On the 10th of July 1494 the Duke of Orleans crossed the Alps with the advance guard of the French army. Charles soon followed, and was received with great honour by Ludovico Sforza and the Duke of Ferrara. After crossing Italy in triumph, he arrived at Naples without having broken a single lance, and made a solemn entry into the town, whilst the King of Naples, abandoned by his subjects and betrayed by his generals, fled to Sicily. But in the midst of his triumphs Charles learned, through the historian Commines, his ambassador in Venice, of the perfidy of his allies and of the new league that was formed against him by Henry VII. of England, Ferdinand of Aragon, Maximilian (recently elected emperor after the death of his father), the Pope Alexander VI., the Republic of Venice, and the Duke of Milan. All these confederates combined in a common interest to drive the French out of Italy, and to attack France from different sides at the same time. 'The ambitious schemes of Charles VIII. established a community of interests among the great European states, such as had never before existed, or at least been understood; and the intimate relations thus introduced naturally led to intermarriages between the principal powers, who until this period seemed to have been severed almost as far asunder as if oceans had rolled between them.... It was while Charles VIII. was wasting his time at Naples that the marriages were arranged between the royal houses of Spain and Austria, by which the weight of these great powers was thrown into the same scale, and the balance of Europe unsettled for the greater part of the following century. 'The Treaty of Venice provided that Prince John, the heir of the Spanish monarchies, then in his eighteenth year, should be united with the Princess Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, and that the Archduke Philip, his son and heir, and sovereign of the Low Countries in his mother's right, should marry Joanna, second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. No dowry was to be required with either princess.'[6] [6] Prescott, _Ferdinand and Isabella_. The conditions of this double marriage were drawn up by Francisco de Rojas, sent to Flanders by Ferdinand and Isabella for this purpose. The proposals were agreed to by both sides, and it was arranged that the fleet which brought Joanna of Castile to Flanders should carry Margaret of Austria to Spain.