CHAPTER II. HIS CAMPAIGNS. No creo que cosa hay mas lastimera, Luís ZAPATA, Carlo Famoso, Can. vii. WE can form some idea of the route taken by Acquaviva and his train by tracing the path of Periandro in Pérsiles from the city of those fair Valencians who betrayed Cervantes into the unpardonable heresy of ranking their dialect above his native propio toledano. Only the Portuguese tongue, he declares, can vie with it in grace and sweetness; but, as we shall see later, his leaning towards Portugal had a basis so purely personal that a very large deduction must be made from his somewhat florid eulogies. Barcelona and Perpignan are left behind; the land of Guillem de Cabestanh and Peire Vidal, the Provençal country where "every man and woman learns Spanish," fades away in the west till at last Milan is reached, the half-Spanish town of Lucca is passed, and after a final halt at Acquapendente the cavalcade rides into Rome through the Porta del Popolo. Cervantes arrived in Rome in the spring of 1569 and remained there for some fifteen months. It was probably during this time that his Filena, now lost to us, was written, and that he laid the foundation of his knowledge of Italian literature. For the young Monsignore Acquaviva, whose protection had been so opportunely extended, he seems to have retained the kindliest memory, but to a young man of his temperament the monotonous duties of camarero would inevitably become more and more unendurable. Chinese Gordon regulating the length of ladies' trains at Calcutta was scarcely more grotesquely out of place than the impetuous Cervantes murmuring agreeable nothings to the importunate crew who throng the antechambers of a prospective Cardinal. In the summer of 1570, he resigned his post and enlisted as a private soldier in Diego de Urbina's company of Miguel de Moncada's regiment, which at that time formed part of the force under the command of Marc Antonio Colonna. It was a critical moment in the history of Europe, and, as Cervantes played some small part-" Tuve, aunque humilde, parte”—in most of the important events which followed, a few paragraphs may be spared here to a rough outline of the state of affairs. When Selim II., son of Solyman the Magnificent, ascended his father's throne, a peace of nearly thirty years' duration had existed between the Turkish Empire and the Venetian Republic. The political tendencies of heirs-apparent are seldom a profound secret, even in Turkey, and as Selim was believed to be bitterly hostile to Venice, the news of his accession was received in the Palace of the Doges with the gravest anxiety. Selim's powers of dissimulation were, however, Oriental in their completeness, and one of his first acts, on assuming the reins of government, was to renew the existing treaty. The earlier part of his reign was devoted to the administration of domestic affairs, and to the crushing of a formidable revolt among the wild tribes of Yemen. Previous to ascending the throne he had for many years cast a longing eye upon the island of Cyprus, and when he felt himself sufficiently secure at home he at once turned to the accomplishment of his old desire.1 The autumn of 1569 found him free to act. The winter was spent in amassing warlike stores, and in the silent, stealthy equipment of army and of fleet, with such success that in the spring of 1570 the preparations of the Turkish armament were practically complete. In the month of April, 1570, Cubat Caius was sent to Venice as a special ambassador with instructions to complain that Cyprus had for some time past become the head-quarters of the Levantine corsairs, who preyed on the peaceful merchantmen of Turkey and molested the free passage of the Moslem pilgrims of the Moslem pilgrims on their road to Mecca. With a view to remedying these evils Cubat was directed to call upon the octogenarian Doge, Pietro Loredano, for the peremptory surrender of Cyprus to 1 "Della Historia Vinetiana di Paolo Paruta" (Parte Seconda, "Della Guerra di Cipro "), (Vinetia, 1645), p. 7. ፡፡ lassciauassi publicamente intendere che quanto primo succedesse nell' Imperio del padre, hauerebbe cercato di farsene Signore," etc. the Ottoman Empire. A more barefaced request has seldom fallen even from ambassadorial lips, and Cubat, as he passed in ominous silence up the steps of the Giants' Staircase between Sansovino's noble statues of Mars and Neptune, must have anticipated the inevitable reply. Only one response was possible, and the demands of the Turkish envoy were unanimously rejected by the assembled senators in the Chamber of the Great Council. Within a few days of the rejection of the Turkish proposal the aged Doge Loredano died, and was succeeded by the brilliant, eloquent, shifty Mocenigo. The question could now be settled only by the arbitrament of arms, and it remained for Venice to seek assistance in the imminent, unequal struggle. Allies were not easily to be found. No power desired to enter into alliance with a state convicted of unexampled perfidy in its relations towards its neighbours. Old grudges still rankled; old envies, engendered by the commercial supremacy of the Adriatic Republic, still flourished; nor was it forgotten that to the calculating neutrality of the Venetian oligarchy some of the most disastrous defeats sustained by European arms in previous conflicts with the Turks were attributable. Venice, however, left no stone unturned, and her envoys were sent forth in all directions. Paolo Paruta, the historian of the war, tells the story of the failure of the Venetian ambassadors with a quiet humour which is irresistible. 1 "Della Historia Vinetiana di Paolo Paruta" (Parte Seconda, "Della Guerra di Cipro "), (Vinetia, 1645), p. 31. 2 Ibid. pp. 19-26. Luís de Torres, a Spanish prelate of great diplomatic astuteness, after a tolerably reassuring interview with Philip II., passed on to visit Sebastian I., King of Portugal, a pious youth who would gladly have lent his aid; but the prosperity and the armament of his country had been arrested and temporarily destroyed by a recent epidemic of the plague, and the Portuguese galleys lay disused and unarmed in the harbour of Lisbon. Charles IX., the Most Christian King of France, could not afford to quarrel with the Sultan. He had his own difficulties nearer home with Gaspard de Coligny and his Huguenots, and was forced to content himself with profuse promises that he would use all his influence at Constantinople on behalf of his excellent friends from Venice. The Nuncio at Vienna made a despairing appeal for help to Maximilian II., but that weak, good-natured successor of the Cæsars was in a high state of dudgeon and resentment with the Pope for having presumed to confer the title of Grand Duke on Cosimo of Florence without any reference to the Imperial susceptibilities. Under these circumstances, Maximilian declined to enter upon a campaign against a great military empire, the frontier of which was practically co-terminous with his own. Elizabeth of England was not likely to enter into any rash engagements, but great hopes were entertained that an ally might be found in the sovereign of Persia. After an Odyssey of adventurous wandering through Poland and Wallachia, the travelled Thane, Vicenzo d'Allessandri, returned with the news that he had failed in his |