2]

[1] Venice remained neutral. She had refused to side with
Charles, on the pretext that the fear of the Turk kept her
engaged. She declined to join the league of Alfonso by saying
it was mad to save others at the risk of drawing the war into
your own territory. Nothing is more striking than the want of
patriotic sentiment or generous concurrence to a common end in
Italy at this time. Florence, by temper and tradition favorable
to France, had been drawn into the league by Piero de' Medici,
whose sympathies were firm for the Aragonese princes.

[2] This, of course, was Savonarola's prophecy. But both
Guicciardini and De Comities use invariably the same language.
The phrase _Dieu monstroit conduire l'entreprise_ frequently
recurs in the _Memoirs_ of De Comines.

While Alfonso and Alexander were providing for their safety in the
South, Charles remained at Lyons, still uncertain whether he should
enter Italy by sea or land, or indeed whether he should enter it at all.
Having advanced so far as the Rhone valley, he felt satisfied with his
achievement and indulged himself in a long bout of tournaments and
pastimes. Besides, the want of money, which was to be his chief
embarrassment throughout the expedition, had already made itself
felt.[1] It was an Italian who at length roused him to make good his
purpose against Italy--Giuliano della Rovere,[2] the haughty nephew of
Sixtus, the implacable foe of Alexander, whom he was destined to succeed
in course of time upon the Papal throne. Burning to punish the Marrano,
or apostate Moor, as he called Alexander, Giuliano stirred the king with
taunts and menaces until Charles felt he could delay his march no
longer. When once the French army got under weigh, it moved rapidly.
Leaving Vienne on August 23, 1494, 3,600 men at arms, the flower of the
French chivalry, 6,000 Breton archers, 6,000 crossbowmen, 8,000 Gascon
infantry, 8,000 Swiss and German lances, crossed the Mont Genevre,
debouched on Susa, passed through Turin, and entered Asti on September
19.[3] Neither Piedmont nor Montferrat stirred to resist them. Yet at
almost any point upon the route they might have been at least delayed by
hardy mountaineers until the commissariat of so large a force had proved
an insurmountable difficulty. But before this hunchback conqueror with
the big head and little legs, the valleys had been exalted and the rough
places had been made plain