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There seems little doubt that Caiazzo's defection was one of the principal causes of Lodovico's ruin, but, whatever the circumstances of the case may have been, it is certain that on the next day the French entered Alessandria without meeting with any resistance, and Trivulzio sent word to his kinsman Erasmo that before the week was over he would dine with him in Milan.
Immediately after Fornovo, the Count of Caiazzo's cavalry had joined his brother Galeazzo's force before Novara, and on the 19th of July the Marquis of Mantua encamped under the walls with the Venetian army.
Sometimes, when the Marquis Gianfrancesco was away from Mantua, we find his wife consulting Lodovico on affairs of state, asking him to prevent her neighbour Galeotto della Mirandola from constructing a canal which may injure her subjects, or appealing to the Sanseverino brothers in the case of a faithless servant of hers who had sought shelter under the Count of Caiazzo's banners.
Maximilian now sent his long-promised contingent of Swiss and German troops to join the Count of Caiazzo's horse, and the Venetian army, under the generalship of Gian Francesco Gonzaga, and the allied forces, amounting in all to some twenty-five thousand men, prepared to cut off the retreat of the French king and prevent his return to Asti.
After summarily rejecting his suggestion of a Gonzaga bride for her son, and informing him that she was about to accept the Count of Caiazzo's proposals for her daughter Bianca, she changed her mind, declaring the count to be too old, and suddenly bethought herself of Galeazzo di Sanseverino, as a suitable husband.
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