After being detained a few weeks by that which Italians call the French disease, because it was introduced into Italy by this Christian King, Charles VIII dawdled on to Pavia; and visited Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti. The condition of that luckless prince was scandalous in the extreme. He was of the age of five and twenty years. He had been a prisoner during fifteen years. He was decrepid of body, helpless and dull of mind. His only joy in life was in his Duchess Isabella and in his four-year-old son, for whose protection he piteously entreated the Christian King. France put on a sympathetic aspect—it was perhaps the most gracious moment in the little creature’s life—; the nostrils of his ham-shaped nose wore an air of disgust at Duke Giangaleazzo’s suffering; the glare of his boiled eyes in their congenital flush, and the severe fat line of his mouth, horrified the usurping Regent. Had the money of Don Ludovico Maria been in the coffers of any one just then except the Christian King’s, undoubtedly right would have been done by the might of France. But, with promises to return, with excellent intentions to attend to the affairs of Milan when Naples should have been reduced with Milan’s money, the Christian King was persuaded to hasten on to Piacenza. There, on the twenty-first of October, news came to him that the prince whom he had left in his prison, Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti, was dead; and that Don Ludovico Maria had proclaimed himself, and had been accepted as, Duke of Milan. It was also said that the uncle had envenomed the nephew, having observed him to have gained the sympathy of France, and fearing lest that sympathy should restore him to his throne. It may have been so: but there is no evidence whatever on the subject beyond the mere assertion. But it equally might have been the effect of concentrated despair, at seeing deliverance come and pass away, acting on a body, naturally weak, worn by passion and imprisonment, which killed Duke Giangaleazzo Sforza-Visconti of Milan. The Fifteenth Century (and also the first decades of the Sixteenth) was so radically ignorant of the art and science, as well of venoms, as of their practical exhibition, that, unless direct in addition to circumstantial evidence be forthcoming, mere unproved charges based on “on dit,” “aiunt,” “fertur,” or “dicant,” may be disregarded and a natural cause of death assigned. * * * * *