to weaken the Venetian states; but having taken that first step, he ought never to have consented to their ruin. These being always powerful, would have prevented the others from undertaking any. thing against Lombardy; the Venetians would not, at least, have consented that they should become masters of it. It was not the interest of the others to take it away from France, merely to enrich the Venetians, and they would never have had the courage to attack both.
If it should be objected that King Lewis ceded Romania to Alexander VI. and to the King of Spain a throne, in order to avoid a war; I will answer as I have already done, that we ought never to suffer an evil to increase for the purpose of avoiding a war; in short, we do not avoid it, but only defer it to our great injury. If others alledge his promise to the Pope, that he would undertake this enterprise for him, on condition that he would by a dispensation remove all obstacles to his marriage[1], and that he would give the hat to the Archbishop of Rouen[2]. My answer will be found in a subsequent article where I shall speak
- ↑ With Anne of Brittany. Nardi says on this head that Pope Alexander VI. and King Lewis XII. mutually and reciprocally took advantage of the ecclesiastical to acquire temporal power; Alexander to procure Romania for his son, Lewis to unite Britanny to his crown. [See Hist. of Florence.]
- ↑ Since Cardinal D'Amboise.
