The Orsini and the Colonna now buried their ancient and deadly feud and united with Naples, and the demand for a General Council was ominously echoed in Germany and Spain. Alexander sought at first a counterpoise in Naples, and wished to marry Cæsar and Lucrezia into the family of Alfonso. After some hesitation, and with marked reluctance, Alfonso II. gave his natural son Alfonso to Lucrezia, but he refused, in spite of the political advantage, to degrade his daughter Carlotta by a marriage with Cæsar. It is not immaterial to observe that Cæsar had, like four other cardinals of the Church, contracted the "French disease" which was then so fiercely punishing the vice of Italy. It happened that at that time Louis XII. sought a divorce, and, at first in the hope of bringing pressure on Naples, Cæsar, after resigning the cardinalate on August 17th, was sent to gratify and impress the French Court. Even Giuliano della Rovere, who lived quietly at Avignon, was induced to enter the intrigue. Carlotta and her father still disdained the connexion, but Louis offered Cæsar his young and beautiful niece, Charlotte d'Albret, and the counties of Valentinois and Diois. They were married on May 22d (1499), and the Papal policy entered upon a new phase. The Papacy and Venice, preferring their selfish interests to the welfare of Italy, allied themselves with France, and for the hundredth time an invading army descended upon the plains of Lombardy. Spain and Portugal were now angrily threatening to have the Pope--who, with equal warmth, accused Isabella herself of unchastity--tried by a General Council for his scandalous actions, and he and Cæsar formed the design of establishing, with the aid of the French, a strong principality for Cæsar in central Italy. The Neapolitan alliance was discarded, and Bulls were issued to the effect that the Lords of Rimini, Pesaro, Imola, Faenza, Forli, Urbino, and Camerino had failed to discharge their feudal duties to the Papacy and had forfeited their fiefs. The victorious progress of Cæsar in these territories was checked for a time by a revolt at Milan, but that city was retaken by the French in 1500. The successful Jubilee of 1500, which at one time drew 100,000 pilgrims to Rome, filled the coffers and helped to exalt the spirit of the Pope. His character, indeed, seemed to become more buoyant and defiant as his age advanced. During that year he had a narrow escape from death, owing to the fall of the roof of the Sala de' Pape, and Lucrezia's husband was cut to pieces in his chamber by the soldiers, and at the command, of Cæsar. These events hardly dimmed the joy of the Pope. Cæsar received the Golden Rose and was made Gonfaloniere of the Church; and he was permitted to appropriate a large share of the Jubilee funds and to exact large sums from the cardinals whom the Pope promoted in 1500. Meantime, the ambassadors relate, Giulia Orsini retained her influence over the seventy-year old Pope, and other