Tasais, by the cardinal legate Gaetano, and, more than all, by the
sixteen chiefs of the wards, those municipal tyrants of the unhappy
populace.

Pope Sixtus himself was by no means eager for the success of the League.
After the battle of Ivry, he had most seriously inclined his ear to the
representations of Henry's envoy, and showed much willingness to admit
the victorious heretic once more into the bosom of the Church. Sixtus was
not desirous of contributing to the advancement of Philip's power. He
feared his designs on Italy, being himself most anxious at that time to
annex Naples to the holy see. He had amassed a large treasure, but he
liked best to spend it in splendid architecture, in noble fountains, in
magnificent collections of art, science, and literature, and, above all,
in building up fortunes for the children of his sister the washerwoman,
and in allying them all to the most princely houses of Italy, while never
allowing them even to mention the name of their father, so base was his
degree; but he cared not to disburse from his hoarded dollars to supply
the necessities of the League.

But Gaetano, although he could wring but fifty thousand crowns from his
Holiness after the fatal fight of Ivry, to further the good cause, was
lavish in expenditures from his own purse and from other sources, and
this too at a time when thirty-three per cent. interest was paid to the
usurers of Antwerp for one month's loan of ready money. He was
indefatigable, too, and most successful in his exhortations and ghostly
consolations to the people. Those proud priests and great nobles were
playing a reckless game, and the hopes of mankind beyond the grave were
the counters on their table. For themselves there were rich prizes for
the winning. Should they succeed in dismembering the fair land where they
were enacting their fantastic parts, there were temporal principalities,
great provinces, petty sovereignties, to be carved out of the heritage
which the Bearnese claimed for his own. Obviously then, their consciences
could never permit this shameless heretic, by a simulated conversion at
the critical moment, to block their game and restore the national unity
and laws. And even should it be necessary to give the whole kingdom,
instead of the mere duchy of Brittany, to Philip of Spain, still there
were mighty guerdons to be bestowed on his supporters before the foreign
monarch could seat himself on the throne of Henry's ancestors.