“Unless necessity constrain him thereto,” says Machiavelli [treatise Du Prince, ch. xxi.], “a prince ought never to form alliance with one stronger than himself in order to attack others, for, the most powerful being victor, thou remainest, thyself, at his discretion, and princes ought to avoid, as much as ever they can, being at another’s discretion. The Venetians allied themselves with France against the Duke of Milan; and yet they might have avoided this alliance, which entailed their ruin.” For all his great and profound intellect, Machiavelli was wrong about this event and the actors in it. The Venetians did not deserve his censure. By allying themselves, in 1499, with Louis XII. against the Duke of Milan, they did not fall into Louis’s hands, for, between 1499 and 1515, and many times over, they sided alternately with and against him, always preserving their independence and displaying it as suited them at the moment. And these vicissitudes in their policy did not bring about their ruin, for at the death of Louis XII. their power and importance in Southern Europe had not declined. It was Louis XII. who deserved Machiavelli’s strictures for having engaged, by means of diplomatic alliances of the most contradictory kind, at one time with the Venetians’ support, and at another against them, in a policy of distant and incoherent conquests, without any connection with the national interests of France, and, in the long run, without any success. [Illustration: Bayard----315]