;" and from
the 15th to the 20th of September, Maximilian got together before Padua
an army with a strength, it is said, of about fifty thousand men,
men-at-arms or infantry, Germans, Spaniards, French, and Italians, sent
by the pope and by the Duke of Ferrara, or recruited from all parts of
Italy.

At the first rumor of such a force there was great emotion in Venice, but
an emotion tempered by bravery and intelligence. The doge, Leonardo
Loredano, the same who had but lately opposed the surprisal of Padua,
rose up and delivered in the senate a long speech, of which only the
essential and characteristic points can be quoted here:--

"Everybody knows, excellent gentlemen of the senate," said he, "that on
the preservation of Padua depends all hope, not only of recovering our
empire, but of maintaining our own liberty. It must be confessed that,
great and wonderful as they have been, the preparations made and the
supplies provided hitherto are not sufficient either for the security of
that town or for the dignity of our republic. Our ancient renown forbids
us to leave the public safety, the lives and honor of our wives and our
children, entirely to the tillers of our fields and to mercenary
soldiers, without rushing ourselves to shelter them behind our own
breasts and defend them with our own arms. For so great and so glorious
a fatherland, which has for so many years been the bulwark of the faith
and the glory of the Christian republic, will the personal service of its
citizens and its sons be ever to seek? To save it who would refuse to
risk his own life and that of his children? If the defence of Padua is
the pledge for the salvation of Venice, who would hesitate to go and
defend it? And, though the forces already there were sufficient, is not
our honor also concerned therein? The fortune of our city so willed it
that in the space of a few days our empire slipped from our hands; the
opportunity has come back to us of recovering what we have lost; by
spontaneously facing the changes and chances of fate, we shall prove that
our disasters have not been our fault or our shame, but one of those
fatal storms which no wisdom and no firmness of man can resist. If it
were permitted us all in one mass to set out for Padua, if we might,
without neglecting the defence of our own homes and our urgent public
affairs, leave our city for some days deserted, I would not await your
deliberation; I would be the first on the road