But Paul needed no prompter in this matter. He very soon showed that, instead of ecclesiastical reform, he was bent on a project much nearer to his heart,--the subversion of the Spanish power in Naples. Like Julius the Second, of warlike memory, he swore to drive out the _barbarians_ from Italy. He seemed to think that the thunders of the Vatican were more than a match for all the strength of the empire and of Spain. But he was not weak enough to rely wholly on his spiritual artillery in such a contest. Through the French ambassador at his court, he opened negotiations with France, and entered into a secret treaty with that power, by which each of the parties agreed to furnish a certain contingent of men and money to carry on the war for the recovery of Naples. The treaty was executed on the sixteenth of December, 1555.[138] In less than two months after this event, on the fifth of February, 1556, the fickle monarch of France, seduced by the advantageous offers of Charles, backed, moreover, by the ruinous state of his own finances, deserted his new ally, and signed the treaty of Vaucelles, which secured a truce for five years between his dominions and those of Philip. Paul received the news of this treaty while surrounded by his courtiers. He treated the whole with scepticism, but expressed the pious hope, that such a peace might be in store for the nations of Christendom. In private he was not so temperate. But without expending his wrath in empty menaces, he took effectual means to bring things back to their former state,--to induce the French king to renew the treaty with himself, and at once to begin hostilities. He knew the vacillating temper of the monarch he had to deal with. Cardinal Caraffa was accordingly despatched on a mission to Paris, fortified with ample powers for the arrangement of a new treaty, and with such tempting promises on the part of his holiness as might insure its acceptance by the monarch and his ministers.