The envoys of the various states assembled at Venice. The deliberations in the council chamber were brief and decisive; and such was the secrecy with which the negotiations were conducted that the astute statesman and historian Philip de Commines, who then represented France at the court of Venice, remained ignorant that any league or convention was even contemplated by the various powers, until he was informed by the Doge Agostino Barberigo, on the morning of the 1st of April, 1495, that the treaty had been signed on the previous day. The avowed objects of this Most Holy League, which was entered into by Spain, Austria, Venice, Milan and the Court of Rome, were the recovery of Constantinople from the Turks, and the protection of the interests of the Church; but the secret articles of the treaty, as may be supposed, went much further, and provided that Ferdinand should employ the Spanish armament, now on its way to Sicily, in re-establishing his kinsman on the throne of Naples; that a Venetian fleet of forty galleys should attack the French positions on the Neapolitan coasts, that the Duke of Milan, the original summoner, should expel the French from Asti, and blockade the passage of the Alps, so as to prevent the arrival of further re-enforcements, and that the Emperor and the King of Spain should invade France on their respective frontiers, while the expense of all these warlike operations should be defrayed by subsidies from the allies. The Sultan Bajazet II., though not included in the League, offered, and was permitted, to assist the Venetians both by sea and land against the French. Thus we see the strange spectacle of the Pope and the Grand Turk--the Prince of Christendom and the Prince of Islam--united against the first Christian Power of Europe, under the leadership of The Most Christian King. Within six weeks of the signature of this important treaty, Charles VIII. of France had caused himself to be crowned at Naples, with extraordinary pomp, not only as king, but as emperor; and, having thus gratified his puerile vanity, he abandoned his fantastic empire, and flying from the dangers that threatened him in Italy he returned to Paris. His army in Naples was intrusted to his cousin, Gilbert de Bourbon, Duc de Montpensier, who was invested with the title of viceroy, and instructed by the fugitive king to maintain his position in the country against all opponents.