Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/311

WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 167 of visiting France in person, and soliciting succour chapter from his ancient ally, Louis the Eleventh. In spite '■ — of every remonstrance, he put this extraordinary scheme into execution. He reached France, vv^ith a retinue of two hundred followers, in the month of September. He experienced everywhere the honors due to his exalted rank, and to the signal mark of confidence, which he thus exhibited to- wards the French king. The keys of the cities were delivered into his hands, the prisoners were released from their dungeons, and his progress was attended by a general jubilee. His brother mon- arch, however, excused himself from affording more substantial proofs of his regard, until he should have closed the war then pending between him and Burgundy, and until Alfonso should have fortified his title to the Castilian crown, by obtaining from the pope a dispensation for his marriage with Joanna. The defeat and death of the duke of Burgundy, whose camp, before Nanci, Alfonso visited in the depth of winter, with the chimerical purpose of effecting a reconciliation between him and Louis, removed the former of these impediments ; as, in good time, the compliance of the pope did the lat- ter. But the king of Portugal found himself no nearer the object of his negotiations; and, after waiting a whole year a needy supplicant at the court of Louis, he at length ascertained that his insidious host was concerting an arrangement with his mortal foes, Ferdinand and Isabella. Alfonso, whose character always had a spice of Quixotism