and sent Commines, who, as we know, had joined him in Tuscany, to the Venetian ‘proveditori’, whose acquaintance he had made when on his embassy; he having made a great impression on these men, thanks to a general high opinion of his merits.  He was commissioned to tell the enemy’s generals, in the name of the King of France, that his master only desired to continue his road without doing or receiving any harm; that therefore he asked to be allowed a free passage across the fair plains of Lombardy, which he could see from the heights where he now stood, stretching as far as the eye could reach, away to the foot of the Alps.  Commines found the confederate army deep in discussion:  the wish of the Milanese and Venetian party being to let the king go by, and not attack him; they said they were only too happy that he should leave Italy in this way, without causing any further harm; but the ambassadors of Spain and Germany took quite another view.  As their masters had no troops in the army, and as all the money they had promised was already paid, they must be the gainer in either case from a battle, whichever way it went:  if they won the day they would gather the fruits of victory, and if they lost they would experience nothing of the evils of defeat.  This want of unanimity was the reason why the answer to Commines was deferred until the following day, and why it was settled that on the next day he should hold another conference with a plenipotentiary to be appointed in the course of that night.  The place of this conference was to be between the two armies.

The king passed the night in great uneasiness.  All day the weather had threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly the Taro could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow onwards prove an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had only been asked for with a view to putting the French army in a worse position.  As a fact the night had scarcely come when a terrible storm arose, and so long as darkness lasted, great rumblings were heard in the Apennines, and the sky was brilliant with lightning.  At break of day, however, it seemed to be getting a little calmer, though the Taro, only a streamlet the day before, had become a torrent by this time, and was rapidly rising.  So at six in the morning, the king, ready armed and on horseback, summoned Commines and bade him make his way to the rendezvous that the Venetian ‘proveditori’ had assigned.  But scarcely had he contrived to give the order when loud cries were heard coming from the extreme right of the French army.  The Stradiotes, under cover of the wood stretching between the two camps, had surprised an outpost, and first cutting the soldiers’ throats, were carrying off their heads in their usual way at the saddle-bow.  A detachment of cavalry was sent in pursuit; but, like wild animals, they had retreated to their lair in the woods, and there disappeared.