It would be terrible to think that such a father could have been the parent of such a son. In Ferdinand the instinct of liberal culture degenerated into vulgar magnificence; courtesy and confidence gave place to cold suspicion and brutal cruelty. His ferocity bordered upon madness. He used to keep the victims of his hatred in cages, where their misery afforded him the same delight as some men derived from watching the antics of monkeys.[1] In his hunting establishment were repeated the worst atrocities of Bernabo Visconti: wretches mutilated for neglect of his hounds extended their handless stumps for charity to the travelers through his villages.[2] Instead of the generosity for which Alfonso had been famous, Ferdinand developed all the arts of avarice.
Like Sixtus IV. he made the sale of corn and oil a royal monopoly, trafficking in the hunger of his subjects.[3] Like Alexander VI. he fattened his viziers and secretaries upon the profits of extortion which he shared with them, and when they were fully gorged he cut their throats and proclaimed himself the heir through their attainder.[4]
Alfonso had been famous for his candor and sincerity. Ferdinand was a demon of dissimulation and treachery. His murder of his guest Jacopo Piccinino at the end of a festival, which extended over twenty-seven days of varied entertainments, won him the applause of Machiavellian spirits throughout Italy. It realized the ideal of treason conceived as a fine art. Not less perfect as a specimen of diabolical cunning was the vengeance which Ferdinand, counseled by his son Alfonso, inflicted on the barons who conspired against him.[5] Alfonso was a son worthy of his terrible father. The only difference between them was that Ferdinand dissembled, while Alfonso, whose bravery at Otranto against the Turks had surrounded him with military glory, abandoned himself with cynicism to his pa.s.sions. Sketching characters of both in the same paragraph, de Comines writes: "Never was man more cruel than Alfonso, nor more vicious, nor more wicked, nor more poisonous, nor more gluttonous. His father was more dangerous, because he could conceal his mind and even his anger from sight; in the midst of festivity he would take and slaughter his victims by treachery. Grace or mercy was never found in him, nor yet compa.s.sion for his poor people. Both of them laid forcible hands on women. In matters of the Church they observed nor reverence nor obedience. They sold bishoprics, like that of Tarento, which Ferdinand disposed of for 13,000 ducats to a Jew in favor of his son whom he called a Christian."
[1] See Ponta.n.u.s, _de Immanitate,_ Aldus, 1518, vol. 1. p. 318: "Ferdinandus Rex Neapolitanorum praeclaros etiam viros conclusos carcere etiam bene atque abunde pascebat, eandem ex iis voluptatem capiens quam pueri e conclusis in cavea aviculis: qua de re saepenumero sibi ipsi inter intimos suos diu multumque gratulatus subblanditusque in risum tandem ac cachinnos profundebatur."
[2] See Ponta.n.u.s, _de Immanitate_, Aldus; 1518, vol. i. p. 320: "Ferd. R.N. qui cervum aprumve occidissent furtimve palamve, alios remo addixit, alios manibus mutilavit, alios suspendio affecit: agros quoque serendos inderdixit dominis, legendasque aut glandes aut poma, quae servari quidem volebat in escam feris ad venationis suae usum."
[3] Caracciolo, _de Varietate Fortunae_, Muratori, vol. xxii. p.
87, exposes this system in a pa.s.sage which should be compared with Infessura on the practices of Sixtus. De Comines, lib.
vii. cap. 11, may be read with profit on the same subject.
[4] See Caracciolo, loc. cit. pp. 88, 89, concerning the judicial murder of Francesco Coppola and Antonello Perucci, both of whom had been raised to eminence by Ferdinand, used through their lives as the instruments of his extortion, and murdered by him in their rich old age.
[5] See De Comines, lib. vii. cap. 11; Sismondi, vol. vii. p.
229. Read also the short account of the ma.s.sacre of the Barons given in the _Chronicon Venetum_, Muratori, xxiv. p. 15, where the intense loathing felt throughout Italy for Ferdinand and his son Alfonso is powerfully expressed.
