ense the cause of these calamities.[1]
In truth the French invasion opened a new era for the Italians, but only
in the same sense as a pageant may form the prelude to a tragedy. Every
monarch of Europe, dazzled by the splendid display of Charles and
forgetful of its insignificant results, began to look with greedy eyes
upon the wealth of the peninsula. The Swiss found in those rich
provinces an inexhaustible field for depredation. The Germans, under the
pretense of religious zeal, gave a loose rein to their animal appetites
in the metropolis of Christendom. France and Spain engaged in a duel to
the death for the possession of so fair a prey. The French, maddened by
mere cupidity, threw away those chances which the goodwill of the race
at large afforded them.[2] Louis XII. lost himself in petty intrigues,
by which he finally weakened his own cause to the profit of the Borgias
and Austria. Francis I. foamed his force away like a spent wave at
Marignano and Pavia. The real conqueror of Italy was Charles V. Italy in
the sixteenth century was destined to receive the impress of the Spanish
spirit, and to bear the yoke of Austrian dukes. Hand in hand with
political despotism marched religious tyranny. The Counter-Reformation
over which the Inquisition presided, was part and parcel of the Spanish
policy for the enslavement of the nation no less than for the
restoration of the Church. Meanwhile the weakness, discord, egotism, and
corruption which prevented the Italians from resisting the French
invasion in 1494, continued to increase. Instead of being lessoned by
experience, Popes, Princes, and Republics vied with each other in
calling in the strangers, pitting Spaniard against Frenchman, and paying
the Germans to expel the Swiss, oblivious that each new army of
foreigners they summoned was in reality a new swarm of devouring
locusts. In the midst of this anarchy it is laughable to hear the shrill
voice of priests, like Julius and Leo, proclaiming before God their vows
to rid Italy of the barbarians. The confusion was tenfold confounded
when the old factions of Guelf and Ghibelline put on a new garb of
French and Spanish partisanship. Town fought with town and family with
family, in the cause of strangers whom they ought to have resisted with
one will and steady hatred. The fascination of fear and the love of
novelty alike swayed the fickle population of Italian cities. The
foreign soldiers who inflicted on the nation such cruel i