duchy of Anjou and 30,000 ducats a
year, an condition that he should never quit the kingdom; and there,
in fact, he died, an the 9th of September 1504. His eldest son, Dan
Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, retired to Spain, where he was permitted to
marry twice, but each time with a woman who was known to be barren; and
there he died in 1550. Alfonso, the second son, who had followed his
father to France, died, it is said, of poison, at Grenoble, at the age
of twenty-two; lastly Caesar, the third son, died at Ferrara, before he
had attained his eighteenth birthday.

Frederic's daughter Charlotte married in France Nicholas, Count of
Laval, governor and admiral of Brittany; a daughter was born of this
marriage, Anne de Laval, who married Francois de la Trimauille. Through
her those rights were transmitted to the house of La Trimouille which
were used later on as a claim upon the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The capture of Naples gave the Duke of Valentinois his liberty again; so
he left the French army, after he had received fresh assurances on his
own account of the king's friendliness, and returned to the siege of
Piombino, which he had been forced to interrupt. During this interval
Alexander had been visiting the scenes of his son's conquests, and
traversing all the Romagna with Lucrezia, who was now consoled for her
husband's death, and had never before enjoyed quite so much favour with
His Holiness; so, when she returned to Rome. She no longer had separate
rooms from him. The result of this recrudescence of affection was the
appearance of two pontifical bulls, converting the towns of Nepi and
Sermoneta into duchies: one was bestowed on Gian Bargia, an illegitimate
child of the pope, who was not the son of either of his mistresses, Rosa
Vanozza or Giulia Farnese, the other an Don Roderigo of Aragon, son of
Lucrezia and Alfonso: the lands of the Colonna were in appanage to the
two duchies.

But Alexander was dreaming of yet another addition to his fortune; this
was to came from a marriage between Lucrezia and Don Alfonso d'Este, son
of Duke Hercules of Ferrara, in favour of which alliance Louis XII had
negotiated.

His Holiness was now having a run of good fortune, and he learned on the
same day that Piombino was taken and that Duke Hercules had given the
King of France his assent to the marriage. Both of these pieces of news
were good for Alexander, but the one could not compare in importance
with the other; and the