This kind of tyranny carried in itself its own death-warrant. It needed not the voice of Savonarola to proclaim that G.o.d would revenge the crimes of Ferdinand by placing a new sovereign on his throne. It was commonly believed that the old king died in 1494 of remorse and apprehension, when he knew that the French expedition could no longer be delayed. Alfonso, for his part, bold general in the field and able man of affairs as he might be, found no courage to resist the conqueror. It is no fiction of a poet or a moralist, but plain fact of history, that this King of Naples, grandson of the great Alfonso and father of the Ferdinand to be, quailed before the myriads of accusing dead that rose to haunt his tortured fancy in the supreme hour of peril. The chambers of his palace in Naples were thronged with ghosts by battalions, pale specters of the thousands he had reduced to starvation, b.l.o.o.d.y phantoms of the barons he had murdered after nameless tortures, thin wraiths of those who had wasted away in dungeons under his remorseless rule. The people around his gates muttered in rebellion. He abdicated in favor of his son, took ship for Sicily, and died there conscience-stricken in a convent ere the year was out.
Ferdinand, a brave youth, beloved by the nation in spite of his father"s and grandfather"s tyranny, reigned in his stead. Yet even for him the situation was untenable. Everywhere he was beset by traitors--by his whole army at San Germano, by Trivulzi at Capua, by the German guide at Naples. Without soldiers, without allies, with nothing to rely upon but the untried goodwill of subjects who had just reason to execrate his race, and with the conquerors of Italy advancing daily through his states, retreat alone was left to him. After abandoning his castles to pillage, burning the ships in the harbor of Naples, and setting Don Federigo together with the Queen dowager and the princess Joanna upon a quick-sailing galley, Ferdinand bade farewell to his kingdom. Historians relate that as the sh.o.r.e receded from his view he kept intoning in a loud voice this verse of the 127th Psalm: "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Between the beach of Naples and the rocky sh.o.r.e of Ischia, for which the exiles were bound, there is only the distance of some seventeen miles. It was in February, a month of mild and melancholy sunshine in those southern regions, when the whole bay of Naples with its belt of distant hills is wont to take one tint of modulated azure, that the royal fugitives performed this voyage.
Over the sleeping sea they glided; while from the galley"s stern the king with a voice as sad as Boabdil"s when he sat down to weep for Granada, cried: "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
There was no want of courage in the youth. By his simple presence he had intimidated a mob of rebels in Naples. By the firmness of his carriage he subdued the insolent governor of Ischia, and made himself master of the island. There he waited till the storm was overpast. Ten times more a man than Charles, he watched the French king depart from Naples leaving scarcely a rack behind--some troops decimated by disease and unnerved by debauchery, and a general or two without energy or vigor.
Then he returned and entered on a career of greater popularity than could have been enjoyed by him if the French had never made the fickle race of Naples feel how far more odious is a foreign than a familiar yoke.[1]
Charles entered Naples as a conqueror or liberator on February 22, 1495.
He was welcomed and feted by the Neapolitans, than whom no people are more childishly delighted with a change of masters. He enjoyed his usual sports, and indulged in his usual love-affairs. With suicidal insolence and want of policy he alienated the sympathies of the n.o.ble families by dividing the t.i.tles, offices, and fiefs of the kingdom among his retinue.[2] Without receiving so much as a provisional invest.i.ture from the Pope, he satisfied his vanity by parading on May 12 as sovereign, with a ball in one hand and a scepter in the other, through the city.
Then he was forced to return upon his path and to seek France with the precipitancy he had shown in gaining Naples. Alexander, who was witty, said the French had conquered Italy with lumps of chalk and wooden spurs, because they rode unarmed in slippers and sent couriers before them to select their quarters. It remained to be seen that the achievements of this conquest could be effaced as easily as a chalk mark is rubbed out, or a pair of wooden spurs are broken.
