Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3

Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot


In his council he found loyal and able opponents. "On the undertaking of
this trip," says Philip de Commynes, one of those present, "there was
many a discussion, for it seemed to all folks of wisdom and experience
very dangerous . . . all things necessary for so great a purpose were
wanting; the king was very young, a poor creature, wilful and with but a
small attendance of wise folk and good leaders; no ready money; neither
tents, nor pavilions for wintering in Lombardy. One thing good they had:
a lusty company full of young men of family, but little under control."
The chiefest warrior of France at this time, Philip de Crevecoeur,
Marshal d'Esquerdes, threw into the opposition the weight of his age and
of his recognized ability. "The greatness and tranquillity of the
realm," said he, "depend on possession of the Low Countries; that is the
direction in which we must use all our exertions rather than against a
state, the possession of which, so far from being advantageous to us,
could not but weaken us." "Unhappily," says the latest, learned
historian of Charles VIII. [_Histoire de Charles VIII._, by the late M.
de Cherrier, t. i. p. 393], "the veteran marshal died on the 22d of
April, 1494, in a small town some few leagues from Lyons, and thenceforth
all hope of checking the current became visionary. . . . On the 8th
of September, 1494, Charles VIII. started from Grenoble, crossed Mount
Genevre, and went and slept at Oulx, which was territory of Piedmont. In
the evening a peasant who was accused of being a master of Vaudery
[i.e. one of the Vaudois, a small population of reformers in the Alps,
between Piedmont and Dauphiny] was brought before him; the king gave him
audience, and then handed him over to the provost, who had him hanged on
a tree." By such an act of severity, perpetrated in a foreign country
and on the person of one who was not his own subject, did Charles VIII.
distinguish his first entry into Italy.

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