The Fieschi at the court of France--Louis XIV supports their claims--Bad effects of the law of Garibetto--Severe laws against the Plebeians--Death of Andrea Doria--Estimate of his public services--New commotions--Magnanimity of the people--The old nobles make open war on the Republic--Treaty of Casale in 1576--The Spanish power in Italy, particularly in Liguria--Aragonese manners corrupt our people--New taxes and customs--The nobility accepts the fashions, manners and vices of the Spaniards--Change of the character of the Genoese people--Last splendours of Italian genius. IT is not our purpose to follow Count Scipione in his wanderings; we shall only speak of so much of his exile as is necessary to the narration of the last of the Fieschi drama. He married Alfonsina, daughter of Robert Strozzi and Maddalena de’ Medici, and obtained many marks of esteem from the royal house of France, whom he and Strozzi served. Elizabeth, wife of Charles IX., treated him with the same familiarity as Catherine de’ Medici. He distinguished himself at the siege of Rochelle, and Henry III. knighted him in the order of _Saint Esprit_. Scipione left a son, Francesco, Count of Lavagna and Bressuire, who fell at the head of his troops in the siege of Monte Albano (1621), and from whose marriage with Anna Le Veneur a noble family was born. The eldest, Charles Leo, married Gillona de Harcourt, (1643), who bore him Gianluigi Mario, a name which the Genoese Republic never forgot. Louis XIV. took him under his protection, and demanded of the Republic the restoration to Mario of his ancestral domains. The Senate refused, and he sent a formidable fleet, commanded by Segnalai (1684), who bombarded the city, and ruined churches, monuments and palaces. Innocent XI. interposed without effect; the fierce monarch required that the Doge and four senators should supplicate mercy in Paris; that the Republic should disarm its galleys and pay a hundred thousand crowns to Count Fieschi. The Republic abandoned by Spain, was forced to accept these conditions, and Louis on his part promised no longer to support the pretentions of the Fieschi. Count Gianluigi Mario died in 1708, without offspring, and the counts of Lavagna in the line of primogeniture ended with him. We have spoken in another place of the addition to our statutes of the law called in derision, _Garibetto_,[52] the effect of which was to exclude the new nobles and the men of the people from political power.