[1] The misfortunes and the bravery of this young prince inspire a deep feeling of interest. It is sad to read that after recovering his kingdom in 1496, he died in his twenty-eighth year, worn out with fatigue and with the pleasures of his marriage to his aunt Joanna, whom he loved too pa.s.sionately. His uncle Frederick, the brother of Alfonso II., succeeded to the throne. Thus in three years Naples had five Sovereigns.
[2] "Tous estats et offices furent donnez aux Francois, a deux ou trois," says De Comines.
While Charles was amusing himself at Naples, a storm was gathering in his rear. A league against him had been formed in April by the great powers of Europe. Venice, alarmed for the independence of Italy, and urged by the Sultan, who had reason to dread Charles VIII.,[1] headed the league. Lodovico, now that he had attained his selfish object in the quiet position of Milan, was anxious for his safety. The Pope still feared a general council. Maximilian, who could not forget the slight put upon him in the matter of his daughter and his bride, was willing to co-operate against his rival. Ferdinand and Isabella, having secured themselves in Roussillon, thought it behooved them to re-establish Spaniards of their kith and kin in Naples. Each of the contracting parties had his role a.s.signed to him. Spain undertook to aid Ferdinand of Aragon in Calabria. Venice was to attack the seaports of the kingdom; Lodovico Sforza, to occupy Asti; the King of the Romans, to make a diversion in the North. Florence alone, though deeply injured by Charles in the matter of Pisa, kept faith with the French.
[1] Charles, by an act dated A.D. 1494, September 6, had bought the t.i.tle of Emperor of Constantinople and Trebizond from Andrew Palaeologus (see Gibbon, vol. viii. p. 183, ed. Milman).
When he took Djem from Alexander in Rome, his object was to make use of him in a war against Bajazet; and the Pope was always impressing on the Turk the peril of a Frankish crusade.
The danger was imminent. Already Ferdinand the Catholic had disembarked troops on the sh.o.r.e of Sicily, and was ready to throw an army into the ports of Reggio and Tropea. Alexander had refused to carry out his treaty by the surrender of Spoleto. Cesare Borgia had escaped from the French camp. The Lombards were menacing Asti, which the Duke of Orleans held, and without the possession of which there was no safe return to France. Asti indeed at this juncture would have fallen, and Charles would have been caught in a trap, if the Venetians had only been quick or wary enough to engage German mercenaries.[1] The danger of the situation may best be judged by reading the Memoirs of De Comines, who was then amba.s.sador at Venice. "The league was concluded very late one evening. The next morning the Signory sent for me earlier than usual.
They were a.s.sembled in great numbers, perhaps a hundred or more, and held their heads high, made a good cheer, and had not the same countenance as on the day when they told me of the capture of the citadel of Naples.[2] My heart was heavy, and I had grave doubts about the person of the king and about all his company; and I thought their scheme more ripe than it really was, and feared they might have Germans ready; and if it had been so, never could the king have got safe out of Italy." Nevertheless De Comines put a brave face on the matter, and told the council that he had already received information of the league and had sent dispatches to his master on the subject.[3] "After dinner,"
continues De Comines, "all the amba.s.sadors of the league met for an excursion on the water, which is the chief recreation at Venice, where every one goes according to the retinue he keeps, or at the expense of the Signory. There may have been as many as forty gondolas, all bearing displayed the arms of their masters upon banners. I saw the whole of this company pa.s.s before my windows, and there were many minstrels on board. Those of Milan, one at least of them who had often kept my company, put on a brave face not to know me; and for three days I remained without going forth into the town, nor my people, nor was there all that time a single courteous word said to me or to any of my suite."
[1] See De Comines, lib. vii. cap. 15, pp. 78, 79.
