arrival in Montmorency's camp. For Charles to have persisted any longer in his unfortunate enterprise would have been to court certain ruin, since nearly half his army were either dead or unfit for service — among the former being his best general, Antonio de Leyva — while it was still further weakened by the necessity of detaching large parties of cavalry to scour the country far and wide in quest of supplies. He had also received intelligence of a rising of the French party in Liguria, who had made an attempt upon Genoa, and were threatening his communications. In his retreat he was persistently harassed by the French light cavalry and the infuriated peasants,04 and the roads between Aix and Fréjus were strewn with arms and baggage and the dead bodies of men and horses. On September 23 he repassed the Var with the wreck of his army, and made his way to Genoa, whence, escorted by Andrea Doria's fleet, he embarked for Barcelona, in order, according to a bon-mot of the time, "to inter in Spain his honour, which had died in Provence."
François and Montmorency have been blamed by several historians for not having followed the retreating Imperialists with all their forces and destroyed them. But, as Martin du Bellay, who was himself serving in this campaign, has shown, the French troops in Picardy were urgently in need of reinforcements, and they believed it necessary to despatch the greater part of the army to the relief of Péronne, which was being closely besieged by Henri de Nassau. Before the succour from Provence arrived, however, the Duc de Guise had succeeded in throwing reinforcements and a large supply of ammunition into the place, upon which Nassau raised the siege and retreated across the frontier; and the year's fighting thus terminated with distinct advantage to the French, who still held Turin, Pinerolo, and several other places in Savoy and Piedmont, had repulsed two invasions, and had inflicted a severe blow on the prestige of the Emperor.
To many the devastation of the fairest province of the realm and the terrible suffering which it entailed may seem a heavy price to pay for the expulsion of the Imperialists, but the captains and the chroniclers of the time consider that circumstances justified the measures adopted, and that they saved France from a still worse fate; and their opinion seems to be shared by most of the historians who have followed them. "Montmorency," says Ranke, "displayed all the sagacity and circumspection which can make defensive warfare successful."05
The Grand-Master, indeed, had gained by the success of his Fabian tactics a reputation which made him for the next five years the virtual ruler of France. He had also gained that which was to assure his ascendency at a more distant date, namely, the personal friendship of the heir to the throne, who looked upon himself as his pupil and had conceived for him a warm and lasting attachment. "You may be sure," wrote Henri to him, a little later, "that, whatever may happen, I am and shall be all my life as much your friend as any man in the world."06
Hostilities were resumed in the early spring of 1537, when François and Montmorency invaded Artois and captured Hesdin, Saint-Pol, and Saint-Venant. Satisfied with these successes, the King disbanded a part of the army, sent some troops into Piedmont, and, leaving only a small force to occupy the conquered towns, returned to Paris to enjoy the society of Madame d'Étampes, a longer separation from whom he was apparently unable to support. No sooner had he departed, than a large army which the Comte de Buren, lieutenant-general of the Emperor in the Low Countries, had assembled at Lens marched upon Saint-Pol and carried it by assault, putting the garrison to the sword, after which it laid siege to Thérouenne.
To repair the deplorable error which he had committed, François recalled part of the troops who were on their way to Piedmont, and in the middle of June despatched Montmorency and the Dauphin with some 20,000 men to the Flemish frontier.
The position of Thérouenne was a critical one. In 1513, the castle had been razed to the ground by Henry VIII, with the exception of two towers, which were speedily demolished by the artillery of the besiegers. The garrison made a brave defence behind the shelter of an entrenchment which they had themselves constructed, but they were short of powder and arquebusiers. Informed of their situation, the Grand-Master ordered Annebaut to proceed to Thérouenne with 400 arquebusiers, each carrying a sack of powder, and an escort of men-at-arms and light horse, and endeavour to make his way into the place, under cover of night. This difficult operation he successfully accomplished (June 25), but, on his return, he was surprised by an overwhelming force of Imperialist cavalry, and, after a sharp skirmish, obliged to surrender.
However, Thérouenne was no longer in any immediate danger, and the Dauphin and the Grand-Master were able to turn their attention to the citadel of Desvres, which they speedily reduced, thus securing the safety of Boulogne. They then marched up the Authie to Doullens, where they were joined by Guise with a large force of cavalry. Up to now the cautious Montmorency, who felt himself responsible for the safety of his royal colleague, had not deemed it prudent to offer the enemy battle; but the arrival of Guise gave him the advantage in numbers, and, yielding to the entreaties of the young prince, he moved northwards, with the intention of relieving Thérouenne.
