Charles VIII. had soon collected a magnificent army and crossed the Alps in August 1494; it was composed of lances, archers, cross-bow men, Swiss mercenaries, and arquebusiers.  These last used a kind of hand-gun which had only been in common use for about twenty years, since the battle of Morat.  The arquebus had a contrivance, suggested by the trigger of the cross-bow, to convey at once the burning match to the trigger.  Before that the match had been held in the hand in using the hand-gun as well as the hand-cannon.  Many of these arquebusiers were on horseback.  Besides a number of small pieces of artillery, the French army had 140 big cannons.  The use of these fire-arms in war had been gradually increasing since the days when Louis XI. made such use of his “bombards” in the wars in Flanders.

When we read of the wonderful success which at first attended the French army, we must remember how greatly superior it was to the troops which opposed it in Italy, which were mostly bands of adventurers collected by mercenary leaders, named Condottieri, who fought for gain rather than for glory, and had no special zeal or loyalty for the prince who employed them.  The soldiers in their pay were, for the time being, their own personal property, and their great desire was to save them “to fight another day,” while it was not to their interest to kill the men of another band (who might be on the same side next time), and they only sought to make prisoners for the sake of their ransom.  The impetuosity and real warlike spirit of the French was a new and alarming thing in Italy, which had been so long accustomed to the mere show of war.

Charles passed as a conqueror through Pisa and Florence to Rome, then victorious at Capua, he entered Naples in triumph.  During the spring months of 1495, spoilt by his easy victory, he gave himself up to pleasure in that fair southern land, idly dreaming of distant conquest.  His success awakened the jealous alarm of Europe, and a formidable league was formed against him by all the Italian States, the Emperor Maximilian, and the Kings of Spain and England.  Suddenly roused to a sense of his danger, Charles VIII. left his new kingdom in the charge of his cousin, Gilbert de Montpensier, with a few thousand men, and hastily set forth on his homeward way.  He left garrisons in various conquered cities, and his army consisted of barely 10,000 men.  They crossed the Apennines with great labour and difficulty, to find their passage barred by the confederates on the Emilian plain near the village of Fornovo.

[Illustration:  Battle of Forvono.]