[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.  The princes whose interest it might have been to throw obstacles in the way of Charles were but children.  The Duke of Savoy was only twelve years old, the Marquis of Montferrat fourteen; their mothers and guardians made terms with the French king, and opened their territories to his armies.