The months that followed the conclusion of peace with Charles were joyous beyond compare. In the summer of this year (1496) the Duke and Duchess had a meeting with the Emperor, and returned loaded with honours, which added a new lustre to Lodovico’s fame.

Suddenly, at the height of his fortune, Fate struck her first blow at the Moro. Beatrice died (1497).

The golden days of Milan changed all at once to gloom. Silence shut down upon the dancing and sweet music. The Duke, to whom even his children and State seemed no longer worth living for, sat for nine days in a darkened chamber alone, refusing all comfort, while in Sta. Maria delle Grazie the monks chanted incessant masses for Beatrice’s soul. The Moro was overwhelmed. He who had ever lived happy, now began to feel great anguish, says the Venetian Sanuti. The fabric of his dreams had crashed upon him. What were kingdoms to him without that clear-sighted and dauntless spirit at his side? Not only was his strong affection rent, but his profound faith in his good fortune was awfully shaken. As if the evil augury had to declare itself unmistakably, on the night of Beatrice’s death a large part of the walls of the vast pleasaunce which he had created round the Castello fell with a great crash, ruined by no storm or wind, or agency perceptible to human sense. From this moment, so much is man’s destiny affected by his own spirits, all Lodovico’s misfortunes began. He entered on that downward course which was to drag so much to ruin with it—and to the husband’s loss of the blessing of this Beatrice, the poet of the Italian Renaissance ascribes not only the fall of Moro, Sforza, and Visconte Snake together, but the captivity of Italy.

The gate which the Moro had thought to shut so easily upon the departed stranger was once more ajar. A second French expedition threatened Italy, and Milan in particular. Early in 1497, the great captain Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, head of the party in Milan hostile to the Sforza, and a bitter personal foe of the Moro, who had abandoned his country and was high in the French service, made a raid into the ducal dominions. At the same time his partisans stirred up the discontent of the people, and inspired their volatile minds with desire for a change of masters. And soon the League began to show its internal weakness. The interests of the two chief parties in it were fatally opposed. Venice found her designs on Pisa thwarted by Lodovico and in her rage began to ponder the advantages of making friends with the French. Out of the struggle for Naples now renewed between the French garrison and the Aragonese she might by a prudent policy, when both combatants were exhausted, secure the sea-kingdom of the South, and might not a second descent of the French King, lasting long enough to overthrow the Sforza and no more, put rich Lombardy at last within her reach? With such hopes the grave senators flattered their ambition and forgot their faith to Italy. The Pope, for his own interests, had turned his back on the Sforza, and was parleying with the common foe, while in Florence the Frate and the people still looked to Charles for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth and the restitution of Pisa.

The King, however, swayed by opposite counsels, let the months go by, and the Moro, with desperate trust in his own statesmanship, still hoped to save his Dukedom. In spite of his anxieties and embarrassments, his unconquerable instinct of order maintained the fair aspect of his dominions. But on the great artistic projects of his triumphant days an arresting spell was laid. The resources of the State were exhausted in war and defensive preparations. The people were already taxed to rebellion, and no supplies were forthcoming for his painters and sculptors. Leonardo asked in vain for the bronze for casting the statue of Francesco Sforza. The clay model, raised in front of the Castello in 1493, on the occasion of Bianca Maria’s marriage with Maximilian, had remained there since, and it seemed more and more likely that this high thought of prince and artist combined would never take on any but an ephemeral form.

The brief, uneasy quiet was broken by a stroke of fate. Charles VIII. died suddenly (1498), and was succeeded by the Duke of Orleans. Louis XII. had no sooner ascended the throne than he announced his immediate intention of invading Milan.

Once more put to the trial, Italy proved again unfaithful to herself. And the pity of it was that the fault lay in her long-rooted political conditions, not in the will of the people. The sentiment of patriotism was strong in the country, and bon italiano was the current expression for one who hated and opposed the French. Yet it could not avail to overcome the conflict of interests among the different States, which was, after all, the blind continuous struggle of the national instinct, whether represented for the moment by Republic, hereditary tyrant or military usurper, towards the creation of a single and united kingdom. This time Venice was the arbiter of the situation. Answering the Moro’s piteous and self-humiliating appeals for help and protection only by cruel taunts of perfidy, the Republic concluded an alliance with the French (1498).

