was obliged to recall all his soldiers to be near the capital;
the only promise he made to Piero was that if Bajazet should send him the
troops that he had been asking for, he would despatch that army for him
to make use of. Piero dei Medici had not yet taken any resolution or
formed any plan, when he suddenly heard two startling pieces of news. A
jealous neighbour of his, the Marquis of Torderiovo, had betrayed to the
French the weak side of Fivizzano, so that they had taken it by storm,
and had put its soldiers and inhabitants to the edge of the sword; on
another side, Gilbert of Montpensier, who had been lighting up the
sea-coast so as to keep open the communications between the French army
and their fleet, had met with a detachment sent by Paolo Orsini to
Sarzano, to reinforce the garrison there, and after an hour's fighting
had cut it to pieces. No quarter had been granted to any of the
prisoners; every man the French could get hold of they had massacred.

This was the first occasion on which the Italians, accustomed as they
were to the chivalrous contests of the fifteenth century, found
themselves in contact with savage foreigners who, less advanced in
civilisation, had not yet come to consider war as a clever game, but
looked upon it as simply a mortal conflict. So the news of these two
butcheries produced a tremendous sensation at Florence, the richest city
in Italy, and the most prosperous in commerce and in art. Every
Florentine imagined the French to be like an army of those ancient
barbarians who were wont to extinguish fire with blood. The prophecies
of Savonarola, who had predicted the foreign invasion and the destruction
that should follow it, were recalled to the minds of all; and so much
perturbation was evinced that Piero dei Medici, bent on getting peace at
any price, forced a decree upon the republic whereby she was to send an
embassy to the conqueror; and obtained leave, resolved as he was to
deliver himself in person into the hands of the French monarch, to act as
one of the ambassadors. He accordingly quitted Florence, accompanied by
four other messengers, and an his arrival at Pietra Santa, sent to ask
from Charles VIII a safe-conduct for himself alone. The day after he
made this request, Brigonnet and de Piennes came to fetch him, and led
him into the presence of Charles VIII.

Piero dei Medici, in spite of his name and influence, was in the eyes of
the French nobility, who considered it