enlarging his own territory and affording much occupation for a brave soldiery, many other commanders had flocked, and envious eyes were fixed upon all his proceedings. The enemies of Carmagnola were many. Generals whom he had beaten felt their downfall all the greater that it had been accomplished by a fellow without any blood worth speaking of in his veins; and others were too proud to serve under him whom it would have pleased Philip to secure.
The first sign which the doomed general received of his failing favour was a demand from Philip for the squadron of horsemen, 300 in number, who seemed to have been Carmagnola's special troop, and for whom the Duke declared that he had a particular use. The reply of the general is at once picturesque and pathetic. He implored Philip not to take the weapons out of the hands of a man born and bred in the midst of arms, and to whom life would be bare indeed without his soldiers. As a matter of fact, it is to be presumed that this was but the thin edge of the wedge, and that other indignities were prepared to follow. The clique at Milan who were furthering his downfall were led by two courtiers, Riccio and Lampugnano. "Much better," says Bigli, the historian of the quarrel, "would it have been for our State had such men as these never been born. They kept everything from the Duke except what it pleased him to learn. And it was easy for them to fill the mind of Philip with suspicions, for he himself began to wish that Francesco Carmagnola should not appear so great a man." Carmagnola received no answer to his remonstrance, and by-and-by discovered, that is galling in all circumstances, and in his especially so, that the matter had been decided by all the gossips of the Court, and that it was a conspiracy of his enemies, who were settling his fate. Fierce and full of irritation, a man who could never at any time restrain his masterful temper, and still, no doubt, with much in him of the arrogant rustic whom Facino could not make a captain of, lest he should at once clutch at the baton, Carmagnola determined to face his enemies and plead his own cause before his prince. The Duke was at Abbiate-grasso, on the borders of Piedmont, a frontier fortress, where probably he had gone to refresh himself with the air from the hills, for he was "in retirement," Bigli says, but with his Court and his counsellors round him. It was not far from Genoa, and thither Carmagnola rode with few attendants, no doubt breathing fire and flame, and in his consciousness of all he had done for Philip, very confident of turning the tables upon his miserable assailants, and making an end of them and their wiles. His letters had not been answered, – no notice whatever had been taken of his appeal; but still it seemed impossible to doubt that Philip, with his trusty champion before him, would remember all that had passed between them, and all that Francesco had done, and do him justice. His swift setting out to put all right, with an angry contempt of his assailants, but absolute confidence in the renewal of his old influence as soon as Philip should see him, might be paralleled in many a quarrel. For nothing is so difficult as to teach a generous and impulsive man that the friend for whom he has done too much, may suddenly become incapable of bearing the burden of obligation and gratitude.
Arrived at Abbiate, he was about