The Moro’s old disloyalties were now repaid to him tenfold. He looked round him in vain for a friend. The reward of usurpers and short tyrannic dynasties based on force, not love, met him in an alienated people, who refused to endure hardship or make sacrifices to save him, but looked instead to any change of government as desirable. His armies, composed chiefly of foreigners, were undisciplined and rebellious, serving only for pay. They were badly generaled by the Duke’s favourites. Lodovico, with all his ability, had little judgment in his choice of servants. He was led by his affections, which betrayed him. Chief among his trusted officers were the San Severini brothers—the Conte di Caiazzo, Galeazzo, famous champion of the tourney-lists, and the Moro’s son-in-law, and the gruff Gaspare, better known as Fracasso. They were the sons of Roberto di San Severino, but Lodovico had kept them always beside him and heaped honours and places upon them. Galeazzo, the prime favourite, had the chief command of his army. Francesco Bernardino Visconte, Antonio Maria Pallavicino, Antonio Trivulzio and the rest, all were alike unprepared in heart to sacrifice themselves for the sovereign in whose sunshine they had warmed themselves. The slight tie that bound together the various elements of the State could not endure against fear, ambition, greed and hereditary hate. The situation was further aggravated by the arrogance and exactions of the ducal favourites which excited the rage of the people and increased Lodovico’s unpopularity.

Events moved rapidly. In March 1499 the treaty between France, Venice and the Pope was publicly proclaimed. Louis was to conquer Milan, and Venice, as the price of assistance, was to share the spoils. Florence was nominally the Moro’s ally, but had neither means nor will to help him now. Naples was too weak to count, and Lodovico’s one friend, the unstable and spendthrift Maximilian, gave only empty promises. The Duke was left to make his desperate defence alone. In spite of his energetic preparations the presage of doom lay heavy on his soul, and affected all around him. He believed that Fortune, once his friend, was now contrary, and that God was angry with him.

In June the French army arrived in Asti, and immediately invaded the ducal territories. Every obstacle fell before them. Treachery and fear delivered castles and cities one after another into their hands. The Conte di Caiazzo made secret terms with them, and withdrew his troops from action. The rapid progress of the invaders brought them soon to the strong city of Alessandria, in which Galeazzo di San Severino and the main Milanese army lay to check their advance upon the capital itself. Here they met a promise of resistance, but the place had not been besieged many days when for some extraordinary and unexplained reason it was delivered to them. Some say that Galeazzo was seized with despair, others that he was deceived by a forged order to retire. Anyhow, one morning before daybreak he stole out with a few other nobles and galloped to Milan, and his army, when they found their general gone, incontinently fled in all directions.

No obstacle now remained between the enemy and Milan. With the same fatal spirit of despair which had undermined the whole defence, Lodovico gave himself up for lost. Though his great Castle at Milan was the strongest fortress in Europe, its garrison nearly three thousand, its artillery enormous in number and size, its munitions of war and all necessaries infinite, he could see no salvation except in abandoning the city and seeking aid in person from the Emperor. There may have been something of the instinct of bending before the storm in his decision. He knew that he could not hold the city, where the insurgent mob was already sacking the palaces of his favourites. If the citadel only stood firm, however, there was every chance of some revolution of the political wheel carrying him back before long. But blinded again by affection, he made a fatal mistake in his choice of a Castellan. In spite of many warnings he confided the entire command of the castle to one Bernardino da Corte, whom he had brought up from childhood and loaded with favours, charging him to guard it faithfully against the enemy, and promising to relieve him before three months were past.

Lodovico Sforza’s departure from the city which his father had won and he himself had ruled gloriously for many years; the tears and kisses with which he parted from his little motherless sons, sending them before him into Germany; his last visit, attended by weeping monks, to the tomb of his wife in Sta. Maria delle Grazie; his rapid ride out of the city next morning, after a night of fever and anguish, accompanied by a very few friends and followers, while the people’s cry changed from ‘Moro, Moro’ to ‘Franza, Franza,’ even as he passed—these things are all recorded with deep compassion by Corio, whose chronicle sadly concludes with this downfall of the House which he had served from boyhood.