[2] De Comines" account of the alarm felt at Venice on that occasion is very graphic: "They sent for me one morning, and I found them to the number of fifty or sixty in the Doge"s bedchamber, for he was ill of colic; and there he told me the news with a good countenance. But none of the company knew so well how to feign as he. Some were seated on a wooden bench, leaning their heads on their hands, and others otherwise; and all showed great heaviness at heart. I think that when the news reached Rome of the battle of Cannae, the senators were not more confounded or frightened."
[3] Bembo, in his _Venetian History_ (lib. ii. p. 32), tells a different tale. He represents De Comines quite unnerved by the news.
Returning northward by the same route, Charles pa.s.sed Rome and reached Siena on June 13. The Pope had taken refuge, first at Orvieto, and afterwards at Perugia, on his approach; but he made no concessions.
Charles could not obtain from him an invest.i.ture of the kingdom he pretended to have conquered, while he had himself to surrender the fortresses of Civita Vecchia and Terracina. Ostia alone remained in the clutch of Alexander"s implacable enemy, the Cardinal della Rovere. In Tuscany the Pisan question was again opened. The French army desired to see the liberties of Pisa established on a solid basis before they quitted Italy. On their way to Naples the misfortunes of that ancient city had touched them: now on their return they were clamorous that Charles should guarantee its freedom. But to secure this object was an affair of difficulty. The forces of the league had already taken the field, and the Duke of Orleans was being besieged in Novara. The Florentines, jealous of the favor shown, in manifest infringement of their rights, to citizens whom they regarded as rebellious bondsmen, a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of menace. Charles could only reply with vague promises to the solicitations of the Pisans, strengthen the French garrisons in their fortresses, and march forward as quickly as possible into the Apennines. The key of the pa.s.s by which he sought to regain Lombardy is the town of Pontremoli. Leaving that in ashes on June 29, the French army, distressed for provisions and in peril among those melancholy hills, pushed onward with all speed. They knew that the allied forces, commanded by the Marquis of Mantua, were waiting for them at the other side upon the Taro, near the village of Fornovo. Here, if anywhere, the French ought to have been crushed. They numbered about 9,000 men in all, while the allies were close upon 40,000. The French were weary with long marches, insufficient food, and bad lodgings. The Italians were fresh and well cared for. Yet in spite of all this, in spite of blind generalship and total blundering, Charles continued to play his part of fortune"s favorite to the end. A b.l.o.o.d.y battle, which lasted for an hour, took place upon the banks of the Taro.[1] The Italians suffered so severely that, though they still far outnumbered the French, no persuasions could make them rally and renew the fight.
Charles in his own person ran great peril during this battle; and when it was over, he had still to effect his retreat upon Asti in the teeth of a formidable army. The good luck of the French and the dilatory cowardice of their opponents saved them now again for the last time.
[1] The action at Fornovo lasted a quarter of an hour, according to De Comines. The pursuit of the Italians occupied about three quarters of an hour more. Unaccustomed to the quick tactics of the French, the Italians, when once broken, persisted in retreating upon Reggio and Parma. The Gonzaghi alone distinguished themselves for obstinate courage, and lost four or five members of their princely house. The Stradiots, whose scimitars ought to have dealt rudely with the heavy French men-at-arms, employed their time in pillaging the Royal pavilion, very wisely abandoned to their avarice by the French captains. To such an extent were military affairs misconstrued in Italy, that, on the strength of this brigandage, the Venetians claimed Fornovo for a victory. See my essay "Fornovo," in _Sketches and Studies in Italy_, for a description of the ground on which the battle was fought.
On July 15, Charles at the head of his little force marched into Asti and was practically safe. Here the young king continued to give signal proofs of his weakness. Though he knew that the Duke of Orleans was hard pressed in Novara, he made no effort to relieve him; nor did he attempt to use the 20,000 Switzers who descended from their Alps to aid him in the struggle with the league. From Asti he removed to Turin, where he spent his time in flirting with Anna Soleri, the daughter of his host.
