that friends of Louis had been spreading reports
beforehand that the King of France was rich enough to abolish all taxes.
And so soon as the second day from his arrival at Milan the conqueror
made some slight reduction, granted important favours to certain Milanese
gentlemen, and bestowed the town of Vigavano on Trivulce as a reward for
his swift and glorious campaign. But Caesar Borgia, who had followed
Louis XII with a view to playing his part in the great hunting-ground of
Italy, scarcely waited for him to attain his end when he claimed the
fulfilment of his promise, which the king with his accustomed loyalty
hastened to perform. He instantly put at the disposal of Caesar three
hundred lances under the command of Yves d'Alegre, and four thousand
Swiss under the command of the bailiff of Dijon, as a help in his work of
reducing the Vicars of the Church.

We must now explain to our readers who these new personages were whom we
introduce upon the scene by the above name.

During the eternal wars of Guelphs and Ghibelines and the long exile of
the popes at Avignon, most of the towns and fortresses of the Romagna had
been usurped by petty tyrants, who for the most part hard received from
the Empire the investiture of their new possessions; but ever since
German influence had retired beyond the Alps, and the popes had again
made Rome the centre of the Christian world, all the small princes,
robbed of their original protector, had rallied round the papal see, and
received at the hands of the pope a new investiture, and now they paid
annual dues, for which they received the particular title of duke, count,
or lord, and the general name of Vicar of the Church.

It had been no difficult matter for Alexander, scrupulously examining the
actions and behaviour of these gentlemen during the seven years that had
elapsed since he was exalted to St. Peter's throne, to find in the
conduct of each one of them something that could be called an infraction
of the treaty made between vassals and suzerain; accordingly he brought
forward his complaints at a tribunal established for the purpose, and
obtained sentence from the judges to the effect that the vicars of the
Church, having failed to fulfil the conditions of their investiture, were
despoiled of their domains, which would again become the property of the
Holy See. As the pope was now dealing with men against whom it was
easier to pass a sentence than to get it carried out, he had