Distrust became general throughout the army.

"Those who ought to have known best told me," says Commynes, "that several, who had at first commended the trip, now found fault with it, and that there was a great inclination to turn back." However, the march was continued forward; and on the 29th of October, 1494, the French army encamped before Sarzana, a Florentine town.

Ludovic the Moor suddenly arrived in the camp with new proposals of alliance, on new conditions: Charles accepted some of them, and rejected the principal ones.

Ludovic went away again on the 3d of November, never to return.
From this day the King of France might reckon him amongst his enemies.
With the republic of Florence was henceforth to be Charles's business.
Its head, Peter de' Medici, went to the camp at Sarzana, and Philip de Commynes started on an embassy to go and negotiate with the doge and senate of Venice, which was the chiefest of the Italian powers and the territory of which lay far out of the line of march of the King of France and his army.

In the presence of the King of France and in the midst of his troops Peter de' Medici grew embarrassed and confused.