miseries that befell their far-famed city." His versatile conduct has been fully exposed in these pages: "With every wind that veered, With shifted sails a several course he steered." Finally, with him there originated national funded debt, that system which has so extensively affected the political, military, financial, commercial and monetary relations of the whole civilised world. Yet, though the results of his disastrous pontificate justified as they dictated these very sweeping charges, the testimony of the Venetian ambassadors, who describe the earlier portion of his reign, is much more favourable, at least to his motives. Whilst they represent him as timidly slow in adopting his measures, and as wavering and undecided in following them out, they commend his piety, his willingness to promote reforms, his conscientious observance of justice, the regularity of his habits, and the simplicity of his tastes. Possessing neither the liberality nor the epicurean propensities of his uncle, the contrast was unfavourable to his popularity; and those who had shared with Leo the pastimes of music and the chase sneered at discussions on engineering and hydraulics, which occupied the leisure of Clement. As soon as the Pontiff's death was known to Francesco Maria, he sent his son to complete his nuptials at Camerino; but, within two hours after his arrival there, a courier brought from the Sacred College a protest against the marriage of the heiress during the vacancy of the Holy See.[33] This impediment was suggested by Cardinal Farnese in anticipation of his election, which took place as Paul III. on the 12th of October, the very day on which the bridal ceremony was completed. To balance this act of questionable fidelity to the See, the Duke, by well-timed movements, repressed attempts to assert the independence of Perugia and Rimini, and re-establish their hereditary seigneurs. But such zeal served him little with the new Pontiff, who at once made the Camerino succession a personal question, with a view to confer that state upon his own natural son. One of his earliest acts was accordingly to visit the contumacy of Caterina, her daughter, and son-in-law, with a stern monitory and summons to Rome, their disobedience of which was followed by excommunication, and by a movement of the pontifical troops to blockade Camerino. [Footnote 33: Cuparini's account of the war of Camerino, Vat. Urb. MSS. 1023, art. 10. Leoni says the despatch arrived after the nuptials had been solemnised.]