ant one of his sons to be King of Naples, and the other Duke of Milan.

These sayings were duly reported to Lodovico by his own friends at the
French court, and chief among them M. de Trano, a Provencal gentleman
who was in constant correspondence with Milan, as well as by the Duke of
Ferrara's envoy. Ercole himself is described by French agents as "_tres
attache a son gendre_" and Marino Sanuto speaks of him as "exceedingly
partial to his son-in-law and devoted to him in his secret heart," but
he was far too wise and prudent a ruler to oppose Louis XII. openly.

The Pope, long the Moro's firm ally, had turned against him since the
dissolution of his daughter Lucrezia's marriage to Giovanni Sforza in
1497, and the presence of Cardinal della Rovere, who returned to Rome
towards the end of 1498, increased his hatred of the Sforzas. He was
still more drawn to France by the offers of Louis XII. to forward the
ambitious designs of his son Caesar Borgia, who had renounced his
cardinal's hat and was seeking the hand of the King of Navarre's
daughter. The discovery of these intrigues led to a sharp
passage-at-arms between the Pope and Ascanio Sforza in a consistory held
on the 3rd of December. The cardinal openly accused his Holiness of
bringing ruin upon Italy, upon which Alexander retorted that he was only
following the Duke of Milan's example. In vain Lodovico endeavoured to
avert the gathering storm by entering into negotiations with the French
king, and even approached Trivulzio with that purpose, but all attempts
at a peaceable arrangement were frustrated by Galeazzo di Sanseverino
and Antonio Landriano's hatred of their old rival and the fixed
determination of Louis XII. to reign in the Moro's stead.

Meanwhile the Venetian envoys were secretly plotting the Duke of Milan's
ruin, and on the 15th of April the Treaty of Blois was signed and the
partition of the Milanese between France and Venice finally determined.
The Signory agreed to invade the duke's territory with an army of 6000
men, and were to receive the district of Cremona in return for their
assistance. This was followed by Caesar Borgia's marriage to Charlotte
d'Albret, which took place at Blois on the 10th of May. The Pope's son
was created Duke of Valentinois by the French king, and Alexander VI.
joined France and Venice and publicly declared that the house of Sforza
must be swept off the face of the earth. At the same time, Francesco
Gonzaga made secret adva