This girl had been sent to harangue him with a set oration, and had fulfilled her task, in the words of an old witness, "without wavering, coughing, spitting, or giving way at all." Her charms delayed the king in Italy until October 19, when he signed a treaty at Vercelli with the Duke of Milan. At this moment Charles might have held Italy in his grasp. His forces, strengthened by the unexpected arrival of so many Switzers, and by a junction with the Duke of Orleans, would have been sufficient to overwhelm the army of the league, and to intimidate the faction of Ferdinand in Naples. Yet so light-minded was Charles, and so impatient were his courtiers, that he now only cared for a quick return to France. Reserving to himself the nominal right of using Genoa as a naval station, he resigned that town to Lodovico Sforza, and confirmed him in the tranquil possession of his Duchy. On October 22 he left Turin, and entered his own dominions through the Alps of Dauphine.
Already his famous conquest of Italy was reckoned among the wonders of the past, and his sovereignty over Naples had become the shadow of a name. He had obtained for himself nothing but momentary glory, while he imposed on France a perilous foreign policy, and on Italy the burden of b.l.o.o.d.y warfare in the future.
A little more than a year had elapsed between the first entry of Charles into Lombardy and his return to France. Like many other brilliant episodes of history, this conquest, so showy and so ephemeral, was more important as a sign than as an actual event. "His pa.s.sage," says Guicciardini, "was the cause not only of change in states, downfalls of kingdoms, desolations of whole districts, destructions of cities, barbarous butcheries; but also of new customs, new modes of conduct, new and b.l.o.o.d.y habits of war, diseases. .h.i.therto unknown. The organization upon which the peace and harmony of Italy depended was so upset that, since that time, other foreign nations and barbarous armies have been able to trample her under foot and to ravage her at pleasure." The only error of Guicciardini is the a.s.sumption that the holiday excursion of Charles VIII. was in any deep sense the cause of these calamities.[1]
In truth the French invasion opened a new era for the Italians, but only in the same sense as a pageant may form the prelude to a tragedy. Every monarch of Europe, dazzled by the splendid display of Charles and forgetful of its insignificant results, began to look with greedy eyes upon the wealth of the peninsula. The Swiss found in those rich provinces an inexhaustible field for depredation. The Germans, under the pretense of religious zeal, gave a loose rein to their animal appet.i.tes in the metropolis of Christendom. France and Spain engaged in a duel to the death for the possession of so fair a prey. The French, maddened by mere cupidity, threw away those chances which the goodwill of the race at large afforded them.[2] Louis XII. lost himself in petty intrigues, by which he finally weakened his own cause to the profit of the Borgias and Austria. Francis I. foamed his force away like a spent wave at Marignano and Pavia. The real conqueror of Italy was Charles V. Italy in the sixteenth century was destined to receive the impress of the Spanish spirit, and to bear the yoke of Austrian dukes. Hand in hand with political despotism marched religious tyranny. The Counter-Reformation over which the Inquisition presided, was part and parcel of the Spanish policy for the enslavement of the nation no less than for the restoration of the Church. Meanwhile the weakness, discord, egotism, and corruption which prevented the Italians from resisting the French invasion in 1494, continued to increase. Instead of being lessoned by experience, Popes, Princes, and Republics vied with each other in calling in the strangers, pitting Spaniard against Frenchman, and paying the Germans to expel the Swiss, oblivious that each new army of foreigners they summoned was in reality a new swarm of devouring locusts. In the midst of this anarchy it is laughable to hear the shrill voice of priests, like Julius and Leo, proclaiming before G.o.d their vows to rid Italy of the barbarians. The confusion was tenfold confounded when the old factions of Guelf and Ghibelline put on a new garb of French and Spanish partisanship. Town fought with town and family with family, in the cause of strangers whom they ought to have resisted with one will and steady hatred. The fascination of fear and the love of novelty alike swayed the fickle population of Italian cities. The foreign soldiers who inflicted on the nation such cruel injuries made a grand show in their streets, and there will always be a mob so childish as to covet pageants at the expense of freedom and even of safety.
