Charles VIII. of France had attained his twenty-third year. It has been well remarked of him that few monarchs have played so active a part with fewer personal qualifications for success or distinction. The hideous deformity of his body seems to have been equalled by the defects of his character. Impetuous and fickle, ignorant and wilful, he was alike devoid of judgment and of perseverance. The wars of the Neapolitan succession, that had during much of the preceding century harassed Lower Italy, were not forgotten, and the latent claims of the Angevine dynasty became serious grounds for fresh anxiety, when vested in the youthful monarch of a powerful ultra-montane nation. Ludovico Sforza, situated nearest to the quarter whence the storm threatened, was the first to take alarm, and for once his selfish policy tended to a great and beneficial object. He proposed a general defensive alliance of the Italian states against all foreign invasion. But his counsels flowed from a tainted source. The King of Naples had already interposed to emancipate his grand-daughter's husband from the unduly prolonged regency of Ludovico, who soon perceived that his usurped authority must be relinquished ere his overtures would be listened to in that quarter. Yet the stake was worth an effort, and the new Pope's elevation suggested a fit opportunity for the attempt, since it attracted to Rome many embassies of congratulation which, when thus congregated, might conveniently arrange the terms of a league. As a preliminary, the Regent of Milan proposed that the various ambassadors should give moral weight to their union, by entering the capital of Christendom on the same day, in one imposing procession. This idea was approved by most of the parties, but Pietro de' Medici, conceiving that his personal vanity would be more effectively gratified by exhibiting the superior magnificence of his retinue in a separate display, resolved to thwart by indirect means a proposition to which he could offer no reasonable objection. He, therefore, induced Ferdinand to interpose some obstacles of etiquette, which marred by miserable jealousies the intended unanimity of the demonstration. Ludovico, having ascertained the origin of this intrigue, saw in it a separation from the common cause by the two powers whose interests were the most at variance with his own. The Medici were formidable neighbours, as wielding the preponderating power of Florence, while with the King of Naples the seeds of a domestic quarrel were already rife.