The King, who was at Meudon with Madame d'Étampes, on being informed that an engagement might shortly be expected, announced his intention of rejoining the army and leading it to victory; but the duchess would not suffer him to leave her side, though she offered no opposition to her husband's departure for the frontier. Montmorency doubtless felicitated himself on his Majesty's decision to forgo the chance of glory and leave him a free hand, for the Dauphin was a docile colleague, who invariably deferred to his advice, and was, if we are to believe the Grand-Master, extremely popular with the troops. "His presence," he writes, "gives great pleasure to this army, and, on the other hand, he conducts himself so prudently and so much to every one's satisfaction that, apart from the pleasure which it must give the King to hear of it, the troops are only too eager to do well, so that, if it please God, he will come forth victorious, and with great honour and reputation, in accordance with the desire of all his loyal servants and to the confusion of his enemies."07
However, greatly to the disappointment of the Dauphin, on the very eve of the expected engagement, an envoy from the Queen-Dowager of Hungary, Governess of the Netherlands, arrived in the French camp and informed him that the Emperor had proposed a truce, so far as regarded Picardy and Flanders, to which François had consented, and that she was empowered to settle the terms with his Highness. Both sides accordingly appointed commissioners, who met at Bomy, a little town to the south of Thérouenne, and on July 30 an armistice for ten months was concluded.
The urgent advice of Mary of Austria, who had represented that the Netherland provinces could and would fight no more — the town of Ghent had refused to contribute the subsidy demanded for the expenses of the war, and a year later was in full revolt — had induced Charles to propose this suspension of hostilities. François, on his side, had been only too ready to agree, for, owing to the quarrels of his generals and a mutiny of German and Italian mercenaries, the Imperialists had again got the upper hand in Piedmont, and, having reduced most of the places recovered by the French after the retreat of Charles from Provence, were investing Turin.
The armistice concluded, preparations were at once made for the despatch of a new army across the Alps, and François decided to accompany it. Having but a poor opinion of the Queen's capacity, he did not, as in 1525, appoint a regent of the kingdom, but nominated two lieutenant-generals, his younger son Charles, Duc d'Orléans, for the North, and his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre, for the South. By the beginning of October, a powerful force had assembled at Lyons, which comprised 10,000 "Adventurers," of whom one-fourth were arquebusiers, 12,000 landsknechts, under their famous recruiting-sergeant Wilhelm von Fürstenberg, 4,000 Swiss, a small body of Italian infantry, 1,400 men-at-arms, several companies of light cavalry, and 50 cannon. To the Dauphin was entrusted the command of the vanguard, Montmorency being associated with him as chief of the staff, with the understanding that the prince was to give no orders without first consulting the Grand-Master.
On the 8th, they took leave of the King, who was to follow with the main body of the army, and proceeded to Grenoble, and thence to Briançon, where they halted to reconnoitre the passes of the Alps. As the garrison of Turin was reported to be in desperate straits from want of food, Montmorency advised that an attempt should be made to force the pass of Susa, which effected, they would only have to descend the valley of the Dora to arrive at Turin; and on the 25th the Dauphin wrote to announce this bold decision to the King, who was now at Grenoble.
The Marquis del Guasto, a nephew of Pescara, who commanded for the Emperor in Piedmont, had detached Cesare da Napoli, one of the best captains of mercenaries in the Imperial service, with a force which is variously estimated at from 5,000 to 10,000 men, to dispute the advance of the French; and Montmorency, on reconnoitring the pass, found him very strongly posted in a narrow part of the defile between Chaumont and Susa, his front protected by an entrenchment with a bastion at each extremity, and precipitous heights on either hand.
At the first glance, the position seemed altogether impregnable; but one of the officers who had accompanied the Grand-Master pointed out that Cesare had neglected to occupy the heights which commanded his position, deeming them no doubt inaccessible, and that their Basque arquebusiers would be able to ascend them.
Leaving the Dauphin at Oulx with the bulk of his force,08 at dawn on October 26 Montmorency, at the head of 100 light horse and 6,000 infantry, 1,200 of whom were arquebusiers, advanced to the assault. The arquebusiers clambered like goats up the rocks and poured down a hail of balls upon the enemy, while the Grand-Master charged the entrenchments. The astonished Imperialists, attacked in front and exposed on both flanks to a murderous fire, gave way and were soon in full retreat, pursued for some distance by the victors, whose lack of cavalry, however, prevented them from inflicting much loss upon the enemy. Nevertheless, it was a brilliant piece of work, and showed that, when occasion demanded, Montmorency knew how to employ boldness as well as caution; and the King, as soon as he learned the news, sent orders to France for public thanksgivings throughout the country.
Having detached a small force to besiege the castle of Susa, Montmorency and the Dauphin advanced along the right bank of the Dora, until they found their way barred by the fortress of Avigliana. The place was only garrisoned by some forty men, but the fortifications were of considerable strength, and the Imperialists refused to surrender. However, after being bombarded for a day and a half, it was taken by storm and the whole of the brave little garrison put to the sword, with the exception of the commandant and three others, who were hanged from the ramparts, "in order," wrote Montmorency, "to teach a lesson to those who are obstinate enough to defend places of so little importance."09
Having waited to allow the Swiss to come up, they again pressed on, forcing Guasto to raise the siege of Turin and fall back across the Po. The Dauphin and his colleague pursued him, but, on reaching the western bank of the river, opposite Moncalieri, they found the enemy drawn up to dispute their passage. For a whole day the armies remained facing one another in line of battle, the French up to their knees in water. Then reinforcements reached the invaders, and the Imperialists retreated beneath the walls of Asti, leaving the French to reduce all the places between the Po and the Tanaro.
