Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/33

18 farewell, and soon was in the mountains. He arrived in Lombardy in time to follow up the successes of Bayard and La Palice. The Swiss, rumoured invincible, had gathered in large reinforcements to defend Milan. Near Marignano the French under Francis encountered them. "It was," says General Trivulzio, "a battle of giants. They fought all night."

"The 13th of September, which was Thursday, 1515," writes the proud mother in her journal, "my son vanquished and defeated the Swiss near Milan; the battle began at five hours after noon; it lasted all the night and the morrow until eleven o'clock in the morning; and this very day I left Amboise to go on foot to Nostre Dame des Fontaines, to commend to her that which I love more than myself. It is my son, glorious and triumphant Cæsar, subjugator of the Helvetians.

"Sunday, the 14th of October, of the year 1515, Maximilian, son of the late Louis Sforza, was besieged in the Castle of Milan by the French, and made a conditional surrender to my son.

"The 14th of December 1515 my son took the oath of peace with the King of England."

Thus, a year after his accession, we find Francis a conqueror in Italy, at peace with the Great Powers, adored and glorified in France; so begins his reign.

There were in Europe at this time two other sovereigns, young and rich, though without the brilliant elegance of the French monarch. Europe lay, in fact, at the feet of these three youths, two of them caring for little else but war as a chivalrous game, and peace as magnificent leisure; while the third was equally uninspired by public spirit, being engrossed already with the dreams of a subtle and tremendous ambition.