me with the news, and this
so inflamed the Pope that the Cardinals Lodovico Borgia and Francesco
Remolino, together with other Borgia partisans, instantly fled from
Rome, where they no longer accounted themselves safe, and sought refuge
with Gonzalo de Cordoba in the Spanish camp at Naples, imploring his
protection at the same time for Cesare.

The Pope's anger first vented itself in the confiscation of the Duke of
Valentinois's property wherever possible, to satisfy the claims of the
Riarii (the Pope's nephews) who demanded an indemnity of 50,000 ducats,
of Guidobaldo, who demanded 200,000 ducats, and of the Florentine
Republic, which claimed the same. The duke's ruin was by now--within six
weeks of the election of Julius II--an accomplished fact; and many
were those who chose to fall with him rather than abandon him in his
extremity. They afford a spectacle of honour and loyalty that was
exceedingly rare in the Italy of the Renaissance; clinging to their
duke, even when the last ray of hope was quenched, they lightened for
him the tedium of those last days at the Vatican during which he was no
better than a prisoner of state.

Suddenly came news of Gonzalo de Cordoba's splendid victory at
Garigliano--a victory which definitely broke the French and gave the
throne of Naples to Spain. Naturally this set Spanish influence once
more, and mightily, in the ascendant, and the Spanish cardinals,
together with the ambassador of Spain, came to exert with the Pope an
influence suddenly grown weighty.

As a consequence, Cesare, escorted by Carvajal, Cardinal of Santa Croce,
was permitted to depart to Ostia, whence he was to take ship for France.
Leastways, such was the understanding upon which he left the Vatican.
But the Pope was not minded, even now, to part with him so easily, and
his instructions to Carvajal were that at Ostia he should await further
orders before sailing.

But on December 26, news reaching the Spanish cardinal that the Romagna
fortresses--persuaded that Cesare had been liberated--had finally
surrendered, Carvajal took it upon himself to allow Cesare to depart,
upon receiving from him a written undertaking never to bear arms against
Pope Julius II.

So the Duke of Valentinois at last regained his freedom. Whether, in
repairing straight to Naples, as he did, he put a preconceived plan
into execution, or whether, even now, he mistrusted his enlargement, and
thought thus to make himself secure, cannot be a