Behind Lodovico’s back, amid the flames and smoke of the burning palaces, the streets and squares broke out into a garish splendour of decoration to welcome his conqueror. Four days later Gian Giacomo Trivulzio rode in at the head of the French, amid the wild enthusiasm of the mob. The General, elated at his triumphant return to his native city, promised them anything and everything in the name of their rich, powerful, and all benign new master, the King of France. They believed that the millennium was come.

They soon learnt their mistake. Meanwhile, Fate had dealt the decisive blow to the domination of the Sforza. The rock of their fortunes, the impregnable Castello, provided by the extreme care and thought of the Moro with every necessary for a lengthy siege, was after a few days basely sold to the enemy by the traitor Castellan. On reception of the news in his distant retreat Lodovico is said to have remained as if mute, and to have finally uttered these words only—Since Judas was there never a greater traitor than Bernardino Curzio.

This condemnation was echoed by the whole world, and with especial emphasis by the French themselves, who were amazed at such treachery and cowardice. But the Castellan was not the only traitor. Bernardino Fr. Visconte and others of Lodovico’s great ministers were his accomplices, and partakers of the spoil. Hardly was the old master gone, ere they bent before the new. Louis XII. followed his army in person to Milan, and entered in great state, wearing the ducal beretta, and greeted by the same artistic demonstrations of joy and loyalty as had so often celebrated the pompous occasions of the Moro’s rule. After a short stay he departed to France, leaving Trivulzio as governor, an imprudent choice, which inflamed the old faction spirit. Most of the nobles were Trivulzio’s hereditary enemies. They began at once to scheme his overthrow, aided by the French guards, who could not bear to see Gian Giacomo preferred before them to such high place. In the populace discontent soon reawakened. They found themselves in worse case than before. Their master was different, but the taxes remained the same, and in addition they had to endure the cruelties and excesses of the French troops. The partisans of the Sforza worked insidiously upon their minds and excited them to cries of ‘Moro, Moro,’ once again. The city seethed with intrigue and sedition. Every day tumults arose, and the brave Trivulzio, beset with snares and embarrassments, tried vainly with his frank methods and simple soldier’s choler to rule this mass of conflicting passions, greeds, sufferings and cunning ambitions.

While the way was thus being prepared in Milan for his restoration, Lodovico, in his exile at Innsbrück, was using every means to accomplish it, even to the desperate expedient of inciting the Turk to attack the Venetian State. At the same time he gathered together a strong body of Swiss and German mercenaries, and prepared to start for Italy as soon as he learnt from his friends in Milan that the moment was come. The French strength in the Duchy had been greatly diminished by the departure of large detachments for Naples and the Romagna, when the report ran through Milan that the Moro was come back and had retaken Como (1500). The whole city was immediately in an uproar, and the mob surged round the palace of the governor, who, after vainly endeavouring to quiet them, was forced to hide from their insults and threats. A few days later he left Milan. Immediately after, Lodovico’s forerunners, Cardinal Ascanio and two of the San Severini, rode in at the head of four thousand Swiss. Messer Galeazzo, flowering once more in the sunshine of his Lord’s success, had arrayed himself all in white, with a great feather on his head, and a pair of shoes on his feet much more fitted for the service of Venus than of Mars, as a sarcastic chronicler observes. The Duke himself followed a day later and re-entered his capital in state. But his triumph was only apparent. The Castello was now the bulwark of his enemy. It stood with its huge bastions and vast squares of parapets furnished with a thousand engines of war, frowning over the defenceless city. Even as the Moro paced in stately procession through the streets the bells rang out, and a terrified cry arose that the French had sallied from the fortress. The Duke was not strong enough to attempt its reduction, and unwilling to face the constant peril of its presence, he left the city, which he was never to see again, and removed to Pavia.