In the meanwhile, François with the rest of the army had crossed the mountains, and everything promised a vigorous prosecution of the war, when negotiations again took the place of hostilities. Paul III, eager to unite Christendom against the Turk, who had just inflicted a crushing defeat upon Ferdinand of Austria at Essek, on the Drave, pressed his mediation upon the combatants, and on November 16, 1537, an armistice for three months was signed at Monçon, corresponding with that of Bomy for the Netherlands. The armistice was followed by a conference at Nice. The Pope journeyed thither, and the two rivals, though their antipathy prevented them meeting, visited him separately and laid their respective cases before him; while Queen Eleanor went to and fro between her husband and her brother, in the hope of bringing about the desired reconciliation.
To draft a treaty of peace was found impossible, for Charles refused to surrender Milan, while François was determined not to evacuate Savoy and Piedmont; but a ten years' truce was eventually concluded (June 17, 1538), each preserving what he occupied at the moment of its signature.
Thus France retained Savoy and two-thirds of Piedmont, the remaining Piedmontese towns being left in the occupation of the Imperialists; and the luckless Duke of Savoy saw himself deprived for ten years of the whole of his dominions, with the exception of the town of Nice, in the castle of which he had taken refuge. For the first time since the campaign of Marignano, a war had ended to the advantage of François, who, with the Alpine passes and the strongest fortresses of Piedmont in his hands, found himself in a singularly favourable position for prosecuting his designs on the Milanese.
Nevertheless, in the opinion of many historians, the King committed a grave error in concluding peace at a moment when his rival, threatened by the Turks, hampered by the German Protestants, unpopular in Northern Italy, where his soldiers lived on rapine and plunder, and unable to count on any effective support from the Netherland provinces, was in a most critical position. But the reproaches of the Pope on his sacrilegious alliance with Soliman filled him with remorse, and, after having borne all the odium of the Turkish alliance, he abandoned it just when he might have derived from it substantial advantages.
There can be no doubt that Montmorency's influence counted for much in this decision. One of the most bigoted of Catholics, the Grand-Master's conscience revolted against alliances with infidels and heretics, and, though he did his duty against the Imperialists in the field, he was always a consistent advocate of peace with the Emperor, in so much that his enemies did not hesitate to accuse him of preferring the interests of Rome to those of France.
To the same influence may be traced the ostentatious reconciliation between the two rivals, which, to the profound astonishment of Europe, took place at Aigues-Mortes, a month later. It was commonly reported that Charles's galley had been compelled to take refuge in that harbour by stress of weather, but it seems more probable that the meeting was a prearranged one. Any way, before the Emperor quitted the shores of France, the King, lured on by the bait of the Milanese, had promised to abandon the German Protestants, to give no encouragement to the Ghent burghers, and to aid Charles in his struggle against the Infidel and his efforts for Catholic unity. It was the beginning of an entirely new policy, which was to cost France dear.
Notes
(1) Decrue, Anne de Montmorency à la cour de François I.
(2) Montmorency was appointed Constable in 1539.
(3) Grandes capitaines françaises.
(4) Guillaume du Bellay relates a singular incident which occurred during the retreat. A number of peasants, maddened by starvation, resolved to sacrifice their own lives in order to take vengeance upon the man who had brought ruin upon their humble homes. Armed with arquebuses, they concealed themselves in a tower near the village of Mui, between Draguignan and Fréjus, and awaited the approach of the Emperor. Presently, a gentleman came riding by, who, from the magnificence of his accoutrements and the deference paid him by those about him, they decided must certainly be his Majesty. Thereupon they all fired together, and the unfortunate cavalier fell from his horse, mortally wounded. Their victim was, of course, not Charles, who, in point of fact, was generally very plainly attired, but the celebrated Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega, who was serving in the army as a volunteer, and who thus paid dearly for his weakness for ostentation. The tower was immediately stormed, by orders of the Emperor, and its occupants taken and hanged.
(5) "History of Germany," iv.
(6) Decrue, Anne de Montmorency à la cour de François I.
(7) Decrue.
(8) The Dauphin was unable to take part in the engagement, as he had accidentally wounded himself in the thigh with a poniard a few days before and had to be carried in a litter.
(9) Letter to the Duc d'Orléans, November 12, 1537, in Decrue. The Marquis del Guasto protested indignantly against this shameful violation of the laws of civilised warfare, but François gave it his cordial approval. "I am pleased to hear of what has been done," he wrote to Montmorency, "as I am quite of your opinion that, after the lesson which has been given them, the enemy will no longer be inclined to show so much obstinacy in the defence of little places."