made no account: he did not here, as he had done for the conquest of Milaness, join himself to an ally of far inferior power to his own, and of ambition confined within far narrower boundaries, as was the case when the Venetians supported him against Ludovie Sforza: he was choosing for his comrade, in a far greater enterprise, his nearest and most powerful rival, and the most dexterous rascal amongst the kings of his day.

"The King of France," said Ferdinand one day, "complains that I have deceived him twice; he lies, the drunkard; I have deceived him more than ten times." Whether this barefaced language were or were not really used, it expressed nothing but the truth: mediocre men, who desire to remain pretty nearly honest, have always the worst of it, and are always dupes when they ally themselves with men who are corrupt and at the same time able, indifferent to good and evil, to justice and iniquity.

Louis XII., even with the Cardinal d'Amboise to advise him, was neither sufficiently judicious to abstain from madly conceived enterprises, nor sufficiently scrupulous and clear-sighted to unmask and play off every act of perfidy and wickedness: by uniting himself, for the conquest and partition of the kingdom of Naples, with Ferdinand the Catholic, he was bringing upon himself first of all hidden opposition in the very midst of joint action, and afterwards open treason and defection.

He forgot, moreover, that Ferdinand had at the head of his armies a tried chieftain, Gonzalvo of Cordova, already known throughout Europe as the great captain, who had won that name in campaigns against the Moors, the Turks, and the Portuguese, and who had the character of being as free from scruple as from fear.

Lastly the supporters who, at the very commencement of his enterprises in Italy, had been sought and gained by Louis XII., Pope Alexander VI.