p.
521.] So that the Italian historian is less severe on this act of cruelty than the French knight is.
Louis XII.'s victory at Agnadello had for him consequences very different from what he had no doubt expected.

"The king," says Guicciardini, "departed from Italy, carrying away with him to France great glory by reason of so complete and so rapidly won a victory over the Venetians; nevertheless, as in the case of things obtained after hope long deferred men scarcely ever feel such joy and happiness as they had at first imagined they would, the king took not back with him either greater peace of mind or greater security in respect of his affairs." The beaten Venetians accepted their defeat with such a mixture of humility and dignity as soon changed their position in Italy.

They began by providing all that was necessary for the defence of Venice herself; foreigners, but only idle foreigners, were expelled; those who had any business which secured them means of existence received orders to continue their labors.
Mills were built, cisterns were dug, corn was gathered in, the condition of the canals was examined, bars were removed, the citizens were armed; the law which did not allow vessels laden with provisions to touch at Venice was repealed, and rewards were decreed to officers who had done their duty.

Having taken all this care for their own homes and their fatherland on the sea, the Venetian senate passed a decree by which the republic, releasing from their oath of fidelity the subjects it could not defend, authorized its continental provinces to treat with the enemy with a view to their own interests, and ordered its commandants to evacuate such places as they still held.

Nearly all such submitted without a struggle to the victor of Agnadello and his allies of Cambrai; but at Treviso, when Emperor Maximilian's commissioner presented himself in order to take possession of it, a shoemaker named Caligaro went running through the streets, shouting, "Hurrah! for St.Mark." The people rose, pillaged the houses of those who had summoned the foreigner, and declared that it would not separate its lot from that of the republic.