It does not seem to be the will of Providence that the plots of
unprincipled men, even against men as bad as themselves, should be more
than transiently prosperous. Maximilian, thus again utterly thwarted in
one of his most magnificent plans, covered with disgrace, and irritated
almost beyond endurance, after attempting in vain to negotiate a truce
with the Venetians, was compelled to retreat across the Alps, inveighing
bitterly against the perfidious refusal to fulfill a perfidious
agreement.
The holy father, Julius II., outwitted all his accomplices. He secured
from Venice very valuable accessions of territory, and then, recalling
his ecclesiastical denunciations, united with Venice to drive the
_barbarians_, as he affectionately called his French and German allies,
out of Italy. Maximilian returned to Austria as in a funeral march,
ventured to summon another diet, told them how shamefully he had been
treated by France, Venice and the pope, and again implored them to do
something to help him. Perseverance is surely the most efficient of
virtues. Incredible as it may seem, the emperor now obtained some little
success. The diet, indignant at the conduct of the pope, and alarmed at
so formidable a union as that between the papal States and Venice, voted
a succor of six thousand infantry and eighteen hundred horse.
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