14 ITALIAN WARS. PART pleted for the simultaneous occupation of the dc- ^ — voted territory by the combined powers.'^ Such were the terms of this celebrated compact, by which two European potentates coolly carved out and divided between them the entire dominions of a third, who had given no cause for umbrage, and with whom they were both at that time in perfect peace and amity. Similar instances of po- litical robbery (to call it by the coarse name it merits) have occurred in later times ; but never one founded on more flimsy pretexts, or veiled under a more detestable mask of hypocrisy. The principal odium of the transaction has attached to Ferdinand, as the kinsman of the unfortunate king of Naples. His conduct, however, admits of some palliatory considerations, that cannot be claimed for Louis. Ground of Thc Aragoucsc nation always regarded the be- (■"im." ' ^ quest of Ferdinand's uncle Alfonso the Fifth in favor of his natural offspring as an unwarrantable and illegal act. The kingdom of Naples had been won by their own good swords, and, as such, was the rightful inheritance of their own princes. Nothing but the domestic troubles of his dominions had pre- vented John the Second of Aragon, on the decease of his brother, from asserting his claim by arms. His son, Ferdinand the Catholic, had hitherto ac- quiesced in the usurpation of the bastard branch of his house only from similar causes. On the acces- sion of the present monarch, he had made some 17 See the original treaty, apud Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, torn, iii. pp. 445, 446.
