Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/176

150 150 ITALIAN WARS. PART schemes, bj the foe whom he despised, shut himself '- — up in his palace, refusing access to every one, until the agitation of his spirits threw him into an illness, which had wellnigh proved fatal. Meanwhile his exasperated feeliifgs found an ob- ject on which to vent themselves in the unfortunate garrison of Gaeta, who so pusillanimouslj aban- doned their post to return to their own country. He commanded them to winter in Italy, and not to recross the Alps without further orders. He sen- tenced Sandricourt and AUegre to banishment for insubordination to their commander-in-chief; the latter, for his conduct, more particularly, before the battle of Cerignola ; and he hanged up the com- missaries of the army, whose infamous peculations had been a principal cause of its ruin.^^ Hufferingsof But thc Impotcut wrath of their monarch was not the French. * needed to fill the bitter cup, which the French soldiers were now draining to the dregs. A large number of those, who embarked for Genoa, died of the maladies contracted during their long bivouac in the marshes of Minturnae. The rest recrossed the Alps into France, too desperate to heed their master's prohibition. Those who took their way by land suffered still more severely from the Italian peasantry, who retaliated in full measure the bar- barities they had so long endured from the French. They were seen wandering like spectres along the high roads and principal cities on the route, pining 16 Gamier, Hist. deFranoe, torn. Guicciardini, Istoria, torn. i. lib. 6, V. pp. 456-458. — Giovio, Vila pp. 332, 337. — St. Gehiis, Hist, lllust. Virorum, fol. 2), 2T0. — de Louys XII., p. 173.