for assistance,
in vain that his cunning set fresh intrigues afoot. His neighbours had
found him out long since; he had played fast and loose with them too
often, and there was none would trust him now.

Thus he found himself isolated, and in no case to withstand the French
avalanche which rolled down upon his duchy. The fall of Milan was a
matter of days; of resistance there was practically none. Town after
town threw up its gates to the invaders, and Lodovico, seeing himself
abandoned on all sides, sought in flight the safety of his own person.

Cesare took no part in the war, which, after all, was no war--no more
than an armed progress. He was at Lyons with the King, and he did not
move into Italy until Louis went to take possession of his new duchy.

Amid the acclamations of the ever-fickle mob, hailing him as its
deliverer, Louis XII rode triumphantly into Milan on October 6, attended
by a little host of princes, including the Prince of Savoy, the Dukes
of Montferrat and Ferrara, and the Marquis of Mantua. But the place of
honour went to Cesare Borgia, who rode at the king's side, a brilliant
and arresting figure. This was the occasion on which Baldassare
Castiglione--who was in the Marquis of Mantua's suite--was moved to such
praise of the appearance and gallant bearing of the duke, and of the
splendid equipment of his suite, which outshone those of all that little
host of attendant princes.

From this time onward Cesare signs himself "Cesare Borgia of France,"
and quarters on his shield the golden lilies of France with the red bull
of the House of Borgia.

The conditions on which Alexander VI joined the league of France and
Venice became apparent at about this time. They were to be gathered from
the embassy of his nephew, the Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, to Venice in
the middle of September. There the latter announced to the Council of
Ten that the Pope's Holiness aimed at the recovery to the Church of
those Romagna tyrannies which originally were fiefs of the Holy See
and held by her vicars, who, however, had long since repudiated the
Pontifical authority, refused the payment of their tributes, and in some
instances had even gone so far as to bear arms against the Church.

With one or two exceptions the violent and evil misgovernment of these
turbulent princelings was a scandal to all Italy. They ruled by rapine
and murder, and rendered Romagna little better than a nest of brigands.
Their state of secession