CHAPTER 12

B

SAVOY

1559-1609] Antecedents of Emmanuel Plilibert

The antecedents of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy differed widely from those of Cosimo de' Medici. The latter, an unknown youth whose only claim to distinction was his father's military talent, was suddenly preferred to power by the assassination of a very distant cousin. The Savoyard, son of a most unmartial sire, was thirty years of age and the hero of Europe at the time of his restoration, which he owed to the blow struck by his own arm at Saint-Quentin. Nevertheless, the capacity of either for reconstruction and administration was almost equally unknown, and Emmanuel Philibert's task was the harder.

It had seemed inevitable that the House of Savoy should share the fate of Navarre. Mountain ranges divided the possessions of each House into two main blocks. As Ferdinand had annexed the Spanish and larger part of Navarre, and as the line of Albret had thus become a satellite of France, so the lion's share of the Savoyard territories had fallen to Francis I and Henry II, while the remainder was a mere dependency of Spain. There was, however, this difference, that here the mountains did not form the political dividing line, since the French occupied, not only the whole of the western lands which had not been previously seized by the Swiss, but also the bulk of Piedmont. This latter they fought hard to retain in the negotiations for peace; for it gave them the entrance to Italy, and kept alive their pretensions to the Milanese. Finally, to save French pride, all questions of title to the duchy or any part of it were reserved for legal decision within three years. Meanwhile they retained five strategic points Turin, Chivasso, Chieri, Villanova d'Asti, and Pinerolo. The Spaniards, who held the smaller eastern section of Piedmont, claimed as a counterpoise, until the French garrisons were withdrawn, Asti as covering Alessandria, and Vercelli to command the Sesia, but Vercelli was shortly exchanged for Santhia.

Philip II had previously extorted another concession. He coveted Nice and Villafranca as halfway naval stations between Barcelona and Genoa. The Duke could not refuse; and thus their garrisons were paid by Spain, taking the oath both to Philip and the Duke. The battle of Saint-Quentin decided, not only the Duke's restoration, but his marriage. It seemed certain from the first that the nearly related House of France would supply the bride. The Duke would have preferred Henry II's daughter Catharine, but the King seized the opportunity of finding a husband for his sister Margaret, now verging on forty, and this Princess herself had set her heart upon the Savoyard. Emmanuel Philibert at first resisted, threatening to marry Elizabeth Tudor, in spite of heresy and illegitimacy, but ultimately surrendered. The marriage was celebrated by Henry's express desire, while he was dying of Montgomery's lance-thrust.

1559] Condition of the Savoyard States

The restoration of the ruler was less difficult than the reconstruction of the State. The materials upon which the restored Duke had to work were most unpromising. Apart from a few hundred men in isolated posts, he possessed no military force, regular or irregular. The fortresses remaining to him were in ruins, while the French were authorized to dismantle those that they were ceding. The revenues were alienated or mortgaged at a ruinous rate, the very crown jewels pawned or plundered. Piedmont lay waste, its farms and cottages burnt, its country-side flooded by neglected rivers and canals. Ferrante Gonzaga had suggested the immersion of the whole plain to serve as a screen for Lombardy. The once flourishing industries in woollens and fustians had withered; a large part of the population had emigrated; the remainder were crushed by French and Spanish exactions and forced labor. Such money as there was and the French had spent freely had gravitated towards the Jews. The people, never as a whole industrious, had been demoralised by the war; they had lost all power of work, and all care for a higher standard of comfort. The parochial clergy were completely out of hand; the scandals of monasteries and nunneries cried for chastisement. Heresy had spread apace, not only in the Vaudois districts and those immediately influenced by Geneva and Dauphine, but in the very heart of Piedmont, especially in the towns garrisoned by the French and their Swiss and German mercenaries. Of administrative machinery there was little, of public order less. The Courts of Chambéry and Turin and the Exchequer (Camera de' Conti) were huddled together at Vercelli, striving to keep alive some show of justice in the scattered fiefs and towns which still owed allegiance. Their power and their procedure compared unfavorably with that of the French Courts established in Savoy and at Turin. Piedmont was cursed by the revival of the old Guelfic and Ghibelline factions, intensified by the real distinction between French, Spanish, and loyalist partisans. The loyalists expected the rewards of the restoration, and yet they were in so small a minority that the Duke must ignore past treason or indifference, and win back allegiance by peculiar favor. While feudatories had usurped privileges or lands, the larger communes of the old Lombard type, such as Asti and Vercelli, exaggerated their franchises.

The Duke had no trained administrators or ambassadors. The Grand-Chancellor, Langosco di Stroppiana, owed his promotion to his own devotion to the Prince and the Prince's devotion to his daughter. The only other adherents who as yet rose above mediocrity were Emmanuel Philibert's intimate friend Andrea Provana, lord of Leyni, who had shown courage, self-sacrifice, and diplomatic competence, and the Count of Montfort, whose cleverness was less doubtful than his orthodoxy and disinterestedness. In the Duke's favor was the enthusiasm of Piedmont; for, when the French garrisons refused to evacuate without their arrears of pay and gratuitous transport, the impoverished people made generous subscriptions. They expected to return to a golden age which knew not taxes nor military service, when the Duke had been the most free-handed among his "confederates", the nobles.

In Savoy, from the first, the feeling was more sober; for Savoy had been spared the ravages of war, and had enjoyed a judicious blend of central and local administration. The inhabitants were akin by race and speech to their immediate French neighbors, and soon became aware that their Prince posed as an Italian. The first requisite was an army, which must comprise a trained militia for defence and a mercenary professional force to stiffen defensive or initiate offensive measures. The Duke's fortresses must at least delay an enemy, and give diplomacy time to find allies. He had seen how some smaller Italian States, Mantua, Ferrara, Parma, and Florence, had made themselves respected by their military resources or scientific fortification.

Military efficiency implied organised finance. The old duties and the revenues from domain land were totally inadequate to modern needs. To extract higher contributions from his subjects the Prince must develop their resources, agricultural and commercial. He must also rid himself of the shackles imposed by the complicated congeries of provincial Estates, costly alike to ruler and subject, productive of delay, entailing loans at ruinous interest and financial embarrassment. This change again implied a process of evolution in the somewhat inchoate system of courts and councils, and the differentiation of financial, judicial, and administrative agencies. Administration alone could give unity to Savoy and Piedmont, differing in language, in sympathies, in occupations, in geographical connections. Geographical dualism connected itself with political divergence, but far more dangerous was religious dissidence. To Savoy-Piedmont, of all States, it would be most dangerous, not only because it weakened a people which to be strong must at least be united, but because it was responsible for the loss of the dynasty's rights over Geneva, and of the northern Savoyard territories to the Swiss. Now that the religious question had become international, the spread of dissent in Savoy might give a Catholic Power a pretext for intervention, such as actually occurred in the neighboring principality of Orange.

