answer, for they were pondering whether they ought to jeopardise the
whole Italian force in a single combat, and, putting all to the hazard,
attempt to annihilate the King of France and his army together, so
overwhelming the conqueror in the ruins of his ambition. The messenger
found Charles busy superintending the passage of the last of his cannon
over the mountain of Pontremoli. This was no easy matter, seeing that
there was no sort of track, and the guns had to be lifted up and lowered
by main farce, and each piece needed the arms of as many as two hundred
men. At last, when all the artillery had arrived without accident on the
other side of the Apennines, Charles started in hot haste for Fornovd,
where he arrived with all his following on the morning of the next day.

From the top of the mountain where the Marechai de Gie had pitched his
tents, the king beheld both his own camp and the enemy's. Both were on
the right bank of the Taro, and were at either end of a semicircular
chain of hills resembling an amphitheatre; and the space between the two
camps, a vast basin filled during the winter floods by the torrent which
now only marked its boundary, was nothing but a plain covered with
gravel, where all manoeuvres must be equally difficult for horse and
infantry. Besides, on the western slope of the hills there was a little
wood which extended from the enemy's army to the French, and was in the
possession of the Stradiotes, who, by help of its cover, had already
engaged in several skirmishes with the French troops during the two days
of halt while they were waiting for the king.

The situation was not reassuring. From the top of the mountain which
overlooked Fornovo, one could get a view, as we said before, of the two
camps, and could easily calculate the numerical difference between them.
The French army, weakened by the establishment of garrisons in the
various towns and fortresses they had won in Italy, were scarcely eight