er yonder, and
has expressly charged me, for my part, to hasten his affairs. I hope he
will be able to start hence about the 8th of April. He will leave over
here, as lieutenant, my lord de Montpensier, with a thousand or twelve
hundred lances, partly French and partly of this country, fifteen hundred
Swiss, and a thousand French crossbow-men." Charles himself wrote, on
the 28th of March, to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bourbon, that he
would mount his horse immediately after Quasimodo [the first Sunday after
Easter], to return to France without halting, or staying in any place.
But Charles, whilst so speaking and projecting, was forgetful of his
giddy indolence, his frivolous tastes, and his passion for theatrical
display and licentious pleasure. The climate, the country, the customs
of Naples charmed him. "You would never believe," he wrote to the Duke
of Bourbon, "what beautiful gardens I have in this city; on my faith,
they seem to me to lack only Adam and Eve to make of them an earthly
paradise, so beautiful are they, and full of nice and curious things, as
I hope to tell you soon. To add to that, I have found in this country
the best of painters; and I will send you some of them to make the most
beautiful ceilings possible. The ceilings at Beauce, Lyons, and other
places in France do not approach those of this place in beauty and
richness. . . . Wherefore I shall provide myself with them, and bring
them with me for to have some done at Arnboise." Politics were forgotten
in the presence of these royal fancies. Charles VIII. remained nearly
two months at Naples after the Italian league had been concluded, and
whilst it was making its preparations against him was solely concerned
about enjoying, in his beautiful but precarious kingdom, "all sorts of
mundane pleasaunces," as his councillor, the Cardinal of St. Malo, says,
and giving entertainments to his new subjects, as much disposed as
himself to forget everything in amusement. On the 12th of May, 1495, all
the population of Naples and of the neighboring country was afoot early
to see their new king make his entry in state as King of Naples, Sicily,
and Jerusalem, with his Neapolitan court and his French army. Charles
was on horseback beneath a rich dais borne by great Neapolitan lords; he
had a close crown on his head, the sceptre in his right hand, and a
golden globe in his left; in front of this brilliant train he took his
way through the principa