Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/369

 that the plague lurked in the imperial army. Alessandro Tadino, one of the conservators of the public health, was charged by the tribunal to state to the governor the frightful danger which threatened the country, if this army should obtain the pass which opened on Mantua. It appears from all the actions of Gonzalo, that he was possessed by a desire to occupy a great place in history; but, as often happens, history has failed to register one of his most remarkable acts, the answer he returned to this Doctor Tadino; which was, "that he knew not what could be done; that reasons of interest and honour, which had induced the march of the army, were of greater weight than the danger represented; that he would, however, endeavour to act for the best, and that they must trust to Providence."

In order, then, to act for the best, their two physicians proposed to the tribunal to forbid, under the most severe penalty, the purchase of any articles of clothing from the soldiers who were about to pass. As to Don Gonzalo, his reply to Doctor Tadino was one of his last acts at Milan, as the ill success of the war, which had been instigated and directed by him, caused him to be displaced in the course of the summer. He was succeeded by Marquis Ambrosio Spinola, who had already acquired the military celebrity in the wars of Flanders which still endures.

Meanwhile the German troops had received definite orders to march upon Mantua, and in the month of September they entered the duchy of Milan.

At this epoch armies were composed, for the greater part, of adventurers, enlisted by condottieri, who held their commission from some prince, and who sometimes pursued the occupation on their own account, so as to be able to sell themselves and followers together. Men were drawn to this vocation much less by the pay which was assigned to them, than by the hope of pillage, and the charms of licence. There was no fixed or general discipline; and as their pay was very uncertain, the spoils of the countries which they over-ran were tacitly accorded to them by their commanders.

It was a saying of the celebrated Wallenstein's, that it