himself, depriving himself of friends and of those who had thrown
themselves into his lap, whilst he aggrandized the Church by adding much
temporal power to the spiritual, thus giving it greater authority. And
having committed this prime error, he was obliged to follow it up, so
much so that, to put an end to the ambition of Alexander, and to prevent
his becoming the master of Tuscany, he was himself forced to come into
Italy.

And as if it were not enough to have aggrandized the Church, and
deprived himself of friends, he, wishing to have the kingdom of Naples,
divides it with the King of Spain, and where he was the prime arbiter in
Italy he takes an associate, so that the ambitious of that country and
the malcontents of his own should have somewhere to shelter; and whereas
he could have left in the kingdom his own pensioner as king, he drove
him out, to put one there who was able to drive him, Louis, out in turn.

The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always
do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed; but
when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is
folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have attacked Naples with
her own forces she ought to have done so; if she could not, then she
ought not to have divided it. And if the partition which she made with
the Venetians in Lombardy was justified by the excuse that by it she got
a foothold in Italy, this other partition merited blame, for it had not
the excuse of that necessity.

Therefore Louis made these five errors: he destroyed the minor powers,
he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in Italy, he
brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the country, he did not
send colonies. Which errors, had he lived, were not enough to injure