romise of the cardinalship, and had full
powers of negotiation in the name of their master, both in case Charles
should wish to include Alfonso II in the treaty, and in case he should
refuse to sign an agreement with any other but the pope alone. They
found the mind of Charles influenced now by the insinuation of Giuliano
della Ravere, who, himself a witness of the pope's simony, pressed the
king to summon a council and depose the head of the Church, and now by
the secret support given him by the Bishops of Mans and St. Malo. The
end of it was that the king decided to form his own opinion about the
matter and settle nothing beforehand, and continued this route, sending
the ambassadors back to the pope, with the addition of the Marechal de
Gie, the Seneschal de Beaucaire, and Jean de Gannay, first president of
the Paris Parliament. They were ordered to say to the pope--

(1) That the king wished above all things to be admitted into Rome
without resistance; that, an condition of a voluntary, frank, and loyal
admission, he would respect the authority of the Holy Father and the
privileges of the Church;

(2) That the king desired that D'jem should be given up to him, in order
that he might make use of him against the sultan when he should carry the
war into Macedonia or Turkey or the Holy Land;

(3) That the remaining conditions were so unimportant that they could be
brought forward at the first conference.

The ambassadors added that the French army was now only two days distant
from Rome, and that in the evening of the day after next Charles would
probably arrive in person to demand an answer from His Holiness.

It was useless to think of parleying with a prince who acted in such
expeditious fashion as this. Alexander accordingly warned Ferdinand to
quit Rome as soon as possible, in the interests of his own personal
safety. But Ferdinand refused to listen to a word, and declared that he
would not go out at one gate while Charles VIII came in at another. His
sojourn was not long. Two days later, about eleven o'clock in the
morning, a sentinel placed on a watch-tower at the top of the Castle S.
Angelo, whither the pope had retired, cried out that the vanguard of the
enemy was visible on the horizon. At once Alexander and the Duke of
Calabria went up an the terrace which tops the fortress, and assured
themselves with their own eyes that what the soldier said was true.
Then, and not till then, did the duke of Cala