Problems for Emmanuel Philibert [1559

Apart from reconstruction or revolution for the conversion of the feudal state into a modern monarchy was little less the Prince must look to a process of recovery, and even of expansion. He could not be master while French and Spaniards held seven of his chief positions. He could not ignore the losses inflicted by the Swiss, the men of the Valais, and the citizens of Geneva. Charles V had broken his mother's heart by conferring the long-coveted Montferrat, the geographical complement of Piedmont to the east, on the rival House of Mantua. The rights of Savoy were, indeed, reserved; but reservation was only another word for repudiation. The question whether the Marquisate of Saluzzo, or any of it, were fief of Piedmont or of Dauphine had been merely academic, so long as there was a line of Marquises; but it was now all-important that its passes and fortresses should not furnish France with an inlet and a base, exposing the plain of Piedmont, and endangering the connexion with the sea-board and with Nice. The recovery of the occupied cities; that of the southern and northern shores of Lake Leman; the reestablishment of Savoyard rights over Geneva; the realization of claims upon Saluzzo and the Montferrat; the extension of the narrow strip of Riviera sea-board such were the aims which must go to make the history of Emmanuel Philibert and his heirs.

It was believed that the Duke would begin by attacking Geneva and persecuting his heterodox subjects, the Vaudois. He did indeed at once take subtle measures against Geneva, and even when at Ghent he promised the Pope to extirpate heresy. Yet his hands were so full that he would scarcely have raised a finger against the Vaudois had their unorthodoxy been limited to their traditional doctrines. Both the government and their Catholic neighbors had long regarded the Vaudois as having a vested interest in these beliefs, and bore them no ill-will on that score. It was another matter when their teachers left their valleys to draw fresh inspiration from Zurich or Geneva, when Swiss and Genevese ministers and fugitive fanatics from France carried their propagandism along the mountain slopes and down into the plain. For centuries the Vaudois belief had remained unaltered, and their ministers, the barbi, were easily out-argued by the trained disputants, first of the German cities, and then of Geneva. Thus the Vaudois deserted their ancient cult, and became, about 1530, Zwinglian, and, in 1555, ordinary Calvinists, receiving their scriptures and in great measure their ministers from the European Reformation. The primitive worship in the houses of the barbi gave place to the whitewashed temples, offensive to the eyes of the neighboring Catholics in whose churches Vaudois children had formerly received baptism. Thus the old Vaudois villages had now become a link in the chain of heresy which was drawn round Piedmont on the north and west from the further end of Lake Geneva to the coast-line of Provence. It was not merely a question of religion. In spite of profession, perhaps even of intention, the new heresy was political and aggressive aggressive above all to Savoy, for it was instinct with the old hatred between Geneva and the Dukes and their relatives the Bishops. The Vaudois, moreover, were backed by the warlike Huguenots of Dauphiné, and by the widespread heresy in the western Savoyard territories with which the Duke could never really cope.

1530-61] War with the Vaudois

The Piedmontese haunts of the Vaudois were the valleys of the Pellice and Chisone, two rivers which feed the Upper Po, and their smaller affluents, such as the Agrogna. These valleys run down between ridges projecting eastwards from the backbone of the mountains which lies north and south. The population might number 15,000; but Catholics and Vaudois were interspersed. Neither the Duke nor his subjects desired the rupture which the Pope and the foreign ministers of the Vaudois were forcing. The mountaineers had powerful intercessors in the Duchess and the Counts of Racconigi and Luserna. If they would only have expelled their foreign ministers, the government would probably have been content. But the preachers urged armed resistance, persuading their flocks that they could never be reached among their snows. Meanwhile the Pope scornfully rejected the Vaudois Confession, promising, if instruction failed and the Jesuit Possevin did egregiously fail to grant a year's ecclesiastical revenue in Piedmont for the suppression of heresy.

In October, 1560, the Vaudois resolved upon resistance. It was the usual tale of such conflicts : on the one side sudden submission and rapid recrudescence, the capture of small garrisons and the desecration of Catholic churches; on the other small mobile columns working up the valleys and along the parallel ridges here and there a serious check; but, to set against this, successful turning movements, seizure of stock, and consequent shortage of supply, as the Vaudois were forced back into the mountains. From the first the Duchess had begged for mercy; and Catharine de' Medici added her entreaties. In June, 1561, the rebels submitted on very favorable terms. In the fortified places within the Vaudois area liberty of conscience was conceded, and outside them liberty of worship also; but beyond the valleys no worship or propagandism was suffered. Foreign observers saw in the settlement a reverse for the Duke; but, strong Catholic as he was, he had a political feeling for toleration: he would not destroy his subjects, however heterodox, nor risk Swiss, French, or German intervention. Difficulties were not over, mainly because the question of the admission of foreign preachers was left obscure; and these set the people against the local leaders, who were inclined towards temperate agreement. There was a moment of alarm when Alva's army marched through Piedmont towards the Netherlands, and another when in 1569 Emmanuel Philibert with extraordinary speed built the fort of Mirabocco, to block the connection of the Pellice valley with France. He wisely took little notice of the villagers' gatherings, was opportunist in the issue and suspension of edicts against foreign preachers, and faithfully kept his word on the unquestioned terms of the original peace.

Opportunist treatment of heretics [1561-80

An opportunist policy was also followed in dealing with ordinary dissent. The early drastic measures resulted in the flight of a considerable portion of the inhabitants in some Piedmontese towns to Saluzzo and Dauphiné. Depopulation was the last thing which the Duke desired. He recalled the fugitives, quashed most of the sentences, restored confiscated property, and henceforth connived at liberty of conscience at the least. In some cases he refused to surrender heretics to the Pope, or released them from the Inquisition. He gave refuge to fugitive Huguenots, even to those flying from the provincial massacres which followed St Bartholomew's Eve. While in Piedmont the Decrees of Trent were published, in Savoy, where heresy was more dominant, publication was withheld. Toleration might have been more complete but for the provocation given by native and foreign heretics, who formed plots against different places in turn, and who actually occupied the strong strategic position of Exilles.

Emmanuel Philibert's comparative tenderness towards heretics displeased both Philip II and successive Popes, while the occasional imprisonment of treasonable reformers brought lectures from the German Princes. To both parties he urged that circumstances alter cases : and he answered Philip's remonstrances by declining to depopulate his country, and to give a pretext for the intervention of the vigilant Huguenots of Provence and Dauphiné. Nevertheless, he was clever enough to retain or restore amicable relations with both religions abroad, and to prevent recrudescence of serious trouble at home. Even the wild Huguenots of Dauphiné respected his agents and messengers. Some precautions were, however, always taken. In later days in France the exclusion of Huguenots from royal favors proved a potent engine of conversion; and the same method was earlier tried in Savoy. Reform, moreover, was fought with its own weapons, and the high characterand devotion of Girolamo della Rovere, Archbishop of Turin, made him a formidable foe. When the Jesuits and the associated Order of St Paul were firmly established at Turin and elsewhere, when the seminaries educated teachers as competent as those of the Piedmontese congregations, Catholicism began to recover ground, and to drive nonconformity back to the Vaudois valleys. If Emmanuel Philibert had been a persecutor, he would scarcely have kept his throne; if he had given free course to heresy, his son would probably have lost it.

