The bright, comprehensive, and sagacious picture which he now drew of the actual position and future prospects of the King of France, was perhaps unequalled by any of the most splendid efforts of the man with whom Macchiavelli himself found it hard to cope; and well might one so young and inexperienced as Lorenzo have been carried away by his eloquence, even if there had not been much truth in the details, much accuracy in the reasoning. But there was far more of both than of falsehood or rhetoric. He stripped the position of the King of France from its fictitious splendour: he painted him as in the midst of a foreign country, with no communications open behind him, without a fleet, and with an exhausted treasury, without a sincere friend in Italy, with a resolute enemy before him, and without one faithful ally behind. He showed and asserted he could prove that Ludovico Sforza was busily weaving the web of a confederation against him; that the Duke of Ferrara was already gained; that the Venetians were arming in haste, and that Florence was eager to avenge the humiliation she had received, by giving aid to the league; that even the Emperor and the King of Spain, though bought off for a time by sacrifices disastrous to France, showed signs already of wavering in their faith to the young king, and were only true to their policy of treachery. "This splendid army will melt away," he continued, "by battle and disease; while that of the league against you will increase every hour. Where will you draw reinforcements? how will they reach you if they can be raised at all? To your enemies men will flow in from every quarter, and will find all roads open. The remnants of the great companies will easily be gathered together, all men practised in warfare under leaders of consummate skill. The Albanian bands of the Venetians will sweep the country of its provisions, and put a desert between you and France. What the sword spares, famine and pestilence will slay, and an expedition begun with festivals and successes will end in disaster and tears.