th him by any efforts
whatsoever. On this point, however, he promised to give His Holiness the
satisfaction he desired, if he would engage this time to wait for him:
he would therefore return to Rome so soon as the affairs that brought
him back to his own kingdom had been satisfactorily, settled.

Although in this reply there was a touch of mockery and defiance,
Charles was none the less compelled by the circumstances of the case to
obey the pope's strange brief. His presence was so much needed in France
that, in spite of the arrival of a Swiss reinforcement, he was compelled
to conclude a peace with Ludovico Sforza, whereby he yielded Novara to
him; while Gilbert de Montpensier and d'Aubigny, after defending, inch
by inch, Calabria, the Basilicate, and Naples, were obliged to sign the
capitulation of Atella, after a siege of thirty-two days, on the 20th of
July, 1496. This involved giving back to Ferdinand II, King of Naples,
all the palaces and fortresses of his kingdom; which indeed he did but
enjoy for three months, dying of exhaustion on the 7th of September
following, at the Castello della Somma, at the foot of Vesuvius; all the
attentions lavished upon him by his young wife could not repair the evil
that her beauty had wrought.

His uncle Frederic succeeded; and so, in the three years of his papacy,
Alexander VI had seen five kings upon the throne of Naples, while he was
establishing himself more firmly upon his own pontifical seat--Ferdinand
I, Alfonso I, Charles VIII, Ferdinand II, and Frederic. All this
agitation about his throne, this rapid succession of sovereigns, was the
best thing possible for Alexander; for each new monarch became actually
king only on condition of his receiving the pontifical investiture. The
consequence was that Alexander was the only gainer in power and credit
by these changes; for the Duke of Milan and the republics of Florence
and Venice had successively recognised him as supreme head of the
Church, in spite of his simony; moreover, the five kings of Naples
had in turn paid him homage. So he thought the time had now come for
founding a mighty family; and for this he relied upon the Duke of
Gandia, who was to hold all the highest temporal dignities; and upon
Caesar Borgia, who was to be appointed to all the great ecclesiastical
offices. The pope made sure of the success of these new projects by
electing four Spanish cardinals, who brought up the number of his
compatriots in the Sacr