Under these circumstances, old King Ferrante, becoming desperate, made a last effort to win over Lodovico to his side, and implored him to use his influence to stop the French monarch, warning him that the tide of events might in the end prove too strong for him. "The time will come," replied Lodovico proudly, "when all Italy will turn to me and pray to be delivered from the coming evils." In his anxiety to recover the Moro's friendship, the old king even thought of coming to Genoa himself to meet his granddaughter's husband, and arrive at some agreement. But early in the new year he fell ill, and died of fever on the 25th of January, at the age of seventy.
The death of Ferrante and accession of his son Alfonso, the father of Duchess Isabella, and a personal enemy of the Moro, brought matters to a crisis. The old king could never conquer his dislike of the Pope, and had only given a reluctant consent to the proposed marriage of his granddaughter with a Borgia. Alfonso, on the contrary, was ready to agree to any terms which might conciliate Alexander VI., and employed every artifice to obtain the Pope's support, and that of Piero de' Medici against France and Milan. In spite of the compliments that were exchanged on both sides upon his accession, Alfonso's enmity to Lodovico Sforza was well known at Naples, and the Milanese ambassador, Antonio Stanga, warned Lodovico to beware of assassins and prisoners, since, to his certain knowledge, the "new king has paid large sums of money to several Neapolitans of bad repute, who have been sent to Milan on some evil errand." After much vacillation on the Pope's part, and prolonged negotiations with both France and Naples, he was induced by the Orsini, who were staunch allies of the house of Aragon, to grant Alfonso the investiture of Naples, and to send his son, Cardinal Juan Borgia, to officiate at his coronation. A papal bull was addressed to Charles VIII., warning him not to invade Italy at the peril of his soul, and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, whose influence had been hitherto all-powerful with the Pope, left the Vatican and retired to his own palace. The Pope's change of front finally determined Lodovico's policy. From this moment he threw himself heart and soul into the alliance with France, and left no stone unturned to bring Charles VIII. into Italy. In an important letter which, on the 10th of March, he addressed to his brother, Cardinal Ascanio, who shared all his secrets, he reminds him that he had originally been no friend to the French invasion.
"It is not true," he writes, "that the whole movement proceeds from me. It was the Most Christian King who took the initiative, which is proved by the appeal for the investiture of Naples, which he addressed to the late Pope Innocent, and also by many letters written on the subject by our own hand. When the Treaty of Senlis was signed, he sent his envoy to tell me that he meant to invade Italy. At that moment, seeing how badly the King of Naples had behaved against the Holy Father, I was not sorry to come to the help of His Holiness. I ceased to dissuade the Most Christian King from the enterprise. I approved his resolution, and now he is at Lyons."
As late as the 6th of February, Lodovico had again declined to send Messer Galeazzo to France, saying that every one would think he had come to hasten the king's movements, and that in this way Charles would lose the honour of the campaign. But when the news of the alliance between Alfonso and the Pope reached him, he made no further difficulties, and on the 1st of April, Galeazzo started for Lyons. On the 5th, he entered the town secretly, disguised as a German, and, accompanied only by four riders, made his way to the royal lodgings, and saw the king privately, this being the day which had been selected by Lodovico's astrologer, Ambrogio da Rosate, for his arrival at court. On the following morning he made his public entry, attended by a suite of a hundred horsemen clad in the French fashion, which Messer Galeazzo himself commonly affected. The king received him with the utmost cordiality, and conducted him immediately to see the queen, whom he presented with a magnificent Spanish robe in Lodovico's name, together with choice specimens of Milanese armour, jennets from his own famous breed, and several handsome silver flagons filled with fragrant perfumes, in which Charles took especial delight. The French king fell an easy victim to this brilliant cavalier's personal charm. He insisted on seeing him ride in a tilting match before the court, and could talk of nothing but Messer Galeazzo's feats of horsemanship, whether in council or at table, and even when he went to bed. He bestowed the order of St. Michel upon his guest, and, among other marks of favour, he invited Galeazzo to his private rooms, where he sat with a few of his favourites, and, taking one of the fairest maidens by the hand, presented her to his visitor. Then the king himself sat down by another, and so they remained for some hours in pleasant conversation."
In his reply to Belgiojoso, who duly reported these events to his master, Lodovico dwells with infinite satisfaction on the great honours which have been paid to his dear son, and rejoices to hear that his Majesty has introduced him into his private apartments, and even shared his domestic pleasures with him. The presence of Galeazzo di Sanseverino at Lyons had, no doubt, the effect of counteracting the intrigues of the Duke of Orleans and the Aragonese party at the French court, and the confidence with which he inspired Charles dissipated any doubts which the king may have entertained of Lodovico's honesty. "The mission of Signor Galeazzo," wrote Belgiojoso, "has been crowned with success. Without his coming, the enterprise would have been utterly ruined."
Another and still more powerful advocate of the expedition now appeared at Lyons in the person of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, in Guicciardini's opinion, "was the fatall instrument of all the miseries of Italy." This bitter enemy of the Borgias had been repeatedly threatened with assassination by the Pope's creatures, and, feeling that Ostia was no safe place for him, he embarked one night in a fisherman's bark and fled first to Savona and thence to Genoa. Here, with Lodovico's assistance, he managed to proceed on his journey to France, and on the 1st of June reached Lyons, where his vehement invectives against the Pope and urgent entreaties helped to hasten the king's preparations. At the same time Erasmo Brasca, acting under Lodovico's orders, succeeded in disarming Maximilian's opposition to the French king's invasion of Italy, and wrote to his master on the 14th of June, informing him that the French ambassador had just left Worms with an assurance from the emperor that he would not impede that monarch's designs upon Naples. When, ten days later, Galeazzo di Sanseverino returned to Milan, the die was cast, and the French invasion of Italy was at length finally determined. Meanwhile the long-expected rupture between Milan and Naples had taken place. On the 8th of May, Alfonso was crowned by the papal nuncio, Juan Borgia, after the marriage of the Princess Sancia to Godfrey Borgia had been solemnized on the previous day. A fortnight later, as the king rode in state, accompanied by all the foreign ambassadors, to church on the Feast of Corpus Christi, he took occasion to ask the Milanese envoy, Antonio Stanga, if the news which reached him from Lyons were true, and the French king's enterprise, after being almost given up, had now been decided upon, owing to Messer Galeazzo's visit. The ambassador listened deferentially, cap in hand, but courteously disclaimed all knowledge of such information.
"Tell Signor Lodovico," returned the king, "that he will be the first to rue the day when the French set foot in Italy."
"Before I had time to reply," writes Stanga, "the other ambassadors had arrived to salute his Majesty, and I did not see him again alone."
A few days later the Milanese envoy was abruptly dismissed, and war declared against Milan. Alfonso committed the first open act of hostilities by seizing Lodovico's principality of Bari. At the same time a fleet was equipped to attack Genoa, and the land forces prepared to join the papal army and march through Romagna against the Milanese.
The winter of 1494, "that most unhappie year for Italy," writes Guicciardini, "for that in it was made open the way to infinite and horrible calamities," was spent by Lodovico and his wife at their favourite palace of Vigevano. After Bianca's wedding they had retired there, to spend the remaining period of Beatrice's mourning at this country retreat, and did not leave until the spring was well advanced. From here Beatrice wrote on the 3rd of January to rejoice with her sister Isabella on the birth of her first child, a daughter, who received the name of Leonora, after their beloved mother. The duchess congratulated her sister in affectionate terms, and signed herself, "Quella che desidera vedere la Signoria Vostra." She who desires to see your Highness,