o Navarra. Experience proved that he was not
deceived; for scarcely had the Milanese observed his preparations for
departure when a suppressed excitement began to spread through the town,
and soon the streets were filled with armed men. This murmuring crowd
had to be passed through, sword in hand and lance in rest; and scarcely
had the French got outside the gates when the mob rushed out after the
army into the country, pursuing them with shouts and hooting as far as
the banks of the Tesino. Trivulce left 400 lances at Novarra as well
as the 3000 Swiss that Yves d'Alegre had brought from the Romagna, and
directed his course with the rest of the army towards Mortara, where
he stopped at last to await the help he had demanded from the King of
France. Behind him Cardinal Ascanio and Ludovico entered Milan amid the
acclamations of the whole town.

Neither of them lost any time, and wishing to profit by this enthusiasm,
Ascanio undertook to besiege the castle of Milan while Ludovico should
cross the Tesino and attack Novarra.

There besiegers and besieged were sons of the same nation; for Yves
d'Alegre had scarcely as many as 300 French with him, and Ludovico
500 Italians. In fact, for the last sixteen years the Swiss had been
practically the only infantry in Europe, and all the Powers came, purse
in hand, to draw from the mighty reservoir of their mountains. The
consequence was that these rude children of William Tell, put up to
auction by the nations, and carried away from the humble, hardy life
of a mountain people into cities of wealth and pleasure, had lost, not
their ancient courage, but that rigidity of principle for which they
had been distinguished before their intercourse with other nations.
From being models of honour and good faith they had become a kind of
marketable ware, always ready for sale to the highest bidder. The French
were the first to experience this venality, which later-on proved so
fatal to Ludovico Sforza.

Now the Swiss in the garrison at Novarra had been in communication with
their compatriots in the vanguard of the ducal army, and when they
found that they, who as a fact were unaware that Ludavico's treasure
was nearly exhausted, were better fed as well as better paid than
themselves, they offered to give up the town and go over to the
Milanese, if they could be certain of the same pay. Ludovico, as we may
well suppose, closed with this bargain. The whole of Novarra was given
up to him excep