For a long time the crowd that had collected to see all these foreign soldiers go by, a sight so new and strange, listened uneasily to a dull sound which got nearer and nearer.  The earth visibly trembled, the glass shook in the windows, and behind the king’s escort thirty-six bronze cannons were seen to advance, bumping along as they lay on their gun-carriages.  These cannons were eight feet in length; and as their mouths were large enough to hold a man’s head, it was supposed that each of these terrible machines, scarcely known as yet to the Italians, weighed nearly six thousand pounds.  After the cannons came culverins sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the smallest of which shot balls the size of a grenade.  This formidable artillery brought up the rear of the procession, and formed the hindmost guard of the French army.

It was six hours since the front guard entered the town; and as it was now night and for every six artillery-men there was a torch-bearer, this illumination gave to the objects around a more gloomy character than they would have shown in the sunlight.  The young king was to take up his quarters in the Palazzo di Venezia, and all the artillery was directed towards the plaza and the neighbouring streets.  The remainder of the army was dispersed about the town.  The same evening, they brought to the king, less to do honour to him than to assure him of his safety, the keys of Rome and the keys of the Belvedere Garden just the same thing had been done for the Duke of Calabria.

The pope, as we said, had retired to the Castle S. Angelo with only six cardinals, so from the day after his arrival the young king had around him a court of very different brilliance from that of the head of the Church.  Then arose anew the question of a convocation to prove Alexander’s simony and proceed to depose him; but the king’s chief counsellors, gained over, as we know, pointed out that this was a bad moment to excite a new schism in the Church, just when preparations were being made for war against the infidels.  As this was also the king’s private opinion, there was not much trouble in persuading him, and he made up his mind to treat with His Holiness.

But the negotiations had scarcely begun when they had to be broken off; for the first thing Charles viii demanded was the surrender of the Castle S. Angelo, and as the pope saw in this castle his only refuge, it was the last thing he chose to give up.  Twice, in his youthful impatience, Charles wanted to take by force what he could not get by goodwill, and had his cannons directed towards the Holy Father’s dwelling-place; but the pope was unmoved by these demonstrations; and obstinate as he was, this time it was the French king who gave way.

This article, therefore, was set aside, and the following conditions were agreed upon: 

That there should be from this day forward between His Majesty the King of France and the Holy Father a sincere friendship and a firm alliance;