In the dispatches which now passed, comedy was mingled with tragedy. Very unctuous was the expression by His Holiness of his apprehensions regarding "dangers to the salvation" and of his "fears for the souls" of the Venetian Senators, if they persisted in asserting their own control of their own state. Hardly less touching were the fears expressed by the good Oratorian, Cardinal Baronius, that "a judgment might be brought upon the Republic" if it declined to let the Vatican have its way. But these expressions were not likely to prevail with men who had dealt with Machiavelli. Uncompromising as ever, Father Paul continued to write letters and publish treatises which clenched more and more firmly into the mind of Venice and of Europe the political doctrine of which he was the apostle,--the doctrine that the State is rightfully independent of the Church,--and throughout the Christian world he was recognized as victor. Nothing could exceed the bitterness of the attacks upon him, though some of them, at this day, provoke a smile. While efforts were made to discredit him among scholars by spurious writings or by interpolations in genuine writings, efforts equally ingenious were made to arouse popular hostility. One of these was a painting which represented him writhing amid the flames of hell, with a legend stating, as a reason for his punishment, that he had opposed the Holy Father. Now it was indeed, in the midst of ferocious attacks upon his reputation and cunning attempts upon his life, that he entered a new and most effective period of activity. For years, as the adviser of Venice, he had studied, both as a historian and as a statesman, the greatest questions which concerned his country, and especially those which related to the persistent efforts of the Vatican to encroach upon Venetian self-government. The results of these studies he had embodied in reports which had shaped the course of the Republic; and now, his learning and powers of thought being brought to bear upon the policy of Europe in general, as affected by similar papal encroachments, he began publishing a series of treatises, which at once attracted general attention.[1] [1] For the extent to which these attacks were carried, see the large number in the Sarpi collection at the Cornell University Library, especially volume ix. First of these, in 1608, came his work on the Interdict. Clearly and concisely it revealed the nature of the recent struggle, the baselessness of the Vatican claims, and the solidarity of interest between Venice and all other European states regarding the question therein settled. This work of his as a historian clenched his work as a statesman; from that day forward no nation has even been seriously threatened with an interdict.