Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/484

478 carried his provisions, arranged in line – with three archers, one authority says, to each. Notwithstanding what seems the very easy nature of his victories, and the large use of treachery, it is evident that his military genius impressed the imagination of his time above that of any of his competitors. He alone, harsh and haughty as he was, kept his forces in unity. His greatness silenced the feudal lords, who could not venture to combat it, and he had the art of command, which is a special gift.

The peace lasted for the long period of three years, during which time Carmagnola lived in great state and honour in Venice, in a palace near San Eustachio which had been bestowed upon him by the State.

His wife and children had in the former interval of peace been restored to him, and all seemed to go at his will. A modern biographer (Lomonaco), who does not cite any authorities, informs us that Carmagnola was never at home in his adopted city – that he felt suspicions and unfriendliness in the air – and that the keen consciousness of his low origin, which seems to have set a sharp note in his character, was here, and more than ever, felt. "He specially abhorred the literary coteries," says this doubtful authority, "calling them vain as women, punctilious as boys, lying and feigning like slaves," – which things have been heard before, and are not worth putting into the fierce lips of the Piedmontese soldier, whose rough accent of the north was probably laughed at by the elegant Venetians, and to whom their constant pursuit of novelty, their mental activity, politics, and commotions of town life, were very likely nauseous and unprofitable. He who was conversant with more primitive means of action than speeches in the Senate, or even the discussions of the Consiglio Maggiore, might well chafe at so much loss of time: and it was the fate of a general of mercenaries, who had little personal motive beyond his pay, and what he could gain by his services, to be distrusted by his masters.

The occasion of the third war is sufficiently difficult to discover. A Venetian cardinal – Gabriele Condulmero – had been made Pope, and had published a bull, admonishing both lords and people to keep the peace, as he intended himself to inquire into every rising, and regulate the affairs of Italy. This declaration alarmed Philip of Milan, to whom it seemed inevitable that a Venetian Pope should be his enemy; and thus, with no doubt a thousand secondary considerations on all hands, the peninsula was once more set on fire. The beginning of the war was not favourable to the Venetian arms, Carmagnola having been led by an imitation of his own tactics to defeat and loss before the stronghold of Soncino, where he is said to have lost a thousand – horses. The Venetian chronicler does not say that the prisoners on his own side were immediately liberated, as had been done on the other, but we must suppose that the custom of war held with both parties. The check, however, was soon forgotten in the real and great disaster which followed. The Venetians had fitted out not only the land army, but, what ought to have been more in consonance with their habits and character, an expedition by sea under the Admiral Trevisano, whose ships, besides their crews, are said to have carried 10,000 fighting men, for the capture of Cremona.

The fleet went up the Po to act