Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/301

277 EXPEDITION OF CHARLES VIII. 277 in public treaties to excite any particular attention ; chapter and he was astounded at the broad ground, which - it was now made to cover, and which defeated the sole object proposed by the cession of Roussillon. He could not disguise his chagrin and indignation at what he deemed the perfidy of the Spanish court. He refused all further intercourse with Silva, and even stationed a sentinel at his gate, to prevent his communication with his subjects ; treat- ing him as the envoy, not of an ally, but of an open enemy. ^^ The unexpected and menacing attitude, how- The Frencb , _ cross the ever, assumed by Ferdinand, failed to arrest the ^'p^- operations of the French monarch, who, having completed his preparations, left Vienne in the month of August, 1494, and crossed the Alps at the head of the most formidable host which had scaled that mountain barrier since the irruption of the northern barbarians.^^ It will be unnecessary to follow his movements in detail. It is sufficient 28 Zurita, Hist, del Rey Her- held with a prophetic eye the nando, lib. 1, cap. 31, 41. magnitude of the calamities im- 29 Villeneuve, Memoires, apud pending over his country. In one Petitot, Collection des Memoires, of his letters, he writes thus ; torn. xiv. pp. 255, 256. " Scribitur exercitum visum fuisse The French army consisted of nostra tempestate nullum unquam 3,600 gens d'armes, 20,000 French nitidiorem. Et qui futuri sunt infantry, and 8,000 Swiss, without calamitatis participes, Cardura including the regular camp folio ».» aciesque illius ac peditum turmas ers. (Sismondi, R^publiques Ital- laudibus extollunt ; sed Italorum iennes, torn. xii. p. 132.) impensa instructas." (Opus Epist., The splendor and novelty of epist. 143.) He concludes anoth- their appearance excited a degree er with this remarkable predic- of admiration, which disarmed in tion ; " Perimeris, Galle, ex ma- some measure the terror of the jori parte, nee in patriam redibis. Italians. Peter Martyr, whose Jacebis insepultus ; sed tua non distance from the theatre of action restituetur strages, Italia." Epist. enabled him to contemplate more 123. calmly the operation of events, be-