y had him carefully guarded in one of their
commanderies, in spite of the urgency of Cait Bey, Sultan of Egypt, who,
having revolted against Bajazet, desired to have the young prince in his
army to give his rebellion the appearance of legitimate warfare. The
same demand, moreover, with the same political object, had been made
successively by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by Ferdinand, King of
Aragon and Sicily, and by Ferdinand, King of Naples.

On his side Bajazet, who knew all the importance of such a rival, if he
once allied himself with any one of the princes with whom he was at war,
had sent ambassadors to Charles VIII, offering, if he would consent to
keep D'jem with him, to give him a considerable pension, and to give to
France the sovereignty of the Holy Land, so soon as Jerusalem should be
conquered by the Sultan of Egypt. The King of France had accepted these
terms.

But then Innocent VIII had intervened, and in his turn had claimed D'jem,
ostensibly to give support by the claims of the refugee to a crusade
which he was preaching against the Turks, but in reality to appropriate
the pension of 40,000 ducats to be given by Bajazet to any one of the
Christian princes who would undertake to be his brother's gaoler.
Charles VIII had not dared to refuse to the spiritual head of Christendom
a request supported by such holy reasons; and therefore D'jem had quitted
France, accompanied by the Grand Master d'Aubusson, under whose direct
charge he was; but his guardian had consented, for the sake of a
cardinal's hat, to yield up his prisoner. Thus, on the 13th of March,
1489, the unhappy young man, cynosure of so many interested eyes, made
his solemn entry into Rome, mounted on a superb horse, clothed in a
magnificent oriental costume, between the Prior of Auvergne, nephew of
the Grand Master d'Aubusson, and Francesco Cibo, the son of the pope.

After this he had remained there, and Bajazet, faithful to promises which
it was so much his interest to fulfil, had punctually paid to the
sovereign pontiff a pension of 40,000 ducats.

So much for Turkey.

Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning in Spain, and were laying the
foundations of that vast power which was destined, five-and-twenty years
later, to make Charles V declare that the sun never set on his dominions.
In fact, these two sovereigns, on whom history has bestowed the name of
Catholic, had reconquered in succession nearly all Spain, and driven the
Moors o