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hundred lances under Colonna, who attempted to dispute their passage.
It was Cesare Borgia himself who led the charge against them. Jean
d'Auton--in his Chronicles of Louis XII--speaks in warm terms of the
duke's valour and of the manner in which, by words and by example, he
encouraged his followers to charge the Colonna forces, with such good
effect that they utterly routed the Neapolitans, and drove them headlong
back to the shelter of Capua's walls.

The allies brought up their cannon, and opened the bombardment. This
lasted incessantly from July 17--which was a Monday--until the following
Friday, when two bastions were so shattered that the French were able
to gain possession of them, putting to the sword some two hundred
Neapolitan soldiers who had been left to defend those outworks. Thence
admittance to the town itself was gained four days later--on the
25th--through a breach, according to some, through the treacherous
opening of a gate, according to others. Through gate or breach the
besiegers stormed to meet a fierce resistance, and the most horrible
carnage followed. Back and back they drove the defenders, fighting their
way through the streets and sparing none in the awful fury that beset
them. The defence was shattered; resistance was at an end; yet still
the bloody work went on. The combat had imperceptibly merged into a
slaughter; demoralized and panic-stricken in the reaction from their
late gallantry, the soldiers of Naples flung down their weapons and
fled, shrieking for quarter. But none was given. The invader butchered
every human thing he came upon, indiscriminant of age or sex, and the
blood of some four thousand victims flowed through the streets of Capua
like water after a thundershower. That sack of Capua is one of the most
horrid pages in the horrid history of sacks. You will find full details
in d'Auton's chronicle, if you have a mind for such horrors. There is
a brief summary of the event in Burchard's diary under date of July 26,
1501, which runs as follows:

"At about the fourth hour last night the Pope had news of the capture of
Capua by the Duke of Valentinois. The capture was due to the treason of
one Fabrizio--a citizen of Capua--who secretly introduced the besiegers
and was the first to be killed by them. After him the same fate was
met by some three thousand foot and some two hundred horse-soldiers, by
citizens, priests, conventuals of both sexes, even in the very churches
and monas