such a fantastically false position was the Chief of the Church, the most Catholic of all her Pontiffs, driven by his jealous patriotism.  We seem to be transported back into the times of a Sixtus IV. or an Alexander VI.  And in truth, Paul’s reversion to the antiquated Guelf policy of his predecessors was an anachronism.  That policy ceased to be efficient when Francis I. signed the Treaty of Cambray; the Church, too, had gradually assumed such a position that armed interference in the affairs of secular sovereigns was suicidal.  This became so manifest that Paul’s futile attack on Philip in 1556 may be reckoned the last war raised by a Pope.  From it we date the commencement of a new system of Papal co-operation with Catholic powers.

[Footnote 23:  During the brief and unimportant sessions at Bologna, Jesuit influences began to make themselves decidedly felt in the Council, where Lainez and Salmeron attended as Theologians of the Papal See.  Up to this time the Dominicans had shaped decrees.  Dogmatic orthodoxy was secured by their means.  Now the Jesuits were to fight and win the battle of Papal Supremacy.]

[Footnote 24:  Sarpi, quoted in his Life by Fra Fulgenzio, p. 83, says Paul called his Grisons mercenaries ‘Angels sent from Heaven.’]

The Duke of Alva put the forces at his disposal in the Two Sicilies into motion, and advanced to meet the Duke of Guise.  But while the campaign dragged on, Philip won the decisive battle of S. Quentin.  The Guise hurried back to France, and Alva marched unresisted upon Rome.  There was no reason why the Eternal City should not have been subjected to another siege and sack.  The will was certainly not wanting in Alva to humiliate the Pope, who never spoke of Spaniards but as renegade Jews, Marrani, heretics, and personifications of pride.  Philip, however, wrote reminding his general that the date of his birth (1527) was that of Rome’s calamity, and vowing that he would not signalize the first year of his reign by inflicting fresh miseries upon the capital of Christendom.  Alva was ordered to make peace on terms both honorable and advantageous to his Holiness; since the King of Spain preferred to lose the rights of his own crown rather than to impair those of the Holy See in the least particular.  Consequently, when Alva entered Rome in peaceful pomp, he did homage for his master to the Pope, who was generously willing to absolve him for his past offences.  Paul IV. publicly exulted in the abasement of his conquerors, declaring that it would teach kings in future the obedience they owed to the Chief of the Church.  But Alva did not conceal his discontent.  It would have been better, he said, to have sent the Pope to sue for peace and pardon at Brussels, than to allow him to obtain the one and grant the other on these terms.

Paul’s ambition to expel the Spaniards from Italy exposed him to the worst abuses of that Papal nepotism which he had denounced in others.  He judged it necessary to surround himself with trusty and powerful agents of his own kindred.[25]