[1] Guicciardini"s _Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze_ (_Op.
Ined._ vol. ii. p. 94) sets forth the state of internal anarchy and external violence which followed the departure of Charles VIII., with wonderful acuteness. "Se per sorte l" uno Oltramontano caccera l" altro, Italia restera in estrema servitu," is an exact prophecy of what happened before the end of the sixteenth century, when Spain had beaten France in the duel for Italy.
[2] Matarazzo, in his _Cronaca della Citta di Perugia_ (_Arch.
St._, vol. xvi. part 2, p. 23), gives a lively picture of the eagerness with which the French were greeted in 1495, and of the wanton brutality by which they soon alienated the people.
In this he agrees almost textually with De Comines, who writes: "Le peuple nous advouoit comme Saincts, estimans en nous toute foy et bonte; mais ce propos ne leur dura gueres, tant pour nostre desordre et pillerie, et qu"aussi les ennemis oppreschoient le peuple en tous quartiers," etc., lib. vii.
cap. 6. In the first paragraph of the _Chronicon Venetum_ (_Muratori_, vol. xxlv. p. 5), we read concerning the advent of Charles: "I popoli tutti dicevano _Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini_. Ne v"era alcuno che li potesse contrastare, ne resistere, tanto era da tutti i popoli Italiani chiamato." The Florentines, as burghers of a Guelf city, were always loyal to the French. Besides, their commerce with France (_e.g._ the wealth of Filippo Strozzi) made it to their interest to favor the cause of the French. See Guicc. i. 2, p. 62. This loyalty rose to enthusiasm under the influence of Savonarola, survived the stupidities of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., and committed the Florentines in 1328 to the perilous policy of expecting aid from Francis I.
In spite of its transitory character the invasion of Charles VIII., therefore, was a great fact in the history of the Renaissance. It was, to use the pregnant phrase of Michelet, no less than the revelation of Italy to the nations of the North. Like a gale sweeping across a forest of trees in blossom, and bearing their fertilizing pollen, after it has broken and deflowered their branches, to far-distant trees that hitherto have bloomed in barrenness, the storm of Charles"s army carried far and wide through Europe thought-dust, imperceptible, but potent to enrich the nations. The French alone, says Michelet, understood Italy. How terrible would have been a conquest by Turks with their barbarism, of Spaniards with their Inquisition, of Germans with their brutality! But France, impressible, sympathetic, ardent for pleasure, generous, amiable and vain, was capable of comprehending the Italian spirit. From the Italians the French communicated to the rest of Europe what we call the movement of the Renaissance. There is some truth in this panegyric of Michelet"s. The pa.s.sage of the army of Charles VIII. marks a turning-point in modern history, and from this epoch dates the diffusion of a spirit of culture over Europe. But Michelet forgets to notice that the French never rightly understood their vocation with regard to Italy.
They had it in their power to foster that free spirit which might have made her a nation capable, in concert with France, of resisting Charles V. Instead of doing so, they pursued the pettiest policy of avarice and egotism. Nor did they prevent that Spanish conquest the horrors of which their historian has so eloquently described. Again, we must remember that it was the Spaniards and not the French who saved Italy from being barbarized by the Turk.
For the historian of Italy it is sad and humiliating to have to acknowledge that her fate depended wholly on the action of more powerful nations, that she lay inert and helpless at the discretion of the conqueror in the duels between Spain and France and Spain and Islam. Yet this is the truth. It would seem that those peoples to whom we chiefly owe advance in art and knowledge, are often thus the captives of their intellectual inferiors. Their spiritual ascendency is purchased at the expense of political solidity and national prosperity. This was the case with Greece, with Judah, and with Italy. The civilization of the Italians, far in advance of that of other European nations, unnerved them in the conflict with robust barbarian races. Letters and the arts and the civilities of life were their glory. "Indolent princes and most despicable arms" were their ruin. Whether the Renaissance of the modern world would not have been yet more brilliant if Italy had remained free, who shall say? The very conditions which produced her culture seem to have rendered that impossible.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I.
