be tired of it and will go no further. When
the Count Dauphin and other princes of the blood royal arrive, the
duchess sends your Highness word that you will have to come too and
receive some of these kisses."

The Duke of Orleans, however, had no time to waste in paying his
respects to the ladies of Beatrice's court. Directly after his interview
with Lodovico, he went on to Genoa to fit out the French fleet to oppose
that in which Alfonso's brother, Don Federigo, had already sailed to
attack Genova. Twice over during the next few weeks the Neapolitan
forces landed at Porto Venere and Rapallo, but each time they were
repulsed by the Genoese and French troops, supported by a strong
Milanese contingent under the gallant Fracassa and Antonio di
Sanseverino, after which Don Federigo retired to the harbour of Leghorn,
and was soon recalled to defend Naples itself against the French. On the
27th of July, the Count of Caiazzo received the _baton_ of command from
Lodovico's hands on the piazza in front of the Castello of Milan, and
started at the head of fifteen hundred foot soldiers and light cavalry
to join the French army that was marching into Romagna to meet the
forces led by Ferrante Duke of Calabria. On the 23rd of August, Isabella
d'Este came to Parma at her brother-in-law's invitation to meet him and
the French ambassador, and see the first French troops under La
Tremouille and Stuart d'Aubigny--the Marchese d'Obegnino, as the
Italians called him--march through the town. The spectacle, however, was
less imposing than she expected, only about four hundred light cavalry
riding past, as she describes it, in some confusion and disorder.

Meanwhile Charles VIII. had at length crossed the Alps and after pawning
the jewels of his allies, the Marchioness of Montferrat and Duchess of
Savoy, to pay his troops, arrived at Asti on the 9th of September. Here
he was received with great honour by Lodovico and his father-in-law,
Duke Ercole, who rode out to meet him on his entry into the town. The
magistrates and citizens welcomed him as their liege lord, and the
illiterate French barons were amazed to hear a child of eleven,
Margareta Solari, declaim a Latin oration with perfect ease and fluency.
Two days afterwards Beatrice herself arrived at the castle of Annona, in
the neighbourhood of Asti, bringing her choir of singers and musicians,
and accompanied by eighty ladies especially chosen for their beauty and
rich attire, and gave