The same sickness of doubt, indecision and fear, the same presentiment of failure which had attended the Moro for so long, now seemed to attack this great adventure for the redemption of his fortunes. He neglected to strike a decisive blow at the French before they could be reinforced, and contented himself with retaking a few cities with as little shedding of blood as possible. In vain Fracasso and his bolder captains exhorted him to more energetic steps. His fierce Swiss mercenaries, to whom he refused the satisfaction of sacking the conquered towns, grew violent and rebellious. His treasury was exhausted, nor could all the expedients of Cardinal Ascanio in Milan, even the appropriation of the treasure of the Duomo and the other great churches, raise enough money to content the voracious Swiss, of whom new hosts were continually swarming into the city on their way to the camp, clamouring for employment and pay. The citizens, terrified by these rude allies, squeezed of every penny to supply the Duke’s necessities, found their plight worse than ever. Hearing of the great reinforcements even now pouring down from the mountains to swell the French army, they trembled with fear of the consequences of their rebellion against Louis XII. In Novara, where the Moro now lay, despair and confusion prevailed among the leaders, while the temper of the Swiss mercenaries grew daily more ominous.

The French army, gradually increasing in number and strength, was encamped at Mortara, a few miles away, and constantly made bold dashes up to the very walls of Novara. A battle could no longer be avoided. On the 4th of April the enemy advanced to within a mile of Novara and challenged the Italians to the combat. Lodovico’s army issued forth in noble array, but it was nothing more than hollow show. The whole of the Swiss, who formed its greater part, refused to fight, on the pretext that they could not shed the blood of their fellow-countrymen engaged in the French ranks. Their leaders had in fact secretly treated with the enemy. Returning into Novara, followed in wild confusion and panic by the rest of the army, they proceeded to arrange terms of capitulation with De Ligny, the French commander. The promises, entreaties, tears even of the unhappy Moro, could not move them from their purpose. All he could obtain was a promise that they would carry him into safety disguised in the midst of their ranks when they abandoned Novara. And even this small mercy was a sham and a treachery. Someone among them warned the French generals of the arrangement, and a careful scrutiny of the troops, as in accordance with the agreement with the French they marched out unmolested, soon detected the Duke by his well-known features and complexion and the undisguisable height and majesty of his person. With him were captured also Galeazzo di San Severino and one or two other nobles.

Thus unbloodily, as if by the decree of Fate, fell Lodovico Sforza. We watch his dark and mournful figure—more dignified in adversity than when tossed amid the rude and difficult circumstances of active war—as it passes slowly out of Italy in its vesture of tragedy, conducted with respectful compassion by the chivalrous French, taunted and reviled by his own countrymen. It bears a significance reaching far beyond the immediate event and the immediate victim. So much was passing away with it. Italy, that fair queen whose robes the too-aspiring Prince had desired to brush free from every stain, was a captive with him, befouled and bloodied by the ignorant barbarian, and all the joy and exaltation of her wonderful Quattrocento was to fail, and her new-found strength and hope, with its sky-aspiring projects but half realised, to be bound down in the sad fetters of disillusion, despair, and a new spiritual tyranny, while the grand ideal of the Renaissance was to travel away with her freedom and find its perfect fulfilment elsewhere.

As Lodovico Sforza was the first to utter the fatal invitation to the French, he was fitly the first scapegoat. But, not alone in his sin, he was not alone in the punishment. If we condemn him for starting the ruin of his country by delivering Naples to Charles, what shall we say of Venice, Florence and the Pope, who each for their own selfish interests completed it by selling Milan to Louis? The inexorable retribution did not fail to fall upon them also. The first years of the sixteenth century are its history. Alexander, dying, dragged down that son and that earthly dominion for which he had given his soul. Venice, shaken nigh to destruction in her turn, by an iniquitous combination, had to forget her wide dreams of empire and be content with a narrow liberty, passing into stagnation and decay. Julius, continuer of Alexander’s worldly policy, may well have seen with prophetic eye, when death called him too, his unaccomplished scheme of a renovated Church,—Papacy and Empire in one, head of a new heaven on earth, which should lay the sword of temporal and spiritual victory at the feet of the purified Venus, Madonna with her Son upon her knee, shrink to the monastic ideals and the rigid excluding tyranny of the Catholic reaction. Last of all, Florence, most constant of the lovers of liberty, with her most melancholy fall filled up the cup of expiation and sealed the final subjugation of the country.