themselves to the last
extremity." [_Guicciardini, Istoria d'Italia,_ liv. viii. t. i. 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Venice was repealed, and rewards were decreed to officers who had done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. So Treviso remained Venetian. Two other small towns,
Marano and Osopo, followed her example; and for several months this was
all that the Venetians preserved of their continental possessions. But
at th