he fondled the child.  Ludovic set out in haste for Milan; and it was not long before it was known that he had been proclaimed duke and put in possession of the duchy.  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.  He had gone to meet the king without the knowledge of the Florentines and was already alarmed at the gravity of his situation; and he offered more concession and submission than was demanded of him.  “Those who treated with him,” says Commynes, “told me, turning him to scorn and ridicule, that they were dumbfounded at his so readily granting so great a matter and what they were not prepared for.”  Feelings were raised to the highest pitch at Florence when his weaknesses were known.  There was a numerous and powerful party, consisting of the republicans and the envious, hostile to the Medicis; and they eagerly seized the opportunity of attacking them.  A deputation, comprising the most considerable men of the city, was sent, on the 5th of November, to the King of France with a commission to obtain from him more favorable conditions.  The Dominican, Jerome Savonarola, at that time the popular oracle of Florence, was one of them.  With a pious hauteur that was natural and habitual to him, he adopted the same tone towards Charles as towards the people of Florence.  “Hearken thou to my words,” said he, “and grave them upon thy heart.  I warn thee, in God’s name, that thou must show thyself merciful and forbearing to the people of Florence, if thou wouldest that He should aid thee in thy enterprise.”  Charles, who scarcely knew Savonarola by name, answered simply that he did not wish to do the Florentines any harm, but that he demanded a free passage, and all that had been promised him:  “I wish to be received at Florence,” he added, “to sign there a definitive treaty which shall settle everything.”  At these cold expressions the ambassadors withdrew in some