him had he not made a sixth by taking away their dominions from the
Venetians; because, had he not aggrandized the Church, nor brought Spain
into Italy, it would have been very reasonable and necessary to humble
them; but having first taken these steps, he ought never to have
consented to their ruin, for they, being powerful, would always have
kept off others from designs on Lombardy, to which the Venetians would
never have consented except to become masters themselves there; also
because the others would not wish to take Lombardy from France in order
to give it to the Venetians, and to run counter to both they would not
have had the courage.

And if any one should say: "King Louis yielded the Romagna to Alexander
and the kingdom to Spain to avoid war," I answer for the reasons given
above that a blunder ought never to be perpetrated to avoid war, because
it is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage. And
if another should allege the pledge which the king had given to the
Pope that he would assist him in the enterprise, in exchange for the
dissolution of his marriage(*) and for the cap to Rouen,(+) to that I
reply what I shall write later on concerning the faith of princes, and
how it ought to be kept.

(*) Louis XII divorced his wife, Jeanne, daughter of Louis
XI, and married in 1499 Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles
VIII, in order to retain the Duchy of Brittany for the
crown.

(+) The Archbishop of Rouen. He was Georges d'Amboise,
created a cardinal by Alexander VI. Born 1460, died 1510.

Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the