By the 7th of August these important measures were arranged.  Maximilian had made great concessions of his imperial dignity in transferring so much of his nominal power to the Imperial Chamber, and he was now sanguine that the States would vote him the supplies which were needed to expel the French from Italy, or, in more honest words, to win for the empire in Italy that ascendency which France had attained.  But bitter indeed was his disappointment.  After long deliberation and vexatious delays, the diet voted a ridiculous sum, less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to raise an army “sufficient to check the progress of the French.”  One third of this sum Maximilian was to raise from his Austrian States; the remaining two thirds he was permitted to obtain by a loan.  Four years were to be allowed for raising the money, and the emperor, as a condition for the reception of even this miserable boon, was required to pledge his word of honor that at the expiration of the four years he would raise no more.  And even these hundred and fifty thousand dollars were to be intrusted to seven treasurers, to be administered according to their discretion.  One only of these treasurers was to be chosen by the emperor, and the other six by the diet.

Deeply chagrined by this result, Maximilian was able to raise only three thousand men, instead of the nine thousand which he had promised the league.  Charles VIII., informed of the formidable coalition combining against him, and not aware of the feeble resources of the emperor, apprehensive that the armies of Germany, marching down and uniting with the roused States of Italy, might cut off his retreat and overwhelm him, decided that the “better part of courage is discretion;” and he accordingly abandoned his conquests, recrossed the Apennines, fought his backward path through Italy, and returned to France.  He, however, left behind him six thousand men strongly intrenched, to await his return with a new and more powerful armament.

Maximilian now resolved chivalrously to throw himself into Italy, and endeavor to rouse the Italians themselves to resist the threatened invasion, trusting that the diet of Germany, when they should see him struggling against the hosts of France, would send troops to his aid.  With five hundred horse, and about a thousand foot soldiers, he crossed the Alps.  Here he learned that for some unknown reason Charles had postponed his expedition.  Recoiling from the ridicule attending a quixotic and useless adventure, he hunted around for some time to find some heroic achievement which would redeem his name from reproach, when, thwarted in every thing, he returned to Austria, chagrined and humiliated.

Thus frustrated in all his attempts to gain ascendency in Italy, Maximilian turned his eyes to the Swiss estates of the house of Hapsburg, now sundered from the Austrian territories.  He made a vigorous effort, first by diplomacy, then by force of arms, to regain them.  Here again he was frustrated, and was compelled to enter into a capitulation by which he acknowledged the independence of the Helvetic States, and their permanent severance from Austrian jurisdiction.