Meanwhile, the success of the French was producing the result anticipated by the Moro. Venice, awaking to the danger which the terrible prestige of the conqueror’s arms meant for all Italy, was ready to listen to Lodovico’s proposals for a remedy. The invaders were now to add to their experience of Italian pusillanimity an acquaintance with the craft which had superseded brute courage in this advanced nation. Scarcely had the French King turned his back on Lombardy, when the Venetian ambassadors were treating with the new Duke of Milan for an alliance against him. A few months later, Charles and his knights, sick with the Southern delights of their newly-conquered realm, and longing like homesick children for France, found their return barred by a powerful coalition of their late ally with Venice, the Emperor, the King of Spain, and nearly all the minor States of Italy. The story of their homeward march, more like a flight, need not be repeated here. At the approach of the French to his dominions, the faithless Lodovico trembled in his palace, in spite of the mighty host of allies which was awaiting them, while his people, beside themselves with fear of the cruel Northerners, and exasperated by the grievous taxation imposed upon them to oppose this evil which the Moro had himself provoked, murmured against him as the murderer of Gian Galeazzo, and the oppressor of the widowed Duchess and her son. Lodovico well knew that he could not lean upon his subjects in adversity. But the battle of Fornuovo (1495) relieved Lombardy of all fear of the French for the time, though the Italians let slip their chance of annihilating the hungry and enfeebled enemy, and crushing the Northern terror for ever. The irresistible conqueror of a year back, having with miraculous good fortune escaped with the best part of his troops to Asti, was compelled to negotiate for peace with Milan and Venice. At the meetings of the Duke and the Venetian Ambassadors with the representatives of Charles, Lodovico was accompanied by his young wife, who took part in all the discussions, and astonished everybody by her intelligence and wisdom. All through this critical period of the French invasion, Beatrice was the true helpmeet of her husband, sustaining by her courage and will his more sensitive temperament under the fears and doubts which assailed it.