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 price of these iniquities, which the conquerors of Milan and Naples had no right to reclaim. Their late gains from Maximilian had been made in open war, and confirmed by solemn treaty. These considerations weighed nothing with him or with France; and at Julius's instigation these Powers concluded on December 10, 1508, the famous treaty known as the League of Cambray, by which the continental dominions of Venice were to be divided between them, reservation being made of the claims of the Pope, Mantua, and Ferrara. Spain, if she acceded, was to have the Neapolitan cities occupied by Venice; Dalmatia was to go to Hungary; even the Duke of Savoy was tempted by the bait of Cyprus. It seemed to occur to none that they were destroying "Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite."

Julius, though the mainspring of the League, avoided joining it openly until he saw that the allies were committed to the war. His assent was given on March 25, 1509; on April 7 the Venetians offered to restore Faenza and Rimini. But the Pope was too deeply engaged, and probably thought that the offer was only made to divide the allies, and would be withdrawn when it had served its purpose. On April 27 he published a violent bull of excommunication. His troops entered the Romagna; but the Emperor and Spain held back, and left the conquest of Lombardy to France. It proved unexpectedly easy. The Venetians were completely defeated at Agnadello on May 14, and the French immediately possessed themselves of Lombardy as far as the Mincio. They halted there, having obtained all they wanted. Maximilian had not yet appeared on the scene, and the extraordinary panic into which the Venetians seemed to fall is to be accounted for not so much by the severity of their defeat as by the mutiny or dispersion of the Venetian militia. They hastened to restore the disputed towns in the Romagna to the Pope,—an act right and wise in itself, but carried out with unthinking precipitation. If the towns had been bravely defended, Julius would probably have met the Venetians half way; as they had no longer any hold upon him, he remained inexorable, and vented his wrath with every token of contumely and harshness. They were equally submissive to Maximilian, who was by this time in partial occupation of the country to the east of the Mincio; nor was it until July 17, that, encouraged by the scantness of his troops and the slenderness of his pecuniary resources, they plucked up courage to recover Padua. Stung by this mortification, Maximilian succeeded in assembling a formidable army; but Venice had in the meantime reorganised her scattered forces, and obtained fresh recruits from Dalmatia and Albania. Padua was besieged during the latter half of September; but the siege was raised early in October. Most of Maximilian's conquests were recovered by the Venetians, and their spirit rose fast, until it was again humbled by the destruction of their fleet on the Po by the artillery of the Duke of Ferrara.

All this time Julius had been browbeating the Venetians. Not