No trace is here visible of that half-religious loyalty by
which the legitimate princes of the West were supported; personal
popularity is the nearest approach we can find to it. Talent and
calculation are the only means of advancement. A character like that of
Charles the Bold, which wore itself out in the passionate pursuit of
impracticable ends, was a riddle to the Italians. 'The Swiss were only
peasants, and if they were all killed, that would be no satisfaction
for the Burgundian nobles who might fall in the war. If the Duke got
possession of all Switzerland without a struggle, his income would not
be 5,000 ducats the greater.' The mediaeval features in the character
of Charles, his chivalrous aspirations and ideals, had long become
unintelligible to the Italians. The diplomatists of the South. when
they saw him strike his officers and yet keep them in his service, when
he maltreated his troops to punish them for a defeat, and then threw
the blame on his counsellors in the presence of the same troops, gave
him up for lost. Louis XI, on the other hand, whose policy surpasses
that of the Italian princes in their own style, and who was an avowed
admirer of Francesco Sforza, must be placed in all that regards culture
and refinement far below these rulers.
Good and evil lie strangely mixed together in the Italian States of the
fifteenth century.
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