“Delaville Le Roulx. La France en Orient,“ vol. i. p. 290-304.
Yet now, perhaps, for the first time the French people, not unjustifiably, might have heaped their odium on Valentine. For her latest historian supports a theory suggested long ago by Froissart.[35] While the French were projecting their invasion of Lombardy—while the son of that Burgundy who had advised the King in the affair of Genoa was leading against the Turks a French Crusade which might easily return homewards _viâ_ Lombardy and Milan—Giangaleazzo, furious and humiliated, sought any means of salvation and revenge. He, like many another Italian, was in correspondence with the Turk; and an idea, successfully practised by many another Italian,[34] may not unnaturally have suggested itself to him. If France joined the Florentine League then adieu for ever to the hopes of Visconti. And Burgundy, as he knew, was in favour of Florence. And the son of Burgundy was captain of the French army. Small hope here; yet, if the French army could be destroyed in Turkey, Milan would be safe! Then the astute Visconti would smile to think of his daughter in France. Valentine who wrote him everything—also told him doubtless (as the author of Maistre Jehan de Meun tells us[33]) of the vain young aristocrats, ruined by free living and fine carousing, who were starting on that terrible journey, thinking of nothing more serious than the elegant spectacle of their departure:
“Mais que le partir soit joly Vous ne regardez point la fin!”
Gay young gallants, unfit for privation, who, when they reach Palestine, will be too weak to strike three strokes with the magnificent swords so much too heavy for their hands.
“Les Sarrazins s’arment légier; Sy c’est bon courage et fier.”
But the panoply of these splendid youths—these _gens de paraige_—was for decoration rather than for battle. Valentine, the confidant of her father—who in the long afternoons of exile would turn with the expansion of relief to her one kinsman, her staunch protector—would tell him of the weakness that underlay the glory of this martial going-off. She would write to him the plan of campaign, the route decided on, the means of attack and defence. She would inform him not only of the quality but of the number of the army. And Giangaleazzo was aware that these details transmitted to the Turks would ensure the disaster of the French, and draw away the gathering storm that threatened to break on Milan.