The shortest and easiest means to suppress heresy would doubtless have been the conquest of Geneva. The Duke's military advisers did, indeed, survey the possibilities of surprise or siege, while other agents, acquiring property in or near the town, stealthily manufactured a Savoyard party. It was, however, too dangerous to provoke singlehanded the Protestant Cantons and the Huguenots, perhaps even some of the German Princes. Geneva could only be attacked with the co-operation of the Catholic Powers. The Pope was eager, and Philip II would probably have consented; but the French Court hesitated, and finally refused assent, for the very reason, perhaps, that the Guise party would have granted it. Thus the great opportunity was lost, though Emmanuel Philibert kept his claims alive. He refused, however, to acquiesce in the occupation of the whole of his northern territories by Bern, Freiburg, and the Valais, finding aid in the dislike of the other Cantons for the aggressive practices of Bern. The line of division was not religious; for, while Catholic Freiburg shared with Protestant Bern the territories robbed from Charles III, Protestant Zurich concurred with the other six Catholic Cantons in the sympathy for Savoy, which in 1560 culminated in the Treaty of Luzern. Mediation was then entrusted to the eleven neutral Cantons; but when Bern proved recalcitrant, the Catholic Cantons began to exchange persuasion for threats. The Bernese at length saw that their opponent was a Prince whom even France thought well to propitiate, and they assented to a compromise regulated by the treaties of Nyon and Lausanne (1564). The Duke recovered Gex, and the territories occupied by Bern to the south of Lake Geneva, while he ceded those on the north from the entrance of the Rhone to Vevay, and also the Pays de Vaud. The middle of the Lake was fixed as the boundary.

The Duke promised liberty of conscience in the recovered territories, reserving his rights to Geneva, but engaging not to prosecute them by force of arms, and to allow unrestricted commerce with the city. Five years later, the Duke recovered from the Valais the southern shore of the Lake between the rivers Drance and Morge, ceding the lands on the right bank of the latter. The Valais entered into an alliance for mutual support with a definite number of troops, and gave the Duke permission to move his forces through their territory from one part of his dominions to another. Both concessions were of great advantage; for he thus obtained a secondary means of communication between Savoy and Piedmont, and a most efficient auxiliary force at a very slight cost.

Freiburg proved more obstinate, for the Duke had no means of attacking his lost territory of Romont, separated as it was by the recent cessions to Bern. The dispute dragged on until 1578, when he suddenly gave way, because it was hindering the conclusion of a most essential league with the Catholic Cantons. This league was bought at the price of Romont, and was worth its price, for it assured to the Duke in case of attack a force of 12,000 Swiss, while the Cantons engaged not to admit Geneva into fellow-citizenship until the justice of his claims had been decided. As an outward token of the new alliances the Duke's person was henceforth guarded by sixty halberdiers recruited from the Catholic Cantons and the Valais.

Recovery of Turin [1559-78

The three years within which the French Crown had to substantiate its claims slipped rapidly by amid excuses, delays, and the revival of ridiculous pretensions. Should Emmanuel Philibert have no heir, as was thought probable, his Gallicised cousin, the Duke of Nemours, would succeed under totally different conditions. But on January 12, 1562, Margaret gave birth to Charles Emmanuel. The civil wars in France had now begun, enabling the Duke to press harder. He won the King of Navarre, the Constable, and Nemours, while Margaret secretly corresponded with the Queen-Mother. France was still too strong to abandon her hold on Italy; and the Duke saw that he must compromise. One proposal was an exchange of the fertile province of Bresse for Saluzzo and the five Piedmontese towns; but finally the French retained Pinerolo, receiving Savigliano and the valley of Perosa in return for the other cities. This gave them better access to Saluzzo, while it freed the centre of Piedmont from their annoying presence. Such was the growing demoralization in France that the Crown's engagement found no acquiescence from its officers in Piedmont.

Under great provocation the Duke had kept his temper for three years; he now with consummate judgment lost it. Accusing the French commandants of stirring his Protestant subjects to revolt, he threatened an appeal to Spain as guarantor of the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. This brought the Cardinal of Lorraine himself to Piedmont with peremptory orders for evacuation. The garrisons sulkily withdrew to their less comfortable quarters.

On December 12, 1562, the Duke rode into Turin, henceforth the capital of a new European Power. Through these weary negotiations Spain and the Pope had given Emmanuel Philibert no aid; the victory was all his own. He felt that his fortunes must depend mainly on the power of France and thus on the issue of the civil wars. Their continuance was to his interest; and, when trouble began for Spain in the Netherlands, his old intimacy with its promoters is said to have added force to this diversion.

1566-80] Evacuation of Piedmont by France and Spain

After the Massacre of St Bartholomew it become difficult to steer a reasonably safe course. While professing proper Catholic enthusiasm, the Duke entered into close correspondence with Montmorency-Damville, Governor of Languedoc, who dissociated himself from the royal crime. The death of Charles IX made all things easier. The Queen-Mother begged Emmanuel Philibert to escort Henry III through Italy on his way from Poland. At Venice he was the King's inseparable companion; thence he escorted him to Turin; and everywhere the Savoyard forces were ostentatiously reviewed. Their master was too great a gentleman to beg a favor in his own house, though, perhaps, the Duchess privately besought her nephew to make a gift of the districts still occupied by France. At Lyons Henry III promised their restoration, while the Duke offered a large force against the King's enemies in France. The moment of happiness was terribly marred, for Emmanuel Philibert was hurried home by the illness of his wife and his heir. The boy recovered, but the Duke's staunchest ally and counselor was lost to him. To her, almost as much as to himself, the salvation of Savoy had been due, while she had made Turin a social and intellectual centre, worthy of old France. The political effects of the loss were felt at once, for the French ministers and the Duke of Nevers, a Gonzaga, now Governor of Saluzzo, strenuously opposed the cession of the Piedmontese fortresses. The King, however, held to his promise; and in the winter of 1574-5 Piedmont was clear of French garrisons. Margaret, with clear insight, had often twitted her husband on the respective greed of France and Spain. Though Philip had no conceivable pretext for retaining Asti and Santhia, their cession cost infinite trouble, and huge bribes to his factotum, Antonio Perez. But the evacuation was at last completed, and the Duke was ruler throughout the length and breadth of Piedmont.

In addition to the recovered cities, Emmanuel Philibert made some useful acquisitions by purchasing Tenda with the valleys of Prela and Maro. The former was of much importance, as commanding the pass to Nice, while the Prela opened a way to Oneglia, which was bought from one of the Doria. Thus was won yet another access to that much disputed Riviera, where France and Spain, Genoa and Savoy, each had a foothold. The Duke was suspected of designs upon Finale, already coveted by the Spanish King, and also upon Savona, which would gladly have revolted from Genoa, who was deliberately ruining its once thriving trade. His chief failure was Montferrat. In vain he appealed for a revision of his claim, visiting Augsburg in 1566 to press it. He found the Emperor so intent upon a Turkish campaign that delicacy held him back, though he thought it judicious to contribute a serviceable cavalry contingent. A less cautious statesman might have found his opportunity in the rising of Casale, virtually a free town, against the absolutism of the first Mantuan Marquis. After giving some encouragement he finally, from fear of Spain, left the rebellion alone, even expelling the refugees to whom he had given shelter.

