stunned and mutilated by the League of Cambray. Florence had been
enslaved after the battle of Ravenna. Milan had been relinquished,
out-worn, and depopulated, to the nominal ascendency of an impotent
Sforza. Naples was a province of the Spanish monarchy. The feudal
vassals and the subject cities of the Holy See had been ground and
churned together by a series of revolutions unexampled even in the
mediaeval history of the Italian communes. If, therefore, the Pope could
come to terms with the King of Spain for the partition of supreme
authority in the peninsula, they might henceforward share the mangled
remains of the Italian prey at peace together. This is precisely what
they resolved on doing. The basis of their agreement was laid in the
Treaty of Barcelona in 1529. It was ratified and secured by the Treaty
of Cambray in the same year. By the former of these compacts Charles and
Clement swore friendship. Clement promised the Imperial crown and the
investiture of Naples to the King of Spain. Charles agreed to reinstate
the Pope in Emilia, which had been seized from Ferrara by Julius II.; to
procure the restoration of Ravenna and Cervia by the Venetians; to
subdue Florence to the House of Medici; and to bestow the hand of his
natural daughter Margaret of Austria on Clement's bastard nephew
Alessandro, who was already designated ruler of the city. By the Treaty
of Cambray Francis I. relinquished his claims on Italy and abandoned his
Italian supporters without conditions, receiving in exchange the
possession of Burgundy. The French allies who were sacrificed on this
occasion by the Most Christian to the Most Catholic Monarch consisted
of the Republics of Venice and Florence, the Dukes of Milan and Ferrara,
the princely Houses of Orsini and Fregosi in Rome and Genoa, together
with the Angevine nobles in the realm of Naples. The Paix des Dames, as
this act of capitulation was called (since it had been drawn up in
private conclave by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, the mother
and the aunt of the two signatories), was a virtual acknowledgment of