In the mean time an accident favored the designs of the papal court.
An open quarrel with Spain resulted from an insignificant circumstance.
The Spanish ambassador at Rome was in the habit of leaving the city very
often, at an early hour in the morning, upon shooting excursions, and had
long enjoyed the privilege of ordering the gates to be opened for him at
his pleasure. By accident or design, he was refused permission upon one
occasion to pass through the gate as usual. Unwilling to lose his day's
sport, and enraged at what he considered an indignity, his excellency, by
the aid of his attendants, attacked and beat the guard, mastered them,
made his way out of the city, and pursued his morning's amusement. The
Pope was furious, Caraffa artfully inflamed his anger. The envoy was
refused an audience, which he desired, for the sake of offering
explanations, and the train being thus laid, it was thought that the
right moment had arrived for applying the firebrand. The Cardinal went
to Paris post haste. In his audience of the King, he represented that
his Holiness had placed implicit reliance upon his secret treaty with his
majesty, that the recently concluded truce with Spain left the pontiff at
the mercy of the Spaniard, that the Duke of Alva had already drawn the
sword, that the Pope had long since done himself the pleasure and the
honor of appointing the French monarch protector of the papal chair in
general, and of the Caraffa family in particular, and that the moment had
arrived for claiming the benefit of that protection. He assured him,
moreover, as by full papal authority, that in respecting the recent truce
with Spain, his majesty would violate both human and divine law. Reason
and justice required him to defend the pontiff, now that the Spaniards
were about to profit by the interval of truce to take measures for his
detriment. Moreover, as the Pope was included in the truce of Vaucelles,
he could not be abandoned without a violation of that treaty itself.--
The arts and arguments of the Cardinal proved successful; the war was
resolved upon in favor of the Pope. The Cardinal, by virtue of powers