past before
them specimens and vanguards of all those legioned races which were soon
to be too well at home in every fair Italian dwelling-place. Nothing was
wanting to complete the symbol of the coming doom but a representative
of the grim, black, wiry infantry of Spain.

[1] The want of money determined all Charles's operations in
this expedition. Borrowing from Lodovico, laying requisitions
on Piero and the Florentines, pawning the jewels of the Savoy
princesses, he passed from place to place, bargaining and
contracting debts instead of dictating laws and founding
constitutions. _La carestia dei danari_ is a phrase continually
recurring in Guicciardini. Speaking of the jewels lent to
Charles by the royal families of Savoy and Montferrat at Turin,
de Comines exclaims: 'Et pouvez voir quel commencement de
guerre c'estoit, si Dieu n'eut guide l'oeuvre.'

The Borgia meanwhile crouched within the Castle of S. Angelo. How would
the Conqueror, now styled Flagellum Dei, deal with the abomination of
desolation seated in the holy place of Christendom? At the side of
Charles were the Cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere,
urging him to summon a council and depose the Pope. But still closer to
his ear was Briconnet, the _ci-devant_ tradesman, who thought it would
become his dignity to wear a cardinal's hat. On this trifle turned the
destinies of Rome, the doom of Alexander, the fate of the Church.
Charles determined to compromise matters. He demanded a few fortresses,
a red hat for Briconnet, Cesare Borgia as a hostage for four months, and
Djem, the brother of the Sultan.[1] After these agreements had been made
and ratified, Alexander ventured to leave his castle and receive the
homage of the faithful.

Charles staid* a month in Rome, and then set out for Naples. The fourth
and last scene in the Italian pageant was now to be displayed. After the
rich plain and proud cities of Lombardy, beneath their rampart of
perpetual snow; after the olive gardens and fair towns of Tuscany; after
the great name of Rome; Naples, at length, between Vesuvius and the sea,
that first station of the Greeks in Italy, world-famed for its legends
of the Sibyl and the sirens and the sorcerer Virgil, received her king.
The very names of Parthenope, Posilippo, Inarime, Sorrento, Capri, have
their fascination. There too the orange and lemon groves are more
luxuriant; the grapes yield sweeter and more