On the very day when Ludovico fell into the hands of the French, Maximilian opened the Imperial Diet at Augsburg. His main object was to obtain aid against France; but the complete failure of his recent military enterprises--alike in Burgundy, Gueldres, Switzerland and Milan--compelled him to acquiesce in the formation of a Council of Regency, (Reichsregiment), which was to discuss all military and financial affairs, and even questions of foreign policy, which at that period were considered the special department {49} of the Monarch. This Council consisted of twenty-one members, of whom sixteen were appointed by the Electors and Princes, two by the Imperial towns; while Maximilian nominated two for Austria and Burgundy, and only one, the President, in his capacity of Emperor. The promoters of the scheme aimed at little short of his abdication; while he, on his part, cheerfully assumed that they would defer to his wishes on matters of foreign politics. The bait held out to him by Berthold was a permanent war administration, possessing power both to levy troops and to impose taxes; from this he promised himself an army of 30,000 men, and money to maintain it. But the project remained upon paper, and Maximilian's disgust was turned to fury when the first step of the new Council was to conclude a truce with France, and virtually to commit him to investing Louis XII. with Milan. Finding himself helpless in view of the Diet's opposition, and determined not to submit to the ruling of the Council, he began to make separate overtures to the French King. In this he was readily encouraged by the Archduke Philip and by Ferdinand, who was already hatching his iniquitous plot for the partition of Naples, and who found Maximilian's hostile attitude to France a drag upon Louis' action. In October 1501 the visit of Cardinal d'Amboise, the trusted adviser of Louis XII., to the Court of Innsbruck, brought matters to a final issue. A treaty, whose friendliness was only rivalled by its hypocrisy, was concluded between the two Monarchs. The infant Archduke Charles was betrothed to Louis' daughter Claude; Louis himself was to receive the investiture of Milan, in return for the sum of 80,000 crowns, and promised to assist the {50} Emperor in his journey to Rome and in his projects against the Turks. But the actual terms of the agreement were of little importance, as they were obviously intended only for momentary ends. The conquest of Naples, which was effected in the years 1501-1505, soon led to quarrels between the two conquerors. Louis XII.'s continual intrigues with the German Princes induced Maximilian to support the Spanish cause by the despatch of 2,500 landsknechts; and by the end of 1504 the brilliant tactics of the great Captain resulted in the final expulsion of the French from the kingdom of Naples. At the same time the Emperor found means to check Louis' intrigues, which the outbreak of the Bavarian war had rendered dangerous.