h the exasperated
Charles; and, the charge of simony being the only weapon with which
they could attack Alexander's seat upon the papal throne, the charge of
simony was once more brandished.

His Holiness took the matter with a becoming and stately calm. He sent
his nephew, Giovanni Borgia, to Naples to crown Alfonso, and with him
went Giuffredo Borgia to carry out the marriage contract with Alfonso's
daughter, and thus strengthen the alliance between Rome and Naples.

By the autumn Charles had crossed the Alps with the most formidable army
that had ever been sent out of France, full ninety thousand strong. And
so badly was the war conducted by the Neapolitan generals who were sent
to hold him in check that the appearance of the French under the very
walls of Rome was almost such as to take the Pope by surprise. Charles's
advance from the north had been so swift and unhindered that Alexander
contemptuously said the French soldiers had come into Italy with wooden
spurs and chalk in their hands to mark their lodgings.

Charles had been well received by the intriguing Lodovico Sforza, with
whom he visited the Castle of Pavia and the unfortunate Gian Galeazzo,
who from long confinement, chagrin, and other causes was now reduced
to the sorriest condition. Indeed, on October 22, some days after that
visit, the wretched prince expired. Whether or not Lodovico had him
poisoned, as has been alleged--a charge, which, after all, rests on no
proof, nor even upon the word of any person of reliance--his death most
certainly lies at his ambitious uncle's door.

Charles was at Piacenza when the news of Gian Galeazzo's death reached
him. Like the good Christian that he accounted himself, he ordered the
most solemn and imposing obsequies for the poor youth for whom in life
he had done nothing.

Gian Galeazzo left a heart-broken girl-widow and two children to succeed
him to the throne he had never been allowed to occupy--the eldest,
Francesco Sforza, being a boy of five. Nevertheless, Lodovico was
elected Duke of Milan. Not only did he suborn the Parliament of Milan
to that end, but he induced the Emperor to confirm him in the title. To
this the Emperor consented, seeking to mask the unscrupulous deed by a
pitiful sophism. He expounded that the throne of Milan should originally
have been Lodovico's, and never Galeazzo Maria's (Gian Galeazzo's
father), because the latter was born before Francesco Sforza had become
Duke of Milan, where