A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. THE soldier of fortune is one of the most picturesque figures in the strange and shifting panorama, so full of brilliant colours and effective groupings, of the middle ages. A general who changes his colours as he changes his boots-whose services and those of his mail-clad rovers are at the disposition of whoever can pay the highest price, and whose passage from one side to another decides the fortune perhaps of a generation, the triumph of a cause, the rise or downfall of a race, without interesting himself more than they interest the horse he rides is not a character which attracts the reader so late in the history of the world as we are, and used to national wars and national causes of a very different kind. But in medieval Italy the position of the mercenary was one which involved no such serious issues as might exist nowadays, could we conceive the possibility of a wandering army ready to take part on either side according to the inducements held out to them. The existence of such a body now would be practically impossible, however; and even the suggestion is so inconsistent with all the facts of modern life, that we can attempt no illustration of it by anything we know. An Arab tribe drawn from the standards of the Madhi to assist our advance, would at least be, after a sort, fighting for (or against) "The ashes of their fathers And the temples of their gods." But the condottiero of the fifteenth century had neither fathers nor altars, save perhaps in some far-off village which was not in the struggle, and was free to turn his hand against any man, with the reassuring conviction that, whoever was the master, his own interests would come to no harm. The system was never one that flourished in England. Yet it was not unknown even in our island. Who does not remember the gay De Bracy, whose freelances helped to keep the Saxons under in the days of Ivanhoe? And our history is not without more trustworthy records of bands. whose hire gave importance to a popular rising or swelled the ranks of civil war. And England and Scotland both contributed to the number of those stout fightingmen, superabundant at home, who found a field for their prowess in the perpetual conflicts always going on on the Continent. Dugald Dalgetty served Gustavus Adolphus and the Emperor by turns with a noble impartiality; and many a ballad records the fate of a romantic Roland or a stubborn John who went "to seek his fortune in the Hie Germanie." It might afford an outlet for the surplus forces of athletic young gentlemen whom it is so difficult to know how to dispose of, were the old custom resuscitated like so many others. A Devil's Own Company of briefless barristers, a brigade of free-lances recruited at the universities, might then be fit for honourable use wherever wanted; and with a succession of wars on our hands such as we have, and seem likely to have, the institution might be a most useful one. A Gordon regiment, for instancewhat finer memorial to the dead hero!-not to be hired out to President Grévy or Prince Bismarck indeed, which might perhaps be more in the spirit of the original, but to be at their own country's service whenever required. The existence of such a body as Methuen's Horse is a proof that this would not be impossible. It is with no such chivalrous service, however, that we have now to do. No condition of society could be more appropriate for the creation of the mercenary soldier than the state of Italy in those centuries of art and glory, of murder and rapine, which are called, according to the taste of the critic, the Dark Ages, or the Ages of Faith. That great and noble country, beloved of all men, the home of all that is beautiful and glorious, which has lately, by an inspiration unequalled in the history of nations, performed the old miracle of the fable and bound all its suffering particles, all the loose sticks which were at every conqueror's mercy, into a fagot which Hercules might attempt in vain - Italy, which beyond all hope has become one of the great Powers of Europe - was then no country at all, but a succession of arrogant and wealthy cities, of little principalities and dukedoms, all hating each other with a fervour such as only close neighbourhood brings, bent on each other's subjugation as the one thing of importance outside their several walls, or bent on preserving their own tumultuous and fantastic but vigorous freedom against a succession of petty despots within. Supposing a wholesome-minded and soundheaded condottiero of the fifteenth century to have troubled his mind about the matter, which was highly improbable, there was little principle involved in the questions between Florence and Pisa, between Venice and Genoa, except that determination to show which was the better man,—to make one's neighbour knock under, and enrich one's self at his expense-which is one of the best understood rules of primitive life. And for a Savoyard coming to the richer plains to seek his fortune, what could be less important than the question, which of those wealthy paymasters he should take service under? The firm resolve of the proud citizens to have no yoke about their own necks, and to forge double coils around each neighbour's; their prudent consciousness that to carry this resolve out with their own hands would impair trade and generally interfere with the comfort of their world,-were to