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He alluded to Carmagnola, a celebrated Piedmontese condottiere, who had been accused of treason and beheaded at Venice on the 3d of May, 1432. The Venetian ambassador at Louis XII.'s court, suspecting what had taken place at Cambrai, tried to dissuade the king. "Sir," said he, "it were folly to attack them of Venice; their wisdom renders them invincible."
The tragedies of Manzoni, and especially his "Conte di Carmagnola," and "Adelchi," abound in exquisite beauties. His style is simple and noble, his verse easy and harmonious, and his object elevated. The merits of these tragedies, however, belong rather to parts, and while the reading of them is always interesting, on the stage they fail to awaken the interest of the audience.
So he pulled off the counterpane, opened the bed, undressed in a pretty dressing-room, and lay down to meditate on destiny. "I forgot poor Carmagnola," said he; "but my cook and butler will have provided for him." At this juncture, a waiting-woman came in, lightly humming an air from the Barbiere.
At the conclusion of a peace between the Pope and the Bolognese, Bartolommeo found himself without occupation. He now offered himself to the Venetians, and began to fight again under the great Carmagnola against Filippo Visconti. His engagement allowed him forty men, which, after the judicial murder of Carmagnola at Venice in 1432, were increased to eighty.
Federigo started with a principality sufficient to satisfy his just desires for power. Nothing but his own sense of right and prudence restrained Colleoni upon the path which brought Francesco Sforza to a duchy by dishonourable dealings, and Carmagnola to the scaffold by questionable practice against his masters. Few people visit Crema.
Let me, however, quote a warning from the little Venetian guide-book: "Everybody to whom are pointed out the prisons to which Carmagnola, Jacopo Foscari, Antonio Foscarini, etc., were confined, will easily understand that such indications cannot be true at all."
Eugene immediately marched to form his junction with the duke; and no longer opposed by the genius of Vendome, passed the Adige unattacked, crossed the Tanaro, and the Po, joined his cousin near Carmagnola, and advanced to the succor of Turin. The French were dispirited; and uncertainty and divided councils pervaded their camp.
And after this prince had made his end, there came another Francesco, or Gianfrancesco, who was created Marquis of Mantua by the Emperor Sigismund. The Senate was sitting in the hall of the Grand Council when he appeared, and they detained him there with various compliments till night fell. Then instead of lights, the Sbirri appeared, and seized Carmagnola.
Before the German auxiliaries arrived, the French had made great progress in their conquests. Catinat besieged and took Villa-Franca, Nice, and some other fortifications; then he reduced Villana and Carmagnola, and detached the marquis de Feuquieres to invest Coni, a strong fortress garrisoned by the Vaudois and French refugees. The duke of Savoy was now reduced to the brink of ruin.
The gallant little company rode across the rocky Col, where cavalry had never passed before, descended by Droniez into the plain of Piedmont, crossed the Po at a ford, where they had to swim their horses, inquired at the Castle of Carmagnola and found that Prospero Colonna and his company had left barely a quarter of an hour before.
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