his ally had reached Maximilian's ears at
Worms, and on the 18th of June he sent Lodovico a grave warning by his
envoy, Angelo Talenti, begging the duke to place German troops in the
fortress of Lombardy, and to provide guards for the castles of Milan and
Como, "in order that he may be able to sleep in peace." Two days later
he spoke again to the envoy, and begged him to urge the duke to remove
his womankind from the Castello to Cremona, where he heard that he had a
fine palace, saying that the presence of women had often caused the loss
of citadels. Perhaps, if Maximilian had known Duchess Beatrice as well
as he did a year later, he would have thought this warning superfluous.
Lodovico, however, thanked his Majesty for his thoughtfulness, and
applied himself, with the help of Leonardo, to fortify the Castello of
Milan and make it an impregnable citadel. That winter he had appointed
Bernardino del Corte, one of his favourite and most devoted servants, to
be governor of the Rocca, which held his treasure and jewels together
with all his most precious possessions, and on the 12th of January, a
fortnight before the birth of Beatrice's child, the new castellan had
taken a solemn oath of fealty to the duke and duchess, swearing, with
his hand on the crucifix, that he would hold the Castello for his liege
lord and lady till his latest breath. Messer Galeazzo and his brother,
Antonio Maria di Sanseverino, Giasone del Maino, Ambrogio di Rosate, the
astrologer, Galeotto Prince of Mirandola, and Giovanni Adorno, a
powerful Genoese nobleman, who had married a sister of the Sanseverini
brothers, were all present in Beatrice's room in the Rocchetta on this
occasion, and signed the document as witnesses of Bernardino's oath.

Maximilian now sent his long-promised contingent of Swiss and German
troops to join the Count of Caiazzo's horse, and the Venetian army,
under the generalship of Gian Francesco Gonzaga, and the allied forces,
amounting in all to some twenty-five thousand men, prepared to cut off
the retreat of the French king and prevent his return to Asti. "Here I
am," wrote the Marquis of Mantua to his wife, "at the head of the finest
army which Italy has ever seen, not only to resist, but to exterminate
the French." And Isabella wrote back in high spirits at the "great
enterprise" that was before him, sending him a cross with an Agnus Dei
to wear round his neck in battle, and telling him that her prayers and
those of all the p