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 confidence and admiration from both the Kings, enjoyed his last and most memorable moments of good fortune. His master, who suspected his ambition, and disapproved of his methods of administration, enticed him by the promise of still higher honours to return with him to Spain. There he found himself deluded and disappointed. The wealth which he had accumulated in his master's service he was allowed to enjoy, but his days of public activity were over.

The arrangements mentioned above did not affect the actual position of Italian affairs. Indeed, all dispositions depending on the marriage of Claude and Charles were rendered void by the decision of Louis in 1506 to bestow his daughter's hand on the heir presumptive of France, Francis of Angouleme. The years following the disastrous wars of Naples were years of uneasy watchfulness, of bewildering arrangements and re-arrangements of unstable leagues and combinations, of mendacious protestations of friendship, and treacherous provocations addressed to jealousy and greed. The inheritance of the Duke of Valentinois was gathered in by his enemies, Orsini, Colonna, Venice, and Giuliano della Rovere, who as Julius II succeeded the short-lived Piccolomini. Cesare himself, a prisoner in Spain, added another to the list of those whose trust in Ferdinand proved their ruin. The war of Florence with Pisa continued, but barely interested any one besides the belligerents. Gradually, from an old man's passion, as from live fire hidden under blackened embers, infectious energy spread through Italy and through Europe. Cesare Borgia's conquests and fall had brought almost all of the Romagna and the March of Ancona under the I direct control of the Holy See. The ambition of Julius would be satisfied with nothing less than the whole of what had ever been claimed by the successors of Peter. Venice first earned his hatred by refusing to give up Faenza and Rimini, which she had occupied after the death of Alexander. The secret treaty of Blois gave Julius hopes of a speedy revenge. But that treaty remained without effect, and Julius had to wait, exercising a violent self-restraint, and evincing qualities, not natural in him, of patience, reticence, and duplicity. Practising simony and extortion on the grand scale, he slowly replenished the papal treasury, which had been plundered by Cesare Borgia on Alexander's death. Then (1506), reckoning that swift and sudden action might reach its effect before either Venice or France decided to offer opposition, he struck a rapid blow at two usurpers of St Peter's rights. At Perugia Giampaolo Baglione made complete submission. Against Bologna the French themselves sent troops to aid the Pope, unwilling, when they saw he was in earnest, to risk the loss of his friendship. Giovanni Bentivoglio and his sons, hopeless of successful resistance, took to flight. The Pope set up his own government in the town.

While still at Bologna, Julius heard unwelcome news. In Genoa French rule had not led to peace. Genoa had always been noted for the