ational
life might be momentarily crushed, the others remained in activity, and
infused vitality even into the feeble one, which would otherwise have
perished. All these ups and downs seemed but to stir the life in the
country: and no vital danger appeared to threaten it; nor did any, so
long as the surrounding countries--France, Germany, and Spain--remained
mere vast feudal nebulae, formless, weightless, immovable. The Italians
feared nothing from them; they would call down the King of France or the
Emperor of Germany without a moment's hesitation, because they knew that
the king could not bring France, nor the emperor bring Germany, but only
a few miserable, hungry retainers with him; but Florence would watch the
growth of the petty State of the Scaligers, and Venice look with terror
at the Duke of Milan, because they knew that _there_ there was
concentrated life, and an organization which could be wielded as'
perfectly as a sword by the head of the State. In the last decade of the
fifteenth century the Italians called in the French to put down their
private enemies: Lodovico of Milan called down Charles VIII. to rid him
of his nephew and of the Venetians; the Venetians to rid them of
Lodovico: the Medici to establish them firmly in Florence; the party of
freedom to drive out the Medici. Each State intended to use the French
to serve their purpose, and then to send back Charles VIII. with a
little money and a great deal of derision, as they had done with kings
and emperors of earlier days. But Italian politicians suddenly
discovered that they had made a fatal mistake; that they had reckoned in
ignorance, and that instead of an army they had called down a nation:
for during the interval since their last appeal to foreign interference,
that great movement had taken place which had consolidated the
heterogeneous feudal nebulae into homogeneous and compact kingdoms.

Single small States, relying upon mercenary troops, could not for a
moment resist the shock of such an agglomeration of soldiery as that of
the French, and of their successors the Spaniards and Germans. Sismondi
asks indignantly, Why did the Italians not form a federation as soon as
the strangers appeared? He might as well ask, Why did the commonwealths
not turn into a modern monarchy? The habit of security from abroad and
of jealousy within; the essential nature of a number of rival trading
centres, made such a thing not only impossible of execution, but for