some, eight thousand men; others say that the number of dead on both sides did not amount to more than six thousand.”  The territorial results of the victory were greater than the numerical losses of the armies.  Within a fortnight, the towns of Caravaggio, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Cremona, and Pizzighitone surrendered to the French.  Peschiera alone, a strong fortress at the southern extremity of the Lake of Garda, resisted, and was carried by assault.  “It was a bad thing for those within,” says the Loyal Serviteur of Bayard; “for all, or nearly all, perished there; amongst the which was the governor of the Signory and his son, who were willing to pay good and heavy ransom; but that served them not at all, for on one tree were both of them hanged, which to me did seem great cruelty; a very lusty gentleman, called the Lorrainer, had their parole, and he had big words about it with the grand master, lieutenant-general of the king; but he got no good thereby.”  The Memoires of Robert de la Marck, lord of Fleuranges, and a warrior of the day, confirm, as to this sad incident, the story of the Loyal Serviteur of Bayard:  “When the French volunteers,” says he, “entered by the breach into the castle of Peschiera, they cut to pieces all those who were therein, and there were left only the captain, the proveditore, and the podesta, the which stowed themselves away in a tower, surrendered to the good pleasure of the king, and, being brought before him, offered him for ransom a hundred thousand ducats; but the king swore, ’If ever I eat or drink till they be hanged and strangled!  ’Nor even for all the prayer they could make could the grand master Chaumont, and even his uncle, Cardinal d’Amboise, find any help for it, but the king would have them hanged that very hour.”  Some chroniclers attribute this violence on Louis XII.’s part to a “low and coarse” reply returned by those in command at Peschiera to the summons to surrender.  Guicciardini, whilst also recording the fact, explains it otherwise than by a fit of anger on Louis’s part:  “The king,” he says, “was led to such cruelty in order that, dismayed at such punishment, those who were still holding out in the fortress of Cremona might not defend themselves to the last extremity.” [Guicciardini, Istoria d’Italia, liv. viii. t. i. p. 521.] So that the Italian historian is less severe on this act of cruelty than the French knight is.

Louis XII.’s victory at Agnadello had for him consequences very different from what he had no doubt expected.  “The king,” says Guicciardini, “departed from Italy, carrying away with him to France great glory by reason of so complete and so rapidly won a victory over the Venetians; nevertheless, as in the case of things obtained after hope long deferred men scarcely ever feel such joy and happiness as they had at first imagined they would, the king took not back with him either greater peace of mind or greater security in respect of his affairs.”  The