hat he would meet with much opposition, he looked
around for allies.

"If you will aid me," he said to Pope Alexander VI., "I will assist you
in your war against the Duke of Romagna. I will give your son, Caesar
Borgia,[1] a pension of two thousand dollars a year, will confer upon
him an important command in my army, and will procure for him a marriage
with a princess of the royal house of Navarre."

[Footnote 1: Caesar Borgia, who has filled the world with the renown of
his infamy, was the illegitimate son of Alexander VI., and of a Roman
lady named Yanozza.]

The holy father could not resist this bribe, and eagerly joined the
robber king in his foray. To Venice Louis said--

"If you will unite with me, I will assist you in annexing to your
domains the city of Cremona, and the Ghiaradadda." Lured by such hopes
of plunder, Venice was as eager as the pope to take a share in the
piratic expedition. Louis then sent to the court of Turin, and offered
them large sums of money and increased territory, if they would allow
him a free passage across the Alps. Turin bowed obsequiously, and
grasped at the easy bargain. To Florence he said, "If you raise a hand
to assist the Duke of Milan, I will crush you. If you remain quiet, I
will leave you unharmed." Florence, overawed, remained as meek as a
lamb. The diplomacy being thus successfully closed, an army of
twenty-two thousand men was put in vigorous motion in July, 1499. They
crossed the Alps, fought a few battles, in which, with overpowering
numbers, they easily conquered their opposers, and in twenty days were
in possession of Milan. The Duke Ludovico with difficulty escaped. With
a few followers he threaded the defiles of the Tyrolese mountains, and
hastened to Innspruck, the capital of Tyrol, where Maximilian then was,
to whom he conveyed the first tidings of his disaster. Louis XII.
followed after his triumphant army, and on the 6th of October made a
triumphal entry into the captured city, and was inaugurated Duke of
Milan.

Maximilian promised assistance, but could raise neither money nor men.
Ludovico, however, succeeded in hiring fifteen hundred Burgundian
horsemen, and eight thousand Swiss mercenaries--for in those ages of
ignorance and crime all men were ready, for pay, to fight in any
cause--and emerging from the mountains upon the plains of Milan, found
all his former subjects disgusted with the French, and eager to rally
under his banners. His army increased at