So Padua was saved, and Venice once more became a power.  Louis XII., having returned victorious to France, did not trouble himself much about the check received in Italy by Emperor Maximilian, for whom he had no love and but little esteem.  Maximilian was personally brave and free from depravity or premeditated perfidy, but he was coarse, volatile, inconsistent, and not very able.  Louis XII. had amongst his allies of Cambrai and in Italy a more serious and more skilful foe, who was preparing for him much greater embarrassments.

Julian Bella Rovera had, before his elevation to the pontifical throne, but one object, which was, to mount it.  When he became pope, he had three objects:  to recover and extend the temporal possessions of the papacy, to exercise to the full his spiritual power, and to drive the foreigner from Italy.  He was not incapable of doubling and artifice.  In order to rise he had flattered Louis XII. and Cardinal d’Amboise with the hope that the king’s minister would become the head of Christendom.  When once he was himself in possession of this puissant title he showed himself as he really was; ambitious, audacious, imperious, energetic, stubborn, and combining the egotism of the absolute sovereign with the patriotism of an Italian pope.  When the League of Cambrai had attained success through the victory of Louis XII. over the Venetians, Cardinal d’Amboise, in course of conversation with the two envoys from Florence at the king’s court, let them have an inkling “that he was not without suspicion of some new design;” and when Louis XII. announced his approaching departure for France, the two Florentines wrote to their government that “this departure might have very evil results, for the power of Emperor Maximilian in Italy, the position of Ferdinand the Catholic, the despair of the Venetians, and the character and dissatisfaction of the pope, seemed to foreshadow some fresh understanding against the Most Christian king.”  Louis XII. and his minister were very confident.  “Take Spain, the king of the Romans, or whom you please,” said Cardinal d’Amboise to the two Florentines; “there is none who has observed and kept the alliance more faithfully than the king has; he has done everything at the moment he promised; he has borne upon his shoulders the whole weight of this affair; and I tell you,” he added, with a fixed look at those whom he was addressing, “that his army is a large one, which he will keep up and augment every day.”  Louis, for his part, treated the Florentines with great good-will, as friends on whom he counted and who were concerned in his success.  “You have become the first power in Italy,” he said to then one day before a crowd of people:  “how are you addressed just now?  Are you Most Serene or Most Illustrious?” And when he was notified that distinguished Venetians were going to meet Emperor Maximilian on his arrival in Italy, “No matter,” said Louis; “let them go whither they will.”  The Florentines