“Illustrious and most excellent Lady, and our dear sister. Knowing that in your present illness no medicine could be more efficacious and more helpful than the announcement of good news, we inform you that we have just received a reliable report to the effect that Camerino has been taken. We beg you to honour this message with an immediate amelioration in your health and to inform us of it; for, distressed as we are, knowing you are so ill, nothing, not even this happy event, can give us any pleasure. We beg you to communicate this present news to the Illustrious Sr. Don Alfonso, your husband and our dearly beloved brother-in-law, to whom I cannot write to-day. Urbino XX July MDII. “CAESAR “AGAPITO.” Valentino always maintained friendly relations with Ercole and Alfonso d’Este, who never neglected to congratulate him on his successes. Caesar evidently was anxious regarding his sister’s health, for he sent a famous physician of Cesena, Niccolò Marsini, to consult with his own physician, Gaspare Torrella, who had been previously dispatched to Ferrara. A few days later Caesar, disguised and with only a small suite, went to see his sister; he remained only two hours with her, and then, accompanied by his brother-in-law Alfonso, set out for Milan to meet the King of France. Louis had been informed of their coming, but had kept the matter secret from the numerous deposed princes who had hastened to him. To the astonishment of the entire Court, which included the Duke of Urbino, the Lord of Pesaro, Varano of Camerino, and the Marquis of Mantua, who had offered to place himself at the head of a league for the purpose of dispossessing Caesar of his domains, the King received the new-comers most cordially. The courtiers had supposed that Louis would undertake to discipline Valentino for threatening Florence, but instead he received Caesar and his brother-in-law with the highest honours. The dethroned princes therefore immediately divined that the King and the Vatican were in perfect accord. Louis needed the Pope’s support in his plans with respect to Naples, and Caesar was astute enough to know that his Majesty would not seriously interfere with his own projects. About this time Louis XII. and Valentino entered into a formal agreement regarding Bologna, by which his Majesty promised to furnish the Duke with three hundred lances “to help him to conquer Bologna in the name of the Church and subdue the Orsini, the Baglioni, and the Vitelli,” while Caesar promised to hold himself in readiness for three years to assist the King in any enterprises in which he might see fit to engage.