When all these solemnities had been accomplished to the great satisfaction of the populace, bonfires were lighted up for three days; the city was illuminated; and only a week afterwards, on the 20th of May, 1495, Charles VIII. started from Naples to return to France, with an army, at the most, from twelve to fifteen thousand strong, leaving for guardian of his new kingdom his cousin, Gilbert of Bourbon, Count de Montpensier, a brave but indolent knight (who never rose, it was said, until noon), with eight or ten thousand men, scattered for the most part throughout the provinces.
During the months of April and May, thus wasted by Charles VIII., the Italian league, and especially the Venetians and the Duke of Milan, Ludovic the Moor, had vigorously pushed forward their preparations for war, and had already collected an army more numerous than that with which the King of France, in order to return home, would have to traverse the whole of Italy. He took more than six weeks to traverse it, passing three days at Rome, four at Siena, the same number at Pisa, and three at Lucca, though he had declared that he would not halt anywhere. He evaded entering Florence, where he had made promises which he could neither retract nor fulfil. The Dominican Savonarola, “who had always preached greatly in the king’s favor,” says Commynes, “and by his words had kept the Florentines from turning against us,” came to see him on his way at Poggibonsi. “I asked him,” said Commynes, “whether the king would be able to cross without danger to his person, seeing the great muster that was being made by the Venetians. He answered me that the king would have trouble on the road, but that the honor would remain his, though he had but a hundred men at his back; but, seeing that he had not done well for the reformation of the Church, as he ought, and had suffered his men to plunder and rob the people, God had given sentence against him, and in short he would have a touch of the scourge.”
Several contemporary historians affirm that if the Italian army, formed by the Venetians and the Duke of Milan, had opposed the march of the French army, they might have put it in great peril; but nothing of the kind was attempted. It was at the passage of the Appennines, so as to cross them and descend into the duchy of Parma, that Charles VIII. had for the first time to overcome resistance, not from men, but from nature. He had in his train a numerous and powerful artillery, from which he promised himself a great deal when the day of battle came; and he had to get it up and down by steep paths, “Here never,” says the chronicle of La Tremoille, “had car or carriage gone. . . .” The king, knowing that the lord of La Tremoille, such was his boldness and his strong will, thought nothing impossible, gave to him this duty, which he willingly undertook; and, to the end that the footmen, Swiss, German, and others, might labor thereat without fearing the heat, he addressed them as follows: ‘The proper nature of us Gauls is strength, boldness, and ferocity. We triumphed at our coming; better would it be for us to die, than to lose by cowardice the delight of such praise; we are all in the flower of our age and the vigor of our years; let each lend a hand to the work of dragging the gun-carriages and carrying the cannon-balls; ten crowns to the first man that reaches the top of the mountain before me!’ Throwing off his armor, La Tremoille, in hose and shirt, himself lent a hand to the work; by dint of pulling and pushing, the artillery was got to the brow of the mountain; it was then harder still to get it down the other side, along a very narrow and rugged incline; and five whole days were spent on this rough work, which luckily the generals of the enemy did not attempt to molest. La Tremoille, “black as a Moor,” says the chronicle, “by reason of the murderous heat he had endured, made his report to the king, who said, ‘By the light of this day, cousin, you have done more than ever could Annibal of Carthage or Caesar have done, to the peril of your person, whereof you have not been sparing to serve me, me and mine. I vow to God, that if I may only see you back in France, the recompense I hope to make you shall be so great, that others shall conceive fresh desire to serve me.’”