the men of war the very conditions essential for their own trade, which was not perhaps, at that period and in these circumstances, so very noble a one as arms have generally been considered to be. One of its chief dangers was the unlucky accident that occurred now and then, when a general who failed of being invariably successful had his head taken off by the Signoria to whom he had engaged himself. But fighting of itself was not dangerous, at least to the troops engaged, and spoils were plentiful, and the life a merry one. Italy, always rich in the bounties of nature, had never been so rich as in these days, and the troops had a succession of villages at their command always, with the larger morsels of a rich town to sack now and then, ransoms of prisoners, and all the other chances of war. Their battles were exercises of skill rather than encounters of personal opponents, and it was not unusual to achieve a great feat of arms and rout an enemy without shedding a drop of blood. The bloodshed was that of the hapless non-combatants, the villagers, the harmless town-folk who were mad enough to resist the mailed sav. ages, but not that of the fighting men. Such was the profession, when a wandering Savoyard trooper-perhaps come home with his spoils in filial piety, or to make glad the heart of a rustic love with trinkets dragged from the ears or pulled bloody from the throat of some Lombard maiden took note among the fields of a keen-eyed boy, who carried his shaggy locks with such an aria fiera, so proud an air, that the soldier saw something beyond the common recruit in this young shepherd lad. Romance, like nature, is pretty much the same in all regions; and young Francesco, the peasant's son, under the big frontier tower of Carmagnola, makes us think with a smile of young Norval "on the Grampian Hills" that noble young hero whose history has unfortunately fallen into derision. But in those days, when the fifteenth century had just begun, and through all the Continent there was nothing heard but the clatter of mail and the tread of the war-horse, there was nothing ridiculous in the idea that the boy, hearing of battles, should long "to follow to the field some warlike lord," or should leave the sheep to shift for themselves, and go off with the bold companion who had such stories of siege and fight to tell. He seems to have entered at once the service of Facino Cane, one of the greatest generals of the time, under whom he rose, while still quite young, to some distinction. Such, at least, would seem to have been the case, since one of the first notices in history of the young Piedmontese is the record in one of the old chronicles of a question made to Facino Why did he not promote him? To which the great condottiero replied that he could not the rustic arrogance of do so Francesco being such, that if he got one step he would never be satisfied till he was chief of all. For this reason, though his military genius was allowed full scope, he was kept in as much subjection as possible, and had but ten horsemen under him, and small honour as far as could be seen; yet was noted of the captains as a man born to be something beyond the ordinary level when his day should come. The Italian world was as usual in a state of great disturbance in these days. Giovanni or Gian Galeazzo, the Duke of Milan, had died, leaving two sons-the one who succeeded him, Gian Maria, being a feeble and vicious youth, of whose folly and weakness the usual advantages were soon taken. Sovereignty was never a thing to be much reckoned on in those little restless fortified and fighting towns, where every municipality was always straining after freedom,-a little republic of its own if might be: or if not, a new ruler, from whom, perhaps, an additional concession of liberties might be got. When the young Duke was found to be so little worth reckoning on, the cities of Lombardy sprang with wonderful unanimity each into a revolution of its own. The generals who on occasion had served the house of Visconti faithfully enough, found now the opportunity to which these free-lances were always looking forward, and established themselves each with hopes of founding a new dukedom, and little independent dominion of his own, in the revolted cities. Piacenza, Parma, Cremona, Lodi, all found thus a new sovereign, with a ready-made army to back him. The Duke's younger brother, Filippo Maria, had been left by his father in possession of the town of Pavia, a younger son's inheri It would seem that the death of his general raised Francesco of Carmagnola at once into the front of the captains who remained. He had taken the name of his village, perhaps by reason of the want of surname, which was common to Italian peasants, and which probably told more among the condottieri, whose ranks included many of the best names of Italy, than it did in art. With that preference for the christian name which is still so curious in Italy, Carmagnola is called Francesco throughout one at least of the old histories which record his exploits; but there are so many other Francescos, that the custom is confusing. Carmagnola found himself a person of much additional importance when Facino died, though he was still very young, not more than twenty-two. But he would seem to have had sufficient sense and insight to perceive that, by interfering in this great crisis, and binding to himself one way or other the great family of