aching departure for France, the two Florentines wrote to their
government that "this departure might have very evil results, for the
power of Emperor Maximilian in Italy, the position of Ferdinand the
Catholic, the despair of the Venetians, and the character and
dissatisfaction of the pope, seemed to foreshadow some fresh
understanding against the Most Christian king." Louis XII. and his
minister were very confident. "Take Spain, the king of the Romans, or
whom you please," said Cardinal d'Amboise to the two Florentines; "there
is none who has observed and kept the alliance more faithfully than the
king has; he has done everything at the moment he promised; he has borne
upon his shoulders the whole weight of this affair; and I tell you," he
added, with a fixed look at those whom he was addressing, "that his army
is a large one, which he will keep up and augment every day." Louis, for
his part, treated the Florentines with great good-will, as friends on
whom he counted and who were concerned in his success. "You have become
the first power in Italy," he said to then one day before a crowd of
people: "how are you addressed just now? Are you Most Serene or Most
Illustrious?" And when he was notified that distinguished Venetians were
going to meet Emperor Maximilian on his arrival in Italy, "No matter,"
said Louis; "let them go whither they will." The Florentines did not the
less nourish their mistrustful presentiments; and one of Louis XII.'s
most intelligent advisers, his finance-minister Florimond Robertet, was
not slow to share them. "The pope," said he to them one day [July 1,
1509], "is behaving very ill towards us; he seeks on every occasion to
sow enmity between the princes, especially between the emperor and the
Most Christian king;" and, some weeks later, whilst speaking of the
money-aids which the new King of England was sending, it was said, to
Emperor Maximilian, he said to the Florentine, Nasi, "It would be a very
serious business, if from all this were to result against us a universal
league, in which the pope, England, and Spain should join."
[_Negotiations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane,_ published by
M. Abel Desjardins, in the _Documents relatifs d l'Histoire de France,_
t. ii. pp. 331, 355, 367, 384, 389, 416.]

Next year (1510) the mistrust of the Florentine envoys was justified.
The Venetians sent a humble address to the pope, ceded to him the places
they but lately possessed in t