in Italy five coalitions, and as many great battles, of a profoundly contradictory character.  In 1508, Pope Julius II., Louis XII., Emperor Maximilian, and Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Spain, form together against the Venetians the League of Cambrai.  In 1510, Julius II., Ferdinand, the Venetians, and the Swiss make a coalition against Louis XII.  In 1512, this coalition, decomposed for a while, re-unites, under the name of the League of the Holy Union, between the pope, the Venetians, the Swiss, and the Kings of Arragon and Naples against Louis XII., minus the Emperor Maximilian, and plus Henry VIII., King of England.  On the 14th of May, 1509, Louis XII., in the name of the League of Cambrai, gains the battle of Agnadello against the Venetians.  On the 11th of April, 1512, it is against Pope Julius II., Ferdinand the Catholic, and the Venetians that he gains the battle of Ravenna.  On the 14th of March, 1513, he is in alliance with the Venetians, and it is against the Swiss that he loses the battle of Novara.  In 1510, 1511, and 1512, in the course of all these incessant changes of political allies and adversaries, three councils met at Tours, at Pisa, and at St. John Lateran with views still more discordant and irreconcilable than those of all these laic coalitions.  We merely point out here the principal traits of the nascent sixteenth century; we have no intention of tracing with a certain amount of detail any incidents but those that refer to Louis XII. and to France, to their procedure and their fortunes.

Jealousy, ambition, secret resentment, and the prospect of despoiling them caused the formation of the League of Cambrai against the Venetians.  Their far-reaching greatness on the seas, their steady progress on land, their riches, their cool assumption of independence towards the papacy, their renown for ability, and their profoundly selfish, but singularly prosperous policy, had excited in Italy, and even beyond the Alps, that feeling of envy and ill-will which is caused amongst men, whether kings or people, by the spectacle of strange, brilliant, and unexpected good fortune, though it be the fruits of rare merit.  As the Venetians were as much dreaded as they were little beloved, great care was taken to conceal from them the projects that were being formed against them.  According to their historian, Cardinal Bembo, they owed to chance the first notice they had.  It happened one day that a Piedmontese at Milan, in presence of the Resident of Venice, allowed to escape from his lips the words, “I should have the pleasure, then, of seeing the crime punished of those who put to death the most illustrious man of my country.”  He alluded to Carmagnola, a celebrated Piedmontese condottiere, who had been accused of treason and beheaded at Venice on the 3d of May, 1432.  The Venetian ambassador at Louis XII.’s court, suspecting what had taken place at Cambrai, tried to dissuade the king.  “Sir,” said he, “it were folly to attack them of Venice; their wisdom