But as yet he had only laid foundations.

The empire of Italy was still to win; for he aspired to nothing else, and it is even probable that he entertained a notion of secularizing the Papacy.

France was the chief obstacle to his ambition.
The alarm of Louis had at last been roused.

But Louis' own mistake in bringing the Spaniards into Naples afforded Cesare the means of shaking off the French control.

He espoused the cause of Spain, and by intriguing now with the one power and now with the other made himself both formidable and desirable to each.