Designs upon Saluzzo [1579-80

In his designs upon Saluzzo the Duke was more venturesome, and at his death had some hold upon the Marquisate. Success depended on French favor, and this on French difficulties. His system was to court all parties. He was intimate with Montmorency-Damville, studiously amicable to the Queen-Mother, sympathetic towards the ultra-Catholics, generous to proscribed Huguenots. During the earlier troubles of Henry III's reign Emmanuel Philibert offered to buy Saluzzo; but the French Court preferred the bid of Bern, Zurich, and Basel; and, but for the Duke's active influence upon French parties the bargain would have been struck to the imminent peril of his State. This terrible risk drove him to the first step in the attempted dismemberment of France, which was to cost his son so dear. He tempted Philip II to a joint attack, as the result of which Saluzzo, and perhaps Provence and Dauphiné, should fall to himself, while he would abandon to Spain his claims on Montferrat. For so bold a scheme Philip was too timid; and the Duke narrowed his aims to intervention in Saluzzo, where the governor Bellegarde was scheming to establish, with Spanish aid, an independent satrapy. Catharine de' Medici induced Bellegarde temporarily to resign his governorship; but in 1579 the adventurer with a motley force of Huguenots and Catholics reoccupied Carmagnola and the town of Saluzzo. In all this Emmanuel Philibert was concerned. He was glad to pay off his score against the Queen, who had baulked his designs upon Geneva, but he feared the large Huguenot element in Bellegarde's army.

Catharine, believing that he was the determining factor, interviewed him at Grenoble and at Montluel. Bellegarde was bribed to loyalty by the governorship of Saluzzo with wider powers, but straightway died (1579). The Duke professed to be the mainstay of French influence; yet Carmagnola was held, nominally for France, but really for himself, while in Centallo the Provengal adventurer Anselme with a strong Huguenot garrison was financed by Spain. Such was the situation in Saluzzo at the time of Emmanuel Philibert's death on August 30, 1580.

To a character so arbitrary and a genius so constructive as that of Emmanuel Philibert it was almost an advantage that the social and constitutional landmarks of his State had been swept away. Constitution, army, justice, finance, and education must needs be new creations. Not one of them was isolated; they must all form part of a single architectonic plan. The creator cannot be said to have brought to perfection his complicated structure; but he left it so far advanced that a careful and sympathetic successor with far less genius, but a due regard to the adaptation of ends to means, could have completed the design.

1559-80] Emmanuel Philibert's financial policy

Finance was the foundation; and this for a modern monarchy must be wider and deeper than that which had served for the frail superstructure of feudal Savoy. Burdens hitherto locally borne by feudatories and communes were now added to the liabilities of the central government. The Duke's foreign expenses were enormous, for he had to buy and keep partisans at Rome, Vienna, and Madrid, in the Swiss Cantons, in each French faction. Large sums were needed to buy out the French and Spanish garrisons, and to purchase the feudal territories which lay between central Piedmont and the coast. It is not surprising, therefore, that Emmanuel Philibert's taxation was quadruple or quintuple that of his father. Throughout his reign he experimented in finance, ringing
the changes on frontier duties, or imposts on articles of consumption, on direct taxation after the model of the French taille, and on the salt monopoly which took the usual form of forcing each family to purchase a specified amount. The object was as far as possible to bring the exempted classes into line with the middle and lower. To this there was of course much resistance; but the Duke's general friendliness towards the Papacy enabled him to draw large subsidies from his clergy.

The Estates of Piedmont would never have granted the taxes which the Duke extracted, but they had almost ceased to exist during the French occupation; and he made no effort to revive them, although he continued to summon the several provincial Estates of his Savoyard territories, where the question of subsidies was less important. In Piedmont he negotiated with the communes separately, and with committees of contributories in the country districts. He would listen suggestions and remonstrances, and vary the methods and incidence of taxation, but on the sum total of revenue to be derived he was immovable. Much discontent there was. The Venetian envoy Boldu in his report of 1561 states that the Piedmontese longed for war again and cursed the peace, that in the towns still occupied by France they had no wish for evacuation, and that French officials fanned the flames. But there was no rising against taxation. The Duke had gained his object; towards the close his budgets balanced, while he had a large sum of gold in the treasury for emergencies. Few European rulers could boast as much.

Meanwhile, the resources of Piedmont were developed; and its prosperity perhaps increased in as high a ratio as its burdens. The Duke had the talent for detail characteristic of the best soldiers; nothing was too small for his attention in agricultural and commercial progress. He revived or created the manufacture of cloth and fustians, of hats, and more especially of silk. He is said to have forced his subjects to grow mulberries wherever it was possible; and a Venetian envoy reported that Piedmont was being denuded of timber by the introduction of mulberries and vines. Soap, glass, and porcelain were among other industries encouraged; and it was noticeable that the chief magnates were those most infected by this new spirit of enterprise. But, after all, minerals were the most rapid means of producing wealth; and in mining the Duke took the deepest, if most futile, interest. He with difficulty believed that he could possess so much mountain with so little metal, and at length in despair had recourse to alchemy. The production of native salt would at all events multiply the value of his monopoly; and he gave attention both to the mines of rock-salt in Savoy, and to the process of evaporation on the Riviera. The ducal edicts usually opened with an educational introduction in literary form, explaining the bearing of their contents. That which related to the attempted abolition of serfage was peculiarly modern, beginning, "Since it has pleased God to restore human nature to full liberty." Nevertheless the philanthropy was spoiled by the fiscalism which strove to make a revenue out of emancipation fees, while the voice of freedom found little echo among the idle and ignorant peasantry.

The Savoyard fleet [1559-80

In the armament of the recovered State, curiously enough, the Duke's fleet took precedence of his army. The first year of his actual reign he spent at Nice, the home of his childhood. Here with Andrea Provana's help he constructed his little fleet. As the lord of Nice and Villafranca, he was a valuable ally to the rulers of Barcelona or Marseilles. He was probably infected with Charles V's enthusiasm for a naval crusade, but apart from this a squadron seemed essential for coast defence.

The Riviera was annually harried by the Barbaresques; the Duke himself was surprised at Villafranca and for a moment left alone among the enemy. In 1560 Provana could command ten galleys, and though this number was reduced his squadron remained a model of efficiency. The galleys were faster than the Genoese; their crews better fed and more humanely treated; the Duke himself invented an improved carbine for his marines. At Lepanto Provana and his three ships fought almost to their own destruction. To make naval service fashionable the Duke later obtained the Pope's consent to vest the Grand-mastership of the old and now corrupt Order of San Lazzaro in the dynasty on condition of creating and fusing with it the Order of San Maurizio. He gave the Knights two galleys and a training base at Nice; but, though Savoyard nobles were attracted by the commanderies of San Lazzaro scattered throughout Europe, they scarcely increased the efficiency of the fleet.

On land the Duke's first care was the fortification of critical positions. The great pentagon of Turin was so admired by Alva on his march to the Netherlands that he carried off its engineer, Pacciotti, to build the Antwerp citadel. The master's own craft was proved by his modification of the pentagon to suit the more limited space of the strong new castle of Bourg. Montmelian was believed to be impregnable; and the great fortress of the Annunziata rose as a menace to Geneva. The shattered defences of Cuneo were transformed; and Mondovi's monastic buildings, which occupied the dominant site, were replaced by fortifications. The Duke's artillery was partly founded from church bells bought cheap from neighboring Huguenot provinces. He professed that his fortresses were designed to stem the flowing tide of heresy, of which the first rush would fall on him. But the military experts of France and Spain could see that the new fortifications concerned themselves; and the works at Vercelli had to be abandoned on Spanish protests. The fortresses were well garrisoned, absorbing some 3000 troops, who were so highly paid that Savoyard service became popular. Skilled gunners and artificers were imported from Germany, while cannon foundries and powder factories were established in the Duchy.

