n on the Pope's part, and prolonged
negotiations with both France and Naples, he was induced by the Orsini,
who were staunch allies of the house of Aragon, to grant Alfonso the
investiture of Naples, and to send his son, Cardinal Juan Borgia, to
officiate at his coronation. A papal bull was addressed to Charles
VIII., warning him not to invade Italy at the peril of his soul, and
Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, whose influence had been hitherto all-powerful
with the Pope, left the Vatican and retired to his own palace. The
Pope's change of front finally determined Lodovico's policy. From this
moment he threw himself heart and soul into the alliance with France,
and left no stone unturned to bring Charles VIII. into Italy. In an
important letter which, on the 10th of March, he addressed to his
brother, Cardinal Ascanio, who shared all his secrets, he reminds him
that he had originally been no friend to the French invasion.

"It is not true," he writes, "that the whole movement proceeds from me.
It was the Most Christian King who took the initiative, which is proved
by the appeal for the investiture of Naples, which he addressed to the
late Pope Innocent, and also by many letters written on the subject by
our own hand. When the Treaty of Senlis was signed, he sent his envoy to
tell me that he meant to invade Italy. At that moment, seeing how badly
the King of Naples had behaved against the Holy Father, I was not sorry
to come to the help of His Holiness. I ceased to dissuade the Most
Christian King from the enterprise. I approved his resolution, and now
he is at Lyons."

As late as the 6th of February, Lodovico had again declined to send
Messer Galeazzo to France, saying that every one would think he had come
to hasten the king's movements, and that in this way Charles would lose
the honour of the campaign. But when the news of the alliance between
Alfonso and the Pope reached him, he made no further difficulties, and
on the 1st of April, Galeazzo started for Lyons. On the 5th, he entered
the town secretly, disguised as a German, and, accompanied only by four
riders, made his way to the royal lodgings, and saw the king privately,
this being the day which had been selected by Lodovico's astrologer,
Ambrogio da Rosate, for his arrival at court. On the following morning
he made his public entry, attended by a suite of a hundred horsemen clad
in the French fashion, which Messer Galeazzo himself commonly affected.
The king received h