monarch’s constant favor, and employed it we will not say with complete disinterestedness, but with a predominant anxiety for the public weal.  In the matter of external policy the influence of Cardinal d’Amboise, was neither skilfully nor salutarily exercised:  he, like his master, indulged in those views of distant, incoherent, and improvident conquests which caused the reign of Louis XII. to be wasted in ceaseless wars, with which the cardinal’s desire of becoming pope was not altogether unconnected, and which, after having resulted in nothing but reverses, were a heavy heritage for the succeeding reign.  But at home, in his relations with his king and in his civil and religious administration, Cardinal d’Amboise was an earnest and effective friend of justice, of sound social order, and of regard for morality in the practice of power.  It is said that, in his latter days, he, virtuously weary of the dignities of this world, said to the infirmary-brother who was attending him, “Ah!  Brother John, why did I not always remain Brother John!” A pious regret the sincerity and modesty whereof are rare amongst men of high estate.

[Illustration:  Cardinal d’Amboise——­347]

“At last, then, I am the only pope!” cried Julius II., when he heard that Cardinal d’Amboise was dead.  But his joy was misplaced:  the cardinal’s death was a great loss to him; between the king and the pope the cardinal had been an intelligent mediator, who understood the two positions and the two characters, and who, though most faithful and devoted to the king, had nevertheless a place in his heart for the papacy also, and labored earnestly on every occasion to bring about between the two rivals a policy of moderation and peace.  “One thing you may be certain of,” said Louis’s finance-minister Robertet to the ambassador from Florence, “that the king’s character is not an easy one to deal with; he is not readily brought round to what is not his own opinion, which is not always a correct one; he is irritated against the pope; and the cardinal, to whom that causes great displeasure, does not always succeed, in spite of all influence, in getting him to do as he would like.  If our Lord God were to remove the cardinal, either by death or in any other manner, from public life, there would arise in this court and in the fashion of conducting affairs such confusion that nothing equal to it would ever have been seen in our day.” [Negociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane, t. ii. pp. 428 and 460.] And the confusion did, in fact, arise; and war was rekindled, or, to speak more correctly, resumed its course after the cardinal’s death.  Julius II. plunged into it in person, moving to every point where it was going on, living in the midst of camps, himself in military costume, besieging towns, having his guns pointed and assaults delivered under his own eyes.  Men expressed astonishment, not unmixed with admiration, at the indomitable energy