n, the victim of his friend
Lodovico, the sister of his foe Alfonso, fell at his feet and besought
him to have mercy on her husband, on her brother, on herself? The
situation was indeed enough to move a stouter heart than that of the
feeble young king. For the moment Charles returned evasive answers to
his petitioners; but the trouble of his soul was manifest, and no sooner
had he set forth on his way to Piacenza than the Moor resolved to
remove the cause of further vacillation. Sending to Pavia, Lodovico had
his nephew poisoned.[3] When the news of Gian Galeazzo's death reached
the French camp, it spread terror and imbittered the mistrust which was
already springing up between the frank cavaliers and the plausible
Italians with whom they had to deal.

[1] See above, p. 548.

[2] The mothers of Charles VIII. and Gian Galeazzo were
sisters, princesses of Savoy.

[3] Sismondi does not discuss the fact minutely, but he
inclines to believe that Gian Galeazzo was murdered. Michelet
raises a doubt about it, though the evidence is such as he
would have accepted without question in the case of a Borgia.
Guicciardini, who recounts the whole matter at length, says
that all Italy believed the Duke had been murdered, and quotes
Teodoro da Pavia, one of the royal physicians, who attested to
having seen clear signs of a slow poison in the young man.
Pontano, _de Prudentia_, lib. 4, repeats the accusation.
Guicciardini only doubts Lodovico's motives. He inclines to
think the murder had been planned long before, and that Charles
was invited into Italy in order that Lodovico might have a good
opportunity for effecting it, while at the same time he had
taken care to get the investiture of the Duchy from the Emperor
ready against the event.

What was this beautiful land in the midst of which they found
themselves, a land whose marble palaces were thronged with cut-throats
in disguise, whose princes poisoned while they smiled, whose luxuriant
meadows concealed fever, whose ladies carried disease upon their lips?
To the captains and the soldiery of France, Italy already appeared a
splendid and fascinating Circe, arrayed with charms, surrounded with
illusions, hiding behind perfumed thickets her victims changed to
brutes, and building the couch of her seduction on the bones of murdered
men. Yet she was so beautiful that, halt as they might for a moment and
gaze bac