1494, at the head of all his army. His reception on the part
of officials and populace was really magnificent. Negotiation was
resumed. Charles was at first very exacting; the Florentine negotiators
protested; one of them, Peter Capponi, "a man of great wits and great
courage," says Guiceiardini, "highly esteemed for those qualities in
Florence, and issue of a family which had been very powerful in the
republic," when he heard read the exorbitant conditions proposed to them
on the king's behalf, started up suddenly, took the paper from the
secretary's hands, and tore it up before the king's eyes, saying, "Since
you impose upon us things so dishonorable, have your trumpets sounded,
and we will have our bells rung;" and he went forth from the chamber
together with his comrades. Charles and his advisers thought better of
it; mutual concessions were made; a treaty, concluded on the 25th of
November, secured to the King of France a free passage through the whole
extent of the republic, and a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand
golden florins "to help towards the success of the expedition against
Naples;" the commune of Florence engaged to revoke the order putting a
price upon the head of Peter de' Medici as well as confiscating his
goods, and not to enforce against him any penalty beyond proscription
from the territory; and, the honor as well as the security of both the
contracting parties having thus been provided for, Charles VIII. left
Florence, and took, with his army, the road towards the Roman States.

Having on the 7th of December, 1494, entered Acquapendente, and, on the
10th, Viterbo, he there received, on the following day, a message from
Pope Alexander VI., who in his own name and that of Alphonso II., King of
Naples, made him an offer of a million ducats to defray the expenses of
the war, and a hundred thousand livres annually, on condition that he
would abandon his enterprise against the kingdom of Naples. "I have no
mind to make terms with the Arragonese usurper," answered Charles: "I
will treat directly with the pope when I am in Rome, which I reckon upon
entering about Christmas. I have already made known to him my
intentions; I will forthwith send him ambassadors commissioned to repeat
them to him." And he did send to him the most valiant of his warriors,
Louis de la Tremoille, "the which was there," says the contemporary
chronicler, John Bouchet, "with certain speakers, who, after having
pompously