CHAPTER XI. ITALIAN WARS.- RUPTURE WITH FRANCE. — GONSALVO BE- SIEGED IN BARLETA. 1502, 1503. Rupture between the French and Spaniards. — Gonsalvo retires to Barleta. — Chivalrous Character of the War. — Tourney near Trani. — Duel between Bayard and Sotomayor. — Distress of Barleta. — Constancy of the Spaniards. — Gonsalvo storms and takes Ruvo. — Prepares to leave Barleta. PART II. Mutiml dis- trust of the French ajia Sxiaaiards. It was hardly to be expected that the partition treaty between France and Spain, made so man- ifestly in contempt of all good faith, would be main- tained any longer than suited the convenience of the respective parties. The French monarch, in- deed, seems to have prepared, from the first, to dispense with it, so soon as he had secured his own moiety of the kingdom;' and sagacious men at the Spanish court inferred, that King Ferdinand would 1 Peter Martyr, in a letter writ- ten from Venice, while detained there on his way to Alexandria, speaks of the ctforts made by the Irench emissaries to induce the republic to break with Spain, and support their master in liis designs on Naples. " Adsunt namque a Ludovico rege Gallorum oratores, qui omni nixu coiianlur a vobis Venetorum animos avertere. Fre- mere deniibus aiunt oraiorem pri- mariiim Ciuilum, quia nequeat per ^'eneloriim sufrrapia constHiui, ut apertc vol>is hosiilitatem edicant, utque velinl Gallis repno Parihe- nopeo contra vestra praesidia ferre snpjietias." The letter is dated Ociolier 1st, 1501. Opus Epist., epist. 231.
