shall be necessary for her defence. My two sons, with many a comrade. will be the first to carry out what I, their father and your chief, am the first to propose. Thus Padua will be placed in security; and when the mercenary soldiers who are there see how prompt are our youth to guard the gates and everywhere face the battle, they will be moved thereby to zeal and alacrity incalculable; and not only will Padua thus be defended and saved, but all nations will see that we, we too, as our fathers were, are men enough to defend at the peril of our lives the freedom and th safety of the noblest country in the world.” This generous advice was accepted by the fathers and carried out by the sons with that earnest, prompt, and effective ardor which accompanies the resolution of great souls. When the Paduans, before their city was as yet invested, saw the arrival within their walls of these chosen youths of the Venetian patriciate, with their numerous troop of friends and followers, they considered Padua as good as saved; and when the imperial army, posted before the place, commenced their attacks upon it, they soon perceived that they had formidable defenders to deal with. “Five hundred years it was since in prince’s camp had ever been seen such wealth as there was there; and never was a day but there filed off some three or four hundred lanzknechts who took away to Germany oxen and kine, beds, corn, silk for sewing, and other articles; in such sort that to the said country of Padua was damage done to the amount of two millions of crowns in movables and in houses and palaces burnt and destroyed.” For three days the imperial artillery fired upon the town and made in its walls three breaches “knocked into one;” and still the defenders kept up their resistance with the same vigor. “One morning,” says the Loyal Serviteur of Bayard, “the Emperor Maximilian, accompanied by his princes and lords from Germany, went thither to look; and he marvelled and thought it great shame to him, with the number of men he had, that he had not sooner delivered the assault. On returning to his quarters he sent for a French secretary of his, whom he bade write to the lord of La Palisse a letter, whereof this was the substance: ‘Dear cousin, I have this morning been to look at the breach, which I find more than practicable for whoever would do his duty. I have made up my mind to deliver the assault to-day. I pray you, so soon as my big drum sounds, which will be about midday, that you do incontinently hold ready all the French gentlemen who are under your orders at my service, by command of my brother the King of France, to go to the said assault along with my foot; and I hope that, with God’s help we shall carry it.’