ce.

At the news of these reverses the grief and irritation of Louis XII.
were extreme. Not only was he losing his Neapolitan conquests, but even
his Milaness was also threatened. The ill-will of the Venetians became
manifest. They had re-victualled by sea the fortress of Barletta, in
which Gonzalvo of Cordova had shut himself up with his troops; "and when
the king presented complaints of this succor afforded to his enemies, the
senate replied that the matter had taken place without their cognizance,
that Venice was a republic of traders, and that private persons might
very likely have sold provisions to the Spaniards, with whom Venice was
at peace, without there being any ground for concluding from it that she
had failed in her engagements towards France. Some time afterwards, four
French galleys, chased by a Spanish squadron of superior force, presented
themselves before the port of Otranto, which was in the occupation of the
Venetians, who pleaded their neutrality as a reason for refusing asylum
to the French squadron, which the commander was obliged to set on fire
that it might not fall into he enemy's hands." [_Histoire de la
Republique de L'enise,_ by Count Daru, t. iii. p. 245.] The determined
prosecution of hostilities in the kingdom of Naples by Gonzalvo of
Cordova, in spite of the treaty concluded at Lyons on the 5th of April,
1503, between the Kings of France and Spain, was so much the more
offensive to Louis XII. in that this treaty was the consequence and the
confirmation of an enormous concession which he had, two years
previously, made to the King of Spain on consenting to affiance his
daughter, Princess Claude of France, two years old, to Ferdinand's
grandson, Charles of Austria, who was then only one year old, and who
became Charles the Fifth (emperor)! Lastly, about the same time, Pope
Alexander VI., who, willy hilly, had rendered Louis XII. so many
services, died at Rome on the 12th of August, 1503. Louis had hoped that
his favorite minister, Cardinal George d'Amboise, would succeed him, and
that hope had a great deal to do with the shocking favor he showed Caesar
Borgia, that infamous son of a demoralized father. But the candidature
of Cardinal d'Amboise failed; a four weeks' pope, Pius III., succeeded
Alexander VI.; and, when the Holy See suddenly became once more vacant,
Cardinal d'Amboise failed again; and the new choice was Cardinal Julian
della Rovera, Pope Julius II., who soon became th