These words of Lercaro, a man of great dignity and a noble of the porch of San Luca, frightened the Senate who promptly declared their willingness to follow his advice. But the plebeians always generous to their own hurt, answered:--“We have not taken arms for political power. We only want the law of Garibetto revoked.” Whereupon the Senate took fresh courage, annulled the odious law, added three hundred families to the nobility, abolished an unpopular excise duty upon wine and raised the daily wages of the weavers three soldi. The populace were satisfied and returned to their daily duties, while the nobles of San Pietro who had feared a popular tempest managed the movement with so much address that they obtained complete control of the state. But the noblemen of San Luca, as indignant after, as pusillanimous before the peril, refused to recognize the new laws and, abandoning the city, retired first to their castles and afterwards collected at Finale, then in the power of Spain. Here they declared open war against the Republic, and failing to obtain assent to their demands by the mediation of princes and even of the Pope, they invoked foreign arms to desolate the country. A powerful fleet commanded by John of Austria, brother of king Phillip, sailed into our waters. The old nobles, knowing the hatred of our people to Spain, required that the expedition should sail under Ligurian colours; but this did not secure the success of the enterprise. Meanwhile Giovanni Andrea Doria, heir of the political opinions of his Grandfather as well as his riches and rank, stormed the castles of Spezia, Porto Venere, Chiavari, Sestri and Rapallo; and without listening to proposals of peace proceeded to the conquest of the western Riviera, capturing Noli and Pietra. The nobility, whose remittances from Spain came in very slowly, was reduced to such extremities as to be unable to continue the war. Giacomo Durazzo was Doge. Prospero Fattinanti took his place and a compromise was effected through the ambassadors of the Pope, the emperor and the king of Spain assembled in Casale in 1576. The accord of the two parties of the nobility excluded the people from all political power. The plebeians were enraged at this new betrayal of their cause, and Matteo Senarega who had laboured so hard to promote popular rights, prophesied that the bondage of the plebeians would be eternal. He wrote:--“He who is oppressed by a prince yields to necessity and to destiny, with the consolation that a change of masters may lighten his burdens; but he who sinks under the despotism of a few, assuming the name of a Republic, loses his disgust at the tyranny in the sound of a word and under a sweet delusion wears his chains for ever.”