The king did
not propose to give the appearance of flight after a victory, and
therefore kept his army drawn up all day, and at night went on to sleep
at Medesano, a little village only a mile lower down than the hamlet
where he rested after the fight. But in the course of the night he
reflected that he had done enough for the honour of his arms in fighting
an army four times as great as his own and killing three thousand men,
and then waiting a day and a half to give them time to take their
revenge; so two hours before daybreak he had the fires lighted, that the
enemy might suppose he was remaining in camp; and every man mounting
noiselessly, the whole French army, almost out of danger by this time,
proceeded on their march to Borgo San Donnino.

While this was going on, the pope returned to Rome, where news highly
favourable to his schemes was not slow to reach his ears. He learned
that Ferdinand had crossed from Sicily into Calabria with six thousand
volunteers and a considerable number of Spanish horse and foot, led, at
the command of Ferdinand and Isabella, by the famous Gonzalva de Cordova,
who arrived in Italy with a great reputation, destined to suffer somewhat
from the defeat at Seminara. At almost the same time the French fleet
had been beaten by the Aragonese; moreover, the battle of the Taro,
though a complete defeat for the confederates, was another victory for
the pope, because its result was to open a return to France for that man
whom he regarded as his deadliest foe. So, feeling that he had nothing
more to fear from Charles, he sent him a brief at Turin, where he had
stopped for a short time to give aid to Novara, therein commanding him,
by virtue of his pontifical authority, to depart out of Italy with his
army, and to recall within ten days those of his troops that still
remained in the kingdom of Naples, on pain of excommunication, and a
summons to appear before him in person.

Charles VIII replied:

(1) That he did not understand how the pope, the chief of the league,
ordered him to leave Italy, whereas the confederates had not only refused
him a passage, but had even attempted, though unsuccessfully, as perhaps
His Holiness knew, to cut off his return into France;

(2) That, as to recalling his troops from Naples, he was not so
irreligious as to do that, since they had not entered the kingdom without
the consent and blessing of His Holiness;

(3) That he was exceedingly surprised that the