the Church. These two potentates,
who began to reign in the same year, were destined, after the
settlement of their early quarrel, to lead and organize the Catholic
Counter-Reformation. The Duke of Guise at the Pope's request marched a
French army into Italy. Paul raised a body of mercenaries, who were
chiefly German Protestants[24]; and opened negotiations with Soliman,
entreating the Turk to make a descent on Sicily by sea. Into such a
fantastically false position was the Chief of the Church, the most
Catholic of all her Pontiffs, driven by his jealous patriotism. We seem
to be transported back into the times of a Sixtus IV. or an Alexander
VI. And in truth, Paul's reversion to the antiquated Guelf policy of his
predecessors was an anachronism. That policy ceased to be efficient when
Francis I. signed the Treaty of Cambray; the Church, too, had gradually
assumed such a position that armed interference in the affairs of
secular sovereigns was suicidal. This became so manifest that Paul's
futile attack on Philip in 1556 may be reckoned the last war raised by a
Pope. From it we date the commencement of a new system of Papal
co-operation with Catholic powers.

[Footnote 23: During the brief and unimportant sessions at Bologna,
Jesuit influences began to make themselves decidedly felt in the
Council, where Lainez and Salmeron attended as Theologians of the Papal
See. Up to this time the Dominicans had shaped decrees. Dogmatic
orthodoxy was secured by their means. Now the Jesuits were to fight and
win the battle of Papal Supremacy.]

[Footnote 24: Sarpi, quoted in his Life by Fra Fulgenzio, p. 83, says
Paul called his Grisons mercenaries 'Angels sent from Heaven.']

The Duke of Alva put the forces at his disposal in the Two Sicilies into
motion, and advanced to meet the Duke of Guise. But while the campaign
dragged on, Philip won the decisive battle of S. Quentin. The Guise
hurried back to France, and Alva marched unresisted upon Rome. There was
no reason why the Eternal City should not have been subjected to another
siege and sack. The will was certainly not wanting in Alva to humiliate
the Pope, who never spoke of Spaniards but as renegade Jews, Marrani,
heretics, and personifications of pride. Philip, however, wrote
reminding his general that the date of his birth (1527) was that of
Rome's calamity, and vowing that he would not signalize the first year
of his reign by inflicting fresh miseries upon the capital of
Chri