e other six by the diet.

Deeply chagrined by this result, Maximilian was able to raise only three
thousand men, instead of the nine thousand which he had promised the
league. Charles VIII., informed of the formidable coalition combining
against him, and not aware of the feeble resources of the emperor,
apprehensive that the armies of Germany, marching down and uniting with
the roused States of Italy, might cut off his retreat and overwhelm him,
decided that the "better part of courage is discretion;" and he
accordingly abandoned his conquests, recrossed the Apennines, fought his
backward path through Italy, and returned to France. He, however, left
behind him six thousand men strongly intrenched, to await his return
with a new and more powerful armament.

Maximilian now resolved chivalrously to throw himself into Italy, and
endeavor to rouse the Italians themselves to resist the threatened
invasion, trusting that the diet of Germany, when they should see him
struggling against the hosts of France, would send troops to his aid.
With five hundred horse, and about a thousand foot soldiers, he crossed
the Alps. Here he learned that for some unknown reason Charles had
postponed his expedition. Recoiling from the ridicule attending a
quixotic and useless adventure, he hunted around for some time to find
some heroic achievement which would redeem his name from reproach, when,
thwarted in every thing, he returned to Austria, chagrined and
humiliated.

Thus frustrated in all his attempts to gain ascendency in Italy,
Maximilian turned his eyes to the Swiss estates of the house of
Hapsburg, now sundered from the Austrian territories. He made a vigorous
effort, first by diplomacy, then by force of arms, to regain them. Here
again he was frustrated, and was compelled to enter into a capitulation
by which he acknowledged the independence of the Helvetic States, and
their permanent severance from Austrian jurisdiction.

In April, 1498, Charles VIII. died, and Louis XII. succeeded him on the
throne of France. Louis immediately made preparations for a new invasion
of Italy. In those miserable days of violence and blood, almost any
prince was ready to embark in war under anybody's banner, where there
was the least prospect of personal aggrandizement. The question of right
or wrong, seemed seldom to enter any one's mind. Louis fixed his eyes
upon the duchy of Milan as the richest and most available prize within
his grasp. Conscious t