Dunois had not impressed the Duke, who was impressed only by youth, fearlessness, and a never-daunted will. He thought he perceived these qualities in the young Dauphin, half in disgrace on his estate in Dauphiné. Him also Visconti determined to drag into the tangled web of the Milanese succession; and about this time negotiations with the Dauphin Louis began to complicate the difficulties of Transalpine policy.
Already in the spring of 1445[58] a minute in the Archives of Milan, transcribed by Signor Luigi Osio, records the willingness of the Duke of Milan to further the Dauphin in his plan of an Italian invasion, provided that Louis agree to help the friends and not the enemies of Visconti. Asti should be confided to a person equally trusted by Orleans and Milan, and after the expiration of a given term should be freely handed back to the eldest son of Valentine. Notwithstanding this fair-spoken scheme, Visconti finds it necessary to caution his young ally against certain persons on the French side of the Alps who use threats and menaces towards the Crown of Milan. By these it is clear that he intends his nephews of Orleans. He has no friendship for them. _Noluit restituere_, briefly remarks Secundino Ventura.
Feb. 23 (The Milanese began the year upon Dec. 25). Osio, vol. iii. cccxviii.
The negotiations with Louis proceeded briskly, and in May the Milanese ambassador arrived in Paris, where he found _grande garra e divisione_ between the restless Dauphin and King René of Sicily, who he remarks (to our unfeigned surprise) _è quello che governa tucto questo reame_. Meanwhile Louis, young as he was, had already learned a maxim as true in policy as in almsgiving: he let not his right hand divine the secrets of his left; and while on the one side he treated with the Duke of Milan, on the other he practised with Savoy. According to the latter plan Savoy and the Dauphin, aided by Montferrat and Mantua and Ferrara, were to conquer between them the north of Italy; France was to take Genoa, the Lucchese, Parma, Piacenza, Tortona—all south of the Po and east of Montferrat; Savoy was to gain Milan and keep the Riviera; Alessandria was to be handed over to Montferrat, and the Duke of Ferrara and the Marquis of Mantua were, _for the present_, to keep their actual possessions; but this significant phrase was followed by one more significant still: “All future conquests are to be divided at the rate of two shares to France and one share to Savoy.”[59]