The way for French ambition was thus paved; and Ludovico “Il Moro,” with a retributive justice not often so clearly shown, fell a victim to the storm he had originally evoked; and, captured by his rival in April, 1500, was sent to end his days in the dungeons of Loches. Less deserved but equally irrevocable was the disappearance of the bastard line of Aragon in Naples. Ferrante II. had died in September, 1496; and his uncle and successor, Federigo, menaced by Louis XII., sought assistance from his relations in Spain without avail. Ferdinand was playing a deeper game than to preserve the throne of those whom he secretly regarded as having cheated him out of a rightful inheritance. Only political and financial embarrassments had caused his father, John II., to acquiesce in Alfonso V.’s will, leaving Naples to an illegitimate son; and Ferdinand, with a united Spain behind him, and an army trained for ten long years in the wars of Granada, saw no reason to continue this policy. His support of Ferrante II. had been a temporary expedient to rid Southern Italy of Charles VIII.; but now he boldly approached the French King with a wholly selfish scheme of spoliation that finally took shape in the Partition Treaty of Granada of November, 1500. Federigo had foolishly given an opening to his enemies, when in despair at his isolation he appealed to the Turks to come to his aid; and the Pope was thus enabled to denounce him as a traitor to the Christian Faith and to demand his instant abdication. [Illustration: A KING-AT-ARMS FROM “SPANISH ARMS AND ARMOUR” REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR, MR. A. F. CALVERT ] His kingdom, divided into two by a somewhat vague boundary line, was partitioned by France and Spain, Louis receiving the northern portion with the town of Naples, Ferdinand the provinces of Calabria and Apulia. The unfortunate Federigo after a feeble effort to oppose this settlement, yielded to superior force, and retired to honourable captivity in France with the title “Duke of Anjou.” Machiavelli’s contempt for Louis XII.’s share in the treaty was unbounded. “The French do not understand statecraft,” was his answer to Cardinal d’Amboise, who on one occasion had suggested sneeringly that the Italians did not understand war; and there is little doubt that the Florentine considered his own race the more blest. That a King who might have controlled the peninsula should deliberately choose to share his supremacy with a powerful rival was of all acts the most stupid; and stupid indeed it was to prove; though it may be questioned if, in the face of Ferdinand’s opposition, Louis could have conquered Naples at all.