On the 8th of July, the French crossed the Neapolitan frontier. Frederic,
who had taken post at St. Germano, found himself so weak, that he was
compelled to give way on its approach, and retreat on his capital. The
invaders went forward, occupying one place after another with little
resistance till they came before Capua, where they received a temporary
check. During a parley for the surrender of that place, they burst into
the town, and, giving free scope to their fiendish passions, butchered
seven thousand citizens in the streets, and perpetrated outrages worse
than death on their defenceless wives and daughters. It was on this
occasion that Alexander the Sixth's son, the infamous Caesar Borgia,
selected forty of the most beautiful from the principal ladies of the
place, and sent them back to Rome to swell the complement of his seraglio.
The dreadful doom of Capua intimidated further resistance, but inspired
such detestation of the French throughout the country, as proved of
infinite prejudice to their cause in their subsequent struggle with the
Spaniards. [30]

King Frederic, shocked at bringing such calamities on his subjects,
resigned his capital without a blow in its defence, and, retreating to the
isle of Ischia, soon after embraced the counsel of the French admiral
Ravenstein, to accept a safe-conduct into France, and throw himself on the
generosity of Louis the Twelfth. The latter received him courteously, and
assigned him the duchy of Anjou with an ample revenue for his maintenance,
which, to the credit of the French king, was continued after he had lost
all hope of recovering the crown of Naples. [31] With this show of
magnanimity, however, he kept a jealous eye on his royal guest; under
pretence of paying him the greatest respect, he placed a guard over his
person, and thus detained him in a sort of honorable captivity to the day
of his death, which occurred soon after, in 1504.