Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/36

10 ITALIAN WARS. 11. ^ART applj at once to the French monarch ; and he en- deavoured to propitiate him bj the most humiliating concessions, — the ofifer of an annual tribute, and the surrender into his hands of some of the princi- pal fortresses in the kingdom. Finding these ad- vances coldly received, he invoked, in the extremity of his distress, the aid of the Turkish sultan, Baja- zet, the terror of Christendom, requesting such supplies of troops as should enable him to make head against their common foe. This desperate step produced no other result than that of furnish- ing the enemies of the unhappy prince with a plaj- sible ground of accusation against him, of wh'ch they did not fail to make good use.'° The Spanish government, in the mean time, made [he most vivid remonstrances through its resident minister, or agents expressly accredited for the pur- pose, against the proposed expedition of Louis the Twelfth. It even went so far as to guaranty the faithful discharge of the tribute proffered by the king of Naples." But the reckless ambition of the French monarch, overleaping the barriers of prudence, and indeed of common sense, disdained the fruits of conquest without the name. viewsof Ferdinand now found himself apparently reduced to the alternative of abandoning the prize at once to the French king, or of making battle vith him '0 Guicciardiiii, Istorla, torn. i. Vita Magrii Gonsalvi, lib. 1, p. lib. 5, pp. 265, 2fi6. — Giannone, 229. — Daru, Hist. deVenise, torn. Tstoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 3. — iii. p. 338. Zurita, Hist, del Rcy Hernando, ^i Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., fom. i. lib. 3, cap. 40. — Giovio, lib. 14, epist. 218. Ferdinand.