feelings of those deposed tyrants and their friends, and
the sudden collapse of the hopes which they had imagined the king to be
encouraging. They did, of course, the only thing there was to do. They
took their leave precipitately and went their ways--all save Gonzaga,
whom the king retained that he might make his peace with Cesare, and
engage in friendship with him, a friendship consolidated there and then
by the betrothal of their infant children: little Francesco Gonzaga
and Louise de Valentinois, aged two, the daughter whom Cesare had never
beheld and was never to behold.

Two factors were at work in the interests of Valentinois--the coming war
in Naples with the Spaniard, which caused Louis to desire to stand well
with the Pope; and the ambition of Louis's friend and counsellor, the
Cardinal d'Amboise, to wear the tiara, which caused this prelate to
desire to stand well with Cesare himself, since the latter's will in
the matter of a Pope to succeed his father should be omnipotent with the
Sacred College.

Therefore, that they might serve their interests in the end, both king
and cardinal served Cesare's in the meantime.

The Duke of Valentinois's visit to Milan had served to increase the
choler of Vitelli, who accounted that by this action Cesare had put him
in disgrace with the King of France; and Vitelli cried out that thus was
he repaid for having sought to make Cesare King of Tuscany. In such high
dudgeon was the fierce Tyrant of Citta di Castello that he would not go
to pay his court to Louis, and was still the more angry to hear of the
warm welcome accorded in Milan to the Cardinal Orsini. In this he
read approval of the Orsini for having stood neutral in the Florentine
business, and, by inference from that, disapproval of himself.

Before accusing Valentinois of treachery to his condottieri, before
saying that he shifted the blame of the Tuscan affair on to the
shoulders of his captains, it would be well to ascertain that there was
any blame to shift--that is to say, any blame that must originally have
fallen upon Cesare. Certainly he made no effort to restrain Vitelli
until the King of France had arrived and he had secret information which
caused him to deem it politic to intervene. But of what avail until that
moment, would any but an armed intervention have been with so vindictive
and one-idea'd a man, and what manner of fool would not Cesare have
been to have spent his strength in battle with his con