solicited
for their alliance, and yielding to their cupidity and a widespread
spirit of adventure, continually divided their forces into mercenary
bands, fighting for Italy and then France in the long series of
disastrous Italian campaigns undertaken by Charles VIII and his
successors, Louis XII and Francois I. "_Point d'argent, point de
Suisse_," a saying only too well merited by the conduct of these
mercenary armies, originated from these French-Italian campaigns. In
1499 the Swiss, fighting with France, betrayed the duke of Milan to
Louis XII. At Novara, fifteen years later, they fought for the duke, and
took for themselves a large part of Piemont. At Marignan, the young
Francois I at the head of a brilliant army of the French noblesse,
furnished with all the accoutrements and artillery of modern warfare,
received his baptism of fire, and Bayard won his shining immortality.
There also the Swiss in a second battle of giants, although defeated,
won as they had at St. Jacques the admiration of their conqueror; and
just as Louis XI had tempted them by unlimited pay to join his cause,
again Francois I induced them by promises of permanent pensions to a
perpetual alliance, and to the peace called "perpetual" which afterward
was maintained between Switzerland and France.

With the strictest historical justice this alliance, based on cupidity,
was by the same ignoble motive made void of result. When the great
Emperor Charles V, allied with the pope and England, threatened the
French possessions in Italy, the Swiss soldiers compelled the French
general to engage the imperial forces under the most unfavorable
conditions, and in the disastrous battle of the Bicoque brought about
the defeat of their allies, the loss of Milan and the evacuation of
Italy. Among the 16,000 Swiss who here demonstrated the worst of their
national qualities, was a force of 400 men from Gruyere under the
command of Count Jean, who fought with his natural son Jean, his
brother Jacques and his cousin of Blonay in the thick of the battle. The
French were hopelessly outnumbered by the combined imperial and Italian
armies and suffered a crushing defeat, and the Swiss soldiers whose pay
had been stolen by the mother of Francois I returned to their own
country after the battle. Confessing in truth that they were "_mal
payes, mal dotes_," Count Jean also declared that the Milanese duchy
would never be recovered by the French king unless he came himself to
Ita