on board and five thousand infantry, to help him to ascend the
throne once more. Those troops were to be put under the command of
Gonzalvo of Cordova, who had gained the reputation of the greatest
general in Europe after the taking of Granada. The Venetians with a
fleet of forty galleys under the command of Antonio Grimani, were to
attack all the French stations on the coast of Calabria and Naples. The
Duke of Milan promised for his part to check all reinforcements as they
should arrive from France, and to drive the Duke of Orleans out of Asti.

Lastly, there was Maximilian, who had promised to make invasions on the
frontiers, and Bajazet, who was to help with money, ships, and soldiers
either the Venetians or the Spaniards, according as he might be appealed
to by Barberigo or by Ferdinand the Catholic.

This league was all the more disconcerting for Charles, because of the
speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance.
What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who
has more good luck than talent; instead of making himself a party among
the great Neapolitan and Calabrian vassals, whose roots would be embedded
in the very soil, by confirming their privileges and augmenting their
power, he had wounded their feelings by bestowing all the titles,
offices, and fiefs on those alone who had followed him from France, so
that all the important positions in the kingdom were filled by strangers.

The result was that just when the league was made known, Tropea and
Amantea, which had been presented by Charles to the Seigneur de Precy,
rose in revolt and hoisted the banner of Aragon; and the Spanish fleet
had only to present itself at Reggio, in Calabria, for the town to throw
open its gates, being more discontented with the new rule than the old;
and Don Federiga, Alfonso's brother and Ferdinand's uncle, who had
hitherto never quitted Brindisi, had only to appear at Tarentum to be
received there as a liberator.

CHAPTER VI

Charles learned all this news at Naples, and, tired of his late
conquests, which necessitated a labour in organisation for which he was
quite unfitted, turned his eyes towards France, where victorious fetes
and rejoicings were awaiting the victor's return. So he yielded at the
first breath of his advisers, and retraced his road to his kingdom,
threatened, as was said, by the Germans on the north and the Spaniards on
the south. Consequently, he appo