_Blood-madness_. See Chapter iii, p. 109.
One of the most striking instances afforded by history of Haematomania in a tyrant is Ibrahim ibn Ahmed, prince of Africa and Sicily (A.D. 875).
This man, besides displaying peculiar ferocity in his treatment of enemies and prisoners of war, delighted in the execution of horrible butcheries within the walls of his own palace. His astrologers having once predicted that he should die by the hands of a "small a.s.sa.s.sin," he killed off the whole retinue of his pages, and filled up their places with a suit of negroes whom he proceeded to treat after the same fashion. On another occasion, when one of his three hundred eunuchs had by chance been witness of the tyrant"s drunkenness, Ibrahim slaughtered the whole band. Again, he is said to have put an end to sixty youths, originally selected for his pleasures, burning them by gangs of five or six in the furnace, or suffocating them in the hot chambers of his baths. Eight of his brothers were murdered in his presence; and when one, who was so diseased that he could scarcely stir, implored to be allowed to end his days in peace, Ibrahim answered: "I make no exceptions." His own son Abul-Aghlab was beheaded by his orders before his eyes; and the execution of chamberlains, secretaries, ministers, and courtiers was of common occurrence. But his fiercest fury was directed against women. He seems to have been darkly jealous of the perpetuation of the human race. Wives and concubines were strangled, sawn asunder, and buried alive, if they showed signs of pregnancy. His female children were murdered as soon as they saw the light; sixteen of them, whom his mother managed to conceal and rear at her own peril, were ma.s.sacred upon the spot when Ibrahim discovered whom they claimed as father.
Contemporary Arab chroniclers, pondering upon the fierce and gloomy pa.s.sions of this man, arrived at the conclusion that he was the subject of a strange disease, a portentous secretion of black bile producing the melancholy which impelled him to atrocious crimes. Nor does the principle on which this diagnosis of his case was founded appear unreasonable. Ibrahim was a great general, an able ruler, a man of firm and steady purpose; not a weak and ineffectual libertine whom l.u.s.t for blood and lechery had placed below the level of brute beasts. When the time for his abdication arrived, he threw aside his mantle of state and donned the mean garb of an Arab devotee, preached a crusade, and led an army into Italy, where he died of dysentery before the city of Cosenza.
The only way of explaining his eccentric thirst for slaughter is to suppose that it was a dark monomania, a form of psychopathy a.n.a.logous to that which we find in the Marechal de Retz and the Marquise de Brinvilliers. One of the most marked symptoms of this disease was the curiosity which led him to explore the entrails of his victims, and to feast his eyes upon their quivering hearts. After causing his first minister Ibn-Semsama to be beaten to death, he cut his body open, and with his own knife sliced the brave man"s heart. On another occasion he had 500 prisoners brought before him. Seizing a sharp lance he first explored the region of the ribs, and then plunged the spear-point into the heart of each victim in succession. A garland of these hearts was made and hung up on the gate of Tunis. The Arabs regarded the heart as the seat of thought in man, the throne of the will, the center of intellectual existence. In this preoccupation with the hearts of his victims we may therefore trace the jealousy of human life which Ibrahim displayed in his murder of pregnant women, as well as a tyrant"s fury against the organ which had sustained his foes in their resistance. We can only comprehend the combination of sanguinary l.u.s.t with Ibrahim"s vigorous conduct of civil and military affairs, on the hypothesis that this man-tiger, as Amari, to whom I owe these details, calls him, was possessed with a specific madness.
APPENDIX II.
_Nardi, Istorie di Firenze, lib. i. cap. 4._ See Chap. iv. p. 195.