1559-80] The Savoyard army

To support his scheme of fortresses the Duke created a militia of 25,000 men. In Piedmont these soon improved under a system of parochial, district, and provincial training, but all Venetian envoys agreed that in Savoy there was not a tolerable soldier; the people were poor-spirited and used their helmets, breast-plates, swords, and lances as kitchen utensils. The small force of 700 yeomanry consisted mainly of gentry well mounted and of excellent quality. In case of invasion the Duke could fall back upon a feudal levy of 7000 horse who had the potentialities of a serviceable cavalry. Yet, after all, this was an age of professionalism; and every would-be military power must be in touch with the mercenary market. The Duke's distinguished service gave him a great advantage; he retained in his pay nine Italian condottieri of high repute, named "the Colonels", who at any crisis could find him as many seasoned troops as he could pay. Finally, his treaty with the Catholic Cantons and the Valais gave him a lien on a definite number of stalwart foot, while proportionately reducing the forces available by France or Spain.

It is remarkable that the victor of Saint-Quentin never fought again. Nor did he ever employ in active service the little army which he created, except in small numbers as mere auxiliaries of the Emperor or the French King, and this for political ends unconnected with the actual campaigns. The military resources of the new State were adapted rather for defence than offence. The militia was not sufficiently trained for conquest; the Swiss, though deeply interested in the preservation of Savoy, would not have fought for its expansion. Emmanuel Philibert would go to the very edge of an aggressive policy, but would never overstep it, however passionate were his desires. This may be illustrated from his attitude towards Genoa and Geneva, and from the self-control with which he kept his itching palms from Saluzzo and the Montferrat. He had the gift of measuring his possibilities.

Emmanuel Philibert's physical energy was marvellous. Most of his business he conducted standing or walking; he craved for fresh air, and hard exercise in blazing sun, vowing that fog was more wholesome than crowded rooms. After a nine hours' run which had brought stag, field, and pack to a stand-still, he would split the logs to cook his supper, play quoits till dark, and rustic games till midnight. Naturally he was all bone and muscle; but he did not escape an hereditary touch of gout.

Personality of Emmanuel Philibert [1559-80

The Duke was not, so the envoys state, highly educated, being only a good mathematician, and a most accomplished linguist. His natural bent was practical, and his favorite employments military mechanics, chemistry, planting, and grafting. Yet he fully appreciated culture, and if one ambassador heard Euclid read aloud, another must listen to Aristotle's Ethics. He delighted in history, and on an abstract theme could argue as if he had read all Plato. The education of modern Savoy dates from Emmanuel Philibert. While debarred from his capital, he founded his new University at Mondovi, endowing all the faculties, and attracting eminent foreign professors. Transferred after a sharp local conflict to Turin, it rapidly forged ahead. Research and taste were fostered by the splendid library, collected from all the chief centres of the book-trade, by the museum of statuary, pictures, and gems, of scientific and mechanical appliances. The learned Pingone, whose labors students still utilise, collected documents from local Piedmontese archives; a ducal commission compiled an encyclopaedia, the Teatro universale di tutte le scienze. Turin was taught to make its own paper and set up its own type; and, to give it an admirable model, the Bevilacqua press was beguiled from Venice.

Personally religious, the Duke was regular at mass, and knew the service as well as the priest; sparing in all else, he was generous to the Church, especially to the newer and more active fraternities. Men kept their religion and their morals in separate compartments of their characters. From first to last the Duke was an unfaithful husband, though he treated his wife with playfulness, tenderness, and respect.

No indecent jests ever passed his lips; and, in spite of service in Flanders, he never acquired the soldierlike habit of swearing. He plumed himself on truthfulness and observance of his promises.

No ruler ever carried further the principles of absolute monarchy. He regarded himself as having conquered his country, lance in rest, and felt no obligation to respect the liberties of nobles or communes. The duchy must be a new creation, his own handiwork, and the Duke as near a King as might be. The desire for a royal title, exaggerated in his son, was not the outcome of mere vanity, but an integral part of his political scheme. This explains his pride and exclusiveness, for by nature he was gracious and sociable.

At church and at table he sat under a canopy. This contrast between his exclusiveness and his father's easy manners was far from popular; but some outward symbol of the new relation was perhaps necessary. On all grounds the Duke was resolved to keep his nobles in their place. There was nothing, he said, that a Prince should so carefully avoid as the grant of fiefs, for it was the creation of potential enemies. Until his power was firmly established he controlled the two parties, Guelf and Ghibelline, through the agency of their chiefs, the Counts of Racconigi and Masino. Later, however, he decided everything for himself, not even always consulting the most intimate of his friends, Andrea Provana. Men naturally regretted the old, easy times, but the day was past for the reconstruction of an old fashioned and haphazard feudal State.

1580-5] Accession of Charles Emmanuel

On Emmanuel Philibert's death the direct succession hung upon a single doubtful life. Charles Emmanuel, reared with difficulty, had finally been hardened into manhood by his father's passion for air and exercise. Small and thin, and pale of face, he could yet hunt or joust or fight with total disregard for the hours of food or sleep. He was described at a later time as being "all muscle and spirit." Intellectually restless, he was already something of a poet and an artist, showing signs of the versatile taste and rapid intuition which enabled him to hold his own with experts on whatever topic. Latterly he had shared all his father's plans, and he took over his father's only confidential ministers, Bernardino di Racconigi and Andrea Provana. Thus Saluzzo and Geneva were still in the foreground of the ideal picture of the Savoyard State, and Montferrat in the middle distance.

By birth and intellectual propensity the Duke leant towards France. Spain, however, seemed the more formidable, for the conquest of Portugal gave prestige and prospects of illimitable wealth; and the Spanish troops, poured into Lombardy from Genoa and Naples, were marched through Piedmont and Savoy to Franche-Comté on their way to the Netherlands.

Charles Emmanuel must obviously marry. The natural alternatives were a French and a Spanish match, but each was subdivided. Catharine de' Medici longed to give him her well-loved granddaughter, Christine of Lorraine. This would entail a close union with the Crown, and strengthen the old friendship with the Guises. Montmorency-Damville, governor of Languedoc, his father's friend, would have linked him to the opposition by marriage with Navarre's sister, Catharine. This was the Duke's own preference, but he was too Catholic and too prudent to wed a heretic in the Pope's despite. The Spanish nobility, hating closer connection with the Habsburgs, would gladly have seen the elder Infanta, Isabella, marry the Savoyard, and so tighten the Spanish hold on Italy. Philip, however, reserved her for an Austrian marriage; so the Duke must be content with the second daughter, Catharine. As a sequel to the marriage he hoped for Geneva, Saluzzo, Montferrat; but in spite of lavish expenditure in Spain, he brought nothing home with his bride but promises of aid which always failed, and the contract for a dowry never paid in full.

The Spanish marriage might seem to decide Savoyard policy. Yet, though Philip often hampered or thwarted his son-in-law, he never gave a lead. The very marriage had been finally determined by Alençon's death; and Savoyard history, until Philip's decease, followed the fortunes of religious war in France. The Swiss were, indeed, often an important factor; but French politics controlled also the action of the Cantons.

