That night the Florentines in Pisa—men in office, judges, merchants, and soldiers of the garrison—were driven at the sword’s point out of the rebellious city. The statue of Marzocco on the bridge was hurled in a thousand pieces into the muddy Arno; the standard of Florence was dragged and trampled in the mire; and bonfires until morning hailed the discomfiture of the King’s allies. On the morrow after noon Charles left the city. He had placed a garrison of three hundred French soldiers in the new citadel; he had appointed three commissioners to superintend affairs; but he had taken no steps to impose the least restraint of civil order upon this impassioned and suddenly enfranchised people. Fortunately the nobles of the town took the matter into their wiser hands. Twenty-four hours after the entry of the French, Pisa was a free Republic governed by a Gonfalonier, six Priors, and a Balia of Ten, with a new militia of its own, and, for the first time in eight and eighty years, a Pisan garrison in the ancient citadel.
If we ask, What right had the King of France to set at liberty the subjects of his allies, lent to him in his need as a temporary gage? we find the question difficult to answer. To statesmen like Commines or Briçonnet there was something shocking and dishonourable in the liberation of Pisa by the King, something that the tenderest palliation for generous youth and inexperience could not attempt to justify. On the other hand, to fresh enthusiastic spirits, such as Ligny or the King himself, there was a degree of inhumanity in leaving the Pisans to their obvious slavery which no code of political honour could extenuate.
These two parties, and these two counsels, marched with the King out of Pisa into Empoli, where he slept that Monday night—doubtless in the same bad inn that had so poorly housed the adventurous Medici just fifteen nights ago. When, on the Tuesday, the King arrived at Signa he heard that the city of Florence was in revolt. Florence and Pisa, unknown to one another, had each regained their liberty upon the selfsame day. For when the King of France came in sight of the group of domes and towers along the Arno, his young guest at Sarzana, so recently the lord of all this beauty, was escaping to Bologna across the mountains in disguise with a price upon his head.