This republic seems, however, to have too much neglected to form defensive alliances with other States, and by the continual jealousy she shewed of them, joined to her immense riches, at last became the object of the hatred and envy of all the Powers in Europe. This universal jealousy was roused, and brought into action, in the year 1508, by the intriguing genius of Pope Julius the Second. A confederacy was secretly entered into at Cambray, between Julius, the Emperor Maximilian, Lewis the Twelfth, and Ferdinand of Arragon, against the republic of Venice. A bare enumeration of the Powers which composed this league, gives a very high idea of the importance of the State against which it was formed. The Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Farrara, and the Duke of Mantua, acceded to this confederacy, and gave in claims to part of the dominions of Venice. It was not difficult to form pretensions to the best part of the dominions of a State, which originally possessed nothing but a few marshy islands at the bottom of the Adriatic Gulph. It was the general opinion of Europe, that the league of Cambray would reduce Venice to her original possessions. The Venetians, finding themselves deprived of all hopes of foreign assistance, sought support from their own courage, and resolved to meet the danger which threatened them, with the spirit of a brave and independent people. Their General, Count Alviano, led an army against Lewis, who, being prepared before the other confederates, had already entered Italy. However great the magnanimity of the Senate, and the skill of their General, the soldiery were by no means equal to the disciplined troops of France, led by a martial nobility, and headed by a gallant monarch. The army of Alviano was defeated; new enemies poured on the republic from all sides; and she lost, in one campaign, all the territories in Italy which she had been ages in acquiring. Venice now found that she could no longer depend on her own strength and resources, and endeavoured to break, by policy, a combination which she had not force to resist. The Venetian Senate, knowing that Julius was the soul of the confederacy, offered to deliver up the towns he claimed, and made every other submission that could gratify the pride, and avert the anger, of that ambitious Pontiff; they also find means to separate Ferdinand from the alliance. Lewis and Maximilian being now their only enemies, the Venetians are able to sustain the war, till Julius, bearing no longer any resentment against the republic, and seized with remorse at beholding his native country ravaged by French and German armies, unites with Venice to drive the invaders out of Italy; and this republic is saved, with the loss of a small part of her Italian dominions, from a ruin which all Europe had considered as inevitable. The long and expensive wars between the different Powers of Europe, in which this State was obliged to take part, prove that her strength and resources were not exhausted.