Savoyard plots against Geneva [1580-8

The early years of the reign were occupied mainly in plots against Geneva. The conditions of success were complex. Surprise was almost necessary, and yet difficult, for a gathering of troops would alarm Bern and the Huguenots of Dauphiné. Spanish support and the neutrality at least of France seemed essential, yet these were incompatible, for a Savoyard occupation of Geneva would facilitate Spanish communications with the Netherlands to the prejudice of France. It would require large forces to take and hold Geneva in the teeth of the Bernese; they must therefore either be propitiated, or elsewhere employed, or counteracted by the Catholic Cantons. Bern and even Catholic Freiburg had vital interest in Geneva's independence, for its capture would encourage the Duke to attempt recovery of the territories ravished from Charles III.

The most natural ally against Geneva was the Pope, who could offer invaluable financial aid. But the Pope could not ignore French remonstrances, nor force Philip II's pace. Moreover, directly the Curia stirred, a war professedly undertaken for local Savoyard rights became a European religious conflict; German Protestants began to arm, and even England threatened. Thus Charles Emmanuel's schemes naturally failed, though he had secret supporters within the city sternly ruled by a Calvinist oligarchy, and in the Vaud, where the unsympathetic Swiss rule was far from popular. Du Plan, who was to surprise the citizens in church with the aid of soldiers concealed in barges plying with rice, was executed for treason. Henry III gave vague promises and withdrew them. Spanish aid was not forthcoming. Cardinal Borromeo, who strove to unite the Catholic cause in Lombardy, Piedmont, and the Forest Cantons, was eager for war; but the more prudent Gregory XIII thought the means of Savoy incommensurate with its ends. The formation of the Catholic League in France and the accession of Sixtus V offered better chances. The Pope roused the enthusiasm of the Catholic Cantons; and so closely was he concerned, that Geneva was to be conquered in his name and then conferred on Savoy. One Damilly promised to betray a gate on Easter Sunday, 1586. But a movement so extensive could not be concealed. Henry III, stronger abroad than at home, could at least delay the attack by pressure on the Pope. Philip II meant the scheme to be subsidiary, and not preliminary, to his own wider plans. Drake's ravages and the preparations for the Armada delayed the promised Spanish aid till the day for surprise was past. Then, when all was ready for a formal siege, the Governor of Milan suddenly announced that his troops were needed for the Netherlands.

Since 1584 the Duke had fitfully intrigued with all French parties for the possession or governorship of Saluzzo. Henry III's capitulation to the League on the Day of the Barricades stirred his ambitions into full activity. The royalist lieutenant-governor, La Hitte, harassed by Huguenot raids from Dauphiné, and endangered by the approach of the Leaguers under Mayenne, appealed to Charles Emmanuel. The latter professed to fear, above all things, a Huguenot occupation of Saluzzo, and so played upon papal sympathy. Yet from the first he had an understanding with Lesdiguières, now fully engaged by Mayenne's advance. Montmorency also, from fear of the League, urged a Savoyard occupation. Thus encouraged, the Duke on Michaelmas morning, 1588, surprised
Carmagnola, taking possession in the name of Henry III, and posing in French dress as governor for France. Within two months the whole Marquisate was in his hands. The Spanish government had disapproved of the rash act, but admired the skill of its execution, and welcomed the fait accompli as closing Italy to France. The news of the outrage reached Henry III while the Estates sat at Blois, and caused a cry for reconciliation at home and war on Savoy. Venice, Tuscany, and Ferrara were willing to pay the costs of the Savoyard's eviction; but in France each class and party hated its neighbor more than the foreigner; Guise told the Duke that he only urged hostilities for fear of being thought a bad Frenchman. The King alone was not to be appeased. His ultimatum reached Charles Emmanuel on Christmas-Day, only to be treated with contempt. Two days earlier Guise was murdered at Blois.

Saluzzo was the first and last substantial success of this adventurous reign. The Duke's elation was increased by a campaign against Geneva, in which his own generalship forced her Bernese allies to abandon her, while she was bridled by the fortress of Sainte-Catherine, built just outside her borders. He believed now that he could safely turn on France. The King's murder in August, 1589, offered him a complexity of chances too tempting for his speculative spirit. His father had known how to propitiate all French parties, and play on all; the son intrigued with all, and offended all. He offered aid and congratulations to Navarre. To Philip II he proposed to hold Provence for the Cardinal Bourbon, elect of the League. He promised Mayenne to employ all his strength in the national Catholic cause. Lesdiguières was tempted to yield him Dauphiné by the offer of a Savoyard bride. To gain a free hand in Provence, Montmorency was industriously cajoled. Why should not Charles Emmanuel be King himself? Was he not born of a French King's daughter? Could not his wife inherit her mother's claim, since her elder sister was so likely to succeed to the Spanish Crown that the French would never suffer her? More definite, however, were his views on a more modest kingdom a revival of that of Arles, or an Allobrogian kingdom, comprising Savoy, Dauphiné, Provence, and the Lyonnais. He had long prepared his ground. In Dauphiné, indeed, his overtures to the Parliament of Grenoble met with rebuff; the Catholics, hard pressed by Lesdiguières, were urged by Mayenne to submit rather to the heretic than the Savoyard. Provence was more favorable; for here a small Savoyard force was already fighting for the League against the Royalist governor Bertrand de la Valette. The Duke received a formal invitation from the Parliament of Aix to hold the province for the Crown and the Catholic religion.

War in Provence [1590-2

Charles Emmanuel's interference in Provence has quite erroneously been ascribed to Spanish influence, for Philip earnestly dissuaded it. He was unwilling to irritate the French nation into war, and to fritter away resources far from the centre of civil strife. He could not approve the dismemberment of France when he wished to win the whole for the Infanta Isabella. Sixtus V offered some cold encouragement, but his real wish was the reconciliation of Henry IV with Rome. Definite action was delayed by a revival of the Genevese war, by La Valette's capture of Barcelonnette, which blocked the most practicable road to Provence, and by the necessity of relieving Grenoble. But in June, 1590, the skies were clearer. The Duke sent his best officer, Martinengo, to Aix with troops and money, and in November made his own triumphal entrance to the Provençal capital. Here he was invested with command by the four Estates, that he might maintain the province in the Catholic religion and under the authority of the King of France. This prosperous opening had a sorry sequel. The Duke's ministers soon discovered that his force was totally unequal to its task. The Provençal Leaguers were divided; and favor towards the faction of the Comtesse de Saulx determined the hostility of that of the Comte de Carces. Marseilles and Arles clamored for a papal protectorate, which Sixtus V refused, for "the Marseillais were the most unstable people upon earth."

The Duke had failed to realize how dangerous an enemy was Lesdiguières, the most resourceful leader that the Civil Wars had trained, whose Huguenot bands were hardened by years of mountain warfare to the perfection of mobility and daring. Round Dauphiné the Savoyard territories and Provence lay in a half circle. From this vantage-ground, acting on interior lines, Lesdiguières could threaten Savoy or Piedmont, Saluzzo or Provence. Everywhere he was pouncing on Savoyard and League garrisons, and since December, 1590, he was far stronger, for his capture of Grenoble made him master of his own province. Inaction and taxation strained Provençal patience; and Spain would give no aid. As a last resource the Duke determined on a personal appeal to Philip; and at this conjuncture the irreconcilable virulence of the factions at Marseilles gave him the opportunity.

