_ W. Boehm, _Hat Kaiser
Maximilian I. im Jahre 1511 Papst werden wollen?_
1873.]

The contest now broke out in earnest, and the electors prepared (p. 100)
to garner their harvest of gold. The price of a vote was a hundredfold
more than the most corrupt parliamentary elector could conceive in his
wildest dreams of avarice. There were only seven electors and the prize
was the greatest on earth. Francis I. said he was ready to spend
3,000,000 crowns, and Charles could not afford to lag far behind.[256]
The Margrave of Brandenburg, "the father of all greediness," as the
Austrians called him, was particularly influential because his brother,
the Archbishop of Mainz, was also an elector and he required an
especially exorbitant bribe. He was ambitious as well as covetous, and
the rivals endeavoured to satisfy his ambitions with matrimonial
prizes. He was promised Ferdinand's widow, Germaine de Foix; Francis
sought to parry this blow by offering to the Margrave's son the French
Princess Renee; Charles bid higher by offering his sister Catherine.[257]
Francis relied much on his personal graces, the military renown he had
won by the conquest of Northern Italy, and the assistance of Leo. With
the Pope he concluded a fresh treaty that year for the conquest of
Ferrara, the extension of the papal States, and the settlement of
Naples on Francis's second son, on condition that it was meanwhile to
be administered by papal legates,[258] and that its king was to
abstain from all interference in spiritual matters. Charles, on the
other hand, owed his advantages to his position and not to his person.
Cold, reserved and formal, he possessed none of the physical or
intellectual graces of Francis I. and Henry VIII. He excelled in (p. 101)
no sport, was unpleasant in features and repellent in manners. No
gleam of magnanimity or chivalry lightened his character, no deeds in
war or statecraft yet sounded his fame. He was none the less heir of
the Austrian House, which for generations had worn the imperial crown;
as such, too, he was a German prince, and the Germanic constitution
forbade any other the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire. Against
this was the fact that his enormous dominions, including Naples and
Spain, would preclude his continued residence in Germany and might
threaten the liberties of the German people.

[Footnote 256: For details of the sums promised to