"Take Spain, the king of the Romans, or whom you please," said Cardinal d'Amboise to the two Florentines; "there is none who has observed and kept the alliance more faithfully than the king has; he has done everything at the moment he promised; he has borne upon his shoulders the whole weight of this affair; and I tell you," he added, with a fixed look at those whom he was addressing, "that his army is a large one, which he will keep up and augment every day." Louis, for his part, treated the Florentines with great good-will, as friends on whom he counted and who were concerned in his success.

"You have become the first power in Italy," he said to then one day before a crowd of people: "how are you addressed just now?
Are you Most Serene or Most Illustrious ?" And when he was notified that distinguished Venetians were going to meet Emperor Maximilian on his arrival in Italy, "No matter," said Louis; "let them go whither they will." The Florentines did not the less nourish their mistrustful presentiments; and one of Louis XII.'s most intelligent advisers, his finance-minister Florimond Robertet, was not slow to share them.

"The pope," said he to them one day [July 1, 1509], "is behaving very ill towards us; he seeks on every occasion to sow enmity between the princes, especially between the emperor and the Most Christian king;" and, some weeks later, whilst speaking of the money-aids which the new King of England was sending, it was said, to Emperor Maximilian, he said to the Florentine, Nasi, "It would be a very serious business, if from all this were to result against us a universal league, in which the pope, England, and Spain should join." [_Negotiations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane,_ published by M.Abel Desjardins, in the _Documents relatifs d l'Histoire de France,_ t.

ii.

pp.