Early in 1591 the Leaguers expelled the Royalists; and the Comtesse de Saulx gained access for the Duke, who persuaded the city to elect deputies to accompany him to Spain. Philip gave his son-in-law a cold reception, but Charles Emmanuel tempted him with the prospect of Toulon, and extorted a small military and naval force with which he sailed for Marseilles. Meanwhile La Valette and the Grand Duke of Tuscany had suborned his commandant; and the city refused admittance. The Comtesse de Saulx herself deserted him; but he forced his way into Aix and took her prisoner. This capture of his quondam devotee was his last success in his imaginary Allobrogian kingdom. General politics were now setting against Savoyard pretensions. The new Pope, Clement VIII, graciously received a deputation from Marseilles, offering him the Protectorate, and complaining that Charles Emmanuel had tried to betray the town to Spain. Parma's retreat from Rouen rendered possible a concentration of royalist forces in the south. In April the Duke retired to Nice, leaving a few garrisons to facilitate the return for which he always hoped.

1592-8] French invasion of the Savoyard States

Six years of defensive warfare were now to prove the Duke's best qualities his resourcefulness, his unflagging courage in misfortune. Lesdiguières, crossing the Mont Genèvre late in 1592, won the Piedmontese Vaudois, and began the systematic conquest of Saluzzo. Charles Emmanuel showed that he was still to be reckoned with, by dragging his guns up the heights overlooking Exilles and pounding the fortress into surrender (May, 1593). The Truce of Suresnes, which followed Henry IV's abjuration, was welcomed by Savoyards and Piedmontese, exhausted by Huguenot raids and war taxation, and disturbed by the Spanish auxiliaries from Lombardy, who were annexing the Eastern fortresses as in the disastrous days of Charles III.

In January, 1594, the Truce expired; in February Lyons declared for Henry IV a source of great danger to Savoy in March the King entered Paris. Charles Emmanuel was urged by his envoy at Madrid to make peace with France, for the action of "that old tree" Philip II was as weak, slow, and ill-regulated in France and Flanders as in Savoy. The Governor of Milan in genuine alarm urged Philip to give his son-in-law substantial aid. Philip then consented to the Duke's repeated petitions that he should command the Spanish troops in Piedmont, but he must confine himself to the capture of Bricherasio and Cavour. Thus decided, Charles Emmanuel fell upon Bricherasio, fought a drawn battle with Lesdiguières for the relief of Exilles, which he could not save, and then forced Cavour to surrender by his impenetrable cordon of blockhouses. Piedmont was thus relieved; but Savoy was surrounded by hostile provinces, and had no adequate means of defence. The Duke's sympathies were becoming French; he convinced his wife that she should prefer her husband's and sons' interests to her father's. The papal Nuncio at Turin wrote that the Duke was by nature much of a Frenchman; while the Spanish Constable declared that he had French lilies planted in his breast.

This change of front resulted in the tedious conferences of Bourgoing, turning mainly on the possession of Saluzzo. The Duke and Sillery arrived at a reasonable compromise; and peace seemed certain. But Lesdiguières and Biron convinced the King of the ease of conquering Savoy and Piedmont. Henry IV curtly disavowed his agent; he had only waited till Lesdiguières was ready. The Huguenot now sprang upon Charbonnières, the key of the Savoyard province of La Maurienne. The Duke, as a counterstroke, built a fort at Barraux to threaten Grenoble. At this crisis he fell ill, nearly to death, at Chambéry. The Duchess, in her confinement, hearing that her beloved lord was dead, died herself of grief.

Charles Emmanuel was no model husband, but he was truly devoted to the one counsellor in whose advice he trusted. His passionate sorrow could only be relieved by action. Forcing his way through the snows into La Maurienne in February, 1598, he retook Charbonnières. Nor was this all. Lesdiguières' son-in-law, Crequi, believing from the sound of continual firing that the fort still held out, was entrapped with his whole force, the most serious reverse, perhaps, that Lesdiguières had ever suffered. Yet the Huguenot would not be denied the last word, and his reply was the seizure of Barrault. These vigorous exchanges were no unworthy termination of a war in which the Duke had proved himself an apt disciple of his enemy, the master of the art of mountain warfare. He emerged from the long conflict without apparent sacrifice of territory. Savoy was by the papal legate's agency included in the Peace of Vervins; Berre, the last place held in Provence, was surrendered; the question of Saluzzo was left to the Pope's arbitration.

The War of Saluzzo [1599-1600

Charles Emmanuel was determined to keep Saluzzo, Henry IV to have it back, and Clement VIII to postpone the responsibility of his award. The Duke's methods were to convince Spain of the necessity of keeping the French to the west of the Alps, to bribe the French Court, and especially the King's mistress, Gabrielle d'Estrées, and to enjoy the benefit of time. It was difficult to keep temper with the Spanish Court. Philip II on dying had left his son-in-law nothing but a crucifix and an image of the Virgin. The new King had his bellicose moments, especially when the treasure-fleet arrived; but he was ordinarily dominated by the Duke of Lerma, who was all for peace. Thus from Spain sounded an uncertain note. Henry IV, stroking his white beard, swore that he would play the father to the Duke, but he would only grant a few months' delay to the procrastinating Pope. At the close of 1599, when war was imminent, Charles Emmanuel resolved on a personal visit to Fontainebleau. Gabrielle, unfortunately for him, was dead; finding Henry obdurate, he professed to accept a potential treaty, with alternative proposals for an exchange of other territory for Saluzzo. With this, all but driven out of France, he returned home, not wholly discontented, for he had sown treason among the malcontents, such as Biron, Bouillon, and Auvergne. An envoy was sent to Spain, nominally to ascertain the King's views on the alternative proposals, but really to protest against the validity of the treaty, to disclose his successful intrigues, and to urge immediate aid. Fuentes, Parma's best successor, was sent with good troops to Lombardy to defend the Duke if he were attacked; but Biron was wise in recommending either surrender or security for punctual and substantial Spanish support. Charles Emmanuel's intrigues were known to Henry; and an ultimatum was sent to him, to which he was too proud to yield. The campaign opened in August, 1600. Biron, postponing his treason, himself took the town of Bourg, while Lesdiguières surprised Montmélian, and before long forced the citadel, reputed impregnable, to capitulate. French and Genevese joined hands to destroy the fortress of Sainte-Catherine. Before the year closed, all Savoy was in French hands except the citadel of Bourg. This citadel's gallant defence and the repulse of Guise from Nice were the only creditable incidents in the war. Charles Emmanuel was no match for the King, Biron, and Lesdiguières combined, but he was unlucky, for his States had just been swept by the plague, which had exhausted his resources. Spanish aid had reduced itself to the occupation of Piedmontese fortresses under pretence of saving them. With rage in his heart, the Duke accepted the Pope's mediation.

1600-2] Treaty of Lyons

Cardinal Aldobrandini found Henry IV at Chambéry, followed him to Lyons, and there forced the King's terms on the Savoyard plenipotentiaries. Henry was really anxious for peace, for, though so far the war had cost him little, Spain was now seriously threatening, and Fuentes about to take the field. In exchange for Saluzzo Savoy ceded Bresse, and in lieu of a war indemnity the bailliages of Gex, Bugey, and Valromey. The outlying fortress of Castel Delfino was restored to Dauphiné, while to Saluzzo were annexed Centallo, Demonte, and Rocca Sparviera, claimed by Provence. To propitiate Spain, Savoy purchased a passage from the Pont de Gresin through Gex to Franche-Comté, the route by which the Spanish troops marched to Flanders. Peace was signed on January 17, 1601. Charles Emmanuel exiled his plenipotentiaries, and long deferred to ratify, while Lombardy and Piedmont were being filled with Spanish troops. At length Lerma induced Philip III to sanction the peace, which in October was concluded at Turin.

"The King made peace like a huckster and the Duke like a prince," said Lesdiguières, who had his own reasons for preferring war. The Duke lost his richest territories and his most industrious subjects. The revenue of the ceded territories was tenfold that of Saluzzo, and the population probably a higher multiple. In a remarkable memorial Charles Emmanuel justified his policy or disguised his chagrin. One consolidated State, he said, was better than two separate territories; but he forgot that the bulk of Savoy was still his, and as impossible to defend as ever. It would be harder, he added, for the French to enter Italy, which would conduce to peace; with war in Italy Piedmont became the gaming-table; the policy for his House was neutrality between France and Spain, and this was found impossible in war. Here he, perhaps, correctly gauged the situation. The King had made the passage of Spanish troops to Flanders far more dangerous, and it was in Flanders rather than in Lombardy that he meant to attack Spain. Yet, whenever they so wished the French troops could pour from Dauphine into Savoy, though in Saluzzo they had lost a permanent base of supply. Nevertheless, the Italian Powers naturally regarded the treaty of Lyons with consternation, as leaving them at Spain's mercy. Italy for the moment actually became more Spanish. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, mistrusting France, veered towards Madrid. Charles Emmanuel himself later sent his sons to be educated, or watched as hostages, in Spain. From the treaty of Lyons has sometimes been dated the Duke's championship of Italian independence; but it was not till a later period, when he was in arms against Spain, that he became the hero of an Italian patriotic and poetic revival.

Escalade of Geneva [1601-2

No sooner had the Duke been extricated from one imbroglio than he deliberately plunged into another. He determined that Geneva should be the compensation for his lost western provinces. In spite of Henry IV's express declaration, he insisted that Geneva was not included in the treaties of Vervins and Lyons. Spain was tempted by the prospect of a safer line of communication with Flanders than the road by the Pont de Gresin, which the French could close at will. He hoped for the assistance of the Spanish troops, who were quartered from time to time in Savoy, awaiting marching orders. Ledesma, Spanish envoy at Turin, was at first favorable to the enterprise, but later strongly dissuaded it. Fuentes, now Governor of Milan, was attracted by it, but refused to act without express orders. Upon Philip III the Duke put pressure through his close friend and ambassador, the Marquis of Este.

In Spain, the Council was agreed upon the value of the scheme in the abstract; but during 1601 time and money were spent on a luckless Algerian expedition, and hesitation was now engrained in the Spanish administration. Finally, at a Council held December 12, 1602, Philip III left the decision to Fuentes; but the dispatch reached him too late.

For more than a year Charles Emmanuel had planned a surprise; and yet Geneva seemed profoundly ignorant. There were no Bernese at hand; the city was only defended by the small normal guard of mixed nationality. The French Leaguer Albigny, now Governor of Savoy, was entrusted with the enterprise. Don Sancho de Luna, commanding the Spanish troops at Moutiers, had general orders to obey the Duke; but he was not called upon. The Duke hurried across the Alps in disguise to Annecy, but, owing to bad weather, did not reach the attacking force.

Albigny had some 1500 men, horse and foot; he was provided with expanding ladders painted black, the uppermost section sliding up the wall on small wheels. The longest night, December 22, was chosen; and it was calculated that the moon would disappear as the walls were neared. Snow in the mountains kept the Swiss at home, while the plain was hard enough to make marching easy. The troops were not told their destination till near the city. They were very nervous; but hurdles were thrown across the muddy moat and the ladders fixed. Albigny and a Scotch Jesuit stood at the foot encouraging the men, about two hundred, who first scaled the walls. They were to lurk in the darkness until 4 a.m.; but after a short hour a sentinel fired a shot. One party then ran along the inner side of the walls to surprise the guard of the Porte Neuve, by which Albigny and the bulk of his forces were to enter. They took the inner gate; but one of the watch in flying lowered the portcullis; and the petard which was to blow open the outer gate failed. Others tried to enter by the back of the houses facing the curtain, and so gain the streets. Meanwhile the citizens had rushed for the Porte Neuve, and ultimately drove the Savoyards out. There were four distinct little engagements, but at this gate and at the Place de la Monnaie the fighting was briskest. Here the citizens lined the houses, but could only see the foe by lighted wisps of straw which women waved from the windows. Three hundred men at most probably actually fought on either side; but the Savoyards, finding that they were not being reinforced, gave way to panic. The ladders had been thrown down or shot to pieces. The runaways jumped from the walls, or slid down by ropes; many were bogged in the moat or caught in the fields next morning. A band of gentry within fought hard, but surrendered on a promise of their lives, which was not kept. Of the defenders eleven citizens and six aliens, the latter mainly belonging to the guard, were killed, and eight citizens and eighteen members of the guard wounded. The escalade took place soon after 1 a.m., and the fight was over by 4 a.m. As Albigny drew off his troops the Duke arrived. "You have made a silly mess," he said, and then rode fast for Piedmont.

1602-3] Charles Emmanuel's failure

Geneva hitherto had owed her safety to Catholic France. Now, she could truthfully thank Providence, and the handful of her own gallant citizens and mercenaries. The Bernese at once dispatched troops to defend the city, and Henry IV allowed his subjects to volunteer; subscriptions were raised in England, Germany, and Languedoc. The Genevese and Bernese issued from the town, ravaged and occupied part of Savoy. The Duke's ill-executed raid might well have stirred a general European conflict. But Henry IV was unwilling to provoke a foreign war, when faced by growing disaffection at home. Philip III showed unwonted resolution. Sancho de Luna, who after the fiasco had kept his troops in quarters with great self-restraint, warned the Genevese that, if they did not come to terms, he knew how to make them. The Catholic Cantons and the Valais were outspoken in their resolve to defend the Catholic and Savoyard cause. All this explains the Duke's lofty attitude during the negotiations, skilfully conducted by the Pope, which led to the treaty of Saint-Julien (July, 1603) and practically restored the status quo ante. Charles Emmanuel did not abandon his ambitions; but Geneva henceforth was not in the forefront of his plan.

Here we must leave Charles Emmanuel, with resources exhausted, but hopes inexhaustible. Taxation had alienated his subjects; his father's treasure had given place to debt. Justice had deteriorated, for all offices were sold, and criminals could buy beforehand indemnity for crimes. Capable ambassadors there were, but no trusted counsellors or administrators; the Duke would consult now one man, now another, changing them as he would his pictures, just for ornament. He could rely neither on France nor Spain, he was disliked by Medici and Gonzaga, and dreaded by Venice, not for his power but his spirit of disturbance. Misfortune had taught him nothing. Sanguine and without sense of measure, in his feverish dreams of conquest he had visions, almost prophetic, of the future greatness of his House. His name has, indeed, been stamped on history, not by his achievements, his personal courage, his endurance of reverse, but by the imaginative exaltation of his fevered brain, a startling contrast to the somnolence or apathy into which Europe, and especially Italy, seemed to be settling down. At least he was no decadent.