r, but also by
many people of Tuscany and of the States of the Church."

Cesare's wife--Charlotte d'Albret--whom he had not seen since that
September of 1499, was at Bourges at the Court of her friend, the
saintly, repudiated first wife of Louis XII. It is to be supposed that
she would be advised of her husband's presence at her brother's Court;
but there is no information on this score, nor do we know that they ever
met.

Within four days of reaching Pampeluna Cesare dispatched his secretary
Federico into Italy to bear the news of his escape to his sister
Lucrezia at Ferrara, and a letter to Francesco Gonzaga, of Mantua, which
was little more than one of introduction, the more important matters to
be conveyed to Gonzaga going, no doubt, by word of mouth. Federico was
arrested at Bologna by order of Julius II, after he had discharged his
mission.

France was now Cesare's only hope, and he wrote to Louis begging his
royal leave to come to take his rank as a prince of that country, and to
serve her.

You may justly have opined, long since, that the story here set down is
one never-ending record of treacheries and betrayals. But you will
find little to surpass the one to come. The behaviour of Louis at this
juncture is contemptible beyond words, obeying as it does the maxim
of that age, which had it that no inconvenient engagement should be
observed if there was opportunity for breaking it.

Following this detestable maxim, Louis XII had actually gone the
length of never paying to Charlotte d'Albret the dot of 100,000 livres
Tournois, to which he had engaged himself by written contract. When
Cesare, in prison at Medina and in straits for money, had solicited
payment through his brother-in-law of Navarre, his claim had been
contemptuously disregarded.

But there was worse to follow. Louis now answered Cesare's request for
leave to come to France by a letter (quoted in full by M. Yriarte from
the Archives des Basses Pyrenees) in which his Very Christian Majesty
announces that the duchy of Valentinois and the County of Dyois have
been restored to the crown of France, as also the lordship of Issoudun.
And then follows the pretext, of whose basely paltry quality you shall
judge for yourselves. It runs:

"After the decease of the late Pope Alexander, when our people and our
army were seeking the recovery of the kingdom of Naples, he [Cesare]
went over to the side of our enemies, serving, favouring, and assisting
them a