The Pisan war was the immediate fruit of the French invasion, as regarded the internal relations of the Peninsula. Charles, remembering the old proverb, "sow divisions and rule," or perhaps from a mere love of mischief-making, had instigated that city to throw off the yoke of Florence, and re-establish its ancient republican independence. But the support which he had pledged to it was forgotten, when personal considerations rendered a retreat advisable; and the Pisans were left to maintain themselves as best they could against their old rivals and recent masters, with the aid of a French brigade under Monsieur d'Entragues. The Florentines lost no time in engaging the Duke of Urbino to command their troops for three years, who, by active and well-judged movements, quickly possessed himself of Ponte Sacco, Palaia, and other small towns about the Era. Their resistance was punished with the usual barbarity of the time, by cold-blooded cruelties which Guidobaldo does not appear to have shared or approved. It seems questionable how far the blunders in an assault on Vicopisano were owing to him or to the Florentine commissaries, who, as was usual in the service of the great republics, were sent to control their general; but the consequence was a repulse, after which he retired into winter quarters. His subsequent operations in their service are of no interest; their jealousies paralysing both his spirit and their own. The last year's experience was but short-lived in the Italian states. Instead of profiting by the absence of their common foe to strengthen themselves against a recurrence of danger, they resumed their innate rivalries, and fomented fresh discord. The Florentines, far from joining the league to expel Charles, continued to favour his cause, attributing, with justice, to his advent their liberation from the Medici and the re-establishment of a democratic government. What they, above all things, dreaded was the return of that banished race, so they kept aloof from any new combination that might lead to it. This contumacy was looked upon with little favour by those powers who were averse to popular institutions, or friendly to Pietro de' Medici; besides which they apprehended that such a state of matters, if allowed to continue, would facilitate a repetition of the late invasion. In accordance with the crooked policy of the age, they succoured Pisa, without any open declaration of the war which they were in fact carrying on against Florence. This circumstance, and the wonted bad faith of Ludovico il Moro, complicated a struggle which was conducted in the drawling spirit of half-fighting, half-negotiating, usual in such petty strifes. Ludovico finally tempted the Emperor to a fresh invasion of Italy, in order to force Florence into the general league, but he conducted the enterprise with equal feebleness and faithlessness, and after having occupied Pisa, retreated without