the Visconti, he would do better for himself than by following the example of the elder generals, and setting up a little independent tyranny of his own. It is said that he offered his services first to Astorre Visconti, an illegitimate member of the family who had seized on Milan when the Duke was killed, but that the usurper's pay was not liberal enough to satisfy him. At all events, he put himself at the disposition of young Philip, who had now succeeded nominally to the dukedom of Milan, but was, so far as facts went, as much an adventurer as Carmagnola himself; although the changed aspect of affairs in Pavia, where now there was no one but Facino's widow, the fair Beatrice of Tenda, to keep the turbulent population and soldiery in hand, and to restrain the movements of the young prince, made a wonderful difference in the position. Carmagnola's offer of service put Philip at once at the head of an army, and opened to him the way of fortune. With the ease with which such domestic incidents were accomplished in those days, he married Beatrice, thus securing Pavia and all Facino's possessions. Whether she had previously cast a favourable eye upon the captive prince from the side of her scarred and deaf old general, history says not: her tragedy came afterwards, poor lady, when it suited the great Duke to get rid of the woman upon whom his fortunes were founded. But for the moment Beatrice and Carmagnola were all-important to him. The first step after securing these invaluable aids was to gain possession of Milan, where the rival Astorre was killed; and after this all was success for Philip's arms. Carmagnola, as commanderin-chief of the Duke of Milan's forces, reconquered one by one the revolted cities. It was a slow process-for those were days in which everything was done by rule, when the troops retired into winterquarters in due season, and a campaign was a leisurely performance, attended by little danger except to the unfortunate inhabi tants of the district in which it was carried on. Neither soldiers nor generals had any wish to hurry; it suited everybody better to take a great deal of time over their work, though perhaps not with the counterbalancing advantage of doing it well; the great condottieri had always a view to future eventualities, when it might, for aught they knew, be their duty to undo all they were doing, and take the other side. Carmagnola, however, had no inducement for a long time to contemplate any such possibility. His services to Philip were largely and liberally rewarded. A kinswoman of Philip's, a lady of the Visconti family, whose first husband had been high in the Duke's confidence, became his wife, and the privilege of bearing the name of Visconti and the arms of the reigning house was conferred upon him. He was not only the commander-in-chief of the troops, but held a high place at Court, and was one of the chief and most trusted of Philip's counsellors. The Piedmontese soldier was still a young man when all these glories came upon him, with accompanying wealth, due also to Philip's favour, as well as to the booty won in Philip's cause. He seems to have lived in Milan in a state conformable to these high pretensions and to the position of his wife, and was in the act of building himself a great palace, now known as the Bioletti, and appropriated to public use, when the usual fate of a favourite began to shadow over him. This was in the year 1424, twelve years after he had thrown in his fate with the prince in Pavia. The difference in Philip's position was wonderful. He had then possessed nothing save a doubtful claim on the city where he was an exile and prisoner. was now one of the greatest powers He in Italy, respected and feared by his neighbours, the master of twenty rich cities, and of all the wealthy Lombard plains. To these Carmagnola had lately added the rich prize of Genoa, superbest of northern towns with her seaboard and trade, a magnificent addition to any prince's crown. Perhaps this last feat had unduly exalted the soldier, and made him feel himself as a conqueror something more than the Duke's humble kinsman and counsellor: at all events, the eve of the change had come. The tenure of a favourite's favour is always uncertain and precarious. In those days there were many who rose to the heights of fame only to be tumbled headlong in a moment from that dazzling eminence. When they were in the service of a republic, the jealousy of their official masters was excited by every act more splendid than usual, or which threatened to give a preponderating influence; and in case of defeat their shrift was still shorter, and the name of traitor made the scaffold shameful on which the unlucky captain had to expiate his failure. With an individual master his case was little better, for the potentate was bound to have a score of flatterers at his ear ever ready to build their own advancement on the ruin of their predecessor, and eager to collect every particular of his proceedings, and whisper every evil interpretation possible. Carmagnola was at the very height of fortune when clouds began to gather over his career. He was governor of Genoa, which he had conquered, and holding his state there perhaps too like a prince." Though no idea of treachery was then imputed to him, he had been if anything too zealous for his Duke, to whose service in the meantime, as to that of a great and conquering prince, full of schemes for |