CHAPTER XIV. ITALIAN WARS. — CONDITION OF ITALY. — FRENCH AND SPANISH ARMIES ON THE GARIGLIANO. 1503. Melancholy State of Italy. — Great Preparations of Louis. — Gonsalvo repulsed before Gaeta. — Armies on the Garigliano. — Bloody Pas- sage of the Bridge. — Anxious Expectation of Italy. — Critical Situation of the Spaniards. — Gonsalvo's Resolution. — Heroism of Paredes and Bayard. PART We must now turn our eyes towards Italy, where '- — the sounds of war, which had lately died away. Melancholy . , , . ., , ,. , condition of wcrc again heard in wilder dissonance than ever. Italy. ° , , Our attention, hitherto, has been too exclusively directed to mere military manoeuvres to allow us to dwell much on the condition of this unhappy land. The dreary progress of our story, over fields of blood and battle, might naturally dispose the imagi- nation to lay the scene of action in some rude and savage age ; an age, at best, of feudal heroism, when the energies of the soul could be roused only by the fierce din of war. Far otherwise, however ; the tents of the hostile armies were now pitched in the bosom of the most lovely and cultivated regions on the globe ; inhab- ited by a people, who had carried the various arts of policy and social life to a degree of excellence else- where unknown ; whose natural resources had been
