In spite of all these assurances, Commines’ demands were discharged in what he considered a very inadequate manner (_apointement bien mègre_).[392] Nothing but the high value which he set on the friendship of the Medici induced him to keep quiet. ‘I believe,’ wrote Lorenzo Spinelli to Lorenzo at the close of 1491,[393] ‘the Sieur d’Argenton will remain our friend. In order not to make him angry, I have always told him that if God gives us grace to do well in business and make up some of the losses we sustained in Leonetto’s time, you will give him his share. I am of opinion that this hope will induce him to further your interests, if he puts faith in my words.’ Spinelli was right. Commines’ humour was likewise influenced by the favourable turn which his affairs took after the agreement between the young king Charles VIII. and the Princes, in the beginning of September 1491. His last letter to Lorenzo,[394] dated January 13, 1492, and signed ‘more than entirely yours’ (_plus que tout vostre_), treats not of money-matters, but of Charles’ marriage with the heiress of Britanny, of the differences with Maximilian and England, and of the Duke of Lorraine’s attempt on Metz, which it had been hoped might be gained by treachery and surprise; a prelude to the treachery and surprise in which a French king succeeded but too well little more than a century later. CHAPTER II. LIFE IN FLORENCE. IN 1472 certain Venetians addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici and Niccolò Ardinghelli a pamphlet wherein they extolled the advantages of their city and its inhabitants, and abused Florence, her constitution, her policy, her commerce and society, and the house of Medici. The challenge was accepted by Benedetto Dei, a scion of an ancient family, a man of much experience in affairs of state and of commerce, and who had been for many years Florentine ambassador in Constantinople, from whence he went to Damascus on a commission for the Sultan. He defended his native city in a lengthy and rather warm reply; a curious testimony to the deep-seated differences between two states which were often bitter enemies and scarcely ever real friends.[395] ‘Florence,’ says the irritated patriot, who seems not to have been acquainted with the brilliant picture of the industry and commerce of Venice drawn in the Great Council in 1420 by the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo,[396] ‘is more beautiful and 540 years older than your Venice. We spring from triply noble blood. We are one-third Roman, one-third Frankish, and one-third Fiesolan. Compare with this, I pray you, the elements of which you are composed! First of all you are Slavonians, secondly Paduans of Antenor’s dirty traitor-brood, thirdly fisher-people from Malamocco and Chioggia. We hold by the Gospel of S. John, you by that of S. Mark, in which there is as much difference as between fine French wool and that with which mattresses are stuffed. We have round about us thirty thousand estates, owned by noblemen and merchants, citizens and