enter Paris, and on that day, accordingly, the Milanese ambassadors,
splendidly arrayed in rich brocades and cloth of gold, rode through the
streets of the capital, and under the walls of the old Louvre, where the
king and queen had their abode. On the following day, Charles himself
received the envoys, and Galeazzo Visconti delivered a long Latin
discourse prepared by Lodovico. On the 30th they were presented to the
queen, and a few days afterwards they accompanied the royal party on a
hunting expedition in the forest of Saint-Germain, but found the sport
of a rude and fatiguing description, and complained that both men and
animals were very savage in their habits. Every detail of the
proceedings was faithfully reported to Lodovico by Antonio Calco, the
secretary of the mission. For his benefit and that of Beatrice, he not
only describes the costumes of the royal pair--the king's gorgeous
mantle of Lyons velvet, lined with yellow satin, and the queen's gold
brocade robe and cape of lion skin lined with crimson--but gives a
minute account of Anne of Brittany's coiffure, a black velvet cap with
a gold fringe hanging about a finger's length over her forehead, and a
hood studded with big diamonds drawn over her head and ears. So curious
were Beatrice and her ladies on these matters, that Lodovico wrote on
the 8th of April from Vigevano, desiring Calco to send him a drawing of
the French queen's costume, "in order that the same fashion may be
adopted here in Milan." At the same time Lodovico desired Caiazzo to
show especial civility to the Duke of Orleans, assuring him that the
Dukes of Bari and Milan both regarded him as their own kinsman, and
hoped that the love and friendship between them would be that of
brothers. The ambassador was further empowered to offer the hand of
Bianca Sforza, the duke's unmarried sister, to James IV., the young King
of Scotland, through Stuart d'Aubigny, the Scottish nobleman whom
Charles VIII. had sent as his envoy to Milan. Meanwhile, King Ferrante's
emissaries were doing their best to stir up the Duke of Orleans against
his Sforza rivals, and had secretly offered his granddaughter Charlotte
in marriage to the youthful Scottish monarch.

But for the moment Lodovico's star was in the ascendant, and his
influence reigned supreme at the French court. Charles VIII. formally
ratified all the conditions of the treaty which had been signed at Milan
in January